Letters to the Editor 10-1-15

Focus on roads
Editor: While I supported Measure A because our roads need fixing now, the voters spoke loudly to the County Supervisors that they did not want a general sales tax measure to fund the roads fix. Why? Because the “No” voters felt tax revenue might be redirected to new programs, unfunded public pension liability, or hiring new county employees. The county already collects enough tax money to fix our roads if Supervisors would focus on roads as they have told us they would. Susan Gorin said at a Board of Supervisors meeting (June 15, 2015): “We need to let our community know that we have heard from them loudly and clearly that roads are a priority and we are going to focus on them in the near term.”
In October of 2015, the Supervisors will decide whether to budget additional dollars to fix our roads, or instead, whether to spend it on more new programs, more wage and benefit increases for county workers and adding more staff to the county payroll. This voter knows that some of our Supervisors have trouble having their actions follow their rhetoric. Focus! The voters want to have our roads fixed at no additional tax costs to us.
John Bly, Executive Vice President, Northern California Engineering Contractors Association
Wonderful program
Editor:  Thanks and kudos to the Cloverdale Regional Library for the wonderful Adult Summer Reading program we had this summer. The participant cards were created by the Sonoma County Library system and were used in the branches. There were nine squares with a different kind of book to read in each box. When “bingo” lines were completed we filled out a ticket for the end of July drawing.
Of course the point was not to “win” a prize – congratulations to those who did – but to expand reading experiences beyond what many of us read on a consistent basis. I encountered several surprising books. For my biography square, I read “The Girl from Botany Bay” by Carolly Erickson, which told of the life of Mary Bryant, condemned to hang for highway robbery in the 1790s, but put on a convict ship to go to the Botany Bay penal colony in Australia. For “Should have read in High School” I read John Steinbeck’s “Pastures in Heaven,” which is a group of interconnected short stories, which take place up Corral de Tierra on the Monterey-Salinas Highway – 15 miles from Pacific Grove High School where I attended – we should have read it to experience Steinbeck’s amazingly beautiful writing about our own area.
Many thanks to the staff at the library and especially to Phil Hoeft, adult services librarian for conducting this great program and for the displays of possible book selections for each category. We all look forward to this next summer and invite others to participate.
Jane Snibbe
Cloverdale
Positive energy
Editor: I would like to give a public thank you to the Vineyard Hills Christian Church for the Saturday chili cook off and the food drive they initiated. The sponsor group was warm, loving and kind, welcoming all with the most genuine hospitality and friendship. There were no “sales pitches” or any type of tilt to the event, just a lot of love, laughs and smiles. And the chili was great. I hope this becomes a yearly event, with more contestants next year. It is just one more example of the developing community and positive energy emerging in Cloverdale. Thanks to all who participated.
Robert Redner
Cloverdale
Mark your calendars
Editor: As the holidays are quickly approaching, members and friends of the Theta Zeta Chapter of the Beta Sigma Phi Sorority are busy making plans for their annual Holiday Crafts Show. We would like everyone to mark their calendars and come enjoy the day with us. The date is Nov.7, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and it is held at the Cloverdale Veterans Building at 205 W. First Street, Cloverdale.
There will be light lunch, snacks and dessert offered by members of the sponsoring group, Theta Zeta. Crafters from Sonoma and Mendocino counties will be offering their handmade creations for sale. We will have the very popular gift basket raffle and will be pre-selling tickets at the Okoberfest on Saturday, Oct. 3 at the downtown Plaza from 1 p.m. to dusk.
Carolyn Ramos
Cloverdale
Love of flying
Editor: At the Cloverdale airport, I watched a FedEx airplane making a landing, fog was above. At the same time a FedEx truck had approached. I walked over to the airplane and introduced myself to the pilot. “Do you come here often?” I said. “This is the best place to land,” said the pilot, “The fog here is usually clear enough for landing. If this airport wasn’t here, I sometimes wouldn’t be able to deliver the mail. All the other airports in each direction are fogged in on many occasions, and I can’t land if I can’t see the runway.”
“I have had the same experience,” I said. “Thank God for this airport.” During the Geysers fire a few years ago, Cloverdale airport was jammed with helicopters, fire trucks, firefighters, volunteers and living facilities. Helicopters departing were dunking large water containers into the Russian River and dropping the water on the fire above. The airport was open for emergency aircraft only.
