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,
    Eminent domain is Steve Adler's – the developers' dream candidate – specialty. Relatively isolated from the rest of the country until quite recently, Austin citizens may be unaware that, for decades, whole residential neighborhoods have disappeared due to eminent domain, and that most – whose residents had resisted for years – ended up losing their battle in the courts.
    Faced with the possibility of seeing Mr. Adler elected mayor of my city, I contemplate my little neighborhood's vulnerability, given its position between a commercial and a health-oriented area. Small houses do not bring big bucks in taxes. Compare that with what commercial buildings, hospitals and doctors' offices, condos, and apartments would bring, and it's a no-brainer.
    The really distressing feature of eminent domain is that the property owners end up as losers, because the city does not pay the kind of money that would allow for the dislocated residents to buy housing comparable to what they lost. Consider my case and ask: Where in Austin or the surrounding areas would I be able to find another two-bedroom/two-bath house that I could afford? The answer would probably be a trailer in Elgin.
    Unfortunately, Mr. Adler is the candidate with the funds and moneyed supporters who do not fail to vote en masse. It's time for the people of Austin to seriously think about their own future.

   [Editor's note: For the record, and not arguing the campaign issue, most of Adler's legal practice has been defending landowners' property interests in eminent domain cases.]

Dear Editor,
    Did Kevin Curtin seriously just write, "And yet, the festival's longest lines weren't chopped up on a mirror in any rock or rap star's trailer" in this week's cringeworthy Playback column [Music, Nov. 14]? I know everyone thinks this guy sucks, but this is seriously the worst line I think I've ever read about anything, anywhere, ever. Did you find this guy working at a head shop or something?

Dear Editor,
    I found this article interesting because I, unlike many people I know, actually voted for an AISD candidate [“Race-Based Voting,” News, Nov. 14]. Most people didn't know much about any of the candidates, so they didn't vote at all. For my part, I got some info from one newspaper article, I believe it was Community Impact, that gave a little info on each of the candidates, their backgrounds, and their positions. With so little to go on, I voted for candidates with experience as educators (as opposed to the candidates with only business experience). I had no idea that some of the candidates had dropped out by election day.
    If there is a worry that the ethnicity of the name is what affected the vote, maybe the press and the candidates should get out there and put out more information about who they are and why we should care about the AISD trustees.

Dear Editor,
    Once again, Anna Toon mischaracterizes, omits, and downright slanders me in her article [“Next Target: Springdale,” News, Nov. 14]. I have never said anything about shutting down any farm, just not true, and it has never been my or any other's intention in the neighborhood, just not true. What people want – 25 now, of the 33 households around Springdale Farm – is peace and quiet, and not to have some event with 100 to 300 people every weekend.
    The Chronicle has consistently distorted the real issue of zoning and continues to characterize Springdale as "poor us" and the neighbors as villains just trying to ruin the farms, always minimizing the adverse impact of non-farm-related events and insinuating any opposition as unjustified.
    No one has a problem nor have there been complaints with Boggy Creek, Rain Lily, or HausBar now that they have been forced to quit composting body parts in the backyard. That's what the urban farm ordinance rewrite was about.
    As to compromise, Springdale has not been willing to compromise at all, not one bit, not an inch, not now and not during the urban farm rewrite.
    You all write anything, true or not, and then you wonder why I don't want to grant interviews with the Chronicle. We'll see how much you distort this letter.

   [Anna Toon responds: If anyone is villainizing in this ongoing controversy, it's Daniel Llanes and company villainizing Springdale Farm, its patrons and supporters, and Eden East. Setting that aside, the petition opposing the Springdale zoning change includes misinformation – e.g., that Springdale is pursuing Restaurant Limited, which is no longer the case. Moreover, Springdale has indeed offered and requested compromises on events, timing, parking, noise, etc., both at the Planning Commission and the neighborhood meetings – all rejected by Llanes and company. Readers can judge for themselves who is distorting the issue.]