LETTERS TO THE EDITOR – 3-22-12

Library appreciation
Editor: I would like to express the sincere appreciation of the staff of the Sebastopol Regional Library to the City of Sebastopol and the Sebastopol Community Center for allowing the library to use their space for the Sebastopol Library Express Station.
Our library users are grateful to have a place to pick up their requested items and drop off the books they are finished with. The youngest library users are enjoying story times on Wednesday mornings as well. The Community Center is accessible and has been very accommodating.
We are looking forward to having the full library back in service, but are incredibly grateful to have a presence in Sebastopol in the meantime.
Sue Struthers
Branch Manager
Sebastopol Regional Library
Stop the nonsense
Editor: In February I wrote a letter published by this editor, opposing the CVS/Chase project based on my view that this project brings nothing new and/or of value to our town. I requested facts from those supporting the project and corresponded directly to the two council members who support it.
I also asked people to stop resorting to slinging barbs and name calling against those who differ from them. In the very next edition and in subsequent editions, several citizens wrote personal vitriol against others, including against the majority of the city council, with no facts. The basic premise of these heated letters was that one small, 80-year-old resident controls and leads all those that oppose them. I picture angry writers offering only immature, baseless, them-against-us attitudes.
I also don’t get how, by adding unnecessary toxicity to the conversation, the writers serve anyone other than personal venom and agendas. Not only are these views rude and demeaning, they are insulting. What basis is there to conclude that my opinion and the majority city council’s opinions are intrinsically ignorant with no well-thought-out positions? What factual basis is there to conclude that a boss leads anyone?
Please, boys and girls, let me assure you. No one is influencing my position. I actually read and judge for myself. The only hidden bosses are in your imaginations. It’s time to stop the paranoid rhetoric and be civil and mature about this.
I agree. It’s time for a change. Stop this nonsense.
Nancy LoDolce
Sebastopol
Life is a movie
Editor: If the Sebastopol town split over the Pellini property could be compared to a 1950s cowboy drama — a Vegetarian Western — it might read like “sod-busters with hired gunslinger ‘Shane,’ versus the cattle ranchers that don’t want the land fenced so their steers can roam free and fatten for market.”
Except in this scenario the villains, the ones who don’t want change and are threatened with sharing the land are the “green slingers.”
The peaceful townsfolk would like to see their community thrive, be self-supporting, and share the largess with student scholars, the homeless, and free enterprising business and entrepreneurs.
The Shane tribe act like exclusionary, entitled, bad attitudinal thugs who are holding the town hostage. They don’t mix in business, or mainstream community groups. They appear as the person sitting alone at the end of the bar giving everyone the stink eye.
They are the high school the oppositional Holden Caulfields who think change is for “phonies.” They were privileged who didn’t approve of their parent’s comfort, status, politics.
That tribe began as Utopians against insensitive progress, urban sprawl and deep regard for our natural habitat. Yet they have morphed into self-centered grapplers, mean-spirited me-firsters, who will use the victim card, blame game, anything goes tactics to goddesses’ brew.
Does ideology, like cataracts, develop with age? Lens repair can be seamless. Not so if you are a trigger-happy gunslinger with bad vision.
To change metaphors and movies, though, this time as a comedic farce, their tribe may be better suited a Tally Bascom and “The Mouse that Roared” an anachronism fighting change.
Though referring back to the Best Picture of 1954 and the nostalgic, plaintive ending with Shane riding off into the sunset, “Go home Shane. Shane. Shane. Go home Shane.”
Paul T. Pera
Sebastopol
Who gets my money?
Editor: Its not every day that I am offered a choice between supporting a frivolous lawsuit or Sebastopol cultural heritage sites (as referred to by several city council members) that benefit citizens located in and nearby Sebastopol.
I understand that Helen Shane and John Kramer, board member of Sonoma County Conservation Action, are asking local residents to give them $20,000 to retain a San Francisco attorney so they can proceed with suing the City of Sebastopol over an already accepted traffic mitigation report.
For those of you considering sending such a donation, I would like to suggest a more positive use of your discretionary income. Why not send a donation to the important non-profit organizations in Sebastopol that make our city unique, a cultural heritage, and who provide such valuable services to our community members?
I am sure the following organizations could do more positive things with $20,000 than Helen Shane or John Kramer and at the same time, impact the environment, health, education and safety for children, families and seniors.
Included on my cultural heritage list are the Sebastopol Area Senior Center, Sebastopol Center for the Arts, Sebastopol Cultural Community Center, Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, Ceres Project, Palm Drive Health Care Foundation, multiple school foundations that need help with the basics, and the City of Sebastopol Human Services-Community Fund, which could use donations to meet the needs of our city and/or non-profit organizations.
You decide: a richer attorney or a richer quality of life for our local community.
Linda J. Johnson
Sebastopol
Tapping the ‘Bush well’
Editor: Transparent indeed as I read “An open question” (Sonoma West Times & News, March 8). Seemed interesting until I considered the example of transparency at the Federal level. (Fantasy.) This was a hypothetical example saying without open government laws “oil drilling off the Sonoma Coast could have been approved by a secret, late night deal made in congress or by a previous White House administration.” Oh I get it, you mean Bush. For a moment I thought he was referring to Nancy Pelosi who said “We have to pass the (Healthcare) bill so you can find out what is in it.” Nobody reads the bill as they rave about it. Result: 15 percent of the economy taken over with political trickery and reconciliation. Cost overruns abound and doctors are running for the hills. Soon we’ll all be in managed care with very few choices. The most oppressive parts of the bill kick in after the election in 2013 (Fact). Like that was real transparent Mr. Atkinson. Very revealing how the writer bypasses current events and taps the “Bush” well in an election year.
James Ladley
Forestville