Some business owners do their part
I read a printed letter from Rene Phillips in your paper (Aug. 31) that requested “business owners in Ocean Beach clean up their act.”
Business owners are diligently trying, we just need more help. I even published a newsletter on July 14 titled, “Cleaning Up Ocean Beach.”
It is difficult to keep up with the cost to continually replace, fix or clean what has been damaged or trashed. Only two weeks after opening my real estate office on the corner of Newport Avenue and Sunset Cliffs Boulevard, every office window was keyed and repairs cost in excess of $6,000. Three times in the last three months I have painted over graffiti on the side of my building. About once a month when the 60-pound stone ash tray on the sidewalk outside my building is pushed over, I pick it up and sweep up the spilled sand. I continually re-load trash back into the can behind my office, after trash-divers take everything out, searching for valuable recyclables. Once a month my husband brings the trailer down to the office so we can load up all the broken TVs, couches, furniture, left in the alley behind the office and haul it away to the dump. Because my landlord keeps a large trash bin on the property “” the public believes that they can dump their oversized trash adjacent to the trash bin in our designated parking spaces. I either remove the trash or have nowhere to park.
Once a month, I go around Ocean Beach and remove stickers and graffiti from street signs and pick up trash from the streets. I welcome anyone who would like to join me. Can anyone tell me how the communities of La Jolla, Little Italy and Point Loma can stay so clean-looking, while Ocean Beach cannot?
Kirsten Keithly-Rael, Ocean beach resident, business owner

Mainstreet association needs to cleanup
I am replying concerning the letter from Rene Phillips, which indicated how “trashy the Ocean Beach streets and sidewalks look.”
A few years back, I wrote a letter directly to the Ocean Beach Mainstreet Association concerning the filthy conditions of the sidewalks. I never found out if they made an effort to clean up the sidewalks. I live close enough that I can walk to Ocean Beach, but have not been there as of late. Based on Rene’s letter, I will assume they still haven’t cleaned up.
I am unable to understand why this situation never gets corrected. My question is why do these sidewalks get so horribly filthy to begin with? And do people who live and work in Ocean Beach never notice this situation?
Pauline O’Malley, Midway

9/11 docudrama a disgrace
As an advocate and activist, I speak on behalf of many who believe the horrific events of 9/11 must be remembered as history, not fiction.
The fictionalizing of the most monumental tragedy on American soil was not only unethical and dishonorable to those who lost their lives that day, it was a cruelty to those left behind to grieve and to the great numbers who opted to volunteer their courage, kindness, expertise, empathy, future health and, yes, even their own lives in their efforts to rescue others. It was a crime against truth and the American people to alter historical facts, using the misleading docu-drama as propaganda in order to gain political clout. The disclaimer or “docudrama” front cover did not drown out the obvious discrepancies.
Ethics must play a key role in the telling of historical accounts. What will history report regarding the dishonest portrayal of 9/11 events in “The Path to 9/11”? Far too many of us have done our homework. We will remember the historical facts as they truly were, not as depicted by actors. We will also remember those who fought to prevent the intended manipulation, as well as those who stood by as our nation’s history was unethically altered for the world to see. Those behind the promotion of “The Path to 9/11” are clearly … on the wrong path.
Christina Wynne Torkay, Point Loma