Dec. 15 Letters to the Editor

Misguided view

EDITOR: Charles Krauthammer's Dec. 8 column ("Obama's real aim is crushing the Republicans") was seriously misguided. He accused the president of playing politics and not having a genuine interest in debt reduction. Krauthammer's contention is at best laughable, hypocritical and absurd.

Perhaps Krauthammer should contemplate a reality check before putting his flapping mandible into script. The Republican Party has crushed itself by its extremism and allegiance to Grover Norquist's no-tax increase pledge at the expense of the middle class and vital social programs that protect the poor and elderly from living without a safety net.

As conservative Republicans such as Krauthammer sense that their reverse Robin Hood policies are disfavored among the majority of the voters, they resort to blaming the president for disingenuous obstructionist politics that have been the hallmark of the Republican Party.

The Republicans are the self-destruct party as evidenced by the failed objective of making Barack Obama a one-term president and excessive use of the filibuster, including Senate GOP Mitch McConnell's filibuster of his own debt-ceiling bill.

GENE COLOMBINI

Santa Rosa

American dictator

EDITOR: I was surfing through my television channels Tuesday and stopped on one that I initially thought was showing the people of Egypt protesting against their president. But I was mistaken. It wasn't Egypt at all. It turns out I was viewing middle-class workers in the United States. It appears there's also a dictator in the governor's office in Lansing, Mich.

PHIL MORPHEW

Rohnert Park

Falling behind

EDITOR: I read Paul Gullixson's Sunday column and couldn't help being disappointed in the situation — and in the city as well ("Holdup at the station"). The Railroad Square project and others downtown have been in the works for more than 10 years. They could and should have been completed.

Has anyone at the city noticed in that time Petaluma and Windsor completely rebuilt, Healdsburg gentrified, Sonoma improved and Sebastopol has the Barlow project?

Santa Rosa should be the centerpiece of Sonoma County and its tourism and business. We need a visionary city manager and a City Council that allows that person to work.

VINCENT M. RIZZO

Santa Rosa

What Credo offers

EDITOR: I am a parent of a sophomore student at Credo High Charter School in the Cotati-Rohnert Park School District ("Cotati-RP school's future uncertain," Dec. 8). I am supporting Credo during these tenuous financial times. There is no other public high school that can give our kids what Credo's curriculum offers.

Through the Waldorf method — a whole child approach to education — my daughter is engaged and finding her voice in the world. She is developing the sense of the kind of citizen she wants to be in her community. She is challenged and using critical thinking to complete her rigorous college-prep course work. She is inspired and motivated. Her teachers are supportive adults who care about her well-being and success.

California public schools are merely meeting the state requirements and not educating the whole being. The kids at Credo are learning to be leaders. They have purpose and are making a difference in the world.

Credo needs a chance to get through the start-up period. With a score of 822 on the state API, the district can't afford to lose Credo. And the community can't afford to lose these outstanding teens.

LORI CHRISTOPHER

Petaluma

A hidden gem

EDITOR: Thanks, Bob Padecky for highlighting what we've known for years: El Molino High is a little known gem where not only can your child actively participate in every aspect of high school life but excel academically in ways you can never imagine ("El Molino asks" How small is too small?" Wednesday).

As our fifth child prepares to graduate from this jewel of a school, we can celebrate our children's accomplishments: two graduate degrees in physiology, one graduate degree in clinical nutrition, a registered dietician internship, a wine educator position at a Napa winery and a veterinary school student. Much of this is attributed to the great education they received at El Molino. This is why we have been an interdistrict transfer family for 15 years. Go Lions.

KARI KINCHELOE

Windsor