Tuesday’s Letters to the Editor

Reopen the Rodota trail

EDITOR: I recently began riding my bike to work by way of the Joe Rodota Trail. With the closing of the trail, I have had to ride on Sebastopol Road and navigate many unsafe situations. It is too dangerous to ride on this road, so I will be driving to work while the trail is closed.

It is unacceptable that the unresolved issue of homelessness has closed a public use rail. The Board of Supervisors has spent millions of dollars in recent years on homelessness issues. One group that hasn’t benefited from these efforts is the people currently along the trail.

From the American Rescue Plan Act funds, the board has another $2.16 million designated for a “Centralized Housing Location System” to identify options for housing homeless people. The people who are being pushed from one site to another deserve a long-term answer to their needs. The supervisors need to stop the not-in-my-district thinking and make some hard decisions.

Public areas should not be closed because the county is not sufficiently taking care of another societal problem. Please: Solve that problem and open the trail.

BARBARA GAY

Santa Rosa

A successor for Biden

EDITOR: Michelle Goldberg’s Wednesday column arguing that President Joe Biden is too old to run in 2024 got my attention. I’m 85 and when I look at Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and Chuck Schumer, I say time to turn over the reins of power. Goldberg properly credits Biden as the only Democrat who could have defeated Trump. She goes on to say he was a properly a transitional candidate to younger Democrats. As alternatives, she mentions Vice President Kamala Harris if her ratings improve and mentions charismatic Democratic senators and governors. Hopefully, she will tell us who they are and what they’ve done, because Harris would lose in 2024 if she doesn’t improve her performance 100%.

JON YATABE

Bodega Bay

Try a street closure

EDITOR: In Sunday’s article on the closure of the Joe Rodota Trail due to homeless camps, Supervisor Chris Coursey says, “We would not allow this to happen to a road in Sonoma County” (“Path again at center of crisis”). Maybe we should. I have been forced to ride the treacherous stretch of Sebastopol Road because of the trail’s closure. There’s no continuous bike lane, and some motorists honk or shout, unaccustomed to two-wheelers and perhaps unaware of the trail situation. The detour would be safe for bikes if a lane was closed to vehicle traffic. And more citizens would become focused on the need for solutions to homelessness.

JOHN REID

Sebastopol

Political sour grapes

EDITOR: Chesa Boudin was recalled in San Francisco, and more than 717,000 signatures were turned in to recall Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon. To me this shows that many in California think people went too far with attempts to defund or modernize the legal system — letting criminals out without bail and often charging lighter crimes than common sense would suggest. Boudin blamed it on Republicans, despite Republicans making up less than 7% of the San Francisco County vote.

Why this concerns me is Sonoma County’s election results for sheriff are being questioned due to the plain uniform Eddie Engram was wearing on billboards. Engram won with 50.33% vs. Carl Tennenbaum’s 29.17%, Dave Edmonds’ 13.18% and the late Kevin Burke’s 7.32%. Even though Tennenbaum, who was endorsed by one supervisor, lost by more than 20%, he said he lost by less than a percent, referring to the small margin by which Engram avoided a runoff.

If the runoff occurred, Engram almost assuredly would win again, and taxpayers would lose. I voted for Edmonds, not Engram, so I am commenting only on the lack of grace many are showing by not accepting their loss. Election deniers have created so much division, and I am disgusted by it.

JORDON BERKOVE

Guerneville

Pro-Trump letters

EDITOR: I have always appreciated The Press Democrat’s desire to accommodate a wide range of opinions, but I take exception to your treating the insane fantasies of Trumpworld as worthy of dissemination or discussion. Will you soon be showcasing missives from the Flat Earth Society or publishing letters from people telling us that the moon landing was faked? These people believe attempting to overturn a legitimate election was a good thing. They seem to have no problem with the scores of casualties suffered by law enforcement personnel when the Capitol was stormed. Does The Press Democrat really believe these people deserve a forum?

BILL WERTZBERGER

Cloverdale

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