Dear Editor:

I write concerning your editorial of 4/23/09 “Same-sex or not, nepotism is still nepotism” and the publishers of HillQuest’s decision to pull the Hillcrest Business Association (HBA) advertising from the back cover of the next HillQuest.

Your editorial neglects to point out that as part of the agreement HillQuest was planning on providing seven pages of editorial content for free to promote the activities and history of the Business Association. The advertising proposal was a great deal, in a “one of a kind” publication and its cancelation is a genuine loss for our organization. We had planned to advertise our popular Farmers Market and Tuesday Nite Out promotion. The HBA has procedures to ensure a conflict of interest does not exist. We followed these procedures and to date no one has contradicted the fact that the rules were followed. You point out as much in your editorial. It was the reasoned decision of the HBA board to move ahead with this proposal rather than, as you suggest, the machinations of two of its members.

My frustration is that the GL Times is criticizing the publishers of HillQuest for impropriety while in fact at the mere mention of impropriety they canceled the advertising in question. How were they improper when the advertising was canceled? They also canceled the donation of editorial space. This offer of editorial content is the type of contribution to the community that your article suggests they should consider making. Membership in a business association means that you give time, money and talent to the community, and that when the community benefits so does your business.

It is only a critical heart that makes one see community generosity as nepotism. Nepotism can exist in neighborhoods, but that is why we have rules, rules which the HBA and the publishers of HillQuest followed.

Yours sincerely,

Benjamin Nicholls, Executive Director

Dear Editor:

In response to your editorial of April 16th, “Coming Clean”, The Board of Directors of Stepping Stone is indeed saddened by the recent death of an Enya House resident. We wish to express our heartfelt condolences to his family and friends.

As volunteers who serve on the Board of Directors of Stepping Stone, we question your decision to use a suicide as a reason to express your less than fact-based opinions critical of Stepping Stone and its new CEO, John de Miranda.

Mr. de Miranda, along with a Stepping Stone Board member, Hans Gienapp, met with you prior to April 16th in an attempt to explain the relevant facts leading up to one man’s decision to end his life in a Pt. Loma hotel room. The Times, it appears, chose to take certain facts, and ignore others, to justify its preconceived conclusion that Stepping Stone bears responsibility for failing to prevent this suicide.

Stepping Stone was established in 1976 to provide alcohol and drug treatment services, primarily to the GLT community. During the 70’s and 80’s, the agency relied primarily on volunteers to provide counseling services, many of whom were recovering alcoholics and/or drug addicts who did not all have counseling credentials.

Over the years, Stepping Stone has developed high quality programs for which it has received national recognition. Because of county contractual requirements, as well as our ethical obligations to clients, we have also changed from an all-volunteer agency to one that maintains, in addition to volunteers, a paid clinical staff.

In more recent years, Stepping Stone has experienced a number of growing pains – issues that have developed not only due to growth, but also due to the lack of a CEO. Beginning in 2005, the Board, with the able assistance of a professional consultant who volunteered his time, was able to retain an extraordinarily well-qualified candidate for the position of CEO of Stepping Stone. John de Miranda has been with us for not quite one year, and has established Stepping Stone as a nationally-recognized leader in the delivery of alcohol and drug services to the gay, lesbian and transgender populations. He has obtained significant grants for Board Development, Strategic Planning and fund-raising. He is a tireless worker who has the full support and trust of the Board of Directors.

During the past year, the Board has actually increased its numbers. We continue to seek qualified individuals willing to serve. We strive to maintain transparency, but must respect the privacy right of our clients and personnel. Stepping Stone’s books are audited both by the County of San Diego and an independent CPA firm each year. We publish financial information on our website.

We look forward to a bright future. Stepping Stone needs financial and volunteer support from the community it serves. Please consider sending a tax-deductible donation or applying for a volunteer position. Information is on our website at www.SteppingStoneSD.org.

Sincerely yours,

Board of Directors Stepping Stone, Inc.

Bill Hargreaves, Pete Stafford, Hans Gienapp, Monica Bradley, David Jones, Terrie Best, Dario Jones, Tom Riese, Wayne Back and Paul Somerset

Dear Editor:

As long time community activists, volunteers and publishers of HillQuest we take exception with the GLT editorial.

Gay & Lesbian Times missed the point. Our actions were not in question. The HBIA board’s actions were called into question by a disgruntled board member.

Here is a clarification of a few of the inaccuracies.

GLT suggests that we had convenient knowledge that purchases under $5,000 are not required to go out for bid. The fact is that the ad cost of $4,800 (for twelve months exposure) has been printed on HillQuest’s rate sheets going back to 2006. This is the equivalent of $400 a month. A quarter page black and white ad published once in GLT at their open rate is $350.

