<b>Hotel report</b>
EDITOR: If you actually read the report about Sonoma's hotel initiative ("Study: Hotel cap could hurt Sonoma," Sunday), you would see the two conclusions are what Preserving Sonoma, the group that submitted the measure, has been saying all along:
It is difficult to achieve an annual 80 percent occupancy.
It is likely that new lodging development in Sonoma will continue to be comprised of independently operated small inns and hotels.
It is difficult to achieve an annual 80 percent occupancy, but the report cites only three cities, perpetuating the erroneous claim that only three cities have achieved such an occupancy rate. Many other cities have reached 80 percent annually: Pasadena, Yountville, Santa Monica, San Francisco, New York City, Waikiki Beach, Key West, Fla., Burlingame, Las Vegas, Atlantic City casino hotels, Santa Clarita and South San Francisco.
The consultant's report also compared apples to oranges in its statistics on occupancy rates. Along with the small hotels, it included vacation rentals and bed-and-breakfasts, which may have an entirely different occupancy rate from hotels. So this skews the occupancy rate and transit-occupancy-tax revenue compared to the large hotels.
DAVID EICHAR
Sonoma
<b>Service dogs</b>
EDITOR: Didn't someone get Thursday's headline wrong ("Four-legged frauds)? Shouldn't it have read "Two-legged frauds"?
DEBORAH VOGAN
Santa Rosa
<b>Coverage lacking</b>
EDITOR: Given your almost total lack of coverage of the prison hunger strikers, it was surprising to see the front-page headline in Thursday's paper ("prison protest linked to gang"). For those who only get their news from you, it could be confusing since there was no context for why this needed protest was happening, and we were not informed that these issues have been raised for years. Also, if prisoners are organizing this protest, who do you expect to be helping? Ghandi, Mandela, Mumia, maybe?
The sub headline informed us that "maybe" one of the organizers was from the Mexican Mafia, and the article proceeds to embellish this theory from the prison officials' point of view. Not until the final short paragraphs are we given another perspective of why thousands of people behind bars have deprived themselves of food for more than a month. And with only 200 words to respond to this article, I sure couldn't do justice to all the valid reasons. Perhaps you could print a story with this information so your readers can receive some balanced news?
Ongoing coverage would help since this is local, and the grievances are happening in our names.
MARY MOORE
Camp Meeker
<b>Fast-food picket</b>
EDITOR: Friday's article on the new Chick-fil-A restaurant opening in Santa Rosa mentioned the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community picketing and protesting at the site sometime soon ("Chick-fil-A opens restaurant in SR"). This is in defiance of Dan Cathy, Chick-fil-A's CEO, having a belief from the Bible on marriage. Is he all that crazy? I was told the Bible is and has been the No. 1 selling book on the planet.
Shouldn't Cathy have religious and speech freedoms that do not put his business at risk? There is a double-standard here. The LGBT community wants equality, and that is fine, but why protest, taking away other's freedom to open a new business venture and provide jobs. Heck, maybe they provide a good chicken sandwich, too.
