Another chance for local screenings

Lynn Gordon

Los Altos may have a wonderful opportunity to offer movie screenings near downtown - with little fuss and no building construction required.

Focus Cinema, which has screened a variety of excellent films at Gunn’s Spangenberg Auditorium for the last four years, is now without a home. I suggest that we Los Altans invite the managers of Focus to move their operation to the Eagle Theater at Los Altos High School. The school would receive a rental payment, and movies would be scheduled so as not to conflict with school events and other uses of the theater.

Local residents would be able to see affordably priced classic movies, foreign films and documentaries within easy reach of downtown. The Los Altos Village Association could encourage moviegoers to eat in nearby restaurants before or after the show, and to visit downtown shops.

Everyone would benefit! Let’s get moving and explore this opportunity.

Family week?

Ray Schuster

As part of a large and loving family, I could go along with Mayor Casas’s proclamation of “Family Week” in Los Altos. Fine until you look just a bit deeper. When one recalls that our city council, and mayor, voted against a “Gay Pride Day” resolution just a few months earlier, this latest action smacks a bit of hypocrisy.

I recall an objection to the Gay Pride Day resolution along the lines of, “What about married couples’ Pride Day?” So now, with the mayor’s action, we actually have something close to that. Not sure we need it.

Families are hardly a minority under duress. As an aside, your article mentioned the tie-in with President Bush’s “National Family Week” proclamation. Some would connect this with the religious right-wing agenda which opposes a host of behaviors, including contraception, women’s choice, unmarried sex and same-sex marriage.

I’d rather not see Los Altos officially even close to that camp. But if any segment of our town needs understanding and support, it is the gay community. It is part of our larger family and deserves inclusion. This proclamation subtly but effectively does the opposite.

Deduction capped, not abolished

Stephanie Muñoz

It’s deceptive to have a front page lead sentence (”Realtors ’startled’ by tax reform proposal,” Nov. 16 Town Crier) speak of a proposal “to abolish” the mortgage interest deduction when, buried on page 5, we learn that the reform plan is to cap the deduction at $300,000 or $350,000.

To encourage homeownership, the income tax deduction should be on income that is put into the principal.

The homeowner would continue to own his money and the government could tax it when the home was sold.

The money frittered away on mortgage interest is gone forever, no use to either homeowner or the nation.

Wouldn’t the tax money be better spent on the Veterans Administration? We’re making more disabled vets every day.

The yuppies are showing the capacity for denial of an amorous teenager. Prices are leveling off, and will have to go down as the jobs that support them go away.

Bankruptcies are at an all-time high, and Congress is making them more difficult to get and more advantageous to the unscrupulous lenders who knew the borrowers couldn’t afford credit. Just ponder for a moment the implications of the all-interest loan payment.

Bring back the gorgeous flower beds

A. Kramer

As a regular customer in downtown Los Altos, I am wondering what has happened to the beautiful flower beds that used to grace our city?

Stanford Shopping Center has always had gorgeous flower beds and Los Altos had flowers that were every bit as gorgeous.

Can we get them back?

Calling all Republicans

Myra Orta

Now is the time for all Republicans to wake up and realize your government has let you down and does not represent you. The party of Abraham Lincoln and Dwight Eisenhower, honorable Republicans, is no longer recognizable. They would be, and you should be, ashamed to be called “Republican” now.

This administration is not the party of moral, fiscal or ethical responsibility. It makes a mockery of morality with lies and political appointments to incompetent buddies. It squanders our budget on an unnecessary war. It justifies murdering defenseless people and sacrificing our soldiers in the name of greed and a Holy War to spread “democracy.” It challenges the constitutional rights of women’s choice. Is this your party?

Republicans, wake up, it is time to “kick the bums out” in the name of patriotism. We cannot do this without your help and intelligent support.