LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 10-18-12

Supporting Simmons
Editor: I feel compelled and obligated to provide a public endorsement for the upcoming Healdsburg City Council election.
I have served as Mayor and a Councilmember of the City of Healdsburg and are am critically concerned about the ongoing financial viability of the City. While actions have been taken by the current council in an effort to mitigate the effects of both the economic recession, the take-backs from the state, and the demise of the redevelopment agency, my fear is that the efforts may be too little and too late. Granted, few saw this debacle approaching (including me), but disasters require rapid and significant responses. Our City Council must address the horrific budget imbalances caused by the unfunded pension liabilities facing Healdsburg, as well as jurisdictions across the country.
Vern Simmons is a City Council Candidate who is sounding the alarm. Vern has served on the City of Healdsburg’s Planning Commission after a long career as a sonar expert (PHD) with the US Navy, developing a keen understanding of how government finance does (and doesn’t) work.  Vern has been raising public questions and concerns for the last few years regarding City operations and budget.  
Vern is not a politician. He doesn’t want to make friends. He wants to make changes — changes necessary to ensure that Healdsburg will continue to be able to provide the levels of service and the quality of life that we love so dearly.
Please join me in supporting Vern Simmons for the Healdsburg City Council.
Eric Ziedrich
Healdsburg
Voting McCaffery
Editor: I believe Shaun McCaffery, who is running for City Council, will be an involved and effective council member if elected. I have known him for 5 years. Over this period of time I have noticed that his energy, his approachability, his patient listening skills, and his community involvement would serve him well as a city councilmember. He has walked most if not all Healdsburg homes to present his viewpoints and listen to the resident’s concerns. I agree with his public positions: renewing the urban growth boundary; seeking real pension reform; advocating for increased funding for street maintenance, and seeking a balanced budget. His community involvement is extensive: Rotary Club member; Healdsburg Jazz Festival volunteer; Water Carnival volunteer and builder; Grandstands Renovation volunteer; Wild Steelhead Festival volunteer, plus many other volunteer efforts. His background as an engineer gives him the skills and abilities to focus on solving complex problems. He also has the personal skills of patience and consensus building in bringing people together. Please look at his public positions, and I hope you will vote for Shaun in the upcoming elections in November.
Bruce Abramson
Healdsburg
Chamber says Yes on V
Editor: The Healdsburg Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors is supporting ballot Measure V, the half-cent sales tax that would increase the Healdsburg sales tax from 8 to 8.5 percent. Since this tax is paid by everyone who purchases taxable items in Healdsburg this seems the most equitable way to raise much needed revenue.
We are aware that the City has implemented a number of cost saving measures to cut costs. They have reduced staff by 18 percent resulting in minimum staffing levels in Police, Fire and Building and Planning Departments. Employee bargaining units have made concessions, including renegotiating contracts, which resulted in reduced retirement benefits and increased payments from employees toward medical premiums.  Departments have been reorganized, reducing contracts for outside services and minimizing supply orders. This has resulted in a $2.3 million reduction in payroll and expenses.
Are there other places to cut? Yes, probably. However, our concern as business people, is that this could result in further impacts to service levels.
We are in favor of this measure because the City Council has told us that they have identified funding priorities for using the money generated. These funding priorities; Maintaining public safety, repairing streets and sidewalks, encouraging high quality development to expand the city’s economic base, and addressing deferred maintenance of city facilities are all important priorities to us as business people.
We are particularly concerned about continued support for economic development that will expand the city’s economic base, help with business retention and expansion, and most importantly, generate well paying jobs.
If this measure passes, all revenue will stay in our community and the City Council will determine how it is spent… the state cannot take it away.
The community is at a cross roads. If Measure V passes, the money generated will offset declining revenues, the loss of redevelopment money to the state, and protect essential city services. We can choose to continue to make cuts to services, and suffer the impacts, or we can choose to pay a little bit more to stabilize our city’s finances and secure our economic future.
Bob Fraser
Chairman, Healdsburg Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors
Vote for Vern
Editor: As Geri and I are now able to vote in Healdsburg elections, having moved in town from Dry Creek Valley in 2011, our residence for the past 30 years, we feel the need to help select councilmen. Vern Simmons is certain to receive our vote and we heartily recommend his candidacy to others.
