LETTERS from Readers

We don't have that problem here — Healdsburg Responds (Racicm in Healdsburg, July 2020 Gazette)

I have written many articles in the P.D. about how our fellow citizens are treated. I grew up in San Francisco and everyone in my neighborhood was treated with respect, no matter your ethnicity. It was vibrant and lively because it was so diverse.

I have seen racism in this county on every level and it still shocks me to hear these stories. In fact, I'm disgusted at the hate-mongers who are using the President's playbook to incite what was hidden for years. I never believed the hate went away, just underground.

To all and every fellow citizen, documented or not, I thank you for being an important part of our community. To others, please give everyone a smile and a nod; I promise you that you will get that in return and it will go a long way to making you a better person.

By the way, to the young lady whose name is America, my Mom was named that at birth by her Italian father was so honored to be part of a new life here. Everything about empathy and respect came from her and my Dad. ~ Sharon Colosi

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I recently visited Healdsburg and I have to say that I haven’t been to such a backwards town since I was little (traveling through the mid west). I did not see a single African American, or any other ethnic group reflective of real world demographics, other than Hispanic. All I saw were Caucasians. Not exactly cosmopolitan.

I would have thought the very industry that draws tourists to that town would produce a more enlightened and educated society. Unfortunately, they seem to perpetuate the ignorance and hate as many winery owners support the current administration (Jordan Winery).

I certainly did not feel welcome with all the dirty looks, and rude service (if I even received it!).

The schools there obviously fall short on education, particularly in cultural diversity (it’s because I grew up with people from all over the world that I learned about other cultures which broke down barriers). Racism is taught, we are not born with the trait.

Your statement, “Racism shows up in white people’s inability to see, acknowledge, and talk about white privilege...” is spot on.

All you have to do is read the vitriol on any of Healdsburg’s social media pages. Even local “influencers” had the audacity to post support for anti-racism (clearly for optics),posting the same exact platitudes as everyone else in their sphere, but with no sincerity. They (all white) did not want to discuss the topic...in spite of their posts stating the contrary.

Whether Healdsburg cares, or not, the outside world sees you and judges you (you may not think that’s important, but the reality is Healdsburg is a town that relies on tourism dollars). It’s important that articles like this continue to be published, allow for dialogue, and for white people to stop being defensive and actually listen. ~ Jan Bradi

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Healdsburg might have to change its name to Karensburg.

I have lived most of my life in Sonoma County. Racism in the agriculture as well as restaurant businesses is rampant. Do the owners of these business acknowledge the work of people of color? Not often enough. Healdsburg city council show out of touch they are to what actually happens. Shame on them. ~ Daniel Cortez

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Point Reyes Seashore

If Peter Prunuske cares to defend the continuation of ranching in the Point Reyes National Seashore, he would do well to check his facts and his math.

He states Johne’s Disease has NOT been found in cattle, when numerous sources from Wikipedia to National Animal Health Monitoring studies confirm that Johne’s disease is a chronic infection in dairy herds throughout the U.S. A 1979 study documented the presence of Johne's disease in 5 of 10 dairy herds tested at Point Reyes. Though there has been no recent testing of the Point Reyes livestock, the infection has been spreading nationally and there is no reason to think that Point Reyes cattle have been spared or cured.

Mr. Prunuske also states that this disease is NOT transferable to humans, but the medical research community is divided on this issue. According to the Johne’s Information Center at the University of Wisconsin, the link between the bacterium and Crohn’s disease remains scientifically controversial, but there is a significant evidence that Crohn’s may be caused by the bacterium. The Johnes Center also states that contaminated water from dairy operations is a potential source of human infection, and though Mr. Prunuske says water pollution is being reduced by the ranchers, which is not backed by any recent evidence, the common practice of liquifying manure to spray on fields for fertilizer certainly could only serve to spread the infection.

