Letters

Correction

Last week’s cover story, “Puppeteers,” stated that Steven Hadley was Valerie Stallings’s chief of staff and that he’d hired Michael Zucchet. According to Hadley, he was never Stallings’s chief of staff and he did not hire Zucchet.

Cover Girl’s Ears

Love the cover photo (“Puppeteers,” September 3). Where can folks get the ears? Good story too, but not much about the cover girl in it.

Name Withheld by Request
via email

Random Emerald

I am really offended that you put Democrat Marti Emerald on your cover as being a puppet (September 3). I found nothing in your article to indicate that her chief of staff was overbearing. She is a union person and a member of the board. If you thought Ms. Emerald was especially guilty, you should have indicated so. Just picking her out at random is not fair. You should have put them all on the cover.

Also, once again, you are so sure that Inzunza is guilty and do not indicate that the Christians and FBI set him up and entrapped him. There is nothing criminal in either giving a campaign contribution or in asking that a law be changed.

It is obviously a setup, and you should be weekly investigating the much more massive corruption of real estate and Republicans that have put us in debt regarding stadiums and convention centers, which are not public business.

Valerie Sanfilippo
via email

Homework Is Required

Your cartoon of Susan Golding, John Moores, and the ballpark brings back bitter memories (Neal Obermeyer, September 3). Unlike most voters gulled by Golding in 1998, I did my homework, studied the details, and ran the numbers. I then went to the city council and confronted the mayor at public-comment time, explaining how unrealistic the projections were.

I pointed out that, even if all 2500 new hotel rooms Golding predicted mysteriously appeared (11 years later they haven’t), each would need to rent for $200 a night, 365 days a year to come close to servicing the debt on the ballpark bonds.

Golding brushed aside my concerns, claiming that the new hotels would not only easily service the debt with a bonanza of new TOT revenue, it might well finance the proposed new main library as well! When last I checked, we were paying over $10 million interest annually on the ballpark bonds, much of it in lieu of needed services and infrastructure repairs.

I retell this sad tale as a reminder to voters to do their homework on any new proposal by the politicians involving major investments. Right now we have a number, including the library, convention center expansion, the Embarcadero development, and, of course, a new city hall. All are being hyped by people who stand to benefit, usually financially, by these proposals. Run the numbers, folks, and insist on independent audits of all figures presented.

Bill Bradshaw
Mission Beach

Lover List

Why is Jay Allen Sanford so upset (Letters, September 3)?

Gee…

Oh, by the way, yes, Diana Death is my girlfriend and Maren Parusel my ex-girlfriend, but Mr. Sanford forgot to mention that Dave Humphries is my secret lover!

Ha ha!

Hector Peñalosa
via email

What’s Wrong With Guam?

Re “A League of Their Own” (“Sporting Box,” September 3). I’m writing in regard to this paragraph: “Bad: Team names suck. Las Vegas Locomotives. California (San Francisco) Redwoods. Florida (Orlando) Tuskers. New York Sentinels. It’s like the names were made up by people who live in Guam.” What is that last sentence supposed to be conveying?

I agree those names are awful. Terrible, actually. But I’m from Guam, and I fail to see why it’s as if they were made up by people living in Guam. Explain, please. Thank you.

Robert Q. Flores
via email

Patrick Daugherty responds: Greetings Robert, It’s the nature of humor. Some people will find “Guam” funny, some won’t. We agree UFL team names are awful. I chose Guam because it’s 6000-plus miles from San Diego. Has nothing to do with Guam other than distance. Bethel, Alaska, or Tierra del Fuego would do as well.

Back, Duncan, Back

I cannot believe the decision you have recently made to place Duncan Shepherd’s column at the front of your paper. Now, is it because of Duncan himself? Hell no, that guy is one of the best damn movie reviewers ever. I don’t even go to the movies, yet I read his reviews. On to the subject matter.

What in the hell are you doing pandering to the Hollywood/video/movie crowd and putting a movie-review column in the front of your paper? I repeat, what the hell? Do you really think your readership base ranks cinema info as the first thing they want out of your paper? You are putting a section on talkies at the front of your paper? Are you no better than People? USA Today?

Please don’t treat your readership like teenagers, obsessed with the next installment of Twilight or Harry Potter. The movie reviews are an added extra, not the main course or, dare I say, primary feature. Sad that you cater to the horrid, tasteless, unfunny, and wasteful enterprise that is movie-making circa 2009. I would guess less than 3 percent made today are worth the celluloid they are encapsulated on. (Do they still do that?)

Jamie Hill
via email

Movie listings were moved because the front of the paper has a later deadline at the printer, and this later deadline allows us to include more movie showtimes. — Editor