Bashing Raúl

It continues to confuse me why the Weekly takes every opportunity to bash Raúl Grijalva, when he is the elected official in the past few years who has best advanced the agenda of neighborhood protection, conservation and living wages that the Weekly touts in its news articles.

I have heard it said by some that this has to do with Grijalva's ethnicity. I don't buy that. It seems to be a couple of writers who confuse their own petty personal concerns with those of the broader community.

--Ted Prezelski

Kill the Messenger

James DiGiovanna should be killed, shot, maimed, quartered, drawn, burned alive and subjected to real and imaginary forms of torture for his sins against the movie-going public apparently (Mailbag, February 28). That's all cool with me, as long as I can still read what he has to write, maybe have a laugh or two at Hollywood's expense, then decide for myself what to see and what it was about.

--Wes Hooker

G String

The Skinny ("Sex Change in Oro Valley," February 28) correctly noted the journalistic gender switch that the Tucson Citizen pulled on Councilmember Fran LaSala. We are happy to report that the councilman is recuperating quite nicely and hopes to return to work as soon as the surgical dressing is metaphorically removed.

In the meantime, perhaps the Weekly should take note of its own "over-empowered nameless third stringer on the copy desk" who felt obliged to change the spelling of the name of one of Oro Valley's founders, James D. Kriegh. We intend to spell it correctly when it's posted on the new sign at James D. Kriegh Park.

--Bob Kovitz
Public Information Officer
Town of Oro Valley

Yuck

In the next few weeks Congress will vote on whether Yucca Mountain, Nevada (Hightower, February 28), is to become the nation's first high-level radioactive waste storage site. Our neighboring state doesn't deserve to be the nation's waste dump for some of the deadliest substances on Earth. Shipping nuclear waste across the country over rail and highways--passing by literally millions of homes and businesses--is far too risky.

The argument that citizens will be safer from terrorist attacks if we have only one nuclear waste facility is a dangerous falsehood. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires operating nuclear reactors to maintain on-site wet pools to store spent reactor fuel for five years before it can be transferred to on-site dry-cask storage. Hence, we are not closing the 80-plus high-level radioactive waste sites at reactors throughout the U.S. in order to create but one. Instead, we are maintaining those sites and are creating another very large one.

The reason for this deception is that the nuclear industry wants to build still more nuclear plants in this country, and its task will be much easier if it deceives the public into thinking that it has finally solved the problem of nuclear waste disposal.

The only real solution to the nuclear waste problem is to shut down all present reactors, to build no more and to maintain the already-generated tens of millions of pounds of waste in above-ground storage containers. Isn't it time that we face the facts and stop making this horrendous problem even worse?

--Libby Hubbard

Danehy a Casualty of War on Fraud

It's evident by the recent Tucson Weekly column, "Everybody's Doing It" (February 21), that your staff needs an update on facts about Wells Fargo's policies for cashing personal checks.

Wells Fargo customers and non-customers who seek to cash personal checks drawn on Wells Fargo accounts are able to do so--without paying a fee--at any Wells Fargo location as long they have valid personal identification. Contrary to what was reported in the Tucson Weekly, Wells Fargo does not charge and has never charged fees to cash personal checks drawn on Wells Fargo accounts. As long as the bearer of the check has valid identification with a photo and secondary identification such as a valid credit card, this type of transaction can be made simply and quickly.

Perhaps Tom Danehy confused our requirement for valid identification as a fee issue. If a person does not have valid identification, we cannot make the transaction. This is so that we can protect our customers, our company and fellow Wells Fargo team members against fraud--which is growing at an alarming rate. Consider these facts:

• More than 500 million fraudulent checks are passed each year.

• Check fraud costs businesses and consumers more than $18 billion each year.

• Advanced graphics technology such as desktop publishing make it increasingly difficult to detect fraudulent checks and phony identification.

We do our best to fight fraud and to catch crooks and fraudsters. Two of our the most effective means are asking for and verifying identification and verifying account information when we are making transactions. For example, is the person attempting to cash your $300 personal check who he says he is? Did you actually write the check for $30, rather than the $300.

Fraud is a tough and unrelenting challenge for all of us, and we've pledged to our customers that we will fight it at every turn. A major element in that battle is the requirement for valid identification. Our customers understand why we ask for identification--especially from people who are not our customers yet are seeking to cash Wells Fargo checks--and they expect and deserve this diligence.

--Andrea.I.Kearns
Assistant Vice President
Marketing and Community Relations
Wells Fargo

If the Hissy Fits

I suspect that your new disclosure policy (Chow, February 28) was precipitated by the huge hissy fit that Terra Cotta's owners probably had over their poor review. Since they have clout in this town, your succumbing to pressure indicates fear rather than a well-thought-out intellectual decision. Not that I think disclosure itself is wrong.

Now, let's give Diza Sauers a rousing cheer for having the courage to point out that the emperor has no clothes. We've basically stopped going to Terra Cotta, and when we do, order the pizza, since that's hard to mess up or scrimp on. The food has been on a steady decline for years. "Service" is a joke. We've had loud arguments over being placed at an undesirable table when the one we wanted was not reserved. When the wind blew over a wine glass, after we had chosen to sit outside, we were made to feel like naughty children. The management style is unfriendly and arrogant. Instead of throwing their weight around, the owners would do better to examine their operation from top to bottom, and remember that pleasing the customer is what the business is all about.

--Ann Fall