talkback...

Teng opposes Yee's plan

I am very concerned with Sup. Leland Yee's proposal to divide the San Francisco Unified School District [Editorial, 5/8/02]. The proposal is in response to the concerns of Chinese American parents whose children didn't get into Lincoln High School, Washington High School, Hoover Middle School, and other neighborhood schools of their choice.

While many of the issues raised by the parents are valid, especially in regard to the school district's lack of outreach to the Chinese community, the proposal does not solve the larger problem of educational equity for all students.

Every student, regardless of his or her ethnicity or economic status, deserves a quality education. Yee's proposal will only create an educational divide that will stifle any open discussion about how to improve our schools.

Mabel Teng San Francisco

The cable deal

Thanks to Daniel Zoll and the Bay Guardian for aggressively covering cable franchise issues in a way that provides important political and economic context ["Poor Reception," 5/15/02]. That having been said, a couple of observations as someone familiar with the issues:

I find the argument that any merger means worse service and programming amusing coming from advocates who already think cable is crap. It's like the Woody Allen restaurant joke: "The food is terrible – and such small portions!" Upgrading San Francisco's cable infrastructure is a costly proposition, whether for replacing the old system or building out a new network in a city this densely developed. Just look at AT&T and RCN stock prices, and the availability of financing for the cable industry as a whole, and you can understand the Comcast deal.

AT&T and RCN pay the maximum cable franchise fee allowed by law – 5 percent of gross revenues. It's the city's discretion how to allocate franchise fees, and it chooses not to fund public-access TV. Only 0.2 percent from that 5 percent paid to the city is reinvested in the public, education, and government access (PEG) channels, meaning about $50,000 for each channel. The rest goes into the General Fund. Only the government channel (surprise) enjoys added city funding support.

As for channel space, the three existing PEG channels are underutilized, as are the new PEG studio facilities. Earlier franchise-transfer negotiations adopted provisions for wiring of public buildings and community centers, as well as conduit and broadband capacity for public use. Neither the city nor community interests have put forward a specific vision for how to use those capabilities.

Niels Erich San Francisco

Gould smoked pot

The recent wave of obituaries for the brilliant scientist and author Stephen Jay Gould commonly left out a significant fact: Gould was a medical marijuana user.

Diagnosed with a particularly lethal form of cancer in 1982 and given eight months to live, he survived 20 years – and endured the horrors of chemotherapy thanks to medical marijuana. While other drugs failed to curb the nausea caused by his treatment, he wrote, marijuana "worked like a charm." He added, "It is beyond my comprehension that any humane person would withhold such a beneficial substance from people in such great need."

What a shame our nation's leaders – as addicted to war-on-drugs rhetoric as they are allergic to facts – failed to consult this great scientist before declaring war on the medical use of marijuana.

Bruce Mirken Marijuana Policy Project Washington, D.C.

What HOPE really means

I was delighted to read Tom Wetzel's opinion about Tony Hall's "HOPE"-less proposal and the exciting proposal by the Community Land Trust Collaborative (Opinion, 5/1/02). HOPE is just a way to make a bunch of loopholes look like the American dream of affordable home ownership – it's a proposal in which the devil really is in the details. Landlords and real estate speculators are trying to capitalize on how confusing condo-conversion and rent-control laws are and on how many renters would love to own their apartments. What HOPE would really do is turn rent-controlled apartments into non-rent controlled condos and provide incentive for speculation and unwarranted evictions. The Community Land Trust Collaborative proposal, on the other hand, would implement a tried-and-true program to provide home-buying opportunities that are not subject to market speculation. I'm glad Mr. Wetzel explained both proposals. Once you know a little about them, it's clear that HOPE is very poorly named and that we should all support the Land Trust proposals. I hope there will be a lot more education about these proposals in the coming months.

Saskia Traill San Francisco

For the record