Mail letters to Letters, Santa Fe Reporter, PO Box 2306, Santa Fe NM 87504, deliver them to 132 E. Marcy St., fax them to 988-5348, e-mail them to editor@sfreporter.com, or use our online form.
WHO'S in CHARGE?
I read with interest your column [Zane's World, May 23: "Tweakonomics"], about the city's and the governing body's focus on internal micromanagement and department reorganization under the public banner of advancing the economic development plan. Your column was very insightful and gave the reader an excellent overall picture of what is really going on internally and the effect of it on the city's ability to advance its plan. Congratulations. You are both perceptive and in contact with some good sources.
I only wish you would have made a few more observations about the overall management of the city, especially to point out something which should be obvious to almost anyone who follows public administration: Why is it that the City Council, even individual councilors, are involving themselves in internal personnel and organizational issues? Isn't that the typical expected role of the city manager? The Council should set policy and the city manager should manage. The city in recent years has had a string of weak city managers who dance to the tune of some of the more dominant and demanding city councilors. That is poor city management, both in terms of "chain of command" issues and the morale and uneasy working environment of city employees. This is Public Administration 101, in my opinion. The city goes to great lengths to do broad national searches for key professional positions in city government, and then insists on guiding these professionals to take the managerial actions the councilors want them to take.
BILL MCKINSTRY
SANTA FE
KEEP VOICES LOCAL
Santa Fe has a unique voice that is often eclectic and cutting-edge-visitors from the whole world travel here because of our uniqueness. I, personally, have been horrified time and time again over the last 20 years when our local voices-our local radio stations-get bought out by junk food corporations [Outtakes, May 23: "Guerilla Radio"]. Clear Channel is a prime example. Profiteering by selling unhealthy crap, paying unlivable wages in jobs that are toxic environments to be in, censoring the music played and distorting the news reported is the way it works with Clear Channel and it is detrimental to the health of our community.
Democracy has essential "nutritional requirements" and the main one is free communication-that is, uncensored, open to vast differences of opinions and reflective of the communities in which we live. This is what radio station Indie 101.5 provides to our community and to all of our visitors who tune in. AND IT IS WHAT MADE OUR COUNTRY GREAT!!!!
It is time for us to speak out in the VOICE OF DEMOCRACY TO RETAIN OUR FREE-SPEAKING RADIO STATIONS!
SAVE INDIE 101.5 for us and for the future of our community. Deny "Corpot-cracy" takeover and keep at least one of our airways healthy!
LAUREEN PEPERSACK
SANTA FE
STAY AND FIGHT
Some of you know me as the former owner of the Alegria nightclub and liquor store (and some of you may not know that Alegria is no more...) Anyway, I am now working with a really great independent radio station here in Santa Fe called Indie 101.5. (www.indie1015.com).
This station is locally owned, operated and programmed, and, unlike corporate radio, our jocks are allowed to play whatever they want, even if it is a band that is not known. Our playlist has 4,000+ songs and is continuously growing. Corporate stations, on average, only allow 500 songs-and only songs that are the most popular and already getting airplay-because they don't believe that the listeners are interested in learning about or discovering new music. We play deeper cuts and unknown artists.
If you like the idea of hearing music you haven't heard, of hearing songs by artists you like that other stations won't or don't play, of hearing unsigned bands and local bands, and you like the idea of having a choice, please, please help us save this station.
Please check out our Web page, www.indie1015.com, for the details and blogging that is going on about this issue. It is not just about saving our unique and wonderful radio station; it is about saving Santa Fe from becoming just another corporately owned town. And the folks at www.keepindiealive.com have created a site that can help you to find out what you can do.
The newspapers that have covered this so far have made it sound as if it is too late and this is why I felt compelled to write this letter. Please believe you do have power to make a difference. Apathy is the reason corporate America has gained so much strength. We are stronger than that!!! Let's fight!
ZIA CROSS
INDIE 101.5
SANTA FE
THE WI-FI TRUTH
On May 14, I gave a lecture on the health and environmental effects of wireless technology. I thank Nathan Dinsdale for covering this event [Outtakes, May 16: "Wi-Fried"]. But, as last week's letters to the editor show, readers were left hungering for more information.
Due to limited space in the Outtakes section, important information about my lecture was omitted, including my background and credentials and the residents of Rio Rancho who showed up to bear witness to the effects of that city's Wi-Fi network on their health. My opinions were reported but not the evidence I presented. An estimate of 75 people at my lecture was too low; most of the 165 seats we had set out were filled.
In speaking with Santa Feans, I have been impressed with how many people are using wireless technology despite their discomfort with it and their suspicions that it is bad for their health. But most people do not have reliable information to support their suspicions, nor do they know where to go to obtain it. Most newspapers provide only superficial coverage of this topic.
ARTHUR FIRSTENBERG
PRESIDENT, CELLULAR PHONE TASK FORCE
TOO FUNNY
Thanks to David Alire Garcia for his quietly hilarious article [Cover story, May 23: "Cribs"], on Santa Fe's million-dollar real estate.
CAROL RAYMOND
SANTA FE
SOLD OUT
Dish & Spoon this: Your Total Pig column a few weeks back [March 26: "Six Degrees of Juicy Bacon"], erroneously reported that Santa Fe's Four & Twenty Blackbirds was sold. NOT TRUE. I know...I was the proprietor, and while I thought the Soeiros were buying my business, I received no money. While their menu says they "honor the history of this space," literally, just before our scheduled closing on the sale, Señor Sancho Soeiro surprised me with his call to say they were not buying and Four & Twenty met its demise. Where is the honor?
JO ELLEN THOMPSON
Owner, former Four & Twenty Blackbirds
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