Though relatively new to our community, having arrived here 10 years ago, Vern has already stepped up to the plate to help our city by becoming an active member of our planning commission for the past four years. His plan to continue serving the community in other ways was grossly interrupted early last year with an emergency heart operation that threatened his life. The experience was costly as the surgeons had to bypass the flow of blood to his legs that resulted in their being removed below the knees. Vern’s long recovery time in the hospital and rehab time to return him to mobility deferred his pursuit of community service. Though his love of gardening and automobiles has been somewhat constricted, his new legs are now getting him around and a conversion of his car now enables his comeback on the scene here in town.
Fortunately for all, the event in no way slowed down his mental acuity and interest in community affairs. A well respected letter writer to this publication, he is not afraid to challenge issues that put the future of Healdsburg at risk. A retired US Navy Commander who had a senior leadership role in research into areas that he is not often at liberty to discuss, Vern brings to our community a mind trained in problem solving at the highest level and he wishes to share those abilities to make an even better future for the citizens of Healdsburg.
John and Geraldine Holt
Healdsburg
I can read a Thesaurus
Editor: Like Tribune columnist Ms. Jensen, I too am gratified that my recent letter presenting my opposing view to her September 6 column garnered her response albeit inaccurate. While I admittedly lack the writing experience and prime editorial pulpit location held by Ms. Jensen, I CAN read a Thesaurus. If one looks up the word “befuddle” in the on-line Merrian-Webster Thesaurus, they will find the following:
Synonyms: baffle, bamboozle, beat, befog, confuse, bemuse, bewilder, buffalo, CONFOUND (emphasis mine), discombobulate, disorient, muddle, muddy, mystify, perplex, puzzle, vex.
My use of the word “befuddlement” wasn’t intended to be “unflattering.” Personally, I reject the use of ad hominem debating tactics —- a common tool of Left leaning elitists. I simply chose an acceptable synonym to Ms. Jensen’s own word choice. I considered my choice more attention getting. My word choice obviously worked.
When she likens my rebuttal of her viewpoints to the tactics of Carl Rove and P.T. Barnum I’m very flattered. Had she likened it to the God of promoters, President Obama, rather than the patron saint of promoters P.T. Barnum, I would have been more flattered. In my view the “promotion” of one’s viewpoint isn’t intrinsically evil as she implies. In fact, if one’s opinion is that of a local or regional minority, I believe one has a moral obligation to express and yes, to “promote” it.
It’s not surprising that Ms. Jensen chose not to question my facts and contentions but rather elected to focus upon my choice of a single (yet correct) synonym. Her suggestion of examining “The Great Depression” to evaluate the effectiveness of government economic intervention is interesting but an obvious anachronism. I contend that examining the current key economic indicators impacted by Obama’s failed policies is more relevant.
Under his reign, these indicators continue to worsen. Deficits have exceeded $1T each year for an accumulated total of over $5T. When Obama’s term ends, the US debt will have increased almost 50 percent to about $16.5T. Food stamp dependency has increased by 63 percent from 28.2M to 46M. The BLS’s U6 broad unemployment measure of the total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers plus total employed part time for economic reasons rose from 14.2 percent to 14.7 percent. Gas prices more than doubled from $1.78/Gal to $3.80/Gal.
This November, let us reverse our stampede down the Marxist road of wealth redistribution and return to our founding principles.
Mel Amato
Healdsburg
Fix the streets
Editor: I will vote only for the Council candidates who promise me they will encourage the Streets Maintenance Department to put on soon a strong pavement on the entire Florence Lane. The old one is too thin and now full of patched potholes and cracks.
Armen Cuadra
Healdsburg
Income redistribution
Editor: In Mel Amato’s October 4 Letter To The Editor “My View From Here,” Mr. Amato referred to President Obama’s “Marxist income redistribution ideology” citing growth in entitlement programs under this administration. Since Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are the largest vehicles for this “income redistribution,” should I assume that these entitlements are “Marxist” as well? With all due respect, I think Mr. Amato’s comment is complete nonsense, but I invite him to explain it more fully.
Brian Geagan
Healdsburg