Saturday's Letters to the Editor

<p class="bold allcaps">What’s wrong here?</p> <p>EDITOR: Recently I needed new tires for my automobile. I shopped around for replacement tires and received a quote from a local dealer that was 30 percent more than the price I paid at Costco. Ten days later, while driving through the construction zone north of Santa Rosa, a metal object from the road punctured the side wall of one of the new tires. Fortunately, the tire held up until the vehicle was safely stopped off the roadway.</p><p>When I returned to Costco to purchase a replacement tire, I was greeted with a smile and told there would be no charge for the new tire and installation. The sales person simply thanked me for shopping at Costco and invited me to return in the future.</p><p>I believe he is a local resident who pays local taxes; he may have children in Santa Rosa area schools and probably votes in local elections. I would like to hear one of the Santa Rosa City Council members who voted against two recent “big box” business opportunities explain to me how my experience was bad for Santa Rosa.</p><p>JERE JACOBS</p><p>Santa Rosa</p><h3>For public option</h3> <p>EDITOR: It has been more than 15 years since our government has attempted to change the inequitable for-profit health care system. Our country needs health insurance reform that includes a public option, which will provide for all American citizens regardless of their health or economic condition.</p><p>We cannot afford to lose this opportunity for reform. For those dropped or denied insurance because of a pre-existing condition or an unprofitable illness, and for those who cannot afford it or who have lost their job, we need a health care system that works for all. </p><p>Every wealthy country other than the United States guarantees care to its citizens. Access to health care is not merely a visit to the emergency room. </p><p>Government and insurance companies are at a crossroads. Private insurers have had their opportunity to provide health care, and they are failing. Let our government take this opportunity to provide a public option that will take the profits out of health care. We need private and public interests working together as we proceed down the long road of reforming our health care system.</p><p>KATHLEEN SHAFFER</p><p>City Council member</p><p>Sebastopol</p><h3>Saving state parks</h3> <p>EDITOR: Three cheers for Monday’s editorial regarding our endangered state parks (“Keep out”). I agree wholeheartedly with all that was so eloquently expressed. In these economic times, parks offer affordable recreation and a respite from daily life. We need our parks to remain open.</p><p>SANDY KOSHARI</p><p>Santa Rosa</p><h3>Trusting Obama</h3> <p>EDITOR: Richard Koretz states that many people do not trust the president (“It’s about trust,” Letters, Wednesday). He said this should tell us all we need to know about why many people objected to the president speaking to schoolchildren. Indeed, it does, but what it tells me would probably surprise Koretz, because it reveals more about the people who do not trust President Obama than it does about the president, and there is nothing there to be proud of.</p><p>NANCY FLOM</p><p>Petaluma</p><h3>Find a safer way</h3> <p>EDITOR: There may be no more accidents in the Highway 101 construction zone in Windsor and Santa Rosa than there were last year, but it’s unnecessarily dangerous (“Was construction zone cause of fatal Hwy. 101 crash?” Sept. 5).</p><p>We think of not only poor Elucina Moyado Guevara, the woman who was killed in a fiery crash and whose children were injured in the accident, but also of the loved ones who drive that stretch frequently. Our son commutes to the Santa Rosa Junior College several nights a week and recently had his tire blow out while he navigated around the perilous road. He couldn’t pull off of the road because of the barriers placed immediately against the side of the lanes.</p><p>We know of others who have gotten flat tires in the construction area. People are losing control at the wheel because of the dips, ruts and uneven pavement. What’s worse is that people are driving at 55 mph or more, speeds that make it difficult to make fast decisions.</p><p>How can the conditions of these roads be allowed? We think it’s fine to expand the freeway to three lanes, but there must be a safer way.</p><p>DEBRA and SARA WRIGHT</p><p>Geyserville</p><h3>A word problem</h3> <p>EDITOR: Is there more to this basic math word problem than the published article reveals (“Petaluma police await ruling in GPS case,” Tuesday)?</p><p>Average speed equals total distance divided by total time. Thus, to travel a distance of 1,980 feet (or 0.375 miles) in 30 seconds (or 0.00833 hours), Shaun Malone would indeed be traveling at an average speed of 45 mph, but since he started at 0 mph (at a stoplight), he cannot possibly achieve an average speed of 45 mph without driving at a speed considerably over 45 mph at some point on his journey. (The distance range of 1,950 to 2,010 feet proposed by the defense attorney only alters the average mph to a range of 44.3 mph to 45.7 mph — not a significant difference.)</p><p>Whether Malone’s excessive speed occurred exactly at the radar point (the most logical) or at some other point during the journey seems to me a moot point in a 45 mph zone.</p><p>JESSICA CARR</p><p>Santa Rosa</p><h3>Pelosi’s puppet</h3> <p>EDITOR: I attended the town meeting on health care reform at the First United Methodist Church in Napa where Rep. Mike Thompson spoke. I also participated in his telephone town meeting. In neither meeting did he offer an original thought or an independent opinion, nor did he acknowledge that his constituents might have raised an issue that he had not considered.</p><p>As I listen to Thompson lecture his constituents on why he knows what is best for us, I have come to the conclusion that he is nothing more than a Nancy Pelosi hand puppet, whose lips move as she wiggles her fingers.</p><p>He proudly proclaimed that he had worked on the House Bill for 85 hours. The bill is some 1,010 pages long. His 85 hours of labor amounts to slightly over five minutes per page. Somehow that fact does not give me a great deal of confidence in his understanding of this complex piece of legislation.</p><p>As an independent, I voted for him in the past two elections, but his total insensitivity to the legitimate concerns of his constituents gives me a bad case of “voter’s remorse.” </p><p>CHUCK STRATTON</p><p>Napa</p>