Depending on whom you talk to, David Bennett was either first or second choice to be San Diego opera's general director. Either way, Bennett made the wise decision to perform house-packing warhorses such as Verdi's Rigoletto next season.

Spuck speaks

I wish to clarify an erroneous point in Don Bauder’s article regarding San Diego Opera’s selection of David Bennett as General Director (“Opera turns to time-tested titles,” City Lights, March 21). The article states that “Because so much of Bennett’s career had been tied up in experimental opera, he was not the first choice for the job.” Nothing could be further from the truth. As the Board member who chaired the search committee, I can assure your readers that Mr. Bennett was our unanimous first choice for the position, and over the past 2 1/2 years his leadership and creativity has confirmed that we are fortunate to have him at the helm of our opera.

• Linda Spuck
• Downtown

Replies Bauder: I got this information from a very responsible source close to the opera. I stick by my statement.

Detracting duffer

While I must commend your writer for crafting this article and exposing many of the goings on at the Coronado Golf Course (“Someone’s teed off in Coronado,” City Lights, March 28), some inaccuracies are evident. Roger Miller did not personally engage in a campaign to defame me; rather he allowed the Coronado Bayside Bar and Grill to retaliate against me and others who complained about the restaurant. Despite the false claims of battery and other outlandish accusations made against me by the Bayside Bar and Grill and emailed to my employer as well as Roger Miller and other city of Coronado employees, not one person from the city of Coronado nor Roger Miller bothered to conduct an investigation that would have proven every single one of these allegations as false. It was Roger Miller that was tipped off by someone at city hall that a records request had been made for “The city charter” with the port district as well as rules and procedures as it pertains to the golf course and tee time acquisition; it wasn’t the city that Roger contacted after learning the documents had been requested, it was the actual individual requesting the documents that was contacted and intimidated by Roger Miller being told “you’re not allowed to see that,” “I am going to tell the city you no longer are requesting the information.” To the topic of free food and preferential treatment, this allegation has been corroborated by several ex-employees of Coronado Bayside Bar and Grill restaurant; all pertaining only to Roger Miller and not other members of the city council. Moreover, what has been painfully obvious has been a serious lack of oversight and accountability by the city of Coronado ever since Roger Miller was handed the reins. You know what they say when that culture is prevalent. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Thank you again for allowing me the opportunity and a platform to tell the truth and my story.

• Mike Horvath
• Coronado

Fake news, faked

What’s with the “Almost factual news” page?!!! I read about Trump visiting the doll factory in San Marcos (“The Quiet Storm(y),” SD on the QT, March 22). I work right next door to this company and was aghast because if Trump had visited them we would have known about it. Our buildings are small and we have a clear view of this place. Certainly if a president visited there would be Secret Service people crawling all over the place. I went next door and, showed them your paper and asked them about this. I was told that they would never have let Trump in the door. I said, “So, you don’t like him either?!”

I was ready to let everyone know that this dirt-bag president was only in San Diego for a few hours and found it a priority to visit a sex doll factory (your description, by the way)! I’m kind of disappointed, actually, that this story is not true.

In this climate of “fake news” why would you purposely put out an entire of page of “Almost factual news”? What a waste of paper space, your time and my time.

Pretty soon, no one will believe anything you write and publish.

• Patricia Hall
• Oceanside

Best spot in Mission Bay

Weeks ago you had printed an in-depth article regarding the possible takeover of most of the useable shoreline and parking by the Bahia Hotel (“Near-doubling of Bahia Resort approved,” News Ticker, January 19). The point being to oppose this. As a decades-long user of that area from sailboarding years ago to kayaking recently I can say it is about the best spot in Mission Bay for shore access for small craft. The last decade has seen a great increase of outriggers also. There was a published rally against the leasehold modification to that area. It is near the open ocean and also in winter the only place where those on shore are protected from the westerly cold winds (by hotel structures), and there are restrooms and showers. All this could be lost.

• Greg Gieselman
• Ocean Beach

Going Dockless

The road to shared bicycles is paved with good intentions. (“The wild west is back in San Diego,” Neighborhood News, March 30) Our finest City of San Diego has embarked on a sort of crusade in populating city streets with a seemingly endless stream of bicycles in a quest for the common good. But no good deed goes unpunished as evidenced by poor planning, little forethought and a rush to judgement. The City of San Diego has unleashed a bike in a china shop.

The modern-day bicycle was invented during the Nineteenth Century and has one common characteristic being the expulsion of human energy. It’s safe to say most folks barely have the energy to get out of bed in the morning let alone peddle some heavy big geared bike up a grade larger than nine percent. Let me be perfectly clear that I sincerely wish the greatest success in this pilot program except the jury is out and God knows the long-term viability of these so called dockless bikes.

What about liability issues surrounding errant and dangerous usage on City sidewalks. When I was a kid, sidewalks were for walking. That is why they are called sidewalks. Several hours ago, in my community of Bay Ho a middle-aged woman sporting a 100,000-watt gullwing smile was barreling downhill in the middle of a sidewalk while I was walking home with groceries from Vons. She continued to smile as she almost killed me. So much for America’s Finest City. I suppose the City Attorneys Office will be receiving some overtime hours. Same scenario in Pacific Beach and everywhere else.

Is this another Pet Rock fad with wheels? The homeless love the dockless bikes to hang and dry out their clothes as I have seen throughout San Diego. I don’t understand why local bike shops cannot rent two wheeled transportation and save this City some grief. It would also keep these small businesses in the black and promote a sense of community pride.

Bike San Diego, Circulate San Diego and the Mayor’s Climate Action Plan are all interconnected except the sum does not equal the whole. There is a bike lane in Claremont that is used maybe once every week. Is this what you call efficient use of our tax dollars? Somehow, I don’t see most folks over the age of fifty pedaling away in glee as they catch a city bus. As a candidate for San Diego City Council representing the beach areas,

I have grave concerns about this roll out of shared bicycles. And all this comes from riding a bike in my District for over fifty years, being a thirty-five-year local triathlete including Ironman, having a pro bike voting record on the Clairemont Community Planning Group and a second home in France where I routinely interview French politicians on alternative transportation. Maybe we ought to slow down and think more clearly as to the future of these dockless bikes?

• Daniel Smiechowski
• Bay Ho

Dream home, not paradise

Re: “10 Bedrooms with their own bathrooms and closets in National City” (Neighborhood News, March 16), a planning commissioner actually said out loud that housing for 40 persons should be pushed aside on this half-acre lot so that someone could build her dream home. This ends the mystery of how we stumbled into the current housing crisis. I love National City, but anyone whose “dream home” lies at 18th and Orange needs to see a Jungian psychiatrist about getting some better dreams. All kidding aside, though, anyone who shares this attitude that one couple’s dream house is more important than the dream of 40 separate people to sleep somewhere other than the sidewalk, better stop complaining about stepping in human poo on your way to work.

• Joan Rincon
• Homeless
• National City