Thursday’s Letters to the Editor

Housing vs. growth

EDITOR: Friday’s paper contained an article about Generation Housing calling for 58,000 new housing units to be constructed by 2030 (“Advocate releases report on state of housing”). I checked some numbers. Sonoma County grew from a population of 483,878 in 2010 to 488,863 in 2020, an increase of 1.03%. The article said there are about 207,000 housing units in the county, or about 2.4 persons per unit.

So, adding 58,000 units seems to mean they are expecting the county to grow by some 137,000 people in less than 10 years. At a time when California’s population is level or even decreasing? I can’t imagine where the land, financing or occupants are supposed to come from.

While I agree that there is a crying need for more affordable housing, these goals seem way out of proportion and unrealistic. More explanation please.

DAVID LITTLE

Sebastopol

Are things better?

EDITOR: I am a 76-year-old Vietnam veteran. I am very concerned about the state of our country and our world in general. I have but one serious question for Donald Trump haters: Are things better now?

DAVID KORTE

Calistoga

Planning for less driving

EDITOR: We may love our cars, but the future won’t sustain daily driving for most of us. Over the next decade, we probably need to cut our driving in half to cope with the climate emergency. And in the decade after that, we will need to cut driving in half again.

Some of our children are riding trains and buses to school, and others are happy walking, riding bicycles or skateboarding. We need to learn from their experiences. Relocating most of Sonoma County’s government offices to be within walking distance of the downtown Santa Rosa SMART station is a reasonable recognition of a future that is not dependent on driving.

Whether all county employees need to commute to work every day is a fair question and should be part of the planning process.

STEVE BIRDLEBOUGH

Santa Rosa

Heartbreak in Ukraine

EDITOR: On any given day it’s hard to know how to move in this world with integrity. Something huge has to happen to pierce the veil of overwhelm I often feel, knowing that bad things are going on all the time. The invasion of Ukraine is one of those things. I spent time at a vigil holding a sign that said Putin, with an X through his name. Many drivers honked in support, some people flashed the V sign. A few, as always, seemed hostile. Hard to know why this time.

Seeing photos of explosions, burning and destroyed buildings, corpses lying in torn up fields, people sheltering in subway stations like Londoners during the Blitz, streams of yet more refugees carrying children and running for their lives, and knowing that regular citizens are asking for guns so they can fight, breaks my heart.

Maybe that’s how it has to be: for the heart to open, it has to break. To live with integrity means seeing what is real and not turning away. On this day, that is a given.

MOSS HENRY

Santa Rosa

Unwarranted shaming

EDITOR: In defending The Press Democrat’s coverage of Dr. Sundari Mase’s 2020 arrest, Editor Richard A. Green denies “any attempt to besmirch Dr. Mase’s character.” Yet, starting with the melodramatic tone of the report’s opening sentence (“As the delta variant was quickly spreading across Sonoma County last summer … Dr. Sundari Mase was convicted …”), it’s hard to take him seriously.

If the article wasn’t a smear, as Green insists, why don’t we learn until the 23rd paragraph that Mase voluntarily reported her arrest to her then-supervisor despite no obligation to do so? And why focus on a COVID-19 community briefing held hours after she was apprehended, during which Mase “made no mention of the arrest”? Why in the world would she? The report’s insinuation — that alcohol may have affected Mase’s COVID decisions — is unjust and completely unsupported by the facts.

In reality, her sound decisions have saved the lives of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of local residents. She has persevered despite being undermined by Sheriff Mark Essick, the anti-vaccine movement and prominent members of the business community, all while enduring personal threats to her safety. Mase deserves our gratitude and compassion as she deals with her personal issues, not a front-page public shaming.

MARK SLOAN

Santa Rosa

Offer barns for shelter

EDITOR: The trails and street corners around Sonoma County have a lot of people camping and making a trashy mess. It is going to start raining again. The Sonoma County Fairgrounds has horse barns that could house most of these people. All that is needed is a trailer with portable showers and portable toilets and a dumpster to put trash in. This would be a lot cheaper than any kind of housing the county could come up with and be the best temporary solution. I’ve suggested this before, and the county and the fairgrounds people are not stepping up and finding an adequate solution. Most of the homeless people are not able to rent anything at these prices today. Put their tents in a barn stall. Get them off the streets.

GARY GWIN

Sebastopol

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