Mr. Prunuske divides 5000 cattle into 28,000 acres to come up with a density of one cow per 50 acres, but in fact it would be one cow per 5.6 acres. It’s still a lot of land for one cow, but anyone can see for themselves that the cattle are concentrated in certain ranch pastures, their density is high and their impact is intense on a national wilderness area. Land that has never been grazed by cattle shows much greater biodiversity than land which has been grazed, because cattle eat everything down to the roots, whereas elk when they graze continuously move and are instrumental in landscape ecology.

The stated mission of a national park is to conserve the natural environment and leave it unimpaired for generations to come. In this long range view of our national parks, cattle grazing should no longer be part of the picture.

I respect Mr. Prunuske’s right to his opinions and feelings about this matter, but if one is going to make a public statement, it should not be filled with declarations of fact which are not carefully checked and verified. I encourage everyone to research for themselves the issues at stake, and I welcome researched corrections to my own statements.

A wholistic view of the Point Reyes National Seashore would include science, as well as a passion for the land and its beauty, history, purpose and integrity. ~ Leslie Curchack

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The Humble House Finch or The California Linnet by Lisa Hug

Just found this article when Googling the difference between house finches and linnets. How interesting it is. Thank you.

As an Englishwoman in California, I had been reading about linnets in Country Life, and noticed how similar they were to the house finches crowding around my bird feeder (after waiting for the squirrel to get off). Came to the computer to start Googling for information and found your excellent article. It made my day! ~ Carole Westberg

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Why Not?

As the Old Man of The Road Rubber Tramp, I've been forced to be lo these five+ years now, ever since catastrophic health issues wiped me off the map of the securely housed (yes it can happen to...me?). I've endured not only the disdain but the outright ire to the point of unwarranted violence and poor treatment by law enforcement and of those who think themselves above such mishaps.

Perhaps it is that, not unlike most "hates," it is based on their underlying fear that it could very well be the outcome of misfortunes in their very lives. I know I sure didn't even expect to upon one night without wheels, aka a place with four walls, windows, and locks lest we forget locks to just be so simply tried.

I did the unthinkable and laid flat out on the sidewalk without blankets, sleeping bag ,or the dream of all dreams...a pillow. It didn't last more than ten minutes but I was simply exhausted. My lack of vehicle coming from theft of same while I was recovering from cardiac issues, but I digress, per usual.

In all and every of my favorite parking spots, there are a growing number of very nice vehicles wrapped around some of the equally nicest of people you'd wish to meet and they are not going anywhere for this is it, this is their home. Sure they have those nice aerodynamically engineered Shule storage units strapped atop their Volvos, Beemers and OK, Fords and Chevys, too, but that is what some call...their garage, the place where they store all the things they just must keep, even though they haven't opened it up in a month of sadnesses, of embarrassments, and with their jobs now gone due to all of us being "We are in a good place!" Duhnold tRump 2020.

They really see no other options after running through what savings they had managed to acquire in their lifetimes spent on nice hotels, spiraling downwards, de-graduating if you will down to Motel 6s with their seemingly 24/7 police presence, the sticky non-carpeted floors and the dings they get from parking in a lot where drunks practice their crashing skills.

I wish us all the best but I've seen far too much to have a truly rosy outlook. Thanks tRump, see you in a few months...blaming everyone but himself for his lack of action that put a 44-page obituary 'column' in Houston's main newspaper. I keep checking mine to see if I see my own name. No one tells me anything anymore! ~ Maestro Marcos Emiliano Zapatero

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Pretty good list of questions regarding schools opening and COVID

Parents and teachers, some tough questions re: schools opening

Betsy DeVos, we have a few questions for you:

• If a teacher tests positive for COVID-19 are they required to quarantine for 2-3 weeks? Is their sick leave covered, paid?

• If that teacher has 5 classes a day with 30 students each, do all 150 of those students need to then stay home and quarantine for 14 days?

• Do all 150 of those students now have to get tested? Who pays for those tests? Are they happening at school? How are the parents being notified? Does everyone in each of those kids' families need to get tested? Who pays for that?

