LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Thank you taxpayers
Editor: April 15th — Tax Day. As a property owner, this is not
such a momentous occasion. As Superintendent of Sebastopol Union
School District, it’s a red letter day! For most of us, the
pleasant surprise of a lower property tax bill is the only silver
lining on the cloud of our property value decline. This year’s
reduced bottom line on the assessor’s statement resulted in my not
scrutinizing every add-on levy this year. But I know that one very
important element for the Sebastopol Union School District is still
there — the Parcel Tax. You may be wondering why I would point out
this additional cost to you, the taxpayer, when it may not be at
the forefront of your attention.
Because I want to thank you for it, and illustrate the
importance of the Parcel Tax to our educational program. In
Sebastopol Union School District, the $52 Parcel Tax you approved
in 2005 adds up to $200,000 per year for our schools. This
represents 4 percent of our general fund budget, and provides the
following for our students:
• counseling;
• art;
• instrumental and choral music;
• library staffing, and;
• technology
We know how fortunate we are to have Sebastopol taxpayers’
support through 2013. Please accept our deep appreciation for this
gift you have given our students, one whose value has grown in
importance over the past five years, as our state revenues continue
to be slashed.
Liz Schott
Superintendent/Principal
SUSD/Pine Crest School
Chilling voices
Editor: Recently, courtesy of a WikiLeaks video, I was able to
hear the eerie voices of an Apache helicopter crew and their online
military superiors from 2007 as they proceeded to kill 12 people in
Baghdad. This included two Reuters photographers, and the man who
subsequently took his life into his hands to try to rescue the
photographers’ driver, who was not yet dead — all were killed by
the circling helicopter, which also grievously wounded the
would-be-rescuer’s small children. Their crime was to be riding in
the front seat of their father’s van.
For me, the tone of the voices was more nightmarish than the
visible carnage. It was the voices of bored employees at the office
playing a sneak video game. It was the voice of the Enron dudes who
were sniggering about  having reamed Grandma Millie. For all I
know, it might be the voice of Don Blankenship as he said in 2003,
long before Massey Energy’s fatal mine explosion this week, “We
don’t pay much attention to the violation count.”    
These are the people who affect our lives, more directly than
those whom we elected.  They were our children, and we gave them
birthday presents and TV and sodas and GameBoys and Whoppers. We
had wall-to-wall schedules, so we let them grow up without elders
and mentors. Many of them never felt how closely we are, all of us,
bound to each other.
And now they are the gift that keeps on giving.
Elizabeth Fuller
Sebastopol