Editorial

Tax Day is looming, the deadline we all over complain about, deal with anyway and somehow always survive — often ending with a nice refund check from the IRS. How much of our complaining is justified and how much is just an inbred response to anything made mandatory by the big, bad government?

Our presidential candidates are doing their best to sell us on a vision of their presidencies. Bigotry, hate, anger, selfishness, scarcity, and lack of respect for human life characterize a number of these visions. Such visions are deeply disturbing, scary and sad.

The March 10 commentary piece “The elephant in the room” brought to mind a quote attributed to a U.S. Army officer in Vietnam concerning a military operation there. “It became necessary to destroy the town in order to save it.”

Spring is a time of renewal, new hope and new ideas. It’s also a time to shake up our existing notions of how our communities operate.

Thirty percent of the world’s population lacks adequate access to safe water and a child dies every 90 seconds on our planet from a water-related disease. Many schools and hospitals in underdeveloped countries lack safe drinking water or sanitation.

Jim Brush, in his Tribune Commentary of March 10, shares his discovery of the reason that we have a crisis of unaffordable housing in Healdsburg: lack of supply, and the solution: completely terminate the Growth Management Ordinance.

In Healdsburg and throughout Sonoma County, issues related to housing have been in the spotlight for many months. The city is keenly aware of our community’s housing needs and has been working hard, alongside our residents, to address these serious housing problems. Providing affordable housing to working families and building government subsidized, affordable housing units continue to be top City Council priorities. Much has been accomplished and a great deal remains to be done.

Newspapers and journalists have many jobs. Gathering the news, covering public meetings, publicizing community events, helping to find lost dogs and defending  the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment are just some of them.

The people of Sonoma County, according to various surveys and census reports, possess above average traits in spiritualism, tolerance and philanthropy but attend church and religious services less frequently than their counterparts in other parts of the country.

Recently there has been considerable attention directed towards Healdsburg’s lack of affordable housing, especially in regards to the “missing middle” working class families. This situation could be seen coming a long time ago and essentially took this long to boil over.