Letters to the Editor 9-25-14

Barlow issues
Editor: Barlow meets reality. Barney wants out and the tin dump is for sale, all 14 buildings. According to your story (“Barlow developer seeks investors,” Sept. 18), “The CBRE offering is for all or partial acquisition.”…. “If we find some equity partners, Aldridge won’t be so married to the project,” says his partner Bret Martin.
Right. Barney’s on the run. Well, if I owed $28 million for a pile of junk in a flood zone, I guess I’d flee as well. The Barlow needs that variance from the Flood Ordinance in order to get council approval. Is that why the Barlow has a Flood Log warehouse? The ordinance variation won’t stop a flood. The proposed “boutique” hotel will generate 25,000 guests night per year?
With any luck Simon Properties, owner of Santa Rosa Plaza and other centers, will pick up the Barlow for 10 cents on the dollar, bulldoze it, and start all over again.
Of course, the City Council of Sebastopol could pick up the outstanding loan and pay it off. Or turn the project over to Cittaslow Sebastopol, known for its noteworthy graffiti on the sidewalks, and fabulous, “The Gravensteins are Coming” banners.” (They got $20,000 from the city and promptly spent the money on consultants in the Bay Area). Helen Shane, known activist, previously wrote Sonoma West proclaiming, “The Barlow is a good citizen.”
Mayor Jacob said he liked “the organic way the Barlow has developed.”
Just remember Mayor; some organic stuff ultimately becomes compost.
Ed LaFrance
Sebastopol
Find a way to open PT
Editor: Wishful thinking will not reopen West County’s hospital. Sometimes, reality must be faced. Anything more than a basic ER for emergency care so as to stabilize patients for transport to Santa Rosa’s better equipped hospitals is unrealistic it seems to me.
While it probably seems to many readers that I really should have no say about Palm Drive Hospital’s current hiatus and the great pressure the current management is under, I would like to express a thought about the physical therapy department.
After an accidental fall during Christmas break of 2008, I had to have knee surgery to repair the torn quadriceps muscle in my right leg.
After surgery at Palm Drive, I began having PT. At first I wore a knee brace at night to straighten the offending member to get full extension. Without my wife’s and the therapist’s help I doubted I would ever return to normal. It took over six months (three times a week, then twice a week) before my knee was strong enough to walk normally again.
As you can guess, during that time I came to know some of the therapists fairly well. As the Sonoma Valley Hospital deal fell through last week (“Sonoma Valley backs out of clinic deal,” Sept. 18), I am praying the Mr. Doss will give the physical therapists’ plan every possible consideration. They are a wonderful team of caring professionals who, I am sure, would love to return to work in Sebastopol. The public would benefit from their expertise.
Frank Baumgardner
Santa Rosa
Open Palm Drive
Editor: I am a many-year, fully satisfied Kaiser Patient. I may never use the ER at Palm Drive, but I support its re-opening. I willingly pay the parcel tax as a small price for providing local emergency services to our community. The closer an emergency room is to the patient, the more likely that patient’s life will be saved. The current campaign to re-open the hospital isn’t about providing easy access to resident’s doctors: It is about providing emergency room care. State law requires that an emergency room come with a full hospital. So the Open Our Hospital campaign is about finding a way to economically run a hospital so it can support emergency services. I may not have young children but I will always vote for school bonds. I may have otherwise taken care of my medical needs, but I have an obligation to those who may not have that option. I urge people to support the candidates who want to open emergency care — Powers and Colthurst — the “Doc and the Cop” as affirmation that West County residents are not just about “me.”
Dewey Watson
Graton
Challenging CVS
Editor: To be clear, Jonathan Greenberg’s ballot statement lists among his accomplishments, “provided leadership” in challenging CVS.
Perhaps he was in the leadership of some group other than Committee for Small Town Sebastopol (STS) that opposed CVS. If not, his claim of leadership is not supported.
He was never in the leadership of STS, which filed a lawsuit challenging the validity of the project approval. Jonathan did once offer to STS a design to be used at a boycott or picketing event, but declined to take part in organizing such an action. His design was never used.
I am told that he refused to sign a petition to boycott CVS.
He did not contribute to the fund set up by STS, as many community members did, to prosecute the lawsuit.
Helen Shane
Co-founder
Committee for Small Town Sebastopol