Paid parking detrimental to historical character
The La Jolla Historical Society wishes to weigh in on the issue of paid on-street parking in the central village of La Jolla. The Society joins the numerous other entities in the community in opposition to the implementation of this parking proposal.
Consistent with its mission, the La Jolla Historical Society’s primary role is to advocate for the community’s rich heritage and stand with those who support the preservation of the attributes that have made La Jolla unique. To that end, we strongly believe that the historical character of the central village would be affected detrimentally by the introduction of paid on-street parking.
This proposal is counterproductive to efforts to preserve this character and would place at risk the viability of many of La Jolla’s equally historic and beloved small businesses “” both essential parts of our town’s charm.

John Bolthouse, Executive Director, La Jolla Historical Society

Thinking about community volunteers
The people who serve on the La Jolla Community Parking Board (LJCPB) are community volunteers. Of late, some members of the board have belabored this truth in response to the requirement to file statements of economic interest.
These members lament that they joined the parking board as “volunteers” to promote the public good, and not to have their private interests made public. For these members, financial disclosure makes public service too onerous to tolerate.
While we all admire the spirit underlying acts of community service, the fact that legal requirements exist for certain types of volunteer boards underscores that the act of being a “volunteer” does not mean that one is necessarily sacrificing his or her time for the well-being of others or that, by being “unpaid,” one is exempt from eventual monetary rewards.
More than two years passed without the LJCPB requiring disclosure of its members’ financial interests. When the City Attorney recently advised the LJCPB that this disclosure was legally required, the LJCPB reluctantly adopted a disclosure code. Yet, after the LJCPB adopted the code, some members continued their efforts to relieve group members from financial disclosure, including through soliciting third party legal opinions (since abandoned).
Two weeks ago, the City Council announced that they will consider reworking the policies for parking boards to excuse members from disclosure obligations. The City Council reasoned that its practices must be reworked because financial disclosure will deter volunteers from serving on parking boards. Apparently, the City Council believes that the public, to have a sufficient pool of parking board volunteers, must be ignorant of the volunteers’ financial interests in parking meters.
The council’s logic does not hold up. Currently San Diego has 39 functioning volunteer boards that require financial disclosure, including the La Jolla Underwater Park Advisory Committee and the La Jolla Shores Planned District Advisory Board. The 39 boards prove that volunteerism can coexist with financial disclosure. If the council proceeds with its announced direction, it will cast a blow to transparent and conflict-free government.
Let us hope that the City Council takes actions that will promote public trust in the government, rather than actions that will achieve the opposite.
Nancy Warwick, La Jolla

Whale of a story may be the impetus
I really enjoyed Judith Garfield’s article re her close encounter with a young/juvenile gray whale (Tide Lines, “Gray matters: a whale of a tale,” Village News, Feb. 7, page B·1). What a delightfully awesome surprise that must have been!
How I wish I could have been swimming alongside her that day. I have yet to learn how to scuba dive, but Judith’s article may be the impetus I needed! I will see if I can locate her books.
Mary Grossman, La Jolla

Original rules written in technological Stone Age
Tanja Winter’s complaint in the March 6 edition of the La Jolla Village News about us becoming a police state because of cameras the LJ Shores Association wants to install at the park was a bit much (“Who keeps an eye on the spies?,” Page 8).
While I share her worry about the increasing overreach of government in our lives, these cameras seem like a common-sense solution to a lack of officers available to patrol the area.
There is room for reasoned debate on this, though, which I hope the association will allow.
Where logic flies off the rails, though, is Winter’s portrayal of the Bush administration’s surveillance tactics against terrorists as an attempt to spy on the innocent public and get “total control, no dissent, no questioning policy or motives.”
I assume this is in reference to the administration’s recent attempt to pass the Protect America Act, which updates the Foreign Surveillance Intelligent Act (FISA) to reflect the world we live in today. House Democrats wouldn’t let it come up for a vote, even though it passed in the Senate by a 2-1 margin.
This act is desperately needed because the original FISA rules were written at a time when the communications technology we have today was not around nor even dreamed of. The original intent was to protect American citizens by prohibiting all domestic wiretapping, all quite reasonable during the 1970’s.
In today’s digital age of global communications, however, a call placed from Afghanistan to Pakistan may go through multiple switches, some of them located in the US. The act simply wanted to update the rules so surveillance could be done on these calls.
Now, because of the act’s blockage, any type of communication between foreign terrorists that travels through a U.S. switching station has to be justified with probable cause, written justification and a detailed description of surveillance procedure. This is not the way to go about preventing disastrous attacks before they happen.
Democrats also wanted to strip from the bill a clause that would give lawsuit protection to companies who cooperated with intelligence operations and were even given written assurance from the government that what they were doing was legal. Without this protection, telecoms will face billion-dollar lawsuits and you can bet no one will ever step forward to cooperate again.
So the Protect America Act was not allowed to be brought to a vote because the Democrats chose trial lawyers over the safety of the American people and they didn’t want to give President Bush a “win” during an election year.
Are we less safe because our intelligence community is hindered by rules written for 30-year-old technology?
My guess is yes, decidedly so.
Tricia Butler, La Jolla

Some animals are more equal than others
Regarding your editorial cartoon by Mike Smith (Opinion page 2/21/08, page 6), it puzzles me as to why a nation that worships its pets (hint: your front page story and picture on the same issue) is so indifferent to the plight of “farm” animals. It appears that all the outcries about the Humane Society footage of cruelty at a Chino slaughterhouse is about food safety, and economic loss of recalling 143 million pounds of beef.
It matters not that the dairy cows (Calif. Cheese Ind. motto: Happy Cows …) that were no longer as productive, were being slammed by forklifts, and “waterboarded” by pressure hoses, on their way to slaughter, to become hamburgers.
“The Greatness of a Nation and its Moral Progress can be Judged by how its Animals are Treated.” “Be the Change you Wish to See in the World.” ” Gandhi.
Amir Sahimi, La Jolla