Attempt to print something of quality

One-Sided and Prejudiced

I am an American who is a Roman by blood and a Roman Catholic by religion.

Your one-sided and prejudiced statement about Charles Chiniquy does you no credit. In fact, you have succeeded in arousing interest in his life and work. I suggest you avoid judgments about any religious figure until you know what you are talking about.

• Name withheld
• via voicemail

Ball of Dividing Cells

In your December 17 publication a photograph of “Human Embryo, 8-9 weeks” was included in the Blog Diego section with the post title,“The Fate of Frozen Embryos at Divorce.” It wasn’t made clear whether this photo was presented by the blogger, an attorney, or your staff writer, Mr. Lickona. Regardless, the juxtaposition of the photograph to the article was misleading and perhaps even inflammatory.

Embryo transfer in humans is done when the embryo’s level of development is either at cleavage stage (2-4 days) or blastocyst stage (5-6 days), after co-incubation (and consequent fertilization). The embryo is still basically the size of the maternal egg and looks like a ball of dividing cells. It does not have the humanoid shape and appearance depicted by the photograph of the 8-9 week-old embryo accompanying this article!

Ms. Bickford’s blog purports to discuss the legal aspects of frozen embryo ownership at divorce. But taken in context with current political events, the San Diego Reader should have omitted the photograph as misrepresentation.

• Pat Bryan
• Lemon Grove

Unsettled

Regarding the item titled “Storm Drained: Flooding Claims Lead to $1 Million Payout.” Not all folks are so lucky when dealing with the city.

We are a small condominium (40 units) in Bankers Hill. Last spring the city was replacing water mains in the area. They hired Burtech Pipeline to perform the actual work. Early that spring, Burtech covered the storm drains with a felt-like material and sand bags. I assume this was to prevent construction debris from washing into the storm drains.

A large storm was projected to hit the city around the first of March. We called the city and suggested that they remove the covering. The City Field Engineering Department said that they notified Burtech to remove the storm drain covering.

Well, the storm hit (on March 1 we had over one inch of rain) and because the storm drain in front of our building was still covered, a substantial amount of water flowed through our front patio, into the lobby, down the stairs, into the elevator shafts, and down to the lower level lobby. To give you an idea of how much water was involved, we hired a remediation company and they pumped over 800 gallons of water out of our elevator pits.

When all was said and done, we incurred expenses of approximately $25,000 because of this. We filed a claim with the city.

The city denied the claim saying that their agreement with Burtech had a “Hold Harmless” clause, and therefore we had to make the claim with Burtech. We did so. Burtech then denied the claim saying that, “We were not working at this location.”

Well, the upshot is that we had to hire lawyers and file suit against the city. It is now over 22 months later and we still haven’t reached a settlement. Our legal bills are now well over $35,000.

Now, my feeling is that we have a claim against the city. The analogy that I use is that if I hire a general contractor and then one of his subcontractors screws up, I would go after the general, not the sub.

We have had no relations with Burtech. If we are found to have been damaged, then the city can go after Burtech.

Well, we shall see. We have a mediation conference scheduled for February.

• Al Weiss
• Bankers Hill

Our Own Team

I’m calling about your recent article on the stadium. I’m wondering why I haven’t heard anyone suggesting that, if we can’t by the Chargers at a reduced rate, why don’t we do like they did in Green Bay and create our own team owned by the local citizens? I’d like to see somebody work on that.

The team would be local, because it would be locally owned. I don’t know how they did it in Green Bay, but it can be done obviously, since they did it, and they seem very happy with the results.

I liked your article very much. I think we’re being jerked around by Spanos and other people. Has anyone thought about creating our own team? I see all these signs that say “Go Chargers,” and it seems the local citizenry is now interpreting that as a command to leave town. I agree with them.

• Quent Koenig
• Bankers Hill

Free Doesn’t Always Mean Good

The Reader is quick to print salacious, racist, and ridiculous letters to the editor by anonymous authors — and for what? To get more readers interested in this free publication? Please. Free does not always mean good, let alone decent.

The Reader could at least attempt to give CityBeat a run for its money by printing something of quality. Instead, half your magazine consists of ads (related to some kind of body modification, i.e. liposuction/dental work/wrinkle removers), while the other half consists of articles written by neighborhood nitwits. Get your act together, Reader.

• Lisa Cornell
• Golden Hill