Letters

Do Independent Study of Las Olas Isles
Thanks for your article that points to the true problems of pollution in the Las Olas Isles ("There Goes That Theory Down the Toilet," Lucy Chabot, June 4).

After being wrong for six years the DNRP (Department of Natural Resource Protection) should accept the fact that the pollution problem has not been solved. It is about time the DNRP bites the bullet and funds an independent scientific study of the pollution of Las Olas Isles. The DNRP refused to provide the funds for a scientific study in June 1996 and relied on their technical study, which has proven to be wrong.

After all is said and done, it looks like the money for such a study will be coming from the taxpayers who want clean water. Isn't that really the issue, and not who's to blame?

Frank Sobchak
Fort Lauderdale

Headline Showed "Antiunion Bias"
After reading Paul Belden's article on the efforts of the Kitchens of the Ocean's employees to organize legally ("United They Fall," May 28), I realized that the person assigning the title had not read the article and could not hide his antiunion bias. There was no mention in the article of the union, or the employees for that matter, having done anything wrong. To the contrary, it stated that negotiations seemed to have been going well. So why the headline? A more appropriate headline would have been, "Company Shirks Corporate Responsibility and the Law to Move Sweatshop to Jacksonville."

If a company can so blatantly but quietly break the law and then earn being described as "sensible," as your headline states, then the rights that our ancestors fought for in this country are slipping away. When places of employment return to the untenable working conditions of the past, a return to '60s-style activism should come as no surprise. After all, millions of us grew up actually believing it when we pledged "liberty and justice for all."

Karen A. Shelly
Lighthouse Point

Not Evil, Just Greedy
Your article "United They Fall" and its accompanying illustration are pathetic. In matters such as this, your magazine should stay neutral. If anything, you are giving the impression that your paper is antiunion, which is most likely true. Kitchens of the Oceans President Brad Margus asks, "Am I really an evil person?" I don't think his employees see him as Satan, but because of his greed, he caused them to lose their livelihoods by relocating to Jacksonville. I hope when he gets there, he gets unionized.

William Dmytrow
Lake Worth