Friday's Letters to the Editor

Handling a crisis

EDITOR: A lot has been said lately about politicians treating crises as opportunities (“Governor sees opportunity in crisis,” Monday). This is not necessarily a bad thing. You have to expect a professional politician to try to leverage any shift in public sentiment to his advantage. If he’s not skilled enough to do that, he’s not likely to get far. The real question is whether he’ll use the opportunity to try to solve chronic problems his predecessors may have simply kicked down the road, or simply to enrich his friends, enhance his power and advance a partisan agenda. We saw what road George W. Bush took; it’s time for Barack Obama and Arnold Schwarzenegger to show us what they’re made of.

JIM GALLAGHER

Petaluma

EDITOR: I would like to add my voice to those who question the priority of paving a perfectly usable trail along Santa Rosa Creek between Willowside and Fulton roads. It is hard to understand in these hard economic times how paving this trail could have any priority over all the many community needs. But I have another question: How could it possibly cost $650,000 to pave 2.1 miles of trail? Any private contractor quoting such prices would be out of business in a heartbeat. How does our government get away with it? And why does our citizenry allow it? If we get the government we deserve, God help us.

FAITH BUGELY

Sebastopol

EDITOR: The struggle in Washington over health care can only end in an unacceptable compromise. I do not believe the United States is smart enough to achieve a real solution in one massive overhaul of an inadequate system. My suggestion is to put each baby at birth on Medicare. In this way we would transition over 50 years to a system compatible with the rest of the industrialized world. I believe this is the only way we can overcome all the entrenched interests in Washington. The struggle then would be to provide adequate funding for Medicare, which is now under great stress due to a long period of budget cutting.

THOMAS J. HARVEY

Sebastopol

EDITOR: Pamela Keller’s letter (“Asphalt’s effects,” Wednesday) describes her work life in construction, operating heavy equipment and being around asphalt paving crews: Being around it didn’t hurt me, wildlife love noisy areas and aren’t harmed. This is industry-centric thinking.

Hot asphalt’s main emission, “blue smoke” (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), is classified as a carcinogen on skin contact and inhalation. Hot asphalt produces air pollutants and volatile organic compounds, including carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide, to name a few. Crushing and moving Dutra’s quarry rock would also produce toxic crystalline silicate dust. Concentrated truck traffic would emit toxic levels of diesel emissions.

Of great concern are children, pregnant mothers and wildlife. Children breathe more air for their body weight than adults.

Keller chose to work around hot asphalt. Families, schoolchildren, tourists, workers — and wildlife — visiting Shollenberger Park and living or working nearby do not choose exposure to asphalt emissions, noise, dust and heavy industry, with potential health threats. The proposed location isn’t zoned for this type of industry. This is the overriding point: The proposed location of the Dutra asphalt plant is the wrong place.

MARGIE GOOLAN

Petaluma

EDITOR: California has no budget crisis. There is only a political crisis. The budget process is what is broken. Dismantling Proposition 13 will not fix this process.

If you had a car that developed a problem that halved its mileage, you could continue to drive it by pouring money into the tank. While the car would move, the problem would not be fixed. It would just cost more to drive it. If the budget process is broken, as everyone agrees it is, we would all be better served by fixing the process than by taxing the elderly out of their homes.

Remember, Proposition 13 was passed by voters just as this year’s tax initiatives were not. If the answer is to ignore the will of the voters, then let’s ask our Legislature to disregard the results of this year’s referendum and enact the failed initiatives. How ironic that the government would force taxpayers to tighten their belts when they themselves are unwilling to do so.

JOE AQUILA

Sebastopol

EDITOR: The city of Santa Rosa is struggling with substantial budget cuts and faces reduced real estate and sales tax revenues and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s threat to tap them further. We’ve heard about city worker layoffs, pay cuts, closed programs, reduced police services and delayed maintenance projects to get the city solvent.

Meanwhile, President Obama turns America into a virtual beggar nation to send stimulus and infrastructure money to the states, and Santa Rosa gets a chunk of that money. Now, how to spend it? The City Council believes we need a food and wine center and lots of new housing. Now, those sure are two really critical shortages in Santa Rosa: housing and restaurants. ($15 million keeps Santa Rosa project on track," Wednesday.)

If anyone calls her careless or profligate, Mayor Susan Gorin can say it’s all for the SMART train, and it’s really so green and fuzzy-like. We can’t fund the railroad, but we’ll have a snazzy station and a happy developer, and isn’t that what really counts? It makes you wonder if the fantasy tale that is SMART wasn’t always just about public largesse for private interests served up by clueless politicians.

RICHARD L. SUTTER

Santa Rosa

EDITOR: Bob Deis resignation has left the county without an administrator, a situation that will apparently require a temporary replacement. At what cost?

I was curious to note that Deis had been a proponent of reducing the cost of unfunded county liabilities to the ire of some. The unfunded liabilities of the supervisors’ departure “gift” to Deis are extraordinary and astonishing, especially in a time of fiscal restraint.

The gift of his $200,000-plus salary is added to the retirement benefit he receives for being on the payroll for the next year although not working. If the county were to prefund these obligations, It would take nearly a million dollars over the next seven or eight years and require him to not outlive his life expectancy.

Therefore the total gift to Deis for working nine years under a specific contract was: $230,000 salary, $150,000 for health care benefit and a $1.75 million retirement benefit. The total is more than $2 million dollars.

Where is the Board of Supervisors’ common sense? They will be long gone before the residents of Sonoma County are finished paying for this generosity. Perhaps they should be gone from office sooner.

JERRY HANKS

Healdsburg