Opinion: In Thursday’s Letters to the editor
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In Thursday’s Letters to the editor, readers comment further on the departure of Los Angeles Schools Supt. David L. Brewer, who announced this week he would leave his job--with a severance package worth over half a million dollars. Tom Iannucci, of Los Angeles, sums up the tone of much of the mail The Times received about Brewer:
Once again, the students of the Los Angeles Unified School District lose out. Just how many field trips, textbooks, computers and other much-needed educational supplies could more than $517,000 have provided for the underserved students of the district? How many teachers or classroom aids could be provided for the most at-risk students? In this time of extreme financial crisis for the school system, throwing away half a million dollars to force out Los Angeles Schools Supt. David L. Brewer just doesn’t add up.
But the superintendent does have his defenders. David Gillespie of Bonita, responds to this Times editorial on Brewer’s severance:
I wish I had known Brewer before he took the superintendent job. I would have advised him against seeking or taking it. The position is impossible. It is the perfect storm of parochial interests, petty politics, ethnic and racial animosities, white flight, poverty, immigration failures, outside interference, crushing bureaucracy, incompetent managers, overwhelming and unmanageable size and a school board of nebulous ability beholden to a maze of outsiders. It was a no-win for Brewer the day he started. Now people of lesser abilities have put him into a humiliating downward spiral. Brewer has offered the honorable thing for all concerned -- including himself -- in leaving the position. But by contract he is entitled to the severance promised, and he should not back down. It is not dishonorable to demand the full severance. The school board should have thought out Brewer’s dismissal and accomplished it quietly and without rancor, but it didn’t. Brewer should stick to his guns.
Readers write in about Obama’s economic plans, this week’s Marine jet crash in San Diego. Daniel J. Lubin, of Rancho Palos Verdes, offers a suggestion for Tribune CEO Sam Zell, too:
Everything we’ve waited to discover about Sam Zell is revealed in the last paragraph of his letter announcing the bankruptcy: ‘ ... we’ve reduced costs, gained market share, and laid the groundwork for creating a new business model.’ That he’d rank reducing costs first, above all else, says it all. So, Mr. Zell, to reduce costs, how’s about selling The Times to local ownership?