Dear Editor,

Will City of Gilroy follow City of Vallejo into bankruptcy court? Will the Bankruptcy Judge for City of Gilroy's bankruptcy case decide, as Bankruptcy Judge McManus did for City of Vallejo, that city can nullify its labor agreements with public section unions?

Joe Thompson, Gilroy

Wonderful physical program for girls in the Gilroy schools

Dear Editor,

I was pleased after reading "Let's hear it for the girls." I am glad that Gilroy has involvement with a group whose purpose is to help young girls stay active.

As mentioned in the article, child obesity is a growing issue not only in our country, but in our county as well. The Bay Area Women's Sports Initiative is doing a great thing with the young girls in our city. These sessions that are being held for elementary school girls are critical. Young girls are very impressionable and teaching them ways to stay active and healthy are habits that they can carry throughout their lives.

BAWSI has done well in removing the competitiveness from the team as a whole, creating a fun and welcoming environment for young girls to learn.

Nichole Parker, Gilroy

Another take on the subprime mortgage mess and responsibility

Dear Editor,

Cynthia Walker is ill-informed on the causes of the subprime mortgage mess and more interested in pushing her message of racism and discrimination. By far, the majority of subprime mortgages made were not Community Reinvestment Act loans. Lending institutions made loans to many people who could never pay them back and were motivated by the high fees they earned on subprime loans.

Before the Community Reinvestment Act, many banks refused to make loans in inner cities, a practice known as red-lining. The Community Reinvestment Act helped change that by requiring lending institutions which receive FDIC insurance to make loans to qualified buyers in those areas, consistent with sound lending practices. Had banks adhered to sound under writing practices for all types of property loans, we would not find ourselves in this housing and banking meltdown.

Perhaps Cynthia would prefer to go back in time when it was not illegal for banks to refuse to consider the earnings of married women for home loans or when sellers could legally restrict the sale of their property to caucasians only.

Warren Seifert, Gilroy

Morgan Hill prostitution sting points to horrid slavery problem

Dear Editor,

It is extremely encouraging (although sad) to hear of the arrests in Morgan Hill in the prostitution sting. Hopefully it will help people realize that this is not just about prostitution, but about a far bigger problem in the United States: human trafficking, i.e. slavery.

There are an estimated 100,000 people living in slavery in the United States today, most of whom are sexual slaves. (Anti-slavery International estimate.) Every 10 minutes a woman or child is trafficked into the United States for prostitution (from Central Intelligence Agency statistics).

These trafficking victims unwilling provide almost 50 percent of all prostitution and sexual services in America. The more prostitution sting operations occur, the more justice will be served for the women and children who's lives are being destroyed by slavery in the United States.

Even more important to stopping human slavery is for the public to be aware, so the traffickers will have a harder time operating. There are 27 million people trapped in slavery world wide. Slavery is the defining moral issue of our time, everyone needs to do their part to stop the injustice and stop the slavery.

Krista Guardino, Morgan Hill

But will our governments have the political courage to cut back?

Dear Editor,

Every few years the business cycle takes a downturn. Each time this happens our elected officials are surprised at the lack of revenue. Many tears are shed as pet programs are cut. We have even gone so far as to float bonds to cover the deficit. This practice passes the debt on to our children and grandchildren.

Our state government is a good example of this foolish practice. With the advent of the mortgage scandal a more severe downturn is upon us.

Depending on whom you believe the business cycle will last from 18 months to several years. Regardless of who wins the presidential race we will have some rough years ahead of us.

The question is: Are our elected officials smart enough to scale back?

Keith C. De Filippis, San Jose.

A word for those who would strike against Saint Louise Hospital

Dear Editor,

With people losing their jobs every day, they should be lucky they have a job.

They should fire them all and hire people who will appreciate having a job in these hard times.

James Chamberlin, Gilroy