Dear Editor: I just witnessed the Downey Fire Department retrieve a remote-controlled glider plane from a pine tree along the sidewalk by Griffiths Middle School.

At first when the fire department pulled up with the ladder truck, I thought cat in the tree, maybe a child climbed the tree and couldn’t get down. But no. Someone flying a remote-controlled glider had flown it into the tree.

So my question is, how much of the city of Downey’s taxpayer dollars went to retrieving this toy? I realize that these “toys” are expensive and definitely not to be compared to a balloon or a kite caught in a tree. But I, as a Downey taxpayer, would rather see the equipment that my tax dollars helped purchase go to saving lives (either human or animal) than some high-priced toy. I realize that to the person who owned the plane it was well worth the firefighters’ time and effort to retrieve his plane. But I cannot help but think that the firefighters’ time could have been better spent saving a life, or at least resting in between life-threatening emergency calls.

But I guess since I do not own any remote-controlled planes, it is not my call to say what is a life-threatening emergency. And since we have the equipment at our disposal, might as well make some use of it, right?

In closing, I would just like to state that hopefully these firefighters did not waste precious time that cost someone their own, or a loved one’s, life.

Kathy McLeish Downey