R. Wright's letter ('P. Freely not welcome' sign sends message, May 18) in the SpeakOut section of the Willow Glen Resident forgets one thing, when discussing dogs urinating on our lawns: Urine stinks and also turns the lawn yellow unless watered in that area soon after the offense.

Just four houses from my property is a school with a chain link fence, but plenty of room on the outside of that fence for the dogs to "P. Freely."

It's bad enough that all owners do not carry pooper scoopers with them when walking their dogs. A dog was about to lift his leg on my park strip recently as I was getting out of my car, and I told the owner, "Not on my property".

I suggest people do not walk your dog in residential neighborhoods. Take them to a park. There should be an ordinance to that effect.

A.G. Carrington

Willow Glen

WVC students suffer
with too few classes

West Valley College has been losing enrollment, largely due to the mismatch between student needs and programs offered. Its faculty union claims that this is due to lack of funding, and that is true enough; but it is also due to wastage of available funds on inessential offerings, according to the politics and personal interests of its faculty.

When students attempt to enroll in a math class, they may discover that all sections are full. This has been the case for some time. The college will claim that it cannot find qualified instructors. What it means to say is that the qualified instructors whom it can find, and there are many of them, do not meet its "diversity" criteria. The college is reluctant to allow such non-diverse persons to acquire teaching experience, and even more reluctant to help them improve their qualifications if marginal.

According to academic politics, not unique to WVC, it is better to let students suffer by offering fewer courses in an essential subject, if necessary to meet social engineering goals. Meanwhile, there is a proliferation of inessential courses in non-skills disciplines. Why should the faculty care? It gets paid the same, either way.

Robert Allgeyer

Aptos

Not all parents are
happy with remodel

Once again San Jose Unified School District has given Willow Glen Elementary the very short end of the stick with regard to the $429 million Measure F School construction bond.

First, they tried to ram retail space down our throats and when that did not fly they reneged on their commitment to rebuild the open classroom building into a new multi-purpose building.

The current construction plan was finally presented to the public on May 11. This plan is a total abomination of the school site. I am not the only one who feels this way. Community members and parents spoke up about the poor layout of the campus; asked why the alternative plans that were presented to the district were dismissed out right; and generally why they are so adamant on not changing this plan to make it better for the students and community.

The district has essentially annexed the front half of the campus for the new two-story building and will try and squeeze everything else into the rest of the site.

The reason for this seems very clear: Architect Bill Gould wants to showcase his new two-story building design.

He's obviously not willing to give up any of the surrounding land for his design. He was conspicuously absent from the meeting.

The district is also moving the pickup and drop-off areas to the back of the school on Lincoln Avenue. It claims that this will be safer; however, Lincoln Avenue has twice the traffic as Minnesota Avenue. This plan will double the opportunity for accidents on Lincoln Avenue with cars now waiting to enter the pickup and drop-off area and exiting onto Lincoln Avenue. The district has not even done a traffic study to determine the feasibility of this decision.

The district is adamant on moving the kindergarten classrooms to the back of the school, even though this area was completely renovated with Measure C Bond money.

In addition to these changes the district thinks it's perfectly OK to remove playground play equipment during the new construction and then wait two full academic years before replacing it.

What are the children going to play on and climb on for the next two years? Each other?

Bob Mulvany

Willow Glen

Magazine sellers are
abusive to resident

I wanted to respond to your recent front page story (Teen poses as neighbor in magazine, book-selling sales scam, May 18) regarding dishonest door-to-door booksellers.

I have had several fraudulent door-to-door traveling "sales kids" come to my door trying to sell everything from magazines to candy. I ask every time where they live, and who their parents are. They never can respond. One time a young man came to the door selling candy bars for a school trip. I asked him why he wasn't in school. He walked away. A couple of months ago I was at the Safeway on Hamilton Avenue loading groceries into my car and was approached by two teenage males asking for money for magazine subscriptions to help them go to Santa Clara University. When I told them "no" they got very aggressive and verbally abusive to me. At the time my reaction was to get out of there and called Safeway management. But looking back it could have been a really scary situation.

I did contact San Jose Councilman Ken Yeager about my concerns because this problem is out of control in Willow Glen. He forwarded my message to the San Jose Police Department, but I never got a response.

I hope after publishing the article in the newspaper we can get some clarity on what we can do as a community to stop this scam. We no longer answer our front door because it's gotten so bad.

Loren Daugherty

Willow Glen

Girl said purchase
would aid her team

I just read the article (Teen poses as neighbor in magazine, book-selling sales scam, May 18) in this week's Willow Glen Resident.