Cloverdale Airport sits in a narrow valley surrounded with mountains covered with dense brush and trees, a tinder box ready to explode. If the fire gets to the freeway, which I guarantee it someday will, the airport may be the key to save us.
Other facts: Our future pilots of our world train at these small airports. Cloverdale is one of the safest. There is a lack of pilots; we are turning to Asia for help. In case of an emergency, Cloverdale Airport can provide us with quick transportation to our destination. To build a small airport today is almost impossible because of high cost, and complaints of the surrounding public, “not in my backyard.” The cost to build a small airport like ours from scratch, including the land, would be around $15 million or more. The federal government will not allow Cloverdale Airport to shut down. They have unlimited funds to fight any shutdown activity.
Bureaucrats, developers and the real-estate establishment have been fighting and suing for years to eliminate Santa Monica airport in Southern California to line their fat pockets, spending millions of their money on attorney fees, with no success. Many other airports across our nation have been threatened, including Healdsburg Airport, but they are still there.
Cloverdale pilots are not rich. Their love of flying keeps them active, it is their passion. Some buy old airplanes and rebuild them. The average airplane at our airport was built in the fifties through the eighties and costs between $35,000 and $90,000. These pilots are frugal, they don’t have boats and I don’t believe they have vacation homes. I see no expensive cars at the airport, their hard earned money goes into their airplanes.
Al King
Cloverdale
Take a stand
Editor: I have been a resident of Cloverdale for 26 years and find it puzzling that the first complaints I’ve ever heard about the airport have occurred within the last year, followed by the developer’s demand that we close the airport or he won’t build his project here. While I’m sure there are some sincere people who want the airport closed, on the other hand, I find it too much of a coincidence that the first complaints were so close to the developer’s demand, and I don’t like coincidences.
For those who really don’t like the airport – move. Unless they built it after you moved here, you haven’t got a thing to complain about. Besides, if they did close the airport, what’s next? Face facts, the southern part of town is an industrial area. I recently read that we will soon be adding Nu Forest Products, which is moving up here. Are we supposed to close this and other existing businesses in favor this development?
Private pilots, a small business and Cal Fire all use the airport. For those who dismiss Cal Fire’s recent use during the Lake fires, how would you feel if the fire was in Cloverdale and the airport shaved minutes off the time for emergency services or water drops?
All this aside, are we forgetting our limited resources like water, or the required expansion of city infrastructure? It wasn’t that long ago we were crossing our fingers while additional wells were dug, hoping to keep up with our existing population. Some on the Council and some squeaky wheels have chosen to ignore these facts in their rush to support unnecessary development. Let’s take a stand against yet another big-money interest.
David Ferguson
Cloverdale
Charter county
Editor: Recently I attended a meeting in Willits that was promoting Mendocino County becoming a charter county. I found out that California recognizes two types of counties: General Law counties, which adhere to state law as to number and duties of council-elected officials; and Charter counties, which allow voters to exercise a greater degree of local control, authority and sovereignty.
Out of California’s 58 counties, 14 are chartered: Alameda, Butte, El Dorado, Fresno, Los Angeles, Orange, Placer, Sacramento, San Bernadino, San Diego, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Tehama. A charter may be proposed by the county Board of Supervisors or by an initiative petition. Any county may adopt, amend or repeal a charter with a majority vote.
A Charter County empowers the people to make the laws that fit their county. It allows voters to exercise a greater degree of local control. Some examples of local control in environmental ordinances might be: no GMO agriculture, no bee-killing neonicotinoids pesticide use, no fracking, or no nuclear plants. Also the Charter County could decide that corporations be treated as a businesses, not as persons, or it could create laws on campaign contributions.
One of Mendocino’s goals as a Charter County would be to authorize a county Public Bank. The ROI on the county’s money would revert back to the county general fund. Mendocino County pays about $1 million a month in debt services.  The Public Bank can buy up those debts and then the debt services paid will return back to the county, an extra $1 million a month for Mendocino. What could Sonoma County do with extra money like that? What are we waiting for?
Mardi Grainger
Cloverdale