Railroaded
EDITOR: The next election in March will continue the criminalization of marijuana. People who voted to legalize it in the last election will not vote no in a single issue off year election. People who will vote yes feel it’s wrong to legalize pot, so let’s continue the witch hunt. There is not much time with a March 7 election coming up soon. This paper’s most important new article, listed at the top of the front page in the Feb. 9, 2017 issue, by Jonah Raskin, was railroaded to online. As subscribers we feel entitled to see the most important news printed on the front page.
Sue Paulekas, Member of the News Group at the Sebastopol area Senior Center
Moral bankruptcy
EDITOR: The sparsely attended protest at the opening of the CVS building was instructive as to the moral bankruptcy of local officials. It was a pathetic sight to see former Sebastopol Councilman Eder, current Mayor Glass and current Councilwoman Gurney exhorting shoppers to not patronize CVS. Judging by the signs displayed, these local leaders believe that CVS “destroys local business and eats cr*p.” This was a shameful display of childish and ill formed sentiments.
The crude comment requires no further mention and the other is laughable. There is no shortage of local businesses patronized by locals and visitors alike. Indeed, many welcome the rehabilitation of the corner occupied by CVS as an improvement to a property that had seen better days. The improvements were, of course, delayed unnecessarily by the same folks who used specious and unwarranted arguments against an existing business that simply wanted a different location. I miss the days when local officials supported the success of any business that contributed taxes, jobs and vitality to this small town we call home.
Ken Foley, Sebastopol
Ask the pertinent questions
EDITOR: On Feb.16, the county will descend on Guerneville/Monte Rio with its latest dog and pony show: an example of which recently was the “low flow Russian River” nonsense that hid deep inside its folds the renewing of unfairly purloined water rights for millions of gallons of our water. Their emotional tale about the once abundant coho as a beard for the real object of the all-powerful water agency: taking the water before it gets downstream, for growth on the ever disappearing Santa Rosa Plain. And the extra bonus, procuring water rights for Occidental. It’s exhausting watching them squirm around to avoid the real end game.
But please, warn them, we will not be Powerpointed and droned to death on the history of our overbuilt, expensive sewer system. We know it backwards and forwards oh so well. It was a running drama, built on blackmail and over-promises, years of building bans and contractors suing subcontractors, shoddy work and lowered expectations. Built (or as the feds later adjudicated), overbuilt originally for 2,200 users, it now magically somehow has near 3,300.
That’s still less than the plant can handle in good weather, but it always lacked the part that running out of money forbade, a realistically large enough place to spray the effluent. Over the years, the water agency floated many a plan to fix this problem. They were going to build a pipeline to Sheridan Ranch. Pipelines up Armstrong Road and over the hill, to was it … Healdsburg? And yet they are still confined to the Northwood Golf Course and a hillside of redwoods. Their answer; add more effluent with nowhere to spray.
This is the way the agencies, from the Fish and Game to the Planning Department to the water agency, run a public meeting so that in the end, real citizens who pay the taxes are left (after all the hyperbole and padding), exhausted and with little time for an honest question and answer period. Could it be they don’t want to answer our questions?
This is obviously Government 101 on how to run the required public meeting so that they prevail and the only answer is to sue them. They’re not really there for discourse: it’s the “we know best” monologue. And don’t forget the ever necessary time burner: the obligatory round of congratulating each other and the fine jobs they all do as altruistic public servants.
Because we are not powerful, Sebastopol, Healdsburg, Forestville, Windsor and Cloverdale are never targeted for a homeless super-sized shelter … force it on us. The Russian River, that truly belongs (under California water law) to the contiguous towns and villages and grandfathered landowners, becomes the fulcrum for developers and the tool for overpopulation. Poor river, we say. This town, Monte Rio, Jenner, Cloverdale, Healdsburg, Geyserville …”first rights in” co-opted over time.
Now this truly desperate attempt to hijack the infrastructure our taxpayers have been paying for these 40 years or more and the laughable scheme to truck sewage on the roads our grandfathers built for our town. Meeting goers can change the way we are orchestrated to pretend we are not being bamboozled again. Turn down the magic show they are trying to present and ask them the pertinent questions. They can pass out the printed Powerpoint, they always do before they read it to us, deadly boring sentence by sentence.
J.L. Stenger, Guerneville
Thanks for story on Pastor Swaney
EDITOR: Thank you for researching and writing the article on Pastor Jim Swaney. It was so encouraging for my husband and I to learn that this new pastor at Sebastopol Christian Church holds firmly to godly values and is having a positive impact on people in our community. We also greatly appreciate that Sonoma West Times & News did not shy away from publishing such an article.
Denile Kosten, Sebastopol
Editor’s Note: Thanks from Daddy Coolio
Herbie “Daddy Coolio” from Sebastopol came into the Sonoma West Times and News office on Thursday, Feb. 9 at lunchtime to ask news staff to write an article about the coats the Sebastopol Police Department recently handed out to members of Sebastopol’s homeless community. On Dec. 16, 2016 SWTN published an article about the EMPWR coats, funded through a donation drive by the Sebastopol Area Chamber of Commerce, which news staff explained to Herbie. Delighted that the charity had already been publicized, Herbie wanted to further express his gratitude to the Sebastopol Police Department, adding that the coats were “really great.”