On May 6, 2005, a girl named Crystal, who was probably about 16 years old, came to my door with the same approach as described in the story. She said she lived down the street and had not yet had a chance to meet me. She was on a soccer team and that the girls were raising money to cover the cost of a trip to Hawaii so the group could play in the league's finals.

She had a brochure of books she could sell me. Or I could pay $66 or $132 and the books would be sent to an organization that benefits children. She said all of my neighbors were choosing to give $132. I opted for the $66 option.

She told me it was a donation, but not to write anything in the memo section of my check, saying she would provide me supporting papers for the donation at a later date. My check cleared my bank yesterday.

Now I wish I had seen your article last week so I could have put a stop payment on the check. The check was made out to UPSI. I asked her what it stood for and she told me it stood for Ultimate Power Sales, Inc. This is the same name I saw on the back of my cancelled check and verified the name online. It did say Ultimate Power Sales, Inc.

She was very convincing, energetic and cheerful. In retrospect I guess she was a little too polished to be raising money for teen sports.

Thanks for your article. I will know better next time.

Helen Danna

Gerald Way

Wrong address was
a give-away to scam

During the first week of May, I too had a teenager try to sell me books that would go to a children's shelter (Teen poses as neighbor in magazine, book-selling sales scam, May 18).

She was a friendly girl with glasses and her hair pulled back in a bun. She started off telling me that she was "Angie's daughter." I told her that I didn't know Angie. She said, "You don't ? Oh, well we live down the street on Coe Lane."

She then pointed down the street to Koch Lane. The fact that she couldn't get the name right of the street she lived on was a good indicator that she wasn't on the up-and-up. She then said, "I have great news. My soccer team is going to nationals. The team is going to Maui."

Our family and many neighborhood families are involved in soccer. I had never heard of a tournament in Maui. I told her, "No thanks" and she was on her way. As she left I was so sad that a young, clean-cut, energetic girl would be involved in what appears to be a scam.

Alison Moore

Janis Way

Too bad talented teens
are misdirecting skills

I don't consider myself a close neighbor of Palm Haven, but the young man written about on page one of the Willow Glen Resident (Teen poses as neighbor in magazine book-selling sales scam, May 18) hit my area on Foxworthy Avenue not long ago.

He gave the name of a neighbor across the street whom he said knew I'd want to help kids, too. When the young man said he was local, I asked where he lived. He came right up with Trona Avenue, just a few blocks away. When I asked about his school, he said he was home-schooled, but had a 4.36 GPA and would get into UC-Berkeley. He boasted of bettering traditional high school attendees, saying that his home-schooling was connected with his church, which he said was St. Francis.

He was glib and bursting with confidence. He told me that his name was Tim Bruce, the son of the Millers on Trona. I declined to give him the check for $31.I did give him a little cash for his cause, which he didn't question and accepted gratefully.

When I closed the door, my husband told me I'd been had. That's been verified that by the article.

It is a shame that a young man as good as he is couldn't use his skills honestly.

Cecelia Maloney

San Jose

Resident longs for the good old days

After reading the article about the teen posing as a neighbor (Teen poses as neighbor in magazine, book-selling sales scam, May 18), I realized I was duped also.

I'm embarrassed to say how much money we gave him, but after reading the article I called the police and filed a report. The police would like anyone who sees this young man to give them a call and reference case #051379516.

The individual is very non-threatening and clean-cut looking. He says he is a neighbor and looked to be around 20. So there might be more than one of these booksellers walking through the neighborhoods.

He was also very slick.

My husband was wearing his Berkeley sweats (he went there) and my eighth-grade daughter was wearing her Berkeley tank top, so this guy said he was from the Berkeley baseball team. When he found out my daughter was a Girl Scout working for her Silver Award by collecting books for the children's shelter on Union Avenue he sold us saying the children's book part of his spiel would go there for her.... Aaarghhh.

I don't feel as bad about the money as my loss in faith in giving to whoever from the neighborhood. I liked believing in all the kids, and adults who come by. I guess those days are over.

Jeanne Eige

Newport Avenue

Corrections

The May 18 article, 'Ballot measure approval needed in mosquito fight,' should have read: Residents must return their ballots by June 21 to C.G. Uhlenberg, Santa Clara County Vector Control District, 333 Twin Dolphin Drive, Ste. 230, Redwood City, CA 94065. Residents can also walk the ballots into Santa Clara County Vector Control, 976 Lenzen Ave., San Jose.