Letters to the Editor, Wednesday April 17

Property tax bill extras

EDITOR: After making our property tax payment, I decided to review all the voter-approved taxes, taxing agency direct charges and special assessments listed on my tax bill. What an eye opener. There are (14) charges including bond measures from 2002, 2006, 2008, 2014 and 2016. People need to be paying attention to all these added fees and understand that voting yes is just like taking thousands of dollars yearly out of your wallet. Fatigue is apparently setting in with taxpayers locally as the Sonoma County fire protection tax and Gavin Newsom’s Proposition 1 barely gained approval. Part of being informed is understanding the long-term consequences. Review the proposals and ask questions.

MIKE VELASQUEZ

Windsor

Aggravating technology

EDITOR: David Brooks’ April 9 column struck home with me (“Why does technology mock and torment me?”). Like Brooks, I’m not a technophobe; I employ technology daily and with joy — usually. What aggravates is what I call “the lie that Apple promised”: that technology would just work and in doing so would make things easier.

AirPods are a perfect example. The way earbuds used to work was: plug one end into your device and insert the earbuds at the other end into your ears, and that’s it. The hell of dealing with AirPods described by Brooks is a betrayal of simplicity that’s been forced on us by Apple abandoning something as basic as a headphone port.

To make things worse, when “old fashioned” headphones didn’t work, you could see the frayed cord or bad plug and know what to do. AirPods won’t pair? Good luck, and enjoy spending at least 45 minutes searching for answers until, if you’re lucky, you stumble on the right one. And that’s the correct solution this time. Next time will be different.

Technology has backfired, making things that used to be simple more complicated, and when formerly simple things now chained to technology fail, many of us are stuck with no idea how to fix it. It’s a brave new world, but not necessarily a better one.

MICAH DIRKSEN

Napa

An eclipse tale

EDITOR: On April 28, 1930, Northern California experienced an annular solar eclipse. An annular eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the sun and Earth. Because the moon is so far away from Earth, it won’t completely cover the sun. My father was 13 years old and living on a small farm near Todd Road in Santa Rosa. He tells this story: As the sky darkened, the hens headed for the chicken coop and began to roost. A few minutes later, as the sky grew light, the rooster crowed, and the hens walked out of the coop and back into the yard, pecking the dirt as if it were the dawn of a new day.

JUDY KENNEDY

Santa Rosa

Rescuing animals

EDITOR: Animal rescue can make you a hero or a criminal. When I rescued two neglected ducks from the Reichardt factory farm in Petaluma last year, I was arrested on felonies and called a terrorist. When Santa Rosa firefighters rescued ducklings from a storm drain, they were celebrated (“Santa Rosa firefighters save ducklings from storm drain,” pressdemocrat.com). No arrests were made.

Duck rescuers are usually praised as heroes. Viral videos regularly show concerned citizens and police stopping traffic to help families of ducks cross busy highways. When I rescued River and Oakley and got them veterinary care, I hoped authorities would address the abuse I reported, but they arrested me instead.

If River and Oakley had been trapped in a storm drain, I doubt I’d have needed to rescue them. Law enforcement probably would have jumped in to help. But because they were being endangered by a corporation, law enforcement not only refused to help, they arrested me to scare future rescuers. County authorities have seemingly granted corporations the liberty to harm helpless baby animals.

ZOE ROSENBERG

Berkeley

Montgomery’s ‘rebirth’

EDITOR: Thank you for the wonderful article on new construction at Montgomery High School (“ ‘A chance of a rebirth,’ ” Thursday). The article highlights the activism of the Associated Student Body at Montgomery in reporting issues of sewage, electrical and other problems at the high school that have now been repaired. Student representatives were rightly put on the shovels for the groundbreaking ceremony for 17 new classrooms and an art center. I thank the Santa Rosa school district for their leadership in getting funds allocated for the rebuild. As student adviser and math teacher Jim La France is quoted, “I still feel like Montgomery has good bones. There’s people in this community that care about the school.” Yes, there are, and I am one of them.

Go Vikings.

LINDA L. FRALEY

Santa Rosa

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