Letters to the Editor 7-28-16

Cloverdale gets Bern’d
Editor: This week, Cloverdale city leaders are feelin’ the heartBern. Days before the June primary election, the Bernie Sanders campaign contacted city hall to request the use of Cloverdale’s municipal airport for a campaign rally. It was reported that Sanders wanted to visit a small town because he is from a small town. In other words, small town people are his people.
Too bad he doesn’t mind ripping off his people. Because that is exactly what he and his campaign have done. The request to use our airport was made just 48 hours before the rally event. In rushed negotiations the campaign promised to pay all associated expenses.
Given the impossibly short timeline and their excitement to host a presidential candidate, city leaders made decisions that left us vulnerable to the tune of $23,000 in public safety expenses that the campaign now refuses to pay. This is money our financially stressed city can ill afford to lose and, if the situation is not remedied, it is money that will come out of city residents’ pockets via the general fund — whether or not we are Bernie fans.
Shame on Bernie. Man of the people … unless those people live in Cloverdale.
Lisa Brew-Miller
Cloverdale
Response to “Scaly dilemma…”
Editor: Regarding the July 21 article “Scaly dilemma: is it a… rattlesnake?” It was informative, though not totally. I happen to like snakes, King, Gopher and Racers – it’s not my instinct to kill them. In the interest of protecting both humans and dogs, rattlesnakes, as with all animals, have exceptions to their behavioral rules.
In the Asti area we average 12-14 of them each year around the house. Rattlesnakes do not always rattle before striking, they can swim, they may not always avoid humans and may attack even when they have other options and they may return to same area night after night for good hunting.
Dogs can get a rattlesnake vaccination and for dog runs, encase with a hardware net to keep snakes out. In California, there are more than 800 bites a year with 1-2 deaths and in the U.S. there are more than 8,000 bites a year with 10-15 deaths.
We should respect all nature, but be smart about it. I do wish the King snake I filmed eating another snake had eaten a rattler; alas it was a gopher.
Madeline Wallace
Cloverdale
Farewell to Cindy
Editor: The branch manger of the Cloverdale Regional Library is retiring this summer. Cindy Wilson started working in Cloverdale in 2004 as the children’s librarian. Then in 2011 Cindy was named branch manger. Cindy has this to say about her time at the Cloverdale Library: “I have loved working in this library and in Cloverdale, it has been so rewarding to establish relationships with patrons. I’ve been here long enough that children who attended story time, or maybe worked as teen volunteers, still come back to visit from college and even after college. I will miss everyone.”
The Friends of the Cloverdale Library will certainly miss Cindy; she has always facilitated our money raising activities. More importantly Cindy was not shy about asking for funds to provide programs in the library or to augment the library’s book budget. One way Cindy has used money provided by the Friends is to purchase “Lucky Day” books, these are best sellers that are purchased for the exclusive use of Cloverdale library patrons. Walk into the library and on the shelf there just might be that best seller you wanted to read; it’s your “Lucky Day.”
On Saturday, August 6, there will be a retirement open house from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Cloverdale Library. Please come in, have a cookie, sign a card and say good-bye to Cindy.
Susan Clark, President
Friends of the Cloverdale Library
Disappointed in Wood
Editor: I continue to be bemused by our hometown Assemblyman Jim Wood. It’s almost as though he doesn’t want his constituents to know what, if anything, he is doing.
A newsletter, for instance, is a standard communication tool for most legislators, and Wood has one. Access it on his website and you read “My first month as Assemblymember has flown by!” Uh, Jim, that was two and a half years ago, in February 2014. Anything to report since then?
Nor is it possible to learn much about his legislation. His (meager) list of legislation he introduced in 2015 says nothing about the fate of those bills, and the 2016 list is, as he writes, an excessively “brief overview.” Oh, his voting record? Not a hint.
I believe what we have elected is a representative who doesn’t really want us to know what he is doing or what votes he is casting — or not casting. Jim is hometown, and I think it’s time to bring him back home. I hope a better local candidate is gearing up for the next election. S/he’s already got my vote.
Dave Henderson
Healdsburg