Friday's Letters to the Editor

<p class="bold allcaps">Valuable trip</p> <p>EDITOR: Oh, my goodness. If only we could reuse the energy used to dissuade the folks going to Copenhagen (“County sending seven to climate summit,” Nov. 24). Hopefully the few naysayers will realize how important this is. Do they see the necessity of this kind of investment for our future? I, unlike the author of the Sunday letter against the trip (“Outraged by trip”), support these champions of change in our community.</p><p>As part of a global community, we must enact policy and rethink our energy use. We cannot wait for a better economic moment to address climate change. Our global climate is changing more rapidly than most had predicted. We need to send a clear message with our representatives from Sonoma County that we are no longer doing business as usual.</p><p>Sonoma County’s greenhouse gas reduction goal is an example for our nation. Bravo. Leaders on climate change are familiar with the loneliness and frustration of not being taken seriously. Let’s support our local heroes and not give them more grief than they already endure every day. If our efforts don’t succeed, and our children ask us what we were thinking, we could say . . . we tried.</p><p>SHIRLEY JOHNSON-FOELL</p><p>Windsor</p><h3>In the spotlight</h3> <p>EDITOR: With regard to the episode with Tiger Woods, it can safely be said that “what happens in Vegas does not stay in Vegas.”</p><p>TIMO ALLI</p><p>Healdsburg</p><h3>They are important</h3> <p>EDITOR: My thanks to Nancy Merle for her Saturday letter (“Important people”) hoping the words attributed to me at the end of Friday’s article about chef Douglas Keane’s Thanksgiving meal served to families living at Catholic Charities’ shelter were a misquote (“A gourmet spread”).</p><p>The quote in question ended “. . . to sit down and be served as though they were important people” and indeed misrepresented my intent. I’ve devoted the past 10 years of my life to working on behalf of children and adults who struggle to overcome poverty in some of its most destructive forms — including homelessness, hunger and hopelessness. These neighbors of ours often are treated as though they are invisible at best, undesirable at worst — never whom our society in general considers “important.”</p><p>I wholeheartedly embrace the sentiment in Merle’s recommended alternate final quote “ . . . to sit down and be served like the important people they are . . .” and only wish more in our community felt the same.</p><p>Thank you again, Chef Keane and the thousands of other volunteers who serve the clients of Catholic Charities with such compassion all year round.</p><p>ANGIE MOELLER</p><p>Development director, Catholic Charities of the</p><p>Diocese of Santa Rosa</p><h3>History repeats</h3> <p>EDITOR: Thirty thousand more troops? (“Obama promises Afghan pullout in 2011,” Wednesday.) The war will rage on, and our troops will be threatened, captured and killed in increasing numbers. Our mission: to win? Not to cut and run? To stabilize the region?</p><p>Maybe I need to be better educated, but I don’t read books about war strategy. I am, however, reading “Comanche Moon” by Larry McMurtry (the precursor to “Lonesome Dove”). In this stirring Old West saga, these lines prophetically presage our current affairs in foreign lands: “In a direct conflict, we might win, if the conflict went on long enough for our superior weaponry to prevail. But few engagements with the Comanches involve direct conflict.”</p><p>For “Comanches,” substitute Viet Cong, al-Qaida, Taliban, take your pick. It seems we still haven’t figured it out since frontier days. The “enemy” just won’t bend to our political will, not even our “superior weaponry,” and will wear us out to where even a self-proclaimed victory will be a devastating defeat.</p><p>I want to trust President Barack Obama’s judgment, support his presidency. But we can’t win this one either; bring back our young men and women.</p><p>BOB KLEIN</p><p>Santa Rosa</p><h3>A bad copy</h3> <p>EDITOR: I just read Judy Jacobson’s letter quoting our Constitution (“Constitutional basis,” Wednesday). I think she got a bad copy. The preamble “insures” not “ensures” domestic tranquility; it also “promotes” not “provides” for the general welfare. Not the welfare of the people, as she interpreted, but of the union.</p><p>Furthermore, Article 1 Section 8 gives us a specific list of what Congress may spend tax dollars on. While they do provide for a post office and the Navy, health insurance is definitely not listed.</p><p>So, to answer your question, if it does not appear in the Constitution, it is unconstitutional. Unfortunately, Congress has ignored the quaint old document for so long now that most of what they do meets that definition.</p><p>MATTHEW WOLF</p><p>Santa Rosa</p><h3>A better way</h3> <p>EDITOR: Maybe it’s because Sonoma is a small city where people prefer working together, but when I was a Sonoma planning commissioner from 1997-2006, we believed collaboration on a proposed development was a good thing. So I can’t help but shake my head in response to those who would instantly criticize the collaboration between Sonoma Mountain Village and the Accountable Development Coalition.</p><p>In Sonoma, we encouraged project applicants to seek input from concerned citizens, particularly potential adversaries, prior to a project’s first planning commission hearing. The planning approval process runs smoother, and expenses caused by approval delays because of angry opponents are avoided.</p><p>Contrast the Sonoma Mountain Village situation to the proposed Dutra asphalt plant outside Petaluma. Dutra spent four years going through the county’s planning process in Santa Rosa unbeknownst to the people of Petaluma until it reached the Board of Supervisors. This has not only resulted in a prolonged process with both sides threatening to sue the county, but it has fueled mistrust and created a lot of bad feelings. Sonoma Mountain Village has chosen to do business another way. Let’s see how it turns out before judging.</p><p>GINA CUCLIS</p><p>Sonoma</p>