San Diego City Councilman Kevin Faulconer does not support an alcohol ban in Pacific Beach and Mission Beach even though both town councils have voted in support of one. I'm trying to understand this.

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Because we have the last remaining beaches to allow alcohol, we are subjected to horrible alcohol-induced behavior on an on-going basis. For instance, the scene on weekend afternoons on the beach between Pacific Beach Drive and Reed Avenue is basically people standing shoulder to shoulder, congregated around beer kegs or some other kind of alcohol source. From mid-afternoon and into the night, we often hear loud obscenities from some of these inebriated folks who have left their beach cocktail parties for their cars.

We have beachgoers staggering down sidewalks and alleys, urinating anywhere they please, and littering as they go. We are raising families here who are subjected to this, our children are subjected to this.

To those who call us “NIMBYs,” I'm wondering how you would like to have this in your neighborhood. People come to our beaches with their kegs, 12-and 24-packs, etc., solely for the purpose of drinking to excess. They act abominably, talk loudly and sometimes inappropriately, leave their trash, and then drive home.

Far too much taxpayers' money is wasted to try to police these people. Forget the task force. Enact the ban!

JENNIFER HIETT
Pacific Beach

It is five years to the week that I moved to Pacific Beach from Boston. Where to live in San Diego was an easy answer. Pacific Beach had it all. The beach, the people, the buzz. To me, these three are inextricably linked.

So, it was to my surprise that in my first year here there was a vote to ban alcohol at the beaches. Noting the results that year – two-thirds of beach residents (Mission Beach, Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach) opposed the ban – I figured it was a moot point for many years to come.

Flashing forward just a few years, the same people who fought to get the ban on the ballot are trying every possible way to get us to forget the majority that voted. Through Town Council meetings and public forums this Noisy Minority now even has some people fooled. They are more clamorous and ostentatious. They know if they are more flagrant with their charges, they can silence the less-involved majority.

In deciding where to live, people chose the location based on the community. PB is not La Jolla, it is not downtown, it is PB, and there is no other place like it. Whether this is good or bad is the choice that people make when they decide to move here.

I can say that the quality of life is improving every year. But there is still more to be done. The Noisy Minority is inherently focused on the wrong issues. Sinkholes, sidewalks falling apart, homelessness – and all they can worry about is an alcohol problem, that according to the crime stats doesn't actually exist.

The more recent attacks have targeted our councilman, Kevin Faulkner. Faulconer has taken a stance that he sees as fair. I'm proud that he has taken a logical approach to improving PB, and has not taken the easy way out and run with the ban.

DREW McGUIRE
San Diego

Aguirre urges public debate on plan

Regarding “Now, the reckoning/City Council must act today on recovery plan” (Editorial, Sept. 6):

On Aug. 24, I was the first elected official to call for public hearings to be held on all remediation recommendations that our city may consider to restore our financial integrity. Public debate is part of our democratic process. So, it puzzles me that the Union-Tribune would depict my action as “obstructionist intervention.” Furthermore, the lack of openness at City Hall was also severely criticized in the $20.3 million Kroll report, which the U-T wholeheartedly embraced.

“The City's past practice of suppressing dissent and thoughtful discussion in the interest of expediency was an underlying cause of the challenges the City faces today,” said Kroll representatives at the Aug. 8 City Council meeting.

We must never forget this lesson.

MICHAEL AGUIRRE
San Diego City Attorney

The health care debate (cont'd)

I can't tell you how many ways I disagree with your “Say no, governor/Democrats seek state takeover of health care” Aug. 30 editorial on Senate Bill 840, which the governor said this week he will veto.

I will be brief and say that your statement, “Given the right tools, doctors and patients will fix health care,” seems to ignore the fact that patients have no input into how health care is run and that doctors are complaining right and left that health care does not pay them enough to see the patients they now service. I don't know what magic tools you think could be given to two groups that have practically no input into our health care system to fix the current dismal state it is in.

MARIA B. PENNY
San Diego

As co-director of the San Diego chapter of Health Care for All, I am writing to say that I laughed aloud at your editorial bringing aid and comfort to the for-profit health insurance companies who fear losing their big cash cow (healthy workers and businesses). But if you are so opposed to government single-payer health care systems, that means you are opposed to Medicare and the Veterans Affairs health system. Will we see a Union-Tribune editorial slamming those programs and calling for their demise? If the governor had said he was willing to sign Senate Bill 840, he would have been a hero to those who are falling through the cracks of our dysfunctional system – all the uninsured and under-insured who have been bilked by for-profit insurance companies.

I have Medicare, that efficient (only 3 percent administrative overhead compared with 30 percent for the private companies) great single-payer health system for all Americans over age 65 and believe everyone else should be enrolled in such a great program.

I choose my doctor and don't have to live in constant fear of getting sick or injured. Why, for goodness sake, would you be opposed to that? Are you afraid you will lose advertising revenues from insurance and drug companies?

SYLVIA HAMPTON
San Diego

Private industry has had many years to tackle health care problems. It has not. Why should we believe that the future will be any different? Are we to believe that this will just take care of itself? History has shown that private industry does not police itself.

TRAVIS CLEVELAND
San Diego

Seriously, the “right tool” for doctors and patients is adequate and affordable health insurance for every Californian, and private industry has been unable to deliver. The evidence is 6 million uninsured Californians, not to mention the countless underinsured.

The corporate takeover of health insurance has failed miserably. It is now time for the government to intercede, as it is the proper role of government to promote the general welfare. Bottom-line profits and health care are not compatible endeavors. Medicare has already demonstrated that government can efficiently and successfully provide health insurance to its citizens.

LAURA WELTS
San Diego

A poor word choice to describe issue

I was appalled by the strident editorializing in the news story about Escondido's attempt to compel landlords to not rent to illegal immigrants.

In “Escondido to pursue housing ordinance” (Local, Aug. 17), the Union-Tribune reported, “Escondido joins about a dozen other cities across the country, mainly in Pennsylvania and other parts of the East Coast, contemplating ways to circumvent the federal government and take on the problem of illegal immigration.” Escondido's dramatic bid is not to “circumvent” the federal government but rather to force the federal government to enforce the laws already on the books.

ROSALIE STAFFORD
National City