Monday’s Letters to the Editor

Post-pandemic work rules

EDITOR: I have a two-pronged solution for those who refuse to be vaccinated. First, nobody should be forced to be vaccinated. Second, nobody should be forced to work with unvaccinated coworkers. Therefore, put unvaccinated employees on unpaid furlough, use their pay for temps, and give them back their jobs as soon as they can prove they are completely vaccinated, or the virus is totally gone in all its variants.

CAROL K. GOTTFRIED

Ukiah

Ravitch: credible, honest

EDITOR: Anderson Thomas captured the truth of the matter regarding the campaign of one selfish and self-serving individual who can’t and won’t accept the truth (“Vengeful recall,” Letters, June 21). The funder of the negative campaign to destroy the reputation of the Sonoma County district attorney needs to receive a strong and clear message from the citizens of the county that they know of his reputation and they also know the truth about Jill Ravitch, and the credible and honest job she’s done representing the people of Sonoma County as district attorney. As a former undersheriff in Sonoma County, I hold Ravitch in the highest esteem. She has done her job with dignity, impartiality and integrity. At the same time I cringe at the cruel, false and self-serving distortions put forth by a man who can’t handle the truth about himself.

THOMAS ANDERSON

Santa Rosa

A test for a test

EDITOR: Fourteen Republican lawmakers demanded that President Joe Biden take a cognitive test. OK, fair is fair. The president should agree if GOP lawmakers and the former president agree to take lie detector tests about the Jan. 6 Washington riot.

JON YATABE

Bodega Bay

Re-funding the police

EDITOR: The Santa Rosa City Council quietly re-funded the police in an under-the-

radar budget hearing that was buried at the end of the agenda (“Budget keeps police funding,” Wednesday). Proposed cuts to firefighters remain in place as we head into one of the potentially worst fire seasons for this county.

Police Chief Ray Navarro got four positions restored after a year of overwhelming community demand to divest funds from law enforcement into upstream, preventive social services, and on the heels of the city paying $2 million to protesters who were gravely injured by police last summer.

While I am deeply disappointed with our City Council's vote, I am not surprised. After all, the council glossed over and ignored the Sonoma County Human Rights Commission's findings and recommendations regarding police misconduct during last year's protests.

My appreciation goes to Vice Mayor Natalie Rogers for casting the lone dissenting vote on the budget. While Council members Victoria Fleming and Eddie Alvarez noted that violent crime has less to do with police staffing and more with strategic disinvestment in our communities, neither joined Rogers in her vote.

Changing the status quo is hard and takes courage. That courage was sorely lacking at Tuesday’s council meeting.

KATRIN CIAFFA

Santa Rosa

Election wars

EDITOR: So, Richard Barnett, the insurrectionist photographed with his feet on Nancy Pelosi’s desk on Jan. 6, was hosted on Russian state TV and praised by Vladimir Putin as a “patriot.” Who could know more about American patriotism than Putin? Maybe they can all team up with Donald Trump and My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell and create a documentary called “How to Make a Mockery of Democracy.” It could feature video footage from Jan. 6, endless recounts, stop the steal “patriots” and seven months’ worth of interviews with Fox News celebrities and congressional Republicans.

Nobody has done more to benefit Putin’s and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s propaganda machines than Trump and his ditto heads who insist that Americans can’t trust their own electoral process. Why do so many Republicans who were elected, or reelected, in November claim the election was fraudulent? It seems suspicious. Did anyone really vote for them?

Speaking of fraud, many voters still can’t believe that anyone would vote for Trump. Maybe we should go back and recount 2016? If we recount enough, we might find that Trump stole that one from Hillary Clinton.

It is an astonishing coincidence that our elections have been rigged ever since Trump claimed it. That alone speaks volumes.

DON GALLOWAY

Sebastopol

Landmark vandalized

EDITOR: I want to point out what ignorant behavior in the name of protest has done to an important national landmark. On Juneteenth, two people boarded the Balclutha and threw orange paint all over the shelter deck and walls. The Balclutha, a designated historic landmark in San Francisco, serves to preserve an important part of civil rights history.

The crew in the early 1900s was comprised almost entirely of members from China, Japan, Mexico, Guam and the Philippines as well as African Americans. The ship sailed in the salmon trade from Alaska from 1906 to 1930.The crew were subjected to debt peonage (akin to slavery) until the cannaries were unionized by the Filipino-led Cannery and Farm Laborers’ Union in the 1930s.

So, if the vandalizing was done to protest slavery, the vandals missed that point. If it was done for the opposite reason, it was just as ignorant. The point is this: vandalism is ignorant no matter what your perceived point of view. Remember these words: Ignorance can be eliminated via education, but stupid lasts forever. How do you want to be seen and remembered?

BOB PROCTOR

Rohnert Park

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