Fair-housing rules accepted at incorporation

Mr. and Mrs. Crow's recent letter accuses the Times and supporters of Danville's proposed low-income housing of using loaded language. No term in this debate has been more loaded than that of "stack-and-pack" housing.

There is no good reason that apartment projects cannot emulate the two-story Victorian medical complex on San Ramon Valley Boulevard in south Danville or the new commercial buildings on Prospect Avenue between Front Street and Hartz Avenue. With underground parking, lovely landscaping and a safe courtyard play structure, such development would enhance Danville and its property values, maintaining the tone of the community.

It is arrogant, if not hallucinatory, to assume that those who chose low-income jobs such as social work, teaching, ministries, art, drama, music, gardening, housework or stay-at-home parenthood have not "earned" the right to live somewhere and those who merely made money have. We voted to accept a mix of housing types in 1982, when we decided to incorporate and became subject to state fair-housing laws.

Diane Carpenter


Ex-BART chief really milked the taxpayers

I want to personally thank Dorothy Dugger for only taking a lifetime pension of $188,000 per year after taking 4,000 hours of vacation time after her exodus as BART general manager.


Everyone should know that her calculations and planning will only lead to a 50 percent increase in BART single day parking rates at the West Dublin station that I use every day to go to work in San Francisco. It could have been worse if Ms. Dugger had done her job properly rather than being thrown out.

Let us hope that the other BART employees are not successful at joining the Dugger bandwagon. It makes me sick to my stomach to see the people running BART put the public through financial pain with poor planning.

Anthony Vlahiotis

San Ramon

Chart's driver data does not support story

Based on the "brake reaction time" chart in the June 13 Times article on hands-free phones, it's difficult to understand what all the fuss is about. It appears that, with the exception of speech-to-text, reaction times are about 950 milliseconds plus or minus 50 milliseconds.

Are the data really correct? Someone should take a close look at the source data and the uncertainty in the results. I'm surprised that hands-free phones are slightly more dangerous than handheld phones -- not the horror story we've been led to believe. I'll bet someone got this story really wrong!

Stephen Massey


Farewell to a great canine unit officer

The Livermore Police Department is saddened to announce that we lost a beloved member of our team last week. Canine "Caro" went on to a better place where he is no longer in any pain.

Caro served as a K9 for the department under his handler, Officer Rich Hill. Caro worked from January 2004 to January 2009. He had two bites, one on a suspect that attacked Officer Hill, causing Caro to jump out of the car to protect him, and one on a (burglary) suspect found hiding in an elderly female's garage under her car. Caro was credited with 28 arrests.

He was a POST-certified patrol canine and certified as a narcotics detection canine. He won his first Western States Police Canine Association Narcotics Competition the same day he completed narcotics detection school. He won 14 trophies in WSPCA competitions. He took fifth place out of more than 150 dogs in the WSPCA competition for the overall year of 2005 in narcotics detection.

He also was awarded the O'Keefe Award for the best teamwork between handler and dog at the Lodi K9 competition in 2006. This was the most coveted award among all the competitors.

Caro's health was quickly failing, and he was laid to rest peacefully to ease his suffering in his old age. He will be missed. We want to thank Caro for his many years of dedicated service to the men and women of the Livermore Police Department and the Livermore community.

Sgt. Keith Graves,

Livermore police K9 unit leader

Must one have license to say the 'n-word'?

I was informed yesterday that Paula Deen of the Food Network had her contract terminated for using the "n-word" a long time ago.

Most of us are familiar with what happened to Sergio Garcia recently and years ago with Fuzzy Zoeller for fried chicken remarks in regard to Tiger Woods.

I agree that these comments are hurtful and inappropriate. What I can't figure out is why there are no repercussions for rap singers.

My son plays his music rather loudly in the house and garage and it seems to me that most of the songs incorporate the use of the "n-word" almost every other sentence. Why is it OK that this is not only tolerated, but that individuals are allowed to profit from it while others lose everything because of it. It needs to be banned everywhere or not banned at all.

Kevin Vickers


How it adds up -- marriage = man + woman

Two plus two equals four, three times eight equals 24, seven minus two equals five. No matter how you calculate the math, the end results will always be the same and will never change. The same goes for marriage: i.e., one female plus one male equals marriage. It always has and always will, so get used to it. Period -- end of discussion!

LaVerne Walters


Should we just have state spy on everyone?

A reader writes that the NSA should be allowed to snoop on "gun owners of America". That's just insane on the most basic level. Absurd!

This person probably believes in the idea of a "utopian" society, and 175 words are not enough to describe how inanely ridiculous both ideas are. Out of the millions of registered gun owners, the writer picks three names widely distributed in the news involved in fatalities associated with possible mental illness. People look at media and data all day long on the Internet out of curiosity or necessity. Who is to determine if one, many or any of these people are planning to be mentally ill, deranged or emotionally unbalanced, resulting in harm to another human being?

You might as well have the NSA monitor everyone for the reason that we are all capable of anything. Even that letter-writer. Anything becomes a weapon, especially the human mind.

Michael Greene