Letters to the Editor 5-14-15

Opposed to ‘A’
Editor: I am writing to ask my fellow Sonomans to oppose Measure A. Sales tax rates are already high and disproportionately harm the poor. At the same time, less regressive tax revenues – property tax, hotel tax, business taxes – are rising due to the economic recovery (as are sales tax revenues, themselves). Furthermore, the county has not earmarked the money for anything in particular. This worries me as the county has failed to prove that it is a good steward of taxpayer money. We have enormous unfunded pension liabilities looming and, extrapolating from data available at www.transparentcalifor
nia.com, the county spends $40 an hour on janitorial services. Are these the people to whom we should entrust our money?
Gabriel Froymovich
Healdsburg
Opposed to pipelines
Editor: Governor Moonbeam’s minions have spent a million hours studying how to transfer northern California water to his political hacks and contributors in La La Land. It doesn’t take a million hours of study to learn that you can’t create water by building pipelines. They only move the water you have from one place to another. We can pray and pray and pray for water, but if it doesn’t rain and snow we need to do something positive about it, like purifying wastewater and/or desalination. This is no time to pretend that the governor’s scheme is a valid one.
Glenn Grigg
Healdsburg
A coming storm
Editor: A standing ovation for your insightful and thought provoking column last week (Main Street, May 7, 2015) raising the question on what are we really saying when we say yes to the legalization of marijuana. Count on the money guys to always follow human weakness. We’re not talking about medical marijuana. As you so well put it, we’re talking about the unaddressed questions. Like at what age is pot legal for our kids? And why are we saying to them that it’s OK if you need a little help getting through the day? (coming soon to a billboard near you) I had not thought about the threat to the vineyards and the wire fences and security services. What we need is a thoughtful discussion. I have been worried about this coming storm for years. As a new Healdsburg resident, it never occurred to me that when my wife and I moved out of L.A. to escape life in the big city and moved to Sonoma County that we may have made “An Appointment in Samara.” Let’s hope not. Thank you for sounding the alarm.
Robert Markowitz
Healdsburg
Ganja fields unlikely
Editor: Regarding the concern about the legalization of marijuana threatening our grapevine-bedecked hillsides, it seems unlikely that the vineyards would be turned into pot gardens. After all, that is pretty expensive real estate. I think Lorillard, R.J. Reynolds, Philip Morris, et alia, would find it more financially prudent (i.e. make more money) growing wide swaths of ganja out in Stockton, or Fresno, or anywhere else in the vast Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys. Just saying…
Barbara Médaille
Healdsburg
Oak Mound kudos
Editor: Recently I was visiting my friend Nancy Cattalini Davis. She told me that the Oak Mound Cemetery had undergone some cleaning of the brush of the older section so we took a walk through that area. Many of our relatives are buried in that area and we would like to commend the people who undertook this project. It looks nice and is easier for us to find our family members.
Dorinda Olson
Redding
Merchant responsibility
Editor: The headline for the May 7 edition of the Healdsburg Tribune reads “Merchants want parking spaces, not parking fees.” I agree with the article, we do need more parking spaces in the downtown core area. Building a parking structure at the city owned “Purity” property is an excellent way to create significant new parking spaces. However, the merchants can assist in generating many  parking spaces.  The Walker Parking study done for the city found that one-third of the core area parking spaces are used all  day  by merchants and their employees. Every three hours, these individuals play musical chairs with their cars so spaces are used all day long. Before the merchants go to the city for solving this problem at the taxpayers expense, how about the business community park a few blocks away or buy/lease a vacant lot for their exclusive use?
Len Theiss
Healdsburg