Letters to the Editor: My relative Edward R. Roybal would be devastated by L.A.’s leadership today, but his wife, the former Jane Roybal, could not be more pleased by what she and her daughter, Sharon, have seen of Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa. My friend David L. Katz, the current chairman of the City of Beverly Hills School Board, would be happy now if only he could have chosen a chief executive who had the energy to lead the Los Angeles school system as rapidly as the mayor has.
My friend Donald A. Nelson would be happy to have chosen, at least for a time, a good, dedicated public servant who could have done more for the people of Beverly Hills as mayor.
I was, and am, disappointed and angry by the decision of the Los Angeles Times to publish today three letters to the editor, with a single accompanying letter signed by the mayor, which question some of the findings of the independent audit of the city’s school system.
The Los Angeles Times is a great newspaper in a free country of the world. When someone speaks out against the system of government as it is practiced in the United States, he, or she, is labeled an opponent of the free press. The same applies to the publisher of the Los Angeles Times. I am not a big reader of the Times, but I do subscribe, and I am happy to receive my newspapers of choice by mail. It used to be that in America a citizen could not freely express his or her dissatisfaction with the government, and could not challenge the official opinion of his or her government. This is a free country. The question of whether the Los Angeles Times is a free paper should not be an issue in this issue.
One of the first things I learned was to never trust anyone or anything. In my book that’s what I learned, and I have never forgotten that lesson. The same lesson applies, I believe, to the Los
