I work at Community Hospital of Los Gatos and sit on the steering committee promoting the colon cancer-free zone. This article (March 10 cover story, "Cancer-Free Zone") that you wrote from your heart has touched many others. Thank you so much for taking what must have been many painful moments to do it.

I know you write all the time, but this was above and beyond the call, sir—especially for a cause that seems to touch your eye, or the most tender part of you.

Glenna Aitken

Los Gatos

Lunch program
is valuable for
senior citizens

I would like to thank you for the excellent cover story article about Live Oak Senior Nutrition and Service Center on March 16. We thoroughly enjoyed having reporter Sara Hazlewood and photographer George Sakkestad visit us at the program.

Many people have been involved in this valuable program since its inception in May 1974. In addition to federal, county and private funding, Live Oak Senior Nutrition and Service Center is generously supported by the Community Services Commission Grant through the town of Los Gatos.

Senior nutrition programs are available in most every community across the country. For individuals with loved ones in another part of the country, the Eldercare locator can help to find needed services. Just dial 1-800-677-1116 and give them the area code where your loved one lives. They will connect you to the nearest area agency on aging, which can help you navigate and personalize the services available in their community.

Deborah Kranefuss

Live Oak Senior Nutrition
and Service Center

End the string
of tragedies
on Highway 9

On Sunday, March 21, Gina Loveday of Saratoga was struck by a car and killed while walking her dog on Highway 9 in Saratoga. On Feb. 21, Jim Dein was hit and killed while riding his bicycle on Highway 9 in Monte Sereno.

Highway 9 is a residential street and I live on it. These two recent deaths are among the many incidents that we see happening weekly in front of our homes. My five children and many other children and adults who live on Highway 9 place our lives in other drivers' hands every time we venture out of our driveways, whether on foot, by bike or in a car.

Highway 9 is a California Scenic Highway that is used by walkers, runners and bicyclists every day. The amount of foot and bicycle traffic on the highway is incredible. Yet there is no safe place on the sides of Highway 9 for these people. Lanes go from one to two and back down to one lane, and posted speed limits are up to 50 mph.

The sides of the roads where people walk and cycle have eroded, are blocked by utility poles and cables in holes sticking out of the ground, are covered with bushes and debris and go from wide areas down to 12-inch spaces for those who try to walk or cycle on both sides of the highway. The only area really safe to be on is the trail area that has been installed in the last section of Highway 9 into Saratoga.

Caltrans has responsibility for this highway. Now is the time for the town of Los Gatos and the cities of Monte Sereno and Saratoga to take some responsibility and work with Caltrans to make this highway safer for us all. A master plan needs to be developed now. It will not get any cheaper to do in the future.

Please, call or email your mayor, state Assemblyman Joseph Simitian (www.assembly.ca.gov/Simitian) and Senator Bruce McPherson (www.senate.ca.gov/McPherson) and Caltrans (http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist4/). Let's keep the pressure on them until they come up with a plan before you, I, our children or a loved one is the next to be killed on this unsafe road.

JoAnne Peth

Monte Sereno

Town library
is available
to everyone

In several articles about Blossom Hill Manor, residents express their desire to be able to use the Los Gatos Library, or to use the library without paying a nonresident fee.

There is no fee to use the Los Gatos Public Library. All library cards are issued free of charge to any resident of California. All that is required is proper identification and proof of address to issue such a card (http://library.losgatosca.gov/generalinfo.html#cards).

The nonresident user fee was a bad response to poor economic times and was eliminated in March of 1999 by the Los Gatos Town Council.

We look forward to serving the residents of Blossom Hill Manor, as well as all residents of the area.

Linda Hardy Dydo

Los Gatos Public Library

Wearing
armbands
on April 1

It's not just that I disagree with the current administration. I'm outraged. And I'm downright embarrassed to talk to anyone from another country. I'm embarrassed to have a president so arrogant, so dishonest, so hawkish, that in three years he has nearly destroyed any good relations we had before he took office, and worsened those that were already bad.

I find myself apologizing to my foreign friends both in this country and abroad while trying vainly to explain the sheer idiocy and illogic of the current administration's policies.

So this April 1, April Fools Day, I am joining tens of thousands of others who are wearing brown armbands or ribbons to demonstrate our dissidence.

Tracy McCullough

San Jose

Field should
be available
to rec teams

Regarding the "Soccer goal is to raise money for field" article, I think it's ridiculous that the proposed all-weather turf field is projected to host only competitive-level teams for the fall and spring seasons. What about kids who play recreation-level soccer? It's hypocritical to ask the entire community for support and funding to build a field, while at the same time discriminating against those who do not play for comp-level teams.

Hundreds of Los Gatos boys and girls from the ages of 5 to 15 play recreation-level soccer and should also be entitled to the opportunity to play on an all-weather field. The recreational season is played during the fall, so to exclude them from using the field during this time period is to exclude them from using it during their soccer season.

It's a fact that there are not enough soccer fields in Los Gatos for both competitive and recreation-level teams, not just competitive teams. The eventual use of the field should be allocated fairly. The fundraisers, potential contributors and Los Gatos High School should keep this in mind as they move forward with their planning.

John Nicewonger

Los Gatos