Still committed

I am writing in response to your editorial "Don't Abolish LAFCo" (1/28/04) to clearly state my support for continuing the Local Agency Formation Commission's operations and its important work.

The editorial incorrectly states that I "made noise about shutting down LAFCo." As budget chair, I've looked for ways to save General Fund dollars to protect vital children's services, health programs, domestic violence shelters, and senior meal sites. One way we do this is to shift the costs of certain city functions from the General Fund to other funds that are more restricted. That's why we should explore the PG&E franchise fee increase, look at using Public Utilities Commission funds or identifying other sources of revenue, such as state or federal grants, to fund the continued operation of LAFCo. Of course, if we are unable to make this work, General Fund dollars would continue to fund LAFCo.

I agree with the Bay Guardian that "LAFCo has become the only formal body addressing the public power issue." I'm hopeful that commissioner Adam Werbach will help bring the PUC along. I also plan to use my experience as chair of the Public Utilities and Deregulation Committee to hold comprehensive hearings at the Board of Supervisors about the blackout. I remain as committed as ever to bringing public power to San Francisco.

Chris Daly Supervisor, District Six
San Francisco

Bashing the zealots

This letter concerns Rachel Brahinsky's article about irradiated meat in San Francisco school cafeterias ["Hot Lunch," 1/28/04]. There are plenty of good reasons for consumers to be concerned about food safety. However, the imaginary consequences of food irradiation are not among them. Self-styled food activists have railed against this straightforward and effective method of improving food safety for decades, yet there is simply no evidence that irradiated food is in any way dangerous. As part of a bizarre campaign of fear, uncertainty, and doubt against food irradiation, anti-technology zealots often conflate irradiation (a fancy word for shining a light on something) with radiation, a similar-sounding word that connotes nuclear fallout, hair loss, and Blinky the Three-Eyed Fish. The anti-irradiation parent quoted at the end of the article claims, "It's just too risky. We don't have enough knowledge." This is wrong; we do have enough knowledge. At least among scientists, the safety of food irradiation is about as "controversial" as the theory of evolution or the roughly spherical shape of the Earth. Of course, anti-technology zealots don't trust scientists.

Lev Osherovich, Ph.D. Department of Biochemistry Hillblom Center for the Biology of Aging UC Berkeley
Berkeley

Why the beef with radiation?

Is it really necessary for writer Rachel Brahinsky to try to scare parents with the idea that their children might be eating irradiated meat in the school lunch program in San Francisco schools? Nowhere in the article does Ms. Brahinsky actually demonstrate that schoolchildren in San Francisco are being served irradiated meat – and that is because they are not. Although irradiated meat is available for purchase from the USDA for the school lunch program, the San Francisco Unified School District does not currently purchase it, nor does it have plans to do so in the future.

However, Board of Education member Mark Sanchez's resolution to prohibit the district from ever purchasing irradiated meat is ill-advised. The possible risks of eating large quantities of irradiated meat over a long period of time are theoretical, but the risk of a child dying from eating E. coli-infected beef just once is very real.

Dana Woldow
San Francisco

Free the clinic

As a medical provider at the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic for the past 10 years and a major donor to our larger institution, Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, Inc., in 2000, I am relieved that a public discussion of the issues at our troubled workplace has begun ["The Price of Change," 1/21/04]. Imagine my own dismay when, seeking an unpaid personal leave of absence last summer to care for my terminally ill father – himself a longtime supporter of the Free Clinic – I was abruptly refused. HAFCI management knew that I would never desert my dying father and apparently hoped to force my resignation.

The current crisis stems, as Nicolas Gattig's article suggests, from a new authoritarian style promulgated by the executive management team. In its unprecedented quest for total organizational control, HAFCI management appointed in September 2002 an interim director essentially unknown to the staff and with no prior experience in medical clinic administration. Morale at the medical clinic plummeted over the next few months leading to a string of resignations and compromise of clinical services.

Throughout the turmoil, both the management and our board of directors have turned a deaf ear to the protests of remaining staff and increasingly desperate patients. It is not, however, too late to try to heal the wounds at the clinic. A fresh leadership team well-versed in participatory management can pick up the pieces and move ahead. On the other hand, left unchallenged, the self-interested actions of the current management threaten to destroy the dream forever.