Letters are posted as we receive them during the week, and before they are printed in the paper, so check back frequently to see new letters. If you'd like to send a letter to the editor, use this postmarks submission form, or email your letter directly to [email protected]. Thanks for your patience.

Dear Editor,
    Reading about what is happening at Allan Elementary School was heartbreaking [“Farewell to Allan,” News, June 1]. The appalling disrespect for the people in the area is utterly disgusting.
    Meria Carstarphen is an awful school superintendent who needs to go. As a nonparent, I often haven't been too concerned or knowledgeable about school board elections, but all of us need to get out in the next election and vote carefully for the school board members. In that way, we can increase the number of members who will oppose bad plans like IDEA, and hopefully we can eventually get rid of the superintendent.

Dear Editor,
    The recent review of For Greater Glory [Film Listings, June 1], a film about the Cristero religious rebellion in Western Mexico in the late Twenties, contained several significant inaccuracies. I do not fault the reviewer in the slightest. No doubt the film itself presents myth as fact.
    The 1926 laws that provoked the rebellion did not prohibit Catholicism. What the president did, in addition to declaring that existing laws would be enforced, was to charge municipal authorities with administering churches, and require priests to register with the government. Certainly, the government intended to exercise more control over the Catholic Church, a long-cherished dream of Mexican reform movements. But it did not prohibit Catholicism or its priests. The Mexican bishops decided that priests would no longer officiate within local church buildings, in effect closing them. Enrique Gorostieta did take the uncoordinated guerrilla bands that subsequently rose in arms and made them into an effective military force, but his previous "war heroism" consistented largely of fighting on behalf of the military dictatorship that toppled an elected government in 1913. Most historians consider Ambassador Dwight Morrow to have been genuinely interested in peace. He brought together the bishops who had strong misgivings about the rebellion and had the support of the Vatican with a new president, appointed because the elected one had been assassinated by the Cristeros.
    The Cristeros took up arms first, with riots, assassinations, and extrajudicial executions. There is no doubt that the government responded with extreme force, including torture, assassination, and concentration camps.
    But I knew families while in Mexico who had tales of the Cristeros. A grandfather hanged for refusing to give them food. A teenage girl hunted for having a government family. A 10-year-old whose Cristero father refused to let them take his son to be a soldier. A priest who refused to intervene in the execution of a childhood friend, whose crime was to work for the government before the Cristeros took up arms.
    Yes, the rebels rose in arms because they believed their beliefs were threatened. And there is no question that the government intended to weaken the church. But by choosing to take up arms and use them against innocent people, the Cristeros betrayed the faith that they claimed to serve. Not greater glory. Not lesser glory. No glory at all.

Dear Editor,
    Your “save the trees!” story stating that Trammell Crow will be allowed to remove seven protected trees from the Green Water Treatment Plant site Downtown shows yet again how inconsistent tree protection measures are in this town [“Then There's This: Save the Trees!,” News, June 1].
    I am a certified arborist, and in the course of my work often have to deal with the permit process for tree removal, which for those who don't know, requires a permit even to remove a dead tree. While I support the process and think that it is fairly administered by the city, it sends the wrong message when, according to your story, a big developer will be basically exempted from the process (apparently by virtue of the council vote) while the average homeowner could never be.
    Think back to the Barton Springs Pool tree debacle of just a few years ago. We had the city itself ready to axe 29 supposedly hazardous trees around the pool. After some protest from the public, the number dropped to four – yet only 15 of the 29 received any additional inspection. So how did 14 trees magically become "safe"? This shows how flawed the process is. As former chair of the city's Urban Forestry Board, I can attest to that.
    I ask all citizens who care about trees to contact City Council and demand either that the development plan preserve the trees on site, or as the woman quoted in your article, Zoila Vega, suggests, moving them as a last ditch alternative. Very large trees have been successfully moved in Austin several times in the past. 

Dear Editor,
    In response to the Austin City Council and its push for taxes via bond packages.
    Urgent to Texas voters and taxpayers: Regarding bond issues there is one equation that never changes: bond packages = increased property taxes.
    The public should learn it well and memorize it.
    Do Austin and Travis County residents really need a City Council that opts to approve two bond packages along with the regular annual property value tax increases? Three increases in one year? Really?

Dear Chronicle folks,
    Myself and my family want to thank everyone, especially the staff and readers of The Austin Chronicle, for your sympathy and support during the illness and passing of my daughter Traci Lamar Hancock. We are all okay now.
    In her memory we'll celebrate her life June 12 at Fred and Lori's Shady Springs Party Barn – 9401 Sherman Rd., 385-4590 – from 3 'til 9pm. Bring whatever you want, especially food and swim stuff. www.shadyspringspartybarn.com.
    In lieu of flowers please donate to the Health Alliance of Austin Musicians and/or Hospice Austin.