Friday’s Letters to the Editor

Coronavirus victims

EDITOR: How many of the more than 580,000 Americans who have tragically died from COVID-19 would have, if they could have, recommended that anti-vaxxers get the vaccine? And how many of them would have, if they could have, given almost anything to have received it themselves?

BRIAN ERWIN

Santa Rosa

‘Sacred’ water

EDITOR: Yes, it is all about water from here on out. We will call water god. Other things will be sacred too, like the nourishment water provides. Sonoma County’s herbs, food and wine are holy things that sustain us. Let us treat them that way.

Cannabis is a sacrament for many; not to be profited from. If it is part of your communion, then grow your own, or find a friend. If you intend to profit from this herb by depleting our county’s scarce resources, then go somewhere else.

Wine likewise is sacred. Rivers of water are flowing uphill in Sonoma County to grow wine for export. As companies like Nestlé do, our wine industry is depleting our aquifers and sending water overseas.

We need to realize how our life is sustained. We need to hold those things sacred.

ROLAND WIEBE

Graton

Democracy at risk

EDITOR: For a democracy to exist and function, both sides have to accept the results of the electoral process. If not, then how is a winner to be fairly decided? This is where we stand today. Our period of relative normalcy with Joe Biden could be short-lived. How can the 2022 election results be fairly determined? Already more than 70% of Republicans do not accept the 2020 presidential results and claim Biden’s victory was fraudulent.

Legislators in more than 40 states have introduced voting laws that are extreme and undemocratic. For example, it's a misdemeanor to give water or food to voters waiting in line in Georgia, and bills in Iowa and Oklahoma would authorize drivers to run over peaceful demonstrators.

This is where we stand in America today. We are living a real life “The Emperor Has No Clothes” event as Republican lawmakers push Donald Trump’s Big Lie that he won the 2020 presidential election while the rest of the world knows that Trump lost. If the Voting Rights Act doesn’t get passed, our democracy is in big trouble.

TOM LANZONE

Sebastopol

Peculiar timing

EDITOR: All of a sudden California has more money than we know what to do with. Really? Who is going to pay for the Employment Development Department scandal that bilked taxpayers out of billions of dollars? Why do we need more and more bonds each election cycle? What about unfunded pension liabilities? Now Californians are going to get a stimulus handout because we are so flush with cash? None of this makes any sense. I do find the timing of the governor recall peculiar with this announcement of money falling out of the sky.

ANISA THOMSEN

Petaluma

Fair pay for teachers

EDITOR: The issue isn’t Rincon Valley teachers possibly going on strike, but rather how the district is going to address the fact that the teachers make 13% less than the state average (“Teachers approve strike if talks falter,” May 2). The fact that 209 of the 210 teachers approved a strike speaks volumes. Teachers don’t want to strike after being physically away from their students for over a year.

The declining enrollment numbers the district provided to avoid a fair wage for teachers were from the past year when enrollment has been down everywhere due to the pandemic.

Tentatively agreeing to a three-year 12% wage increase for teachers and then reneging and blaming an accounting error was shameful. The district is due to receive $7.8 million from the state. Where is the money for teachers dealing with both in-class and remote learning? What is the plan for getting Rincon Valley teachers to the state average for wages? What is happening with the millions of dollars going into the district if they aren’t largely going to those doing the teaching?

The Roman poet Juvenal said, “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” but Alan Moore put it more succinctly: “Who watches the watchmen?”

FRANK HINTON

Rohnert Park

Rules of the road

EDITOR: Making the rules of the road more sensible for bicyclists is long overdue (“Test the ‘Idaho stop’ in California,” editorial, May 8). If California allows bicyclists to go through stop signs without coming to a full stop becomes the law, then there are two other things that should also be done.

First, at most intersections (not all) a yellow triangular yield sign with a bicycle symbol on it should be placed on the pole beneath the stop sign. Imagine the road rage if some motorists do not know about the new law. At intersections that are very busy or have limited visibility, there would be no yield sign, and bicyclists would be required to come to a full stop.

Second, there should be a group of citizens, mostly bicyclists, to educate the public about the new law and the need for it. They might also be among the decision-makers as to which intersections should or should not have a yield sign.

BARBARA VAUGHAN

Santa Rosa

You can send letters to the editor to letters@pressdemocrat.com.