Monday’s Letters to the Editor

Forget the carrots

EDITOR: More than half a million dead in the U.S. and people don’t want to get vaccinated to achieve herd immunity with new and deadlier coronavirus variants waiting to cause another pandemic? Enough with the lotteries and free doughnuts. We’re done with carrots, and now it’s time for the stick.

If you can’t show proof of a vaccination, then you shouldn’t be allowed to travel, you shouldn’t keep your job if it requires being enclosed and in proximity to others, and no more theater, movies or concerts. It’s time to get real.

I am grateful California passed a law prohibiting personal exemptions for parents who choose not to vaccinate their children. Because of this law, my children and your children are safe from outbreaks of measles and mumps. It’s time to apply the same common sense to coronavirus anti-vaxxers. Don’t want a shot? Don’t have a medical reason for this decision? Fine, grow up and accept the consequences.

CONNIE KELLOGG

Sebastopol

Vengeful recall

EDITOR: I am a retired Sonoma County public defender, and I represented hundreds of clients who were prosecuted by the office of District Attorney Jill Ravitch. While I often disagreed with decisions made by her office, that is how the system is supposed to work. I at all times believed Ravitch to be highly competent and ethical.

The recall effort is clearly no more than the crass effort of a wealthy businessman seeking revenge against a public official for doing her job and holding him accountable, and an attempt to intimidate any future district attorney from holding him accountable. While money can often buy political power, this recall effort is a perversion of the political process.

ANDERSON THOMAS

Santa Rosa

Home defense weapons

EDITOR: Regarding U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez saying an AR-15 is the best weapon for home defense, I must disagree. I attended a seminar on home defense, and they said the AR-15 is not good for home defense. The reason being the .223-caliber round is high velocity. If you miss your target, the round can go through walls. If it doesn’t strike a stud, that round can go through many walls, potentially killing a family member in another room or your neighbor two, three or four houses away.

Also, in a chaotic situation, like shooting at a human being, the shooter tends to fire until the clip is empty. That’s a lot of lead flying around the neighborhood.

The best gun is a 12-gauge shotgun with buckshot. It’s hard to miss your target, and no worries about rounds going through the walls. There really is no reason to own an assault rifle to defend your home.

BILL THOMPSON

Petaluma

An ugly pattern?

EDITOR: Santa Rosa police quickly arrested five people for vandalism of a house. They still haven’t arrested the woman who tried to drive her car into a group of Black Lives Matter protesters a year ago. She could have killed them and, yes, there’s video.

Apparently, SRPD has decided that we’re a de facto Florida where it is now legal to run down protesters. No legislative action needed. SRPD has made this decision for us.

In Rohnert Park, which was told 20 years ago that it needed community oversight of law enforcement, the white members of the City Council have decided just a discussion, not even a decision, needs more study.

Rohnert Park Public Safety Chief Tim Mattos held an “all hands” meeting with his employees, but communication in the department is questionable. During the Branch Wroth trial, it was acknowledged that the officers involved in Wroth’s killing had never even been spoken to.

Mattos says George Floyd’s death is a “catalyst,” but he hasn’t acknowledged that unarmed, naked Wroth was killed in the same way, uttering the same calls for his mother, begging “Don’t kill me” and saying “I can’t breathe.”

Anyone else sensing an ugly pattern here in Sonoma County?

SUSAN COLLIER LAMONT

Santa Rosa

Shameful inaction

EDITOR: There is one appalling similarity between two recent revelations of sexual misconduct in our county. In each case, there was a woman in a leadership position who could have made a difference early on, had she had the courage to do so. Instead, Windsor Councilwoman Debora Fudge and Sonoma Academy Head of School Janet Durgin chose to turn a blind eye to activities that were going on and then a deaf ear to allegations from the victims.

Both say they turned the matter over to authorities or thought the matter had been addressed, and yet it appears taht neither did anything to follow up until months, even years, later, when facts exposed them in highly publicized news stories. Perhaps their careers were more important than the health and well-being of the women involved.

They should be held accountable and admonished for their shameful inaction.

ELIZA RICKARDS

Cloverdale

Opposing Elnoka

EDITOR: As a resident of Oakmont, I am against the planned Elnoka residence project that would border Oakmont. My primary concern is the additional stress this would have on Highway 12 traffic. The 2017 and ’20 fires made this very clear. Had the winds been greater during last year’s mass evacuation of Oakmont and surrounding neighborhoods, which clogged Highway 12 for hours, we may have had an even greater loss of property, not to mention lives. Clearly, the greater community of Santa Rosa needs projects like this, but to start a new one that could have a significant negative impact on an existing one makes no sense.

GARY L. DAVIDSON

Santa Rosa

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