Letters

Contact us via phone (714-825-8432), e-mail (le*****@oc******.com), regular mail (Letters to the Editor, OC Weekly, P.O. Box 10788, Costa Mesa, CA 92627) or fax (714-708-8410). Letters will be edited for clarity and length. All correspondence must include your home city and a daytime phone number.

HE'S CLAIRVOYANT!

With a surgeon's touch, Nathan Callahan's “Dear Mr. Fuentes” gently exposes and then dissects Republican party chairman Tom Fuentes (Cover Story, Aug. 11). And just in time. True to form, Fuentes has now proposed turning El Toro Marine Corps Air Station into Richard Nixon Park. Over the past several years, thousands of Orange County activists fought to prevent an international airport from being built at El Toro. Fuentes didn't lift a finger to help. But now that Measure F, the anti-airport initiative, passed with a 70 percent majority, Fuentes—ever the opportunist—has jumped on the bandwagon with a ripped-off park idea strapped to the name of his hero, Nixon.

I say, okay, build the sucker. But don't forget Watergate Lake, Agnew Meadows and the G. Gordon Liddy Amphitheater.

Mark Getz
Orange

How does Nathan Callahan do it? Within hours of the publication of his excellent investigation into the little-known but imperially powerful Tom Fuentes, Fuentes appears in The Orange County Registerto thump the tub for a park named after Richard Fucking Nixon?! I have come to count on the Weekly to tell me what has already happened; now I'm going to count on the Weekly to tell me what will happen.

S. Herschman
Laguna Hills
CHEAP (LAW) SUITS!

I read Nick Schou's article on police accreditation several times, and I am not sure what you are trying to say (“Cop Out,” Aug. 11). If you think that sending $8,000 to a group of “consultants” in Virginia is a good thing, I have a better idea: try donating $8,000 to the California Police Officers' Memorial in the name of the Garden Grove police officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty.

Schou says accreditation might stop lawsuits. But lawsuits against police are a dime a dozen. Crooks can always find sleazy attorneys who will litigate anything to try to make a buck. The fact is most such lawsuits are meaningless and without merit when filed by the criminal element of society. Occasionally they have legitimate claims, and these are usually settled out of court by the cities. These headline-grabbing multimillion-dollar lawsuits that you are trying to make a point out of are more an issue of killing perfectly good trees to make paper than actual damages claimed by the crooks.

The standards set by police departments throughout Southern California are already higher than those set by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies. Why would any department want to send them money for a certificate that means nothing? Schou should really try to learn a little more about his subject before putting pen to paper.

Russell Reinhart
president
Huntington Beach Police Officers' Association
Nick Schou responds: Reinhart's assumption that most police-brutality lawsuits are filed by the “criminal element of society” provides further evidence that I was right to argue the merits of outside oversight of local police. COMMIE (GIRL) SYMP!

Living in Orange County, one sees what others hold in high esteem: imported autos, designer clothes, Mickey Mouse (hee-hee) sports franchises, whale murals, etc. To some, these are the luxuries in life. I disagree. One of my favorite luxuries is going down to the Gypsy Den Caf at the Lab on Thursday evenings, picking up the latest copy of OC Weekly, and reading Commie Girl. I'm always greatly entertained and enlightened—I appreciate her sense of humor, the detailed descriptions of the people she meets, different social settings, and (of course!) the name-dropping that truly brings to life the local color of living in Orange County. Sent with love (of course!) . . .

Jose M. De Rosas
via e-mail
KISSING BOOTH

In researching the Orange International Street Fair, I came across an article written by Rebecca Schoenkopf dated Sept. 10, 1999 (“Loving Lost Labors”). What struck me was a reference to the lack of booths that represented Africa, Asia and Latin America. Food booths are manned by nonprofit organizations based in Orange County. Applications are closed for the year, but any nonprofit group may apply for next year by calling (714) 532-6260.

Anne Feduk
Orange International Street Fair
DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS

Last week's “Huntington Beach Babbitt” story incorrectly reported the details of a court record involving Dave Garofalo. The story should have said that Garofalo failed to respond to his wife's allegation in a 1991 court document that Garofalo dipped into insurance money intended to cover the cost of their son's congenital kidney failure.

CONFIDENTIAL

To “Huntington Beach”: thanks for dishing the dirt on Crazy Fucking Eddie (Aural Reports, July 14). Why is it brave souls like you never sign your names to your Unabomber-style missives? And please: using the Weekly for your bird cage? How about: “I use the Weekly to paper up my windows to keep the CIA from beaming messages into my brain”? To “Newport Beach”: Are you related to “Huntington Beach”? Coward. To “Costa Mesa,” whose wife doesn't want our “rag” in her house: tell her it's too late; there already is one and she married it. By the way, “reding” is spelled “reading.” And “uder”? Americans spell that “under.”

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