Do voters realize they have elected another bought and paid for councilman, Tony Spitaleri, reminiscent of the 2003 election debacle when the Sunnyvale Public Safety Officers Association heavily financed another candidate?

Spitaleri is backed by special interests, including PSOA. The price to buy a council seat in Sunnyvale is $85,000-plus. You, too, can buy a council seat. It doesn't seem to matter that firefighter Spitaleri has a disastrous personal financial past including bankruptcy, foreclosure, judgments, lawsuits, not paying taxes and inappropriately taking veterans benefits, according to a past website: www.thetruthabouttony.org. A person's past is a good predictor of their future behavior. And now he gets to manage a $200 million budget.

When will people realize that special interests are only looking out for themselves? It's pure baloney when PSOA says that they have carefully researched a candidate. Spitaleri is an example of someone who should never have run for public office. PSOA just wants candidates it can manipulate and own. It doesn't matter if they have a questionable past like Spitaleri or that they were brought up on ethics charges like John Howe. Integrity, ethics and financial aptitude doesn't always seem to be a requirement when PSOA is searching for candidates.

Check out a candidate's background, experience, ethics and education carefully. Pass on candidates backed by PSOA.

Thankfully, there are two highly educated and articulate councilmen not in the pocket of PSOA--Lee and Moylan--but Sunnyvale needs more. Remember, the council works for you!

Rusty O'Brien

Sunnyvale

Christmas letter
column appreciated

I am writing to praise Carl Heintze's article on "Christmas letter isn't what it used to be."

I am a regular reader of your commnity newspapers, but this article was well written as were the ideas he expressed, in the quote, the year was "the best of times, it was the worst of times," from Charles Dickens. But it all depends on the perspective; the largest picture (world) may show darkness and the microcosm (smallest) family surroundings, can shed a lot of light and happiness.

It is difficult to find a inspiration in a Christmas letter the way it used to be.

Frieda Forster

Sunnyvale

Correction

In the Dec. 21 article, "How to do CPR on animals," we should have said the idea for offering the class came from Liz Ambra, the program manager for vocational education, of the Sunnyvale-Cupertino Adult Education Center.