Letters to the Editor 12-10-15

Holiday thanks
Editor: I would like to publicly thank everyone who came to Global Partners for Development’s recent fundraising dinner at Baci Cafe in Healdsburg. Global Partners is a Sonoma County based nonprofit that works in East Africa doing clean water projects in rural villages and educational projects which help young women finish secondary school and the building of school classrooms and other school facilities.
At the dinner over $25,000 was raised to support these projects. A great big holiday thank you to all of our supporters from Global Partners for Development and from the people of the east African countries of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda where GPFD works.
Dave Stare
Board Chairman of Global Partners
Plaque suggestion
Editor: After the New Year the city will formally celebrate the restoration of our bridge. Permanent plaques often commemorate such events. I believe we need a plaque that explains why this old bridge is still standing. These words are fitting and proper to accomplish that task: “Mel Amato and the residents of Healdsburg. They saved this bridge.”
Phil Luks
Healdsburg
Subsidies necessary
Editor: In his argument for relaxing our growth management ordinance, Mark Decker stated, “Simple economics and the law of supply and demand dictate higher prices when supplies are diminished.” This is simple economics indeed, based on an 18th Century model that assumed a geographically limited market. But for desirable places in these times, the market is global and Healdsburg has the blessing and curse of being located near one of the costliest and most desirable cities in the country. This is the market that will have to be satisfied before there is downward pressure on real estate prices, and I don’t think we have the capacity to accomplish that.
Even if Healdsburg encourages, through zoning, small houses on small lots, as a consultant suggested, the benefit will be negligible, because this is just the type of unit that gets snapped up by second-home buyers. Not that I blame them. If I had a big job in the city I’d want a second home in Healdsburg too if I could swing it.
Building more market rate housing will not create opportunity for our middle-income and low-income workers, because market rate is beyond their reach. Any discussion about providing housing for an economically diverse population in Healdsburg must focus on funding mechanisms for subsidized housing, with conditions about who may purchase or rent them. That’s the only way we will increase our stock of affordable housing now or in the foreseeable future.
Leah Gold
Healdsburg
Nourishment and service
Editor: Farm to Pantry is very thankful to Healdsburg residents and the City Council for the Community Benefit Grant we received this year. As a result of this grant, Farm to Pantry was able to bring classes from our local elementary schools and students from the City of Healdsburg Afterschool Program on field trips to have hands-on experiences harvesting and sampling nutritious produce, as well as helping their community.
Not only did the students gain powerful lessons in community service, agriculture and exposure to healthy eating and the food system, they also learned that they can make a difference. Thanks to the combined efforts of over 300 students throughout the year, nearly 1,850 pounds of surplus produce grown in our community – avocados, cabbage, chard, citrus, cucumbers, lettuce, onions, peppers, persimmons, pomegranates, squash, tomatoes and walnuts – were gleaned, providing over 7,300 servings of healthy food to those in need of nourishment in our community.
Dani Wilcox, Program Director
Farm to Pantry, Healdsburg
Authentic learning
Editor: I would like to commend Kat Gore for her story about the HHS students that recently completed civic action projects as part of their senior civics class. The eight-week assignment is a project-based learning program known as the Civic Action Project.
The students’ projects included research and presentations on smoking in public, gang prevention, immigration, domestic violence, gender-neutral bathrooms, housing for Valley Fire victims, excessive police force, litter and recycling, auto and home car washes, bringing a new restaurant to Healdsburg, the homeless and girls in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math).
The local chapter of American Association of University Women (AAUW) has been a strong supporter of girls in STEM for some time with the goal of getting girls above the current 20 percent participation rate. The class teacher, Eric O’Connor, said that students have the autonomy to address a community problem that is meaningful to them by taking an inquiry based approach. Since their project has purpose and is meaningful to them, the students are driven to deeper learning, which is a mandate of the Common Core State Standards.
It seems that several of the students learned more about authenticity than they had bargained for. AAUW coordinator Judy Edmonds, who attended the project presentations, said that she was disappointed and upset when some of the students, “tried to go to the city and were told to go somewhere else, and then were told to go back to the city, and no one would take responsibility.”
It seems to me that from an educational standpoint those students had a double dose of learning. They gained the knowledge from doing their projects and they also had their first introduction to city bureaucracy. Authentic learning indeed.
Michael Haran
Healdsburg
Protect kids
Editor: Kudos to Greg Clementi for addressing the crucially important issue of concussions in young football players in last week’s paper. His discussion of how repeated hits to the head put young people at risk for serious and permanent health problems — ranging from memory loss to dementia — should send a message to every parent of a child playing what is essentially a dangerous sport.
A related article appeared in the New York Times on Dec. 7, authored by Dr. Bennet Omalu, the chief medical examiner for San Joaquin county and a professor of pathology at U.C. Davis. Dr. Omalu draws a parallel between high-impact sports and other risky child behaviors like smoking and alcohol use that society already seeks to prevent. Indeed, he goes so far as to say that parents have a moral obligation to prevent their children — including high schoolers whose brains are still developing — from engaging in high-impact sports like football and boxing.
A recommendation to that effect has already been made by the national pediatric medical associations of both the United States and Canada. Presumably the message is already reaching some parents and may be a factor in the small roster size in some programs that Mr. Clementi cites.
Dr. Omalu suggests that more educated and sophisticated parents may eventually prohibit their children from playing dangerous sports, while less affluent and uneducated families may continue to see their children’s athleticism as a road to economic success, failing to understand the ultimate price those children may pay. Let’s hope that’s not the case, and that all our children will be protected from sports-related brain damage and allowed to achieve optimal mental and intellectual health.
Katherine Lacy
Healdsburg