The City Council resolution has had a negative effect on the merchants along Shattuck and University Avenue. This Council action is yet another instance where the concerns of the business community have been ignored. I suggest that among the long-term effects are a reduction in number of consumers willing to shop downtown, increasing difficulty in filling already empty storefronts; possible failure of some currently viable retail businesses; and reluctance of developers to undertake the very projects which we all hope will contribute to the further revival of the Downtown. There are many other ways in which the council can forcefully state its opposition to the war. Not all, however, need to impose such a high price on the very community the Council has been elected to nourish and protect.

Mark McLeod

Downtown Berkeley Association

To the City Council-Let me say this as clear: You're wrong. It is a great insult to me and all the men and women in uniform, because what you are saying is that we made the wrong decision with our lives. I refuse to believe that. You are saying to the youth, "Don't make the same mistake these people made." I find it insulting not only to my fellow Marines, but also to the students this resolution was designed to protect. To suggest that the students of your prized university are somehow not able to make rational decisions about a career in the military is insulting.

Those Marine recruiters are not just recruiters; they are Marines who live by the motto "Honor, Courage, and Commitment." How can you slap me in the face and then say you "support your troops"? Those recruiters are your troops.

Corporal Sean Thomas Stutzman San Francisco

The Berkeley government has once again made us the laughing stock of the country. Once again they are saying out there, liberals and conservatives alike, "only in Beserkeley." Other liberals chuckle and get vicarious thrills when Beserkeley acts out, but they run their own communities much more sensibly.

I have lived in Berkeley for 39 years and am appalled at the extremes to which our local government is pushed by certain segments of the local population, outsiders who swoop in with their agendas, and some of our local officials. As our grandiose pronouncements multiply our local quality of life is deteriorating. To be so hypocritical to denounce war and at the same time promote the use of force to prevent people from entering into the recruiting station is one reason you have lost the respect of your community.

Barbara Gilbert

Berkeley

Tags: RECRUITMENT