• What if someone who lives in the same house as a teacher tests positive? Does that teacher now need to take 14 days off of work to quarantine? Is that time off covered? Paid?

• Where is the district going to find a substitute teacher who will work in a classroom full of exposed, possibly infected students for substitute pay?

• Substitutes teach in multiple schools. What if they are diagnosed with COVID-19? Do all the kids in each school now have to quarantine and get tested? Who is going to pay for that?

• What if a student in your kid's class tests positive? What if your kid tests positive? Does every other student and teacher they have been around quarantine? Do we all get notified who is infected and when? Or because of HIPAA regulations are parents and teachers just going to get mysterious “may have been in contact” emails all year long?

• What is this stress going to do to our teachers? How does it affect their health and well-being? How does it affect their ability to teach? How does it affect the quality of education they are able to provide? What is it going to do to our kids? What are the long-term effects of consistently being stressed out?

• How will it affect students and faculty when the first teacher in their school dies from this? The first parent of a student who brought it home? The first kid?

• How many more people are going to die, that otherwise would not have if we had stayed home longer?

30% of the teachers in the US are over 50. About 16% of the total deaths in the US are people between the ages of 45-65.

We are choosing to put our teachers in danger.

We're not paying them more.

We aren't spending anywhere near the right amount to protect them. And in turn, we are putting ourselves and our kids in danger. ~ Marc Kelly

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Da 5 Bloods - DVD Review by Diane McCurdy - July 2020

Obviously,vwhoever wrote this article didn’t see the movie. It was terrible, unrealistic, outdated, terribly acted. It was almost as if he was writing it as he was filming so predictable just seems that he wanted to get it out in time for the Black Lives Matter movement. ~ Michael Costa

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State Public Health Officer Order for Sonoma County

I’m not sure part of this makes sense to me. You are saying all bars, breweries will be closed indoor and outdoor. You go on to say wineries should follow Guidelines of restaurants and bars. Restaurants can serve outside and bars cannot so are wineries following restaurants or bars? I work at a winery and we have outdoor seating but have a lot of people that want to gather together. So how is that not just as dangerous as bars or breweries outdoors?

We follow your guidelines but you should take into consideration that wineries that have outdoor seating can be just as compromised as bars and breweries. ~ Jeanette Barbieri

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Putin’s Puppet

Vladimir Putin’s puppet, Donald Trump, is a political dead man walking. November 3rd is the scheduled date of Trump The Traitor’s political execution which will be watched live on TV by hundreds of millions of happy people both here at home and around the world. The end of Trump’s tyranny will be the beginning of hope and change for us all.

Don’t miss your chance to vote for the American presidential candidate Joe Biden. The political demise of demonic Don the Con will no doubt be the highest-rated reality TV show of all time, so stay tuned, because the voters are about to tell Trump he’s fired!

It’s all over for Benedict Donald. Russia’s useless idiot Trump the Chump is done. The American choice for president Joe Biden will be elected the 46th President of the United States in an overwhelming electoral college landslide, not to mention by what is sure to become one of the largest popular vote margins of victory in American presidential election history.

Jim Jones Trump’s deranged death cult (formerly known as the Republican Party) is a national embarrassment. Fortunately, most Americans are good patriotic people who will no longer tolerate Traitor Trump’s psychotic circus of incompetence, corruption and cruelty. This upcoming election is all over but the shouting. Specifically, the shouting will be coming from the world’s whiniest lying loser Donald Trump with his usual dimwitted and dishonest refrain of “Hoax! Fake news!”

The story of the November 3rd election will be America wins, Vladimir Putin loses, and delusional Donald Trump can go inject his lungs with Lysol all he wants, it won’t save his illegitimate, pathological presidency from the wrath of the American people on Election Day. Trump is a loser and an idiot! ~ Jake Pickering

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Vacation Rentals - Compromise is Key

Thank you for publishing my comment in the July print edition.

It is important that the complexities regulating personal property are aired. I don't own a vacation rental, but I do belong to the home-share community, so my observations come from trying to understand the issues facing the short-term use of residential property.

