Letters to the Editor

No devious tricks were used

Editor,

In his letter to the editor about Melvin Carter (Letters, May 20), Douglas Smith blames attorney Tom Nolan's "devious tricks" for allowing Carter to be released. Apparently, the intensity of Smith's feelings about Carter's crimes has blinded him to the facts of Mr. Carter's criminal case.

Nolan did not use devious tricks to set Carter loose. Carter pled guilty to all charges against him.

Nolan did not use devious tricks to get Carter a light sentence. The Alameda County prosecutor handling the case offered Carter a 25- to 30-year sentence. Mr. Carter accepted the offer. The late judge Martin Pulich imposed a 25-year sentence.

Nolan did not use devious tricks to get Carter released early. Carter served the period of incarceration required by California law. The prosecutor and the judge understood all along that Carter would be entitled to work/study and good time credits that would cause him to be released well before 25 years of actual incarceration.

Even more troubling than Smith's blaming Tom Nolan is his demagogic attack on "attorneys like Tom Nolan." Nolan and thousands of other criminal defense attorneys protect all of us from the lynch mob hysteria that takes hold in a community faced with violent crime. It takes courageous and aggressive advocates like Nolan to make sure that an individual as despised as Melvin Carter is treated fairly in the courts.

Quiet or noisy 1994?

Editor,

The 1994 concert season from Shoreline Amphitheatre began this month. The question is, will it be a quiet or a noisy summer for neighboring cities? For the past eight years, beginning in 1986 when the amphitheater first opened, more than 5,000 noise complaints have been made with the police department. Citizens from Palo Alto, Mountain View and Sunnyvale (in Santa Clara County) and Menlo Park and East Palo Alto (in San Mateo County) living on more than 120 different city streets, have voiced their displeasure with excessive and unwanted noise traveling up to five miles to their homes, yards and neighborhoods.

We hope this year will prove exceptional with Mountain View serving as the host city providing the leadership and determination to address and solve this long-standing and widespread community noise issue. Much may have been done in the past, but it hasn't seemed to have worked. What more needs to be done may be up to the architects, acoustical engineers and amphitheater management, or by default, city councils, city staffs and others.

Noise from railroads, trucks, motorcycles, leaf blowers and other possible unwanted sounds seem to come and go fairly quickly; the difference with Shoreline Amphitheater is the sounds often begin early evening and stay for hours. This intrusion into one's home is frustrating. It seems appropriate to hope for 1994 becoming the first year of many to provide a reasonable level of peace and quiet.

Go to the hospital

Editor,

The Urgent Care Center at the Palo Alto Medical Clinic, in my experience, may not be a good treatment choice for medical conditions that are life-threatening.

Here is a short description of my experience. Recently, a 71-year-old neighbor went to the Urgent Care Center three times within a four-day period complaining of one- to two-hour episodes of acute, excruciating, unbearable pain and chronic, dull pressure inside her rib cage. Each time, the Urgent Care Center sent the patient home with medication. Ten days prior to these events, the patient had visited her primary physician at the Palo Alto Medical Clinic for shortness of breath and chest pain. When I attended this patient during one of the acute pain episodes, I observed and heard her describe classic heart attack symptoms. (I am an informed citizen, but not a medical professional.) During her third visit to the Urgent Care Center, an urgent appeal was made for hospitalization, but the staff denied this request.

When the fourth pain episode occurred (just five hours after the patient's last visit to the Urgent Care Center), I took the patient to Emergency at Stanford Hospital, where, within minutes, she was admitted and subsequently diagnosed with a heart attack (myocardial infarction). Soon after, she underwent an angioplasty to open completely and partially closed arteries.

My recommendation? If your chest hurts, go directly to a hospital.

How about the sidewalks?

Editor,

I caught a little article on the radio news yesterday while driving. This article mentioned that Palo Alto will send out inspectors to review each property in town for landscaping that is in view of our city's guests. This is a good idea now because of the numbers of visitors from all over the world arriving to witness the world champion soccer matches.

When we review these lawns and gardens we must remember that many conscientious citizens of this city are very drought-conscious and might have a dry lawn. These folk should clean up weeds, but not be cited for a brown landscape.

The neighborhood where I live will pass inspection for landscaping without any embarrassment. We are proud of our houses and gardens, but we are not proud of our sidewalks. The sidewalks in Midtown look like the sidewalks of a ghost town in front of live and beautiful properties.

I am all for those city inspectors. They must point out all of the uglies in town, even if the ugly happens to be the responsibility of the city.

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