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 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. Supervisors should focus on roads as they have told us they would!  
As Susan Gorin said at a Board of Supervisors meeting on June 15, “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, 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
Santa Rosa
Banned Books Week
Editor:
Banned Book Week, which runs from Sept. 27 – Oct. 3, shows the importance of maintaining certain books in public and private school libraries. In my opinion, Banned Books Week is a great way to symbolize how the public should be able to gain access to any book they find interesting. I was shocked by what books have been banned and why. At my school, no book has been banned, though some books have been challenged. You know the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover?” To get more information on why books become banned you can go to www.ala.org.
Angelina Solano
seventh grade
Cali Calmecac Language Academy
Editor:
I am a seventh grader at Cali Calmecac Language Academy. My debate class and I are working on informing the community about banned book week. Banned book week is from Sept. 27 – Oct. 3. This week is to draw attention to the books that are being challenged all over the world. A lot of books are challenged because of racial issues, religion or because the book is not appropriate for a certain age group. Some of the books that have been challenged in my library and other schools are “Twilight,” “Divergent,” “Insurgent,” “Hunger Games,” “Moby Dick” and more. A lot of people are mad and surprised about the popular children’s books “Where the Wild Things Are” written by Maurice Sendak and also the “Harry Potter” series written by J.K. Rowling being banned from some school libraries. I hope everyone will join the community in participating with Banned Book Week. For more information, go to the following websites: bannedbooksweek.org, businessinsider.com, barnesandnoble.com, ALA.org. These are just some of the few websites containing information about Banned Book Week. Thank you.
Lauren Anderson
Windsor