Monday’s Letters to the Editor

Act now on climate

EDITOR: My father worked hard in factories, making all kinds of products over the course of his working career. I guarantee the methods used in factories have changed since Dad’s days, and our views on managing our environment has to change also.

We have to address the hugely accelerated pace at which the Earth is warming. What is our love affair with burning fossil fuels? We are smart enough to see that emissions from fossil fuels are hanging out in our atmosphere and heating everything up.

The warmer and drier conditions create drier fuel. What once would have been a fire easily extinguished now just grows and quickly it is out of control. Let’s come together and save our planet. We are the generation that has to do it. The generations preceding us haven’t. It’s now up to us. Let’s work as hard as our parents did but in a new, enlightened way, with the knowledge we now have, and let’s find the solutions we need. Vote in November for the environment. Vote for our salvation.

CONSTANCE VAN GROOS

Santa Rosa

Selective subpoenas

EDITOR: The Republican-controlled Senate has decided to issue subpoenas to former Obama administration officials so they can testify as to any malfeasance occurring during the time that they were part of the previous administration. This comes about a year after the same Senate refused to call even one witness during Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. The question I wish to ask is: Which do you think is more important? What the present administration is doing, or what happened under the previous administration?

CARL MERNER

Santa Rosa

Santa Rosa’s tax flyer

EDITOR: In the “Voter Information Pamphlet” mailed to our home, the city of Santa Rosa says that funds from Measure Q will support vital city services and then lists fire, parks and streets. Clearly missing is the police department. Is the city saying that Measure Q will not be used to fund city police, or are they trying to be cute and avoid negative votes from “defund” proponents.

CHRISTINE PRICE

Santa Rosa

Israel’s accords

EDITOR: So the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed a “peace deal” with Israel. Good for them. They’ve never been at war with Israel. It’s really about arms sales and distrust of Iran and to benefit Israel.

The autocratic leaders in the UAE and Bahrain don’t represent the majority of their people. Rather they label as “terrorist” any movement of resistance and democracy in their societies, such as happened during Arab Spring when Bahraini citizens were in the streets demanding democracy, but with Saudi help the protests were quickly put down.

Then there’s the reality of Israel’s decades-long military occupation of the Palestinians, which this alliance deeply betrays. Qatar has kept its endorsement of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, signed by 22 Arab nations, which prohibited normalization with Israel until Israel’s conflict with Palestinians is resolved.

What is at stake is the suffering of the Palestinians under the boot of an ongoing Israeli apartheid system, which must end. Shall I say it again? Israel will never see real peace until the Palestinians are treated with dignity, humanity and total equality.

THERESE MUGHANNAM-WALRATH

Santa Rosa

A slippery slope

EDITOR: If the voters pass Proposition 15, then the same groups will continue on and offer a second proposition to do away with Proposition 13’s residential property tax protections. So voters have an opportunity to shut the door on this bad proposition and its follow-up in the near future.

Remember the people behind Proposition 15 are the ones who decided that Gov. Jerry Brown’s temporary tax increases would be kept for certain groups instead of letting them expire.

Turn California into a higher tax state, and businesses will finally vote with their feet. Then the same politicians will beg them to come back.

ANDREW SMITH

Santa Rosa

For the doctor

EDITOR: We face multiple crises. If there was ever a crucial time to have a doctor in the house, now is that time. That’s one of the reasons I’m supporting Dennis Pocekay for Petaluma City Council.

Pocekay’s experience as a physician and his background in public health enable him to look at every issue facing Petaluma through the lens of personal and community health. Housing, climate change, COVID-19, city finances, policing, transportation and social equity — all of these issues impact our individual and collective health.

I trust Pocekay to follow the physician’s dictum to “first do no harm” and then to rigorously explore every option and weigh every decision in light of what will allow our community to thrive.

Pocekay has shown up to volunteer whenever our community has needed him. He’ll bring that same dedication to the council. And if you need a second opinion, look no further than the fact that our local congressman, Jared Huffman, has endorsed him. Please vote for Dennis Pocekay on Nov. 3.

KRIS REBILLOT

Petaluma

An apology is owed

EDITOR: This has to be the straw to break the camel’s back. How can the Santa Rosa Police Department be fined when so little was known about the virus (“$32,000 fine over office illnesses,” Wednesday)? The White House claimed it would simply go away. In my opinion, Cal-OSHA needs to reverse the fine and apologize to SRPD.

JIM MANEY

Santa Rosa

You can send a letter to the editor at letters@pressdemocrat.com.