Christian
Arbid’s letter attacking community volunteers Mirna Stanley and Sharon Weisman was a nasty piece of
work (“What are Allen
critics’ credentials?” Wed., Jan. 21). Thank
you to Laurie
Collins for a well-written response (“Allen’s opponents are qualified
enough,” Fri., Jan. 23).
One of Arbid’s unreasonable
barbs was aimed at Weisman’s comments at the Dec. 16 City Council meeting. Weisman’s
letter “Clarifying
writer's false remarks on critics” (Sat., Jan. 24) invited readers to
judge for themselves by listening to her statement that begins at
For the “turn lemons into lemonade” file, I
can see one beneficial result from Arbid’s unwarranted
attack against these two excellent community volunteers. It may make more people consider Weisman’s well-reasoned
Dec. 16 statement about city employee salaries. Not only does she make it clear why Barry
Allen’s vilifying public employees based on their salary amount is
counterproductive for our community; she also offers some positive suggestions
to improve the local status quo.
I assume that, in addition
to the salaries
of Glendale firefighters and other city workers, Barry Allen is also aware of
facts about, for example, hedge fund managers. Average compensation for the top 25 hedge fund
managers was $892 million in 2007, per Bloomberg.com. John Paulson,
number one on that list, made an estimated $3.7 billion in 2007. His fund made money by betting on the collapse
of subprime mortgages. That’s the kind of compensation that I
consider unacceptable.