Willow Glen Resident

Letters & Opinions

Speak Out

Some dog owners are too attached to pets

I read with interest your article on dogs in Safeway (April 13). I have also witnessed this situation in the San Carlos Street Safeway and some other food-only stores (one was Whole Foods) as well as in a restaurant with a large takeout business.

Discerning which dog is or is not a qualified service dog is not that hard, and Safeway needs to educate its director of public affairs as well as its store managers on this subject. According to the California State Board of Guide Dogs for the Blind (http://www.dca.ca.gov/guidedogboard/publications/faqs.htm), a service dog must (generally) fit certain criteria that the owner must prove and that their owner would proudly provide for their beloved service dog. A service dog may or may not (usually it does) wear a special collar and harness.

Service dogs are usually the size of Labrador retrievers, have all four feet on the ground, and are not of the size to be put in a shopping cart in the first place. A service dog is also specially trained to be calm and to bark only under very specific circumstances.

A small dog in the lap of a disabled person in a motorized chair as well as any dog in a shopping cart is clearly not a service dog and does not qualify to be permitted in the store.

As a longtime dog owner, and currently the owner of two, I am increasingly dismayed that some dog owners have dogs that they either can't be without wherever they go or that they treat like children (pushed through the stores in Carmel in a doggie stroller or held in their arms in a paint store), or have not been trained to stay calmly at home alone and are therefore taken everywhere.

Nancy Newlin

Willow Glen

Make your voice heard
about rate increases

There is a story in the April 20 issue of the Willow Glen Resident that reports on possible sewer and storm fee increases if approved by the San Jose City Council ("SJ Officials to alert all residents of sewer fee increases").

Single-family households need to be aware that Recycle Plus is also asking the San Jose City Council to increase their rates by 29 percent for fiscal year 2007-08. The company is also asking for a 10 percent increase for fiscal year 2008-09 and a 10 percent increase for 2009-10. This would mean an overall 49 percent rate increase over three years. This is outrageous.

A public hearing will be held on May 8 to discuss the proposed request. I think we should all mail a written protest to the city prior to the council meeting to voice our displeasure with the request. The protest should be mailed to Recycle Plus Rate Increase, City Clerk, 200 E. Santa Clara St., San Jose, CA 95113. The letter writer must indicate his assessor's parcel number.

Chet Campanella

Willow Glen

Let's direct our funds toward highways

I must admit to be puzzled by the opinion piece, "Traffic tie-ups--time for talk, and action" in the March 30 edition of the Resident. I understood that traffic congestion has been well documented, with the county pointing out the worst intersections and the city detailing those intersections in the city with poor levels of service. So what is to be learned from public meetings that is not already known?

It has been well reported that the Bay Area does not have enough money to maintain the present transportation system and is limited in the needed expansion of that system. Will more public meetings solve the funding problem?

As motorists, we need to supply the money through fuel taxes to get the funding for maintenance and expansion. I hesitate to recommend higher taxes because of the money-wasteful ways of the Valley Transportation Authority. A new administration is needed there that knows how to spend money wisely. First, spend transportation money wisely, and then higher gas taxes can be considered.

My numbers are a little old, but it was reported that of the traveling San Jose public, 99 percent were going by automobile, 0.6 percent were using the bus and 0.4 percent were using light rail. The car is faster and more convenient.

Yet in recent years, large amounts of money have been going into light rail with less in highways. An example of misplaced priority is the plan to remove the diamond lanes on Capitol Expressway to allow space for light rail, in spite of the fact that those diamond lanes are heavily traveled. Public transportation takes investment capital, maintenance and operating expenses, while the motorist pays for his car's purchase and the maintenance and he supplies the operator. Also cars, with hybrids, are becoming less polluting. Let's encourage the use of automobiles by directing funds to increased highway and parking capacity.

The author of this article, Carl Guardino, welcomes our thoughts. Those are mine.

Bob Boydston

San Jose

We've gone to the dogs and can't get long?

The April 13 story "Doggone it: shoppers say Safeway is lax about pooches in its Willow Glen store" seems more about how we bias issues in our everyday lives to support our individual agendas than advocating public health.

Quick research reveals consuming food purchased at the market, without a good washing, is risky, dog or no dog. Yet there is also evidence that some exposure to microbes helps strengthen our immune system. The same sources show the greater infection-control issue in supermarkets is the seat in shopping cart. These seats can carry a cocktail of bacteria, probably from our children's bottoms.

I'm a bit surprised that the interview with Suzanne Cistulli, in her position as director of infection control, didn't bring out a more balanced view of the sources of risk we need to learn to live with.

The same story expressed Cistulli's added irritation at dogs disrupting customers by their barking. Maybe that's what this is all about.

I shop frequently at Safeway, and I have never encountered a dog-barking problem there. I actually wish we could enjoy experiencing more well-behaved children and dogs when we shop.

In contrast, when shopping, we frequently encounter children having meltdowns, screaming, diapers left behind and more. Not pleasant, but that's life.

I'm certainly not proposing that we ban children from supermarkets. Can't we all learn to open our minds and get along better in our neighborhood?

Tom Stroebel

Willow Glen