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URBAN SPACE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding the story “Five Story Complex Set for Edge of Downtown” (May 16-18 edition):  

I can’t even begin to imagine the uproar that would be caused if someone proposed to tear down a 190-unit building to replace it with a Kragen Auto Parts. Patrick Kennedy is proposing the opposite, and yet it seems that for John Kenyon the glass will be forever half-empty. Writing in a city that has the luxury of having one of the few thriving downtowns in the United States, your correspondent exhibits a peculiarly suburban mentality, as evidenced by statements such as the “five-floor cliff of stores and apartments sited right up against the Martin Luther King, Jr. Way sidewalk.” You have only to go to Fillmore Street in San Francisco to appreciate what great urban spaces this scale of development can create. 

Yann Taylor 

Field Paoli Architects 

San Francisco 

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3045 SHATTUCK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank you for your article on my neighborhood’s struggle to get a public hearing on 3045 Shattuck Ave. I would like to offer a couple of clarifications. 

It’s true that neighbors’ complaints about the project date back to last June, when Christina Sun demolished the basement, but our campaign to get a hearing didn’t start until two months ago, when the remaining portion of the house was jacked up to the third-floor level. Prior to that, no one in the neighborhood had a clue that the building was going to be raised more than two feet, that its footprint would be expanded or that the backyard would be paved over for use as a parking lot. Sun’s original permit described only replacing the foundation and building out part of the basement as living space, retaining one of the two existing garage spaces. 

Jill Peterson, a former tenant of Sun’s at 3045 Shattuck, told the Zoning Adjustments Board that Sun told her she wanted to turn it into a “dorm-like situation.” The article mistakenly characterizes that as my description of the project. I describe the project as a six- to 10-bedroom, four-bath group living accommodation designed to be easily converted into two separate flats. 

Robert Lauriston 

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DILEMMA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

David and Lisa Sundelson have more than one dilemma with their trip to join the Yale reunion, but first, I hope that David met his friend Betty at the picket line at the Claremont. Doesn’t he know that there is a labor dispute going on there? 

Second, if he and the Missus are going to pay $300 for their White House picnic, do they know where that money is going? One might be too polite to ask, but just because it’s in the front yard doesn’t mean that the White House isn’t being used for shady purposes again. 

And third, what should Lisa wear? A nicely tailored pink dress might be just the thing! David could borrow a tasteful matching tie from Kriss ... 

Edith M Hallberg 

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RE-ELECT GORE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Numerous letters to the Daily Planet offering suggestions to the Democratic Party on who might be a good candidate to beat President Bush in 2004 underscore the Progressive community’s concerns that as the media portrays it, Bush is unbeatable. 

One seriously developing possibility for the Democrats to think about is that Al Gore, with grass-roots support, could be persuaded to reconsider running. With this end in mind, on Flag Day, June 14, there is going to be a huge Al Gore support rally in an amphitheater in Nashville, Tenn., where he now lives. People are coming from all over the country. Senators Byrd, Harkin and Kennedy are planned speakers and people will be sending e-mails and carrying placards bearing the names and faces of those who cannot travel to Tennessee. 

It has been rumored in political circles that Al Gore abruptly dropped out of the 2004 presidential race not because he’d lost the will to run again but because the leadership in the DNC and DLC offered him lukewarm support for a re-election bid when he denounced Bush’s Iraq policy in San Francisco at the Commonwealth Club on Sept. 23, 2002, before any current Democratic candidate denounced Bush’s Iraq war. 

Eric Alterman, a prominent media scholar, in his widely regarded new book “What Liberal Media,” goes into great detail about how the conservative right—with the cooperation of the major media—character assassinated Al Gore to the extent that even some Democrats thought he ran a poor race. 

In fact, with only a fraction of the millions the Republicans had and the media stacked against him, Al Gore got more votes in 2000 than nearly any Democratic candidate in history. It is not widely reported, but right now Al Gore is way ahead of any of the nine current Democratic candidates in both New Hampshire and Iowa. And he’s far and away ahead in CNN polls as still the most winnable candidate against Bush. 

Al Gore is the only truly “presidential” Democratic candidate who can put in question Bush’s legitimacy as Karl Rove’s carefully crafted commander in chief. 

Democrats need to come up with a stunning out-of-the-box, under-the-radar strategy if they hope to defeat a vastly right-wing funded, post-911 George Bush. The Democrats’ restoring Al Gore to his rightful place as the leader of the Democratic Party would really cause the White House to go on the defensive. 

As Eric Alterman says in his book: “Annoy the Media: Re-elect Al Gore.” 

Maureen Farrell