The Marketing Committee of the HBIA asked us about purchasing an ad on the back cover. Our original proposal was for the organization to place the same business card size ad as last year. We abstained from the vote at the marketing committee level as well as at the meeting of the full board.

GLT suggests that we were pressured to pull the ad. In fact, we made the decision to return the money and pull the ad in order to relieve the board from further scrutiny from the city.

As residents of Hillcrest and business owners in a neighborhood we love, we’ve donated dozens of pages to stories about the HBIA and other community organizations.

Readers who would like to see the letter read to the HBIA board from HillQuest may read it at www.HillQuest.com.

Nancy Moors & Ann Garwood

Publishers of HillQuest

Dear Editor:

In 1960, prominent gay author Gore Vidal ran for Congress in upstate New York.

He was known back then as the first American author to publish a book about a homosexual love affair, The City and the Pillar, in 1948. Vidal was related to the Kennedys and he was asked by them to run for office. His gayness was common knowledge to friends, readers, and tv and the Broadway Stage. In 1959, he wrote the script to Suddenly, Last Summer, the first American movie to deal with the hitherto banned subject of homosexuality. In 1981, I interviewed Vidal as he was running for the U.S. Senate. He told me then he never hid his sexuality from voters. Vidal campaigned in 1960 with first lady Eleanor Roosevelt at his side.

I was 18 at the time and admired him for his bravery in running. He didn’t want his gayness to distract from this important campaign and that was the right thing to do in 1960. Nicole Murray refers to one Jose Julio Sarria as the “first openly gay candidate to run for public in 1961.” Sarria was a militant drag queen who finished 11th – while Gore was second – and was never a serious candidate.

Even today, transvestites have yet to win public office. Now, however, he’s being resurrected by others for exploitation like Nicole to promote their agenda.

I have never seen Sarria and for such a historical figure, why not? Like the Harvey Milk Club and the street named after Brad Truax...this Sarria concoction as “the first” is just another Nicole invention.

Gore Vidal remains “the first” as the political record records...not Sarria as presented in a gossip column. Nicole can hand out all the trophies he likes. How about one to him as San Diego’s most esteemed writer of fiction?

Thank You,

John Primavera

Dear Editor:

Thank you Diane Witkowski for your astute Creep of the Week choice: Justice Antonin Scalia. Barney Frank was characteristically fearless and totally accurate in calling out Scalia as a homophobe. In fact Barney didn’t go far enough in exposing this errant knave who has disgraced our highest Court for far too long. Scalia is not just a homophobe on the bench. He has arrogantly displayed his anti-gay prejudices in public, even when he is supposedly dispassionately deciding Court cases crucial to LGBT equality. For example, in a 2004 op-ed, “Beyond the Duck Blind”-the title refers to Scalia’s cozy hunting trips with VP Cheney-the staid NYT described how Scalia “delivered a speech to a $150-a-plate dinner of an anti-gay advocacy group in Philadelphia even as the Supreme Court was deliberating in the Texas sodomy case last year.” It’s hardly surprising that he voted against our constitutional rights in Lawrence and Romer as Ms. Witkowski describes. There have also been reports that Scalia will not allow tape or video recording of his public addresses, apparently for very good reason. Maybe GLT could initiate another feature, Creep of the Week to Impeach? Antonin Scalia is my first choice for impeachment.

Dear Editor:

Perhaps instead of friends of Ann Garwood’s and Nancy Moors’ and readers loyal to the paper continue to trade barbs in cyberspace on the G&L Times website, how about the editor invites the entrepreneurs to the office for a story interview regarding the Hillcrest Business Improvement Association and how all parties might move forward to benefit the neighborhood in partnership with the Hillcrest Town Council and community at large?

And perhaps part of that resolution would be to donate the sum mentioned in the paper’s editorial – in cash and not in-kind – to a worthy community nonprofit benefiting the less fortunate folks in Hillcrest, eh?

Dear Editor:

Regarding, your editorial on the Hillcrest Business Association and the Hillcrest Town Council, “Same-sex or not, nepotism is still nepotism”, what does the GLT expect of these ELECTED, UNPAID, VOLUNTEERS, to stop doing business in Hillcrest? Abstaining from the HBIA vote wasn’t good enough?

As members of the Hillcrest community, I would like to know exactly how much of their own time have the GLT editors and staff donated to these organizations? I don’t recall seeing any of their names on the recent Hillcrest Town Council ballot.