Letters

Letters may be edited for clarity and length. E-mail to letters@ocweekly.com, or mail to Letters to the Editor, c/o OC Weekly, 1666 N. Main St., Ste. 500, Santa Ana, CA 92701. Or fax to (714) 550-5908.

SCHOOLED
The following letters concern Daffodil J. Altan's Sept. 14 article, "Surreal Estate," about Capistrano Unified School District's new San Juan Hills High School.

Good article, but you have the wrong cost of the school. It is now at $154 million and climbing. To make a bad situation even worse, San Juan Hills High School (SJHHS, also called the "Dump School" by many) only has classrooms for 1,700 students. To get enough classrooms for the projected enrollment of 2,400 students, a two-story modular building will have to be constructed. Not surprisingly, the cost for such a building has not yet been budgeted.

Additionally, the proposed swimming pool for SJHHS has not been budgeted, much less built. When finally completed, SJHHS will likely cost more than $170 million, making it by far the most expensive high school in California history, except for the infamous Belmont Learning Center in Los Angeles. While spending this kind of money on one school and more than $52 million for a new administration building (one-third of which CUSD is trying to lease), schools in desperate need of remodeling and refurbishing, such as Newhart Middle School, the largest middle school in CUSD with more than 1,700 students, are ignored. That is a tragedy that needs to be brought to the public's attention.
Wayne P. Tate, Esq.
Rancho Santa Margarita

That was a great article. Keep up the reporting on CUSD. You won't believe what you'll find. The whole mess in CUSD is like refried beans: They keep going back on the grill for heat.
Jim Reardon
via e-mail
 

. . . AND YOU KIDS STAY OFF MY LAWN!

I wonder why the judge gave these people such low sentences [R. Scott Moxley's "Face Off," Aug. 31]. When someone steals your identity, they not only steal your money, but they hand you trauma, as well.

Imagine how desperate you would be if, when you apply for a student loan for your child's education, you got rejected because your credit history was messed up by somebody you don't know. Somebody whose name you can't even pronounce!

Most of these people are chronic criminals. They are sick from their hearts, and they will never get better. Since they will be released sometime in the near future, OC police departments should put them under electronic-monitoring devices. This way, we can save more tax money than we would from letting them wander around to try this again. And no more welfare or Medicare, please! Godd@$*% it, that's such a waste of my tax money!

I GOT YOUR EIGHTFOLD PATH RIGHT HERE, ARELLANO!

I loved the review about Siamese Express [Gustavo Arellano's Sept. 14 edition of This Hole-in-the-Wall Life] but was disappointed by the phrase "university run by a controversial Japanese Buddhist organization." Just so you know, Soka University was founded by Soka Gakkai International, one of the world's largest lay Buddhist organizations, but the university is a separate nonprofit organization incorporated in the state of California and run by our own board of directors. Our curriculum is non-sectarian, and our students, staff and faculty represent more than 30 countries and most of the world's faiths.

I'd like to invite you to come over for a tour to see for yourself and have lunch at our great Soka Bistro (open to the community) to experience another great place to eat in Aliso Viejo!

A WHOLLY DISSATISFIED CUSTOMER

Whole Foods at the District sucks, plainly. If your writer [Edwin Goei's "Disneyland for Foodies," Sept. 14] would pull the vanilla-covered shit from his eyes, he'd realize that he'd been had.

Getting in and out of the place is just this side of hell. Couple that with the crowds who wander around like lost fucking tourists, cluttering any store aisle they are in with vacant, zombie-like stares at boxes of something or other. Add in a completely substandard produce section and meat that I could find in same grade standard for cheaper elsewhere, and you have the perfect storm of crap.

Look, if you can't cook and need to buy everything "prepared," then this place might be for you. However, if you know your way around that room with little fire rings and sharp things, you'd be better served by going to Ranch 99, Irvine Ranch Market, and Albertsons on Culver and Irvine, and you'd come away quicker and with less fucking stress AND spending less money.

Whole Foods sucks ass, and so does Disneyland. Bunch of fucking lemmings.

MORE FROM THE ASIA-FILES
This letter comes in response to Vickie Chang's Sept. 21 Trendzilla, which touts the pro-Asian-American-rights fashion offerings of Blacklava.

Vickie Chang loves Asiaphiles. That's why she won't let her story ["Yellow Fever," Nov. 2, 2006] rest. By the way, what is it called when you see Asian women obsessed with white men? Nobody loves Caucasiaphiles.

BEST LETTERS
These letters have some nice and some not-so-nice things to say about our Sept. 21 Best of OC issue.

I'm probably the billionth person to point this out (at least I hope I am), but this is an article on the best of ORANGE COUNTY. Did someone forget to tell me when we acquired LONG BEACH!?