Affordable housing in the balance

Today, the Rancho Cordova City Council will make an important decision that will shape what kind of city we will grow to become one day.

Will we be one city that boasts a variety of housing opportunities for people on both sides of Highway 50 as thousands of homes are built in the coming years, or will we be two cities, separate and divided?

The story will go something like this: In 2008, Rancho Cordova City Council members had to choose how to respond to the need for safe, quality, affordable and accessible housing. Would they succumb to the pressure from some developers who have been encouraging a weak, watered-down affordable-housing plan, or would they take a stand as policy-makers and develop an affordable-housing program that creates housing choices for all?

We hope the latter is true and that the City Council will adopt an affordable-housing program that requires that at least 10 percent of new homes built are affordable. When the Rancho Cordova City Council meets today, we will find out the rest of the story.

– Ross Lefever, Rancho Cordova

Thanks for CPS reporting; keep it up

Re "CPS bound by law to uphold confidentiality" (Viewpoints, Dec. 12): I deeply admire Robert Tobin's work, but I think his op-ed criticizing The Bee's coverage of Child Protective Services omits important facts.

Tobin is right that those primarily responsible for child deaths are the parents or caretakers themselves. He's also right that families should be kept intact whenever possible because our underfunded foster-care system too often leads to awful outcomes, to our enduring, collective shame. Finally, he is right that overworked social workers who make decisions about removing children have incredibly tough jobs and, inevitably, tragedy without culpability will occur.

But a year ago Daelynn Forman died: aged 12, 25 pounds, wounds so gaping that bone could be seen, and CPS had visited her multiple times. Since then still more of our children have died or been abused after substantive contacts with CPS. CPS has been caught altering key documents, has stonewalled a grand jury and maybe misinterpreted the law on when siblings can be removed from dangerous homes.

Neither these facts nor the baffling pass-the-buck silence of the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors can be explained solely by the difficulty of CPS' job.

So keep digging, Bee. Please, keep digging. The lives of children in Sacramento County are at stake.

– Ed Howard, Sacramento

senior counsel, Children's Advocacy Institute

Magnets for depression?

Re "Magnets offering jolt out of dark" (Page A1, Dec. 9): The article about a novel device for treating depression fails to include an important detail: transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, remains a therapy of unproven effectiveness.

In the sole randomized, controlled trial conducted on this device, TMS conferred no benefit on the main measurement of depression the company had specified before the trial. This is why the Food and Drug Administration initially rejected TMS as a treatment for major depression.

Furthermore, the FDA's subsequent clearance of TMS to treat certain depressed patients (those who have failed one antidepressant) appears to hinge on an after-the-fact subset analysis of this trial, as alluded to in the article. This type of analysis is unreliable, often misleading and generally undertaken only to guide future research.

Moreover, such analyses are even less appropriate when there is no difference between groups in the full study, as was the case here. Clearance of this device based on discredited statistical techniques reflects poorly on the FDA, particularly if patients are diverted from clearly effective therapies.

– Jonas Hines and Peter Lurie, Washington, D.C.

How can we endure the GOP mind-set?

Re "GOP tactics put whole state at risk" (Editorial, Dec. 12): The Republican Party has demonstrated since the Reagan administration that the interests of the rich and powerful are always its top priority. The GOP talking heads in the Legislature similarly continue to bang their drums promoting their chants of "no new taxes" and preserving tax breaks for the rich.

How long must we endure these messages from these Republican merchants of privilege, greed, insensitivity, divisiveness and hopelessness? And what about the fate of our children and grandchildren?

– Kim King, Sacramento

Make lawmakers act like adults

To everyone in California, go to www.legislature.ca.gov, enter your ZIP code and locate your representative and senator. Click on their names and their Web sites will have a "contact" button or contact information. Go there, tell them what you want done.

My choice is one word, "negotiate." Do not represent party lines, represent the people of California. Grow up and act like an adult making tough choices. If your feelings get hurt, tough. Get the job done.

– Barry Wagner, Folsom