Letters to the Editor 6-26-14

Support library tax
Editor: How have reductions in staffing and hours of operation of the Sonoma County Library affected you? The cuts started in 2011 after the Bush Administration/Wall Street collapse of 2008 and 2009 caused mandatory across-the-board funding reductions.
The library’s operating hours of 52 hours per week were sliced to 40 hours per week. Attendance plummeted from 2.9 million in 2010 to 1.9 million in 2013. Today the Sonoma County Library struggles to do its job with barely $33 per capita here vs $51 in Napa County and $95 in Marin County.
Contact your county supervisor. Ask him or her to place a funding ballot measure of 1/8 of 1 percent or a parcel tax of $25 on November’s ballot. A vote of more than 66 and 2/3 percent is needed to pass. Regular hours and full staffing would resume; teens, parents, children and seniors will thank you; and planning even would start for a new Roseland District branch. Visionary educational advocates from Ben Franklin to Sam Brannon to Andrew Carnegie would be pleased. A young person or brand new Sonoma County reader will gain his or her reading skills and get an ability to soar.
Frank Baumgardner
Santa Rosa
Bravo young person
Editor: In last week’s Sonoma West Times & News (June 12, 2014), the Guest Commentary, “A leaders struggle Carrillo speaks,” by 16-year-old Rocio Mondragon Reyes, was the best article I’ve read on this subject in all these recent months.
As a thoughtful, well-written interview with Mr. Carrillo, it could serve as an appropriate summary to this incident, bringing both closure, and a call to move on to the work and opportunities still before us.
Well done Rocio Mondragon Reyes.
I am a longtime Sebastopol resident in the 5th District.
Jan Sweeney
Sebastopol
Just Driving
Editor: This past year has been one of many changes for immigrant families in California. From the passage of the TRUST Act that strongly curtails the deportations of immigrants, through a controversial program called S-Comm, to the passage of AB 60 that will allow undocumented immigrants to obtain drivers licenses, we are bearing witness to the powerful transformation of our state towards justice. Through this flurry of legislation that has and will continue to make our communities more equitable and fair places to live there remained a local change that was needed that had been impacting immigrant families for years.
The workers of the Graton Day Labor Center, an organization dedicated to improving the lives of day laborers and domestic workers, realizing that the drivers’ license bill entitled AB 60 did not take effect until January of 2015, concluded that many were still vulnerable to having their cars seized and impounded.
This realization gave birth to our Just Driving campaign, with the sole purpose of providing a temporary reprieve in the city of Sebastopol regarding the impounding of vehicles of immigrant drivers whilst we awaited the implementation of AB 60. In order to move this forward we reached out to the mayor of Sebastopol, Robert Jacob, to meet with the workers who were being directly affected. He listened, took heed, and truly came to understand the needs of migrant workers living and working in our West County community. In doing so, he also noted that day laborers are amongst one of the most vulnerable populations, and that his vision of Sebastopol aspired to be a more inclusive one.
Mayor Jacob committed himself to working with us to find an equitable solution. His next step was to bring into the conversation the Sebastopol Police Department led by Police Chief Jeff Weaver. The inclusion of Chief Weaver was integral to the process in order to ensure the proposed measure had support from local law enforcement. Through careful negotiations and clear communication, Mayor Jacob facilitated both parties, eventually arriving at a reasonable resolution that made sense for everyone involved. When the final agreed-upon resolution came before City Council it passed with a unanimous vote.
It cannot go without saying that the resolution brought more than simply a city policy of minimizing car impounds. As a result of this work, Mayor Jacob helped create a bridge between the Sebastopol Police Department and the Graton Day Labor Center. Police Chief Weaver has made a concerted effort to foster a healthy relationship between law enforcement and the Latino community by presenting regularly on rules of the road and traffic safety, including tools and resources to prepare people for AB 60 taking effect January of this coming year. We expect this partnership to continue for years to come.
Jesús Guzmán
Lead Organizer
Graton Day Labor Center