LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 8-23-12

Healdsburg loses?
Editor: Mike Hallett was a credit to the Healdsburg police department during his tenure and his spirited letter to the editor shows that he continues to value the department and its activities.  However, I have been unable to substantiate several of the assertions made in that letter.  The web site “salary.com” states that police officer base salaries in Healdsburg are actually greater than those in Los Angeles, Sacramento and Monterey.  At $55,743.00 per year, this salary is significantly higher than the starting salaries for teachers in Healdsburg which is around $38,000.00 per year.  On another issue, the current high police retirement benefits are under review in a number of cities and changes can be expected.  San Diego and Orange Counties have passed voter referendums that will challenge the current retirement benefits.  The unfunded pension liability for city pensions in Healdsburg is $26,000,000.00 and growing each year.  This is a situation that cannot long be tolerated without impacting the total city structure. In point of fact, having new police officers brought onto the force would actually reduce this pension liability as they would come under a lower cost retirement and possibly salary plan.  This two tiered plan is something that is becoming common in California.  Mr. Hallett is concerned that the Sheriff’s Department will take over the police functions in Healdsburg.  Actually, the Sheriff’s Department has provided local police functions for the town of Windsor for the last 20 years and I am unaware of any serious complaints.  Indeed, contracting with the Sheriff is something that should be seriously considered for Healdsburg.  To put things in perspective, the Police Department accounts for 22% of the Healdsburg city employees and 61% of the General Fund budget.  These are large numbers and their impact on the city budget is obvious.  If we are to gain the financial stability that we want and need, all agencies within the city must be reviewed and that includes the police department.
Vernon P. Simmons
Healdsburg
Politicizing religion
Editor: Tribune columnist Susan Swartz certainly has a right to express her political opinions. Contrary to other local print media, our Tribune does a good job of confining political opinions to their editorial page and should be applauded for doing so. I also acknowledge that Ms. Swartz is free to demonize Conservatives who don’t share her views and to play the “gender card” to push her own political agenda.
That said, in my view, her politicizing of religion to promote her progressive (liberal) agenda demeans her journalistic image and is well over the line.
The Catholic Church is not and never has been a democratic institution. Church beliefs aren’t determined by popular vote or polls.  These beliefs are absolute and have been passed on from generation-to-generation for over 2000+ years (the “good old days” to quote Ms. Schwartz) to those who freely choose to accept and practice them. No one is forced to join the Catholic Church or to subscribe to its beliefs.
The Church’s beliefs relative to abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research, human cloning and homosexual “marriage” are non-negotiable. To claim that those who defend the rights of “pre-born” humans are “pro-fetus” simply means that Ms. Schwartz doesn’t agree with the opinion of many that life begins at conception. The fact that some “cafeteria” Catholics cherry-pick their Church’s beliefs doesn’t alter those beliefs.
Her characterization of the Conference of Catholic Bishops as “anti-women” because of the Church’s 2000+ year old beliefs is an obvious attempt to politically exploit the feminist movement. Defining the same Bishops as a wing of the “religious right” is another divisive attempt to promote gender polarization for the same purpose. She doesn’t hesitate to marginalize the Pope as one of “the guys.”
Contrary to Ms. Swartz’s claim, there’s absolutely no evidence that the Catholic Church is ignoring or minimizing social issues such as poverty, civil rights and child hunger. In fact, if she would take the time to read and understand the Catechism of the Catholic Church, she would discover that the Church emphasizes every individual’s moral obligations relative to these issues. However, it’s important to note that the Church places these moral obligations squarely on the shoulders of individuals and not on the “State.”
Ms. Schwartz may consider that my earnest response to her outrageously partisan op-ed ignores the humor (tasteless at best) in her closing paragraph.
To quote Ms. Swartz…..” Well too bad.”
Mel Amato
Healdsburg
Not in it for you
Editor: The Romney campaign with it’s intentionally misguided depiction of President Obama as a liberal-socialist is a magical horse and pony show orchestrated under the big tent of the one percent to release the “Kracken” of Karl Rove’s Super Pac, and the Koch brothers & Adelson obscene money tag team in a slight of hand attempt to get the best government money can buy to put in play a corporate fascist state that relegates the struggling middle class to surfs. The Republican Party, high jacked by the hypocritical right wing, has adopted the sycophant darlings of Mitt Romney, a “flip flopper,” no tax release, corporatist and Paul Ryan, a Tea party devotee, Ayn Rand (an atheist) worshiper who erroneously believes that the unrestrained fee market will dictate morality.
This trickled down fairy dust is really an Ebola virus that will turn this country on its head by shredding democracy and devouring the struggling middle class. Corporations are not “people my friend” but sociopathic structures that authorize the few to rape, pillage, and plunder the many for profits placed in off shore accounts.  The 2012 election is class warfare and Mitt Romney is not in it for you.
Gene Colombini
Santa Rosa