Monday’s Letters to the Editor

Grabbing the cash

EDITOR: Regarding the Chanate Road property sale and the track record of Las Vegas developer Iyad “Eddie” Haddad, I can almost imagine the “take the money and run” supervisors dusting their hands of the whole mess (“Sale of Chanate property completed,” Friday). And they didn’t even feel it necessary to vet the buyer to whom they were turning over our historic gem of an asset.

I’m reminded of the old adage, if it’s too good to be true … And that other beauty, you get what you pay for — as in “that cheap camera I bought is broken already. Well, you get what you pay for.” As voters in Sonoma County have known for quite some time, you got what you voted for.

JULIE FONTANA COLLINS

Santa Rosa

Dams and diversions

EDITOR: I have been seeing letters saying some vested groups want to keep the dams on the Eel River and continue to divert water to the Russian River. Would these writers think it is OK if water interests in Southern California diverted water from the Russian River? Do these writers have any concerns for endangered species in the Eel River that are suffering because of an inadequate fish ladder at the Cape Horn Dam and no fish ladder at Scott Dam?

Rep. Jared Huffman’s Two-Basin Solution Partnership, which includes Sonoma and Mendocino county water interests, supports removing Scott Dam. There are reasons PG&E doesn’t want the 100-year-old dams, and this was before their powerhouse failed several months ago.

Now is the time to remove these dams so the Eel can be a complete Wild and Scenic River, from its headwaters to its mouth. No one in the North Bay is shedding tears for removing dams on the Klamath River. Why should it be different for removing dams on the Eel River?

As a cartoon caption in the Dec. 12 edition said, “Damned by the dams … RIP salmon.”

RICHARD MAAS

Santa Rosa

Keep solar incentives

EDITOR: Dan Walters’ Dec. 19 column is an excellent recap of the big utilities lobbying the California Public Utilities Commission to allow them to pay rooftop solar owners less for power fed back into the grid and charge a monthly fee for using the grid (“Big utilities winning battle over solar power”).

The CPUC, which is supposed to regulate the utilities, has a long history of siding with them at the expense of ratepayers. Rooftop solar probably hurts the utilities’ profits and, in turn, may impact those who can’t afford solar and are stuck with the big utilities. But there has to be a better way to deal with this problem than to deincentivize solar use by making it more expensive or by installing an expensive battery backup that can cost $30,000.

Please contact Gov. Gavin Newsom and the CPUC to demand that this policy change be scrapped and that solar adopters not be penalized for trying to do the right environmental thing.

NANCY HAIR

Sebastopol

More local sports, please

EDITOR: It is good to see The Press Democrat’s promise to expand its investigative reporting staff, but would it also be possible to expand coverage of local sports? The newspaper had a sports staff of 16 in the late 1980s, including two top-notch columnists. It appears there is now one full-time staffer and occasional pieces by a couple of retired columnists who live in the area. The paper also hires part-time stringers to occasionally cover events.

It was sad to see a story report that Santa Rosa Junior College’s men’s basketball team won a tournament with this subheadline: “Bear Cats win Kris Kringle Classic.” The story mentioned that the Cats defeated Yuma for the title. Would someone tell the paper that the Cats are really the Bear Cubs and have been the Cubs for the better part of a century?

The coverage of high school sports is woeful. The coverage of local college athletics is an outright embarrassment. Example: Does the paper know, or care, that 26-year Sonoma State University men’s basketball coach Pat Fuscaldo is no longer coaching the team?

My biggest surprise is that there doesn’t seem to be outrage among the local sporting community over the paper’s athletics ambivalence. Could it be that no one cares?

RALPH LEEF

Santa Rosa

Sebastopol safe parking

EDITOR: Congratulations to the Sebastopol City Council on finding the perfect spot for a homeless RV park. The property is the abandoned Amerigas outlet, a site that in all probability may have toxic waste concerns. And then there’s a Waldorf K-8 charter school nearby, the Redwood Marketplace across the street, neighbors on all sides and, how convenient, a liquor store next door. What could possibly go wrong?

MIKE TINNEY

Sebastopol

Riot consequences

EDITOR: For more than a year prior to 2020 election, the former president ranted that the election was rigged, that if he didn’t win it was stolen. And so, when Jan. 6 rolled around with Joe Biden clearly the winner, he still refused to concede the election loss — a first in American history.

As a result, there was a riot at the U.S. Capitol, instigated and encouraged in public by the president. As the mob continued to assault Capitol Police officers, authorities say Robert Palmer pushed to the front and hurled a fire extinguisher, a plank and a long pole at officers. On Dec. 18, a headline read, “Capitol rioter gets 5-year sentence.” A congressional investigation continues, but it seems clear that the ex-president could also someday be charged with a crime.

FRANK BAUMGARDNER

Santa Rosa

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