Thanks for community Thanksgiving
EDITOR: I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved in helping us prepare and feed well over 600 people on Thanksgiving day at The Community Church here in Sebastopol. It was a beautiful culmination of many volunteers, merchants and local businesses coming together to make this happen. Without our community’s help we would struggle to be able to accomplish our dinner. There are a few people I would like to publicly thank, Ken Silveria and Pacific Market, Odd Fellows lodge, Leff Construction, R ‘ s Automotive, Roger’s Pool and Spa, The Sebastopol Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Center, and our local Fire Department, and Russian River Vineyards. There were many individuals who donated and we thank you. I would like to also recognize the Girls Scout Troop #, they made dozens of cookies for our guests. The Community Church has been so gracious in allowing us to use this facility to help others for one day. Karin Seder with the Community Church was the biggest help ever, coordinating the volunteers, arranging for deliver people to take the hot meals to folks who were unable to attend, and also drivers to pick people up and take them home from the dinner. Thanks to everyone involved we had a very successful Thanksgiving dinner for our community.
Linda Collins
Sebastopol
Smart meter threat
EDITOR: In 2013 Sebastopol passed an urgency ordinance banning smart meter installation because they are a threat to health, safety and community welfare. PG&E threatened to sue, so the city did not enforce the ban. PG&E backed off installations, until recently when PG&E met with the city manager to discuss plans to deploy smart meters in Sebastopol.
We are asking the city to enforce the ban because the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has failed to adequately regulate the safety of smart meters.
The President of the CPUC, Michael Peevey, knew smart meters were causing people pain and he abetted PG&E’s pay to opt-out scheme and delayed CPUC regulation.
A pay to opt-out program is an unlawful response to smart meter problems, including privacy and property rights, radiation health risks, fire hazards and co-located meters.
Mayor Michael Kyes and Sarah Gurney spoke to the CPUC judge asking for community opt-out. The CPUC dismissed community opt-out without taking testimony or holding hearings.
EMF (electric magnetic fields) Safety Network, and three other groups have appeals, citing violations of law pending. A CPUC attorney stated the CPUC will rule on those appeals in December of this year.
We ask you to stand up to PG&E and enforce the ban until the CPUC adequately regulates smart meters, including the right of cities to avoid them. Please agendize this issue for Dec.19. Thank you for your consideration.
Sandi Maurer
EMF Safety Network
Sebastopol
Sanctuary city
EDITOR: Let’s discuss Sebastopol declaring ourselves a sanctuary city, which the dictionary defines as a “sacred place.” In such cities, the local police and officials refuse to share information and collaborate with federal agents from ICE (Immigration Customs Enforcement), who seek to deport residents. Many immigrants, both documented and undocumented, feel unsafe since the recent presidential election, as do others.
We would join over 200 cities around the United States, including San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Santa Rosa City Councilwoman Julie Combs hopes that city will declare itself a sanctuary city. Some residents are asking the town of Sonoma to add itself to this growing number of sanctuary cities during our troubled times.
Latinos from Mexico and Central America, as well as Muslims, are the most at risk. An estimated 29,000 undocumented immigrants live in Sonoma County, according to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. I have hired hard-working Latinos during my 24 years farming here. Sonoma County and California agriculture would suffer if there were an immigration sweep, as would other businesses.
One of my best recent students in 40 years of college teaching was openly undocumented, as was his sister, a law student. Over 100 colleges have declared themselves sanctuary colleges and plan to help defend those threatened by ICE, as well as by individuals or groups. Approximately 50 percent of Sonoma County public school students are native Spanish speakers, some of whom are being harassed, including citizens. Santa Rosa Junior College and Sonoma State University, where I used to teach, have many Latino students.
Latinos are not the only people at risk. People of faiths other than Christian, especially Muslim, and people of color, have been threatened, as well as women and Jews. There is a deep concern among such targeted people, as well as those of diverse gender and sexual identities.
Here in Sonoma County and throughout the United States we have the shameful history of Japanese-Americans being put in internment camps during World War II, which the new president-elect has described as a precedent for doing so again with other groups. Yet no Japanese-American was ever even charged with being a spy. Many served our country heroically in the struggle against Japanese fascism.
Some churches opened their doors as sanctuaries to military personnel, such as myself, who eventually refused to fight in those wars. I remember going to coffee houses, often in churches, where young men were organized out of that tragedy. America lost its wars on Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, partly because an increasing number of active duty personnel refused to fight. We need such resistance at this time, in many different forms, and the protection of those most threatened.
Shepherd Bliss
Sebastopol
