Letters to the Editor 1-23-14

Paving paradise
Editor: Unlike Snowden, I want to thank our community advocates and progressive politicians engaged in a thoughtful process of defining the best possible growth for our small town. It’s in everyone’s interest to ensure that all the aspects of a proposed development are brought out for public consideration so that project impacts such as traffic congestion and parking are not passed on to residents and local businesses.   
This region has a long history of questioning urban pressures. Would Healdsburg have its allure today if community advocates hadn’t stopped the sub-divisions threatening to fill the Dry Creek Valley in the 1980s?   
Whether a proposed development is downtown or along a rural road in one of the surrounding agricultural valleys, the watchwords are “intensity” and “scale.” Some people believe in an ever expanding economic bubble, while others fear the current gold rush mentality will inevitably lead to diminishing returns for local businesses and impacts to our quality of life.  
Of utmost importance is a healthy debate about how best to balance the pressure for more tourist development with the need to preserve our rural character and small town charm. Perhaps Joni Mitchell said it best of all, “…don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone…they paved paradise, and put up a parking lot.”  
Judith Olney
Healdsburg
Retirements at the Food Pantry
Editor: This past year the Healdsburg Food Pantry has lost four incredible volunteers with decades of combined service, untold hours of work and too much money generated to count.  
The first retirement was Susan Graf.  Susan provided the heart and a driving force behind the Board of Directors and the whole Healdsburg Shared Ministries mission for 15 years.  Some of her many endeavors included the annual November Square Dance at the Villa for over a decade, ordering and distributing thousands of coats and shoes in our Christmas basket give-a-way program and great business advice.  She was our go to gal for spirit and enthusiasm, challenging us all to give our all to those we were serving.
Michele Thayer was THE senior bags program. She had done the ordering, stocking and deliveries, soup to nuts you might say in the food business, for more than 10 years. The program provides local seniors weekly deliveries of extra nutritious bags of food. This has allowed some of our neediest and most fragile senior citizens the gift of in home food deliveries to maintain their health and independence. We now have three volunteers filling her shoes.
A semi-retiree is Robin Ridder; still managing the USDA program. Robin’s 14 plus years of service have included ordering all the food for the Pantry, managing the operations, picking up the food in Santa Rosa and generally keeping the shelves full and stocked. When she wasn’t into the food, she was working behind the scenes writing thank-you notes to each individual donor, keeping the donation records, helping with fund raising and being a moral and spiritual support to the Board and the volunteers.  Whatever task, large or small, needed doing, Robin was always there.
The most recent and most senior volunteer to retire is Charlie Scalione with decades of service. Charlie was the go to guy; he received the food, stocked the shelves, handed out food, arranged supplies, always a friendly and reliable servant to the Pantry and the clients. When a fill in extra helper was needed, we called Charlie; he always answered. BIG shoes to fill, if possible.
Healdsburg is a special place that we all know and love and its special people like Susan, Michele, Robin and Charlie that make it that way. Thanks ladies and gentleman for your 70 plus years of dedicated service to the Healdsburg Food Pantry, Healdsburg Shared Ministries and all of  Healdsburg.  
Healdsburg Food Pantry
Board of Directors