Usually decisions are not made from a factual basis and instead rely on distorted, incomplete, and misapplied data from which many fellow citizens formulate some sort of constructed yet warped opinion. Perhaps that is a product of politics, where the form of art is to get people to believe and to act regardless of facts.

What is most jarring about your article, or editorial, is the lack of researching real facts, and then commingling reasons for fomenting “conflict” when your goal appears to be to push an issue into ”compromise.”

Why didn't you mention in your article that this was coming to the Board as an Urgency Ordinance? You didn't mention the regulations and restrictions that exist on vacation rentals. Yes, you may be able to exercise power of your press to push BOS to clamp down with more regulation of property rights, but in the end you just “compromised” your journalistic integrity.

We applaud your successful sale to the Press Democrat. Yet we wonder how that impacts what was a decent source for verifiable information on a wide array of topics from many contributors.

By having a public point of view or sentiment now essentially determined by one management group, we risk not being able to have a convenient second source to cross-check facts. Because the PD is cited as source materials in reports from government, scholars, students and the general public, it is imperative to examine what is presented and cross-check facts.

What you will learn when you check facts is a better understanding of the topic at hand and the biases of the sources. We enjoy the PD and support them, but on many subjects they can not be counted on to report a full set of facts and have a problem with combining editorial with fact-based reporting - just like you did in your article. However a lot of fine people work there, so the bias or culture is determined by upper management no doubt.

To present some of the issues with the data served up by County staff and echoed in your article and others in the PD, I have copied my email previously sent to Supervisors in June on this agenda item. Not in support of restrictions or moratorium (cap) on “vacation rentals” in Sonoma County. No to any changes to X District formation processes. Although the County engaged in a thorough process to establish rules for short-term occupancies (specifically “vacation rentals” for this discussion) which includes licensing, neighborhood notification, and enforcement, this item has been placed on the agenda for discussion and possible action today. Yet, no actual problem exists to be addressed; instead this is an example of entrenched political interests (within County staff and BOS) driving an issue using distorted data during a time of crisis.

The EPS report noted in the staff report is a flawed document. Among other issues, It mis-states Census data by attributing some vacant housing as “vacation rentals” when this characteristic is not part of Census data sets, there is no understanding of second or vacation homes as a percentage of housing stock historically (decades ago vacation or second homes were a much higher percentage of stock overall when compared to today), and the report shows its purpose by not even describing a “vacation rental” correctly.

Today, “vacation rentals” take up far less than 0.1% of the County’s housing stock. The EPS report, since it is being relied upon to do this heavy lifting politically should be peer-reviewed, as well as notations for how the report’s information has been used for BOS, Permit Sonoma, and CDC decision making so the report’s deficiencies and faulty analysis can be part of the record going forward. Staff, the EPS report, and a couple of Supervisors would want you to believe that a “vacation rental” is a house purchased exclusively for paid short-term occupancies throughout the year.

Using data collected from the County’s own program would present a different picture; second homes are booked for short term occupancy to non-family members for less than 90 days out of the year on average. Platforms like Airbnb allow for the increased usage of homes that would otherwise sit vacant. (Drawing from data in highly regulated jurisdictions like Healdsburg and the City of Sonoma shows that vacation rental restrictions increase the number of vacant houses sitting around, as well as increases in DUIs - as visitors are forced to drive further for accommodations.)

The BOS should insist that staff prepare complete and factual reports from which to make decisions.

Staff, the EPS report, and a couple of Supervisors would want you to believe that a “vacation rental” is a house purchased exclusively for paid short-term occupancies throughout the year.

The Coastal Commission has recognized the role that family-owned homes (second homes or otherwise) play in keeping short term accommodations affordable so people of all income levels can enjoy recreational and family-oriented travel (including for non-recreational purposes). Having some housing stock available for short-term occupancy is great for families, the local community and economy, and the property owners.

