Letters to the Editor 7-30-15

Too mobile at Firecrest
EDITOR: Since January 1963 the City of Sebastopol has represented our neighborhood and community. We are a community of Senior Citizens and make up a large component of affordable housing in the city. Our community is mentioned specifically in the Draft General Plan.
The city of Sebastopol has “full authority for” Village Mobile Home Park the other mobile home park inside city limits. Local government knows the community far better than Sacramento. The city has overseen inspection, building and safety since 1963 or over a half century. 
Residents can utilize the services of HCD and Mobile Home Ombudsman fully at this time. Aug. 4 the city council is being asked to give up a successful five decade practice of serving residents as well as yielding an estimated low figure of $1,100 per year to city coffers for processing building permits and providing routine services. 
Local is better. We are urged to shop local, spend local, stay local.  We read local newspapers, support local causes, we choose to live here. We are Sebastopoleans, or Seb- Towners!
We pay for local services well beyond Police and Fire. We vote for local school boards and a majority of our present City Council sat in our community clubhouse prior to the last council election and asked that we vote for them to represent us. We now ask them to represent us and our interests. We expect them to do the right thing for all of us.
Eric Kirchmann 
Sebastopol
The flow of misery
EDITOR: Regarding the recent discussion of rapidly rising rents in our county, I would like to ask the following:
What does it feel like to own one or more rental properties, with plenty of money in the bank, and the security of a future without want? Now ask yourself what it feels like to live in an apartment for five, 10 years or more, just getting by, and have your landlord suddenly raise your rent by, say, three hundred dollars. Or a thousand dollars.
Can you feel that sick feeling in your stomach? You and your family are suddenly plunged into a new, uncertain world, competing with thousands of other renters for a roof over your head. What lies ahead? Living with relatives? In your car? Under a bridge?
These are human realities, happening all around us.
I have no pity for the greedy landlords who take every dollar they can. Know it or not, they are caught in the flow of misery from the people in their net. Only their blindness protects them.
Hank Bassior
Sebastopol