Letters to the Editor 11-28-13

Webster’s contributions
Editor: It is difficult to find words to describe how appalled I am at Councilmember Sarah Gurney’s comments at last week’s council meeting regarding the role of Kenyon Webster in developing our new General Plan (“City Council moves on General Plan update,” Nov. 21). Pandering to certain members of the audience, she assures us that our Planning Director will have no role in the process. She doesn’t want the Planning Director to be involved in the General Plan?
Not only would this deprive our community of the wisdom and expertise Kenyon could bring to the process, it is also a deplorable and gratuitous insult to a member of our city staff who has always acted with professionalism and dedication and always in the best interests of our community. I don’t know anyone who has done more for Sebastopol than Kenyon Webster. Without his efforts, for instance, we would not have the Laguna Wetlands Preserve or the Laguna Skategarden. He has lived and worked in Sebastopol longer than most members of the city council or planning commission.
The General Plan update should certainly be citizen-driven and reflect the values and aesthetics of our community. But it should also incorporate the best knowledge and practices we can glean from other cities and towns in creating livable communities. It would be folly to ignore expertise simply for political reasons.
Larry Robinson
Sebastopol
Good citizens?
Editor: If Helen Shane thinks the Barlow is a good citizen, (“Legal issues,” Nov. 14) she exemplifies George Orwell’s concept of “double-speak,” where the words you utter mean the exact opposite of what they say.
When my wife and I created a business named Beth The Baker, we paid every single fee and met all ordinances required by Sebastopol up front. The Barlow was granted a deferral of $500,000 in fees to proceed with its development with a promise to pay off the debt in installments at a later date. Beth The Baker paid in advance. We were “good citizens.” That’s what good citizens do. They pay their taxes and fees.
While the Barlow has initiated monthly re-payments of $7,500, such a huge deferral of fees is very unusual. The Barlow transgresses zoning regulations constantly. The zoning is “industrial,” right? I fail to see how Circle of Hands (Waldorf Toys and Gifts), Counterculture Art House, Zazu Restaurant and all the retail booze businesses, qualify as industrial ventures.
The Barlow has yanked business from the already frayed downtown area, poaching tenants such as Taylor Maid Coffee and Village Bakery to fill its ugly industrial shopping mall. Good citizens don’t do that. They don’t destroy. They create.
The Barlow’s plan for a high-end hotel will undoubtedly impact traffic and negatively affect the Sebastopol Inn. Is that what good citizens do? Put other enterprises out of business? The Barlow is not a good citizen.
As far as CVS is concerned, they made all the right moves: Proper zoning, design and review, and City Council approval. The result? Pure unadulterated politics by an ideologically-driven council. It was politics at its ugliest, led of course, by Helen Shane.
So, the cost of the CVS suit against the city is now over $100,000. Sebastopol will lose the suit. Maybe the city can ask that good citizen The Barlow, to pick up the tab. Of course the city will have to get in touch with The Barlow’s owner (who) lives in the elite, fantastically expensive community of Ross, in Marin.
Meanwhile, someone please buy Shane and the Shane-iacs a new dictionary. Look up “good citizen.”
Ed LaFrance
Sebastopol
Bad examples
Editor: I really find it interesting when I pick my grandson up from school at Brook Haven. About five years ago, I got a ticket from the Sebastopol police for “not stopping long enough” at the stop sign by Pine Crest. Monday I saw a Sebastopol policeman actually roll through the stop sign in front of Brook Haven. I have watched many people stop quickly, but at least they stopped. This policeman just rolled on through. Even my grandson noticed because we were about to cross the street. So, where is the good example for our kids, grandkids, and new teenage drivers?
Deborah Hayford
Sebastopol
Incorporate Roseland
Editor: Over 50 people killed by local police since 1996. For too long, the poor, dispossessed, homeless, sick or distracted individuals have been gunned down. When is enough, enough?
The latest shooting death, that of a 13-year-old boy who’ll never get a shot at success in this world, has united the Hispanic community as perhaps nothing has, except Cesar Chavez.
Two things stand out to be done before more people die at the hands of police forces who are on edge. Roseland, or the southwest section of Santa Rosa, needs to be incorporated into Santa Rosa.
Parks, better police and fire services, possibly a branch of the money-strapped Sonoma County Library should be built.
Secondly, the county sorely needs a permanent civilian review board with the teeth to investigate when the police go wrong. A board with subpoena power as well as the power to take sworn testimony. Don’t expect anything more from Attorney General Ravitch or the present police conducted investigations of the Lopez killing.
As part of the old boy network that runs local politics here, the only local daily press continues to evade its responsibilities of reporting all the facts to the public.
When Supervisors Shirlee Zane and Efren Carrillo began their first terms on the Board of Supervisors in 2009, they both pledged to work for the incorporation of Roseland into Santa Rosa.
Was the real reason it hasn’t happened pushback or stonewalling by the few who like things as they are, or was it really due to the economic recession which prevented progress as the BOS now claims? That’s the 64 dollar question.
Frank Baumgardner
Santa Rosa