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TOXIC SHOCK
I for one do not go to WilLee's Blues Bar though I have wanted to…because of the cloud of toxic smoke hovering inside, outside and around [Letters, July 26:
]. Who knows how many more customers they will have with a smoke-free environment? Smokers and those who are around them tend to have an abominable sense of smell and taste and thus have no clue how intense an experience it is for someone accustomed to breathing clean air…to act as if cigarette smoke evaporates the second it leaves your lips is just plain ridiculous and illogical. Smokers do not have a right to ruin the air for everyone around them…no more than a factory has the right to spew toxic chemicals into the air…you have a classic case of denial…the kind that goes hand in hand with chemical addiction…turn your fuming anger toward the tobacco companies.
Becca Pearson
Santa Fe
OUT OF CONTEXT
I was very disheartened to see what Nathan Dinsdale wrote about me in his article [Outtakes, Aug. 2:
]. The conversation that I had with Nathan Dinsdale was only about my decision to leave my position at the CSF Development Office and had absolutely nothing to do with criticizing Dr. Lombardi. The fact that my quote was part of an article about the critics of "CSF's leader" was out of context because my decision to leave the College was made prior to Dr. Lombardi's appointment and I left shortly thereafter. The Human Resource department was there to support my concerns as an employee and for that I was thankful.
Barbara Selnick
Santa Fe
TOM 'N' TREY
I love the idea that Zane [Zane's World, Aug. 9:
] has encouraged a dialogue on historic preservation, its relationship to architecture, streetscape and the Historic Ordinance. We, the Historic Design Review Board (HDRB) definitely are not exempt from criticism, but we do have to follow the Ordinance. Yes, it should be rewritten. A rewrite was drafted in 2005 but shelved by the city for lack of funds. I would really like to comment on the two projects you mentioned that have received quite a media blitz, the Tom Ford and Trey Jordan projects. This is an extremely important issue and it illustrates the fact that the media and others are trying to polarize the city without studying the facts. These projects are very different, so let me set the record straight and you be the judge.
First, they are both in the Historic Eastside District. Mr. Ford's is a very site-sensitive project. Lot size: 10 acres. Residence: 8,358 square feet, plus 6,006 square feet of garage, portals, pergolas to equal 14,364 square feet. Location: in an old reservoir with 3-to-5-foot berm around it. Tom is planting 270 trees on top of the berm, watered by cisterns (40,000-gallon tanks installed below grade) collecting the runoff (sustainability!). The residence is 11 feet tall measured from the ground to the parapet at the front door; that leaves about six feet that you might see IF you were looking directly at the building, since it's on a hill (Talaya)!!! The windows (small and divided), doors and portal elements are made of wood, stained a warm dark brown. Because it is double adobe construction, reveals around windows/doors are very rounded, as well as parapets and corners. Stucco: hand-trowled lime plaster that is dark brown. The architecture mimics historic New Mexico hacienda style in footprint. It complies with all parts of the ordinance.
Mr. Jordan's project fronts onto Camino Cruz Blanca. Lot size: 4,267 square feet. Residence: 1,706 (house with portal). The driveway leads directly to the front entrance of the house from the street. Height: 14 feet at entrance without considering the planters that make it look taller. A cantilevered roof forming a portal with three sliding glass door sections (no divides) underneath is the defining feature of the front elevation. Walls all being long and flat, including patio and yard walls. The windows on nonvisable elevations are aluminum clad wood with divides. All reveals, corners and parapets are ever so slightly round and can appear square from a distance. Stucco color is cementitious cottonwood (beige with a tinge of green). No mention of sustainability in design or landscaping. So draw your own conclusion-is it money, or the design and sensitivity to its environment? Mr. Ford's residence was approved by the Board. Trey Jordan's denied by the Board and the City Council. We should not be so concerned by who did what to whom and how much money they have. Too simplistic and easy. The real challenge is our future. How do we integrate sustainability with current building codes, diversity, historic preservation and the Ordinance? Now that is worth a discussion.
Debbie Shapiro
Member, HDRB
Santa Fe
CAR DOC
After attending the documentary
Who Killed the Electric Car?
at CCA yesterday, I felt absolutely compelled to write the Reporter and say I am so glad I remembered the motto "Question authority." The documentary was just wonderful, despite the study in endless derogatory words used by the Reporter critic [Movies, Aug. 2:
] to lampoon it.
As a child, I remember literally flying into downtown Los Angeles from the San Pedro Harbor area in the 1940s on the Red Car Pacific Electric (PE) Train. Years later, having to take two buses and twice as much time to go to an equivalent distance into downtown LA from a nearby town. The documentary's photos of those same wonderful PEs flattened and stacked into endless red piles stirred me and I remembered how the vast PE right-of-ways also were conveniently and mysteriously eliminated, making future clean, fast mass transit options virtually impossible.
Actually, I had never realized that viable, beautiful, fast-accelerating, ideal-for-communting electric cars had ever been created in the '90s and ONLY LEASED, to what turned out to be incredibly pleased customers. Then, as they were far exceeding expectations, new California regulations began to waver, emission standards and requirements were attacked and lowered. Suddenly, GM and others began cancelling electric vehicle (EV) leases, auto transportation trucks were appearing in front of leasee's homes and the electric cars were being carried off to the crushers and shredders, just like their wonderful predecessors, the Pacific Electric Trains.
As you watch the gas pump dollar signs go by with blurring speed next time you fill up, consider seeing this documentary. See the actual devoted and convinced leasees, describing their EV and how they fought to keep it, even forming an organization to block their complete destruction, by offering to buy them for a very large amount, but to no avail! Then dream of what might have been a better today and tomorrow, with what probably could have been a very inexpensive, non-internal combustion engine, easily recharged commuter car and decide for yourself WHO DID IT and WHY WAS THE EV KILLED?
M Buchholz
White Rock, NM
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