To offset the anticipated $30 million revenue shortfall in the city budget, it would seem an across-the-board salary cut is the most sensible because that is where most of the money is, and Palo Alto workers are pretty well-paid relatively speaking.

Steve Eittreim

Ivy Lane, Palo Alto

Housing and 'a little sacrifice'

Editor,

There's been a lot of hoorays online lately about how proud everyone is that our county's health officer, Dr. Sara Cody, is homegrown. Sara and I were born in the same year and attended the same Palo Alto schools Sara was then, and I assume is now, a lovely person. What a lot of people don't understand is that Dr. Cody, and many like her, is a product of an extraordinary place and time — a place (Palo Alto) and a time (the '70s) where there was an understanding of community responsibility and your responsibility to others and to the well-being of the planet. People look at Palo Alto today and think it's the extravagant houses that make it a desirable place to live. Nothing could have been further from the truth during the '70s. What made it desirable was the values. Dr. Cody, who pursued public health rather than a more lucrative field in medicine, is a perfect example of this.

Those values have all but disappeared. For several decades, all that Palo Alto residents seem to be able to ask is, "What's in it for me?" This is shameful, but it's also understandable. When the average dwelling costs several millions, $15,000 a month mortgage payments with $30,000 a year in taxes, self-protection and self-preservation dominate. The foundation of community is caring about others. Palo Alto will not regain its moral foundation until it starts to care about others. Right here and right now, caring about others means allowing enough housing to be built.

Deborah Goldeen

Birch Street, Palo Alto