Letters to the Editor 5-2-13

It’s not going away
Editor: In September of 2012, I emailed several Healdsburg City Council members noting that the proposed one way for Foss Creek Circle was counterintuitive and, I thought, potentially dangerous. The issue is alive and well, and it has nothing to do with the drop off boxes at the Post Office. The problem will never go away because this one way is going the wrong way. An oldster like me will forget. Someone new to the area will make a mistake. Someone coming out of the post office will absent mindedly turn the wrong way. People may stop protesting or commenting, but this issue is never going away even though the City Council wants to believe it will. Better to go back to a two way street.  
Carolyn Moore
Healdsburg
Checkpoint
Editor: My family has lived at the corner of West Grant Street and Grove Street in Healdsburg for over 20 years. We have seen and heard numerous accidents and seen countless daily moving violations in our intersection. This weekend (Passport Weekend) I saw several violations while doing gardening in our front yard. The number of violations was far greater than normal. The violations were excessive speed, running the stop signs, reckless driving and passengers openly drinking wine in passenger cars (not limos). The violations seemed to be more numerous in the late afternoon.
I would hope that the Healdsburg Police Department, Sonoma County Sherriff and California Highway Patrol pull in off duty staff on weekends that celebrate drinking to enforce the California Vehicle Code. I would also hope that the powers to be do not discourage enforcing the Vehicle Code on such weekends. I do not remember ever seeing a DUI checkpoint on such a weekend..
Thank you very much.
Bruce Selfridge
Healdsburg
THS flea market
Editor: As a parent of The Healdsburg School, I would like to invite the community to attend our Spring Flea Market this Friday and Saturday, May 3 and 4 from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the school parking lot.
We are working hard to teach our kids to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, through community service, with a strong focus on reducing the size of our landfills.
Through the community and our families, we have gathered together a wide array of gently used items including baby items, books, collectibles, DVD’s, toys, clothing, furniture, household items, sporting goods, working electronics and much more.
Each year the THS Volunteer Council hosts two community-wide sales of gently used merchandise as a service to the community at large.
We welcome you to join us this Friday and Saturday for our Spring Flea at 33-H Healdsburg Avenue.
We look forward to seeing you.
MJ Dubé
THS Parent and Flea Market Chair
Letting go of the wheel
Editor: I grew up through a time when life in America was increasingly adapted to function around the automobile. The village was left behind. No longer were the necessities of life to be found within walking distance. Homes, once built with front porches and separate garages, now had garages built into the front and front porches became back patios. The shared culture of our Great Depression gave way to the insulation of materialistic privacy. Decades of growth, supporting a huge middle class, set us all securely in the driver’s seat of private mobility.
Now, unfortunately, many of those who were instrumental in the creation of this auto-centric American dream are being relegated to the cold netherworld of non-driving. After decades of independence and freedom of mobility, the harsh reality of inadequate alternatives to the comfort and privacy of one’s own automobile can be a devastating experience. Except for the condition that prohibits their driving, many of these individuals are still viable and active older adults who are now cut off from a life that depended on their mobility.
Considering the contributions of these older drivers to the American way of life that so many of us continue to enjoy, I believe we owe it to them to find a more compassionate and dignified transition from driving than is currently available. And, since we also know that the majority of drivers on the road today will outlive their ability to drive, wouldn’t it make sense to prepare the way for all those to come?
Although public transit and ParaTransit can be an important part of individual transportation planning for older adults, along with other, more flexible alternatives; the sudden transition from sheltered privacy to public exposure can be quite traumatic, especially if the cessation from driving involved some physical limitations. I believe we have no less than a moral obligation to provide older drivers (our grandmothers and grandfathers) the means for a dignified, incremental transition from driving.
Ideally, this transition from driving will take place over a period of time, from the first sign of the need to limit or change driving behavior to the decision that the time has come to finally let go of the wheel. In this way one can adapt slowly, recognizing and addressing the risks of continued driving before becoming a threat to self or others. As a matter of fact, for some older Americans this may be a transition from isolating independence to the surprising benefits of inter-dependence.  
Because, as Bill Cosby once pointed out to a group of school children, “we are all growing an old person,” what we do now to enhance the quality of this transition will not only benefit those who are currently retiring from driving, but all those to come as well. Many lives will be saved if we can show that driving cessation is not the end of life, but simply a transition to another stage of life, one that can be as rewarding (if not more so) as any other.
The Sonoma County Area Agency on Aging Transportation and Mobility Committee is facilitating a Transition From Driving Support Group pilot program at the Healdsburg Senior Center on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month, 1 to 2:30 pm. Whether you are contemplating this transition, currently going through it, or have done so already; your help is needed in co-creating a Support Group format that can be spread to Senior Centers throughout the county.
Rabon Saip
Santa Rosa