LETTERS TO THE EDITOR – 4-19-12

Parade street closures
Editor: It’s parade time again.
On Saturday, April 21, 2012, the City of Sebastopol will be holding the annual Apple Blossom Parade and it will be necessary to post your street for no parking from 7 a.m. until 1 p.m. that day.
The no parking areas will be posted to include the following:
• Petaluma Avenue — the entire street;
• High School Road — between East Hurlbut and North Main Street;
• Main Street — between Eddie Lane, south to Palm Avenue;
 • Calder Avenue — between South Main Street and Swain Avenue;
 • High Street — between Bodega Avenue and Calder Avenue;
• Willow Street — between South Main Street and Jewell Avenue;
• Lynch Road — between Gravenstein Highway and Pleasant Hill Road;
• Pleasant Hill Road — between Lynch Road and Bodega Avenue;
• East Hurlbut Avenue — the entire street;
• Wallace Avenue — the entire street;
• Taft Street — the entire street;
• Bonnardel Avenue — the entire street;
• Sunset Avenue — the entire street.
Also, no traffic other than parade traffic will be allowed on the above areas of Main Street, Calder Avenue, High Street and Willow Street between 9:45 a.m. and 1 p.m.
Eddie Lane will be closed at the west entrance on that date (at North Main Street). The only access to Eddie Lane will be from the east side from Johnson Street.
I’m asking the residents who live within the above areas to please assist us to keep the traffic flowing smoothly by keeping their vehicles off the street from 7 a.m. until 1 p.m. Thank you for your cooperation.
Jeffrey D. Weaver
Sebastopol Chief of Police
End the occupation
Editor: Every time I pass the “Occupy Sebastopol” encampment in our town plaza, their tent is sealed shut and there are no occupiers there. I have now come to believe that Sebastopol is actually being occupied by absentee landlords.
The tent has become a symbol of the “occupy” movement. This symbol, however, has outlived its effectivenes, and what we are left with is an ugly plastic structure in our town plaza.
I think the time has come for the occupiers to return the site back to the community so that we can all occupy it ourselves.
John Morehead
Sebastopol
SmartMeter folly
Editor: No sooner had the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) granted customers the choice of opting out of the SmartMeter program, then PG&E told its customers they would have to pay an up-front fee and a monthly charge if they chose to opt out. We at Burbank Heights & Orchards in Sebastopol are circulating the following petition. We hope, if you agree with us, that you will let the CPUC know:
We, the undersigned, are residents of Burbank Heights & Orchards (BH&O), 7777 Bodega Avenue, Sebastopol, CA 95472. We address our following petition to the California Public Utilities Commission. We are very concerned about three matters regarding the opt-out program for PG&E SmartMeters: Opt-out fees, misrepresented as already set in stone in letters and phone calls from PG&E; no SmartMeters at multiple-dwelling complexes; and long overdue hearings on the health and safety risks of SmartMeters.
1. The penalty charges for those of us who chose to opt-out are unjust. (In a petition campaign held in August 2010, 83 percent of BH&O residents chose to opt out. You received copies of our petitions.) How can we be charged for the removal of SmartMeters that have never been installed in the first place, and for the removal of SmartMeters installed without permission? Of the 16 apartment buildings at BH&O only one building, N, has had SmartMeters installed. There are also two SmartMeters (gas and electric) installed on apartment G1. No one knows when these were installed, but we believe it was sometime in early 2010. There are no other SmartMeters installed at BH&O. We should not have to pay $75 per customer to have them “removed,” nor do we think the monthly charge of $10 for opting out is at all fair or realistic. That PG&E expects to be reimbursed a total of $2,000 for reading once a month some 400 meters concentrated in banks on our 16 buildings is unconscionable. The new charges seem exorbitant and unfair. We already pay the base rates that have provided meter readers and other basic services like repairs. We are opposed to the new charges and urge the CPUC to disallow them.
2. The scatter-shot installation of SmartMeters at multiple dwellings such as BH&O is folly. Here, the meters are in banks (a minimum of 24 meters for buildings with 12 apartments and a minimum of 12 for buildings with six apartments). These banks of meters constitute a wall of Electro Magnetic Frequency (EMF) fields on each building and are adjacent to someone’s bedroom in each building. Installing SmartMeters will increase the EMFs throughout the entire complex to an alarming amount. As with all other matters SmartMeter, the multiple-dwelling EMF problem has not even been addressed.
3. It appears that the health and safety issues of multiple-dwelling EMF have not ever been addressed. The time has come to do so because until those matters have been ascertained, we respectfully decline to be made guinea pigs for PG&E’s profit.
As an elder community we are alarmed at and opposed to the installation of Smart-Meters in our senior apartment complex and believe that the CPUC needs to protect us by disallowing both their installation and the imposition of new fees.
If you agree with these points, please let the CPUC know at California Public Utilities Commission, 505 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, California 94102; 1-866-849-8390; Fax: 415-703-1758;

pu************@cp**.gov











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Deanne Thompson
Sebastopol
Sebastopol leader?
Editor: I feel an opposing view to an April 5 letter praising Sarah Gurney’s leadership (“A local treasure”), is a must.
To allow one’s representation of our community to be swayed by a vocal minority, is not leadership. In regards to the proposed CVS development, the city and the developer have spent thousands of dollars on all kinds of required studies for the project. Unless Sarah and this minority are experts in the fields they question, how can they raise a legitimate objection? Anyone can raise an emotional objection. However that is not necessarily in the community’s best interest. If we do not abide by these studies, then why are we required to spend valuable tax dollars and have developers spend their valuable dollars on said studies?
I think it is wonderful Ms. Gurney leads public walks to point out our local treasures and I would like to thank her for bringing “Slow Sebastopol,” to us. However, I hope she also points the vacant storefronts downtown, the ever growing potholes on Main Street, the diminishing population and other city services that are waning. She is supposed to be a leader and help Sebastopol sustain its quality of life. As our deficiencies grow, is her city-provided compensation going to be cut? What other vital services will she sacrifice for a few very vocal citizens? I see our quality of life diminishing day by day. Sebastopol is definitely not the thriving town I came to know and enjoy. Without some growth, this beautiful town will wither and die.
Wilbert Brown
Sebastopol