Historically in coastal areas and other areas, homes have been purchased as second homes for recreational purposes; online platforms have made finding these homes easier. Online booking platforms are a good development and the County should do everything it can to encourage excess capacity found in our housing stock (be it whole houses, second structures on the same property, or bedrooms within a occupied dwellings) to be utilized when it is prudent to do so, as determined first by the property owner not by heavy handed regulation formed from biased and incomplete information.

The EPS report, as well as County departments have not been forthcoming in describing the roles that the unused housing stock has played in times of emergency. First Responders, essential workers, evacuees, fire victims, and other non-local workers have found accommodations in “vacation rentals” when our community needed them the most. To place (more) restrictions only weakens our ability to respond to a crisis.

It is a red herring to suggest that the lack of (more) regulation for unused housing stock would have a positive impact on the affordable housing problem. It is magical thinking with no supporting data. But it does identify how this issue is now before the BOS since “vacation rentals” and the demonification of platforms like Airbnb create a convenient whipping boy to detract from the Board’s failure to build more housing.

Instead, the BOS should get to work solving the problem of housing creation instead obfuscating with hysterical, non-factual positioning. Since the EPS report, changes to State law required all jurisdictions to place restrictions on ADUs and JADUs, another point conveniently missing from the staff report before you.

The staff report also does not describe the current market conditions that would or would not support speculative home buying for use exclusively as a “vacation rental”. While there is reason to believe that some number of homes were purchased in the last couple of years to speculatively offer as “vacation rentals” (estimated to be 0.03 % of residential transactions) the changed circumstances of recreational travel, the economy, and other factors naturally diminish enthusiasm for this type of investment.

Of course, the BOS feels that regulatory power should trump free-market decision making (Is that why staff serves up half-baked data?).

Lastly, we say it is wonderful that creating new X-districts is “problematic, controversial, and expensive for applicants”. It should be! Using regulations to make it easier for a twisted minority to extinguish rights for others is the basis for much injustice. It is the cause of justice in juxtaposition that shows BOS and staff’s underhandedness in using half-baked information as rationale to diminish the rights for property owners to use their property in a legal and community supportive fashion.

BOS – stop with the political BS !! ~ Eris Fraser

THANKS for you opinion and concern on this topic, Eric.

As a member of the Lower Russian River Municipal Advisory Council committee on Vacation Rentals, we have created a survey for public feedback that we hope to distribute countywide.

We will present what we learn to the Board of Supervisors before they meet again to discuss this topic.

Our survey is divided into 3 categories since each will have concerns unique to their perspective: Neighborhoods, Service Businesses that serve vacation rentals, and Vacation Rental Owners and support Businesses & Organizations.

We hope that we have created surveys without bias that provide broad-spectrum input that will serve all concerned parties on this topic. Our survey will be available through each supervisors district office website, on Facebook, and any vehicle we can find to gather as much data as possible. Any suggestions you have about more opportunities for feedback are welcome.

And yes, the sale of the Gazette to Sonoma Media Investments, LLC allows it to continue serving our community. And so you know, their editorial board has no input nor influence on Gazette editorial topics. ~ Vesta

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IOLERO Recommendations

I’m 97 years old and I’ve been protesting war my entire life. I belong to Grandmothers for Peace. I’ve been arrested several times at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, GA where the U.S. trains international assassins.

We need a Department of Peace, not a Department of War (they call it Defense now) and we need to divest from war. War (including Homeland Security etc.) costs us taxpayers $1.25 trillion a year. Just think what we could do with that much money applied to infrastructure, education, transportation, healthcare, a guaranteed income.

Now our police forces have been militarized and the war is against us, the citizens. We need peace officers, not police officers. They should be there to help people. Their job should be to protect and preserve life more than property. They must stop killing civilians.

I don’t believe the police should have guns, but if they do, we need better police oversight. The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors is considering citizens’ recommendations to strengthen oversight of law enforcement. If they don’t have the guts to stand up to the sheriff and police, they should put the Evelyn Cheatham IOLERO Ordinance on the ballot.

~ Corine Thornton