EDITOR,

In response to the Denese Matthes’ letter, posted Oct. 31:

Ms. Matthes’ characterization that Eric Hammer had anything to do with the closure of the Felton Teen Center is dead wrong. I was the program coordinator for the Teen Center Skate Park for more than five years. Hammer had left the board of directors some two years before the Teen Center’s collapse. Teen Center began to go downhill only after Hammer left.

In fact, nearly the entire original board who worked so hard to set up the center had also moved on. The rotating cast of people who replaced them was neither organized nor effective in their jobs, particularly when it came to leadership and fundraising.

This and the elimination of funding for after-school programs brought in by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger put the final nail in the coffin for the Felton Teen Center.

Christopher Wright, Ben Lomond