Letters to the Editor

Misses Shann Nix
Editor: What happened to the Wales Farm Diary? I miss Shann Nix and her column so much! I can’t find her on the Web either. I looked forward to her columns – any help in finding her musings would be much appreciated.
Elaine Thornton

Uncle, nephew
clock speeders
Editor: Having grown up in Sonoma and having worked in law enforcement in Marin, for the better part of 26 years, I recently came to visit my nephew at his home in Sonoma. He has been telling me about the trouble he has had with traffic violations and speeders outside his home and how local law enforcement has done little – if anything – to slow it down.
For most of the day we sat and clocked drivers with my privately owned Decatur Genesis Radar Gun up and down his street and found that along a three-quarter-mile stretch with three separate stop signs that the average speed of 682 vehicles in 10 hours was 41 mph — when it’s posted at 25 mph. The astonishing thing about this is that he doesn’t live in a cheap home or neighborhood, it just crosses Highway 12.
This isn’t the first time, though, that he and I have sat in his driveway and clocked vehicles. When he first moved in, the local bridge was out and traffic was a bit outlandish. Now, people just have no respect for the local residents nor their own safety.
Some of the saddest things we witnessed when we started counting offenses was just bad driving. We witnessed over 380 people talking on their cellular phones, 250-plus with children in the car while they acted like teenagers speeding and with loud music blaring, people eating with both hands and driving with something else, animals in their laps, not stopping at all at the posted signs, littering, both cigarettes and Taco Bell wrappers being tossed aside. I actually watched two vehicles racing against each other eastbound at the same time a school bus was unloading children.
After we tallied the scores and looked at each other, he asked me, “Is this normal?” The response that only local jurisdiction can do anything about it is a lie. Local communities have to stand up and say enough is enough.
He then showed me a month-old local newspaper that discussed raising the speed limits on local streets, including his. What would you do if you as a resident somewhere else in Sonoma opened your door and witnessed someone speeding along your street while your kids were getting home from school? It’s not like home anymore.
Steve Bryer

Reckless drivers could kill child
Editor: Can someone explain to me why drivers in Sonoma don’t understand that if a pedestrian is in the crosswalk or about to enter, this means that it’s not OK for the driver to enter? Maybe someone might want to remember that a child was killed after being hit in the crosswalk off the bike path… but still no one slows down.
On a recent afternoon I was with my two daughters aged 8 and 9, and as we were about to walk our bikes across the bike path on Fifth Street West (the yellow crosswalk lights are still broken), a blue Chevy with tinted windows and an Air Jordan sticker in the back window raced through while the driver was talking on his phone and not paying attention.
What ever happened to the “Rules of the Road,” or people being cautious to others? What happened to respect of the people on foot or bike?
The fact is that as a parent, I’ve spoken with other parents who are just as worried that we might get a visit from the police after we have sent our children off to school or to play on a so-called safe bike path.
The Sonoma Police Department, Sonoma City Council and California Highway Patrol need to start paying attention before we lose another child to a reckless driver.
James O’Connel

Drivers ruin
Sonoma’s
‘small-town’ feel
Editor: Two years ago I moved back to Sonoma after losing my son Thomas to a third-offense drunk driver in Milpitas. I thought that Sonoma would hold the same “small-town atmosphere” that it did when I left here 14 years ago. I came only to find out that, just like any other struggling small town, people not from here are trying to make it outgrow its small-town attitude.
I walk every morning after dropping my kids off at school. I see graffiti on the bike path on fences or utility poles. Crosswalks remind me that drivers may not stop. I see another crosswalk light broken, bums sleeping in or urinating in Depot Park, and another young man asking me if I wanted to buy some pot.
I’ve called the police only to be either told it’s not their jurisdiction or that if they didn’t witness the seller there is nothing they can do. Then the community is asking for possible bonds for a new hospital that I can’t afford to go to, but I bet a few thousand illegals will walk away from and not pay for the services.
I sat in on a city council meeting last year where the discussions and wants of the public were replied with, “We’ll look into it.” But the local hotel received additional funding for remodeling without a spokesperson of the hotel being present to thank the community.
The one guy who made any sense talked about a how a bike path across Highway 12 was a mistake, and then a local lawyer played bully as he knew the speaker was right and of course the lawyer was wrong.
As this individual left, he had an American Flag and a self-made sticker which read “Take Sonoma Back.” Maybe this guy knows something the city council and police don’t?
Patty Selzer

Don’t expand urban growth boundary
Editor: Expanding the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) is a bad idea. We urge Sonoma citizens to reject the Texas-based Cirrus Company petition to extend the UGB by 73 acres. Does anyone believe Cirrus came from Texas to Sonoma with its petition to help us by building a luxury medical spa? Does anyone doubt that extending the UGB by 73 acres will lead to speculative land development?
The Broadway hospital proposal requires a 7.5-acre UGB extension; also, some of the necessary land is not for sale at this time.
There is no need to expand the UGB or use eminent domain for a new hospital because land is available in town near the current hospital. Not only is land available, but the required infrastructure is in place and some existing hospital buildings can be used for hospital related functions.
Finally, do we really need a large hospital complex? We are familiar with the argument that financial viability requires a large campus. However, as Bob Cannard said in a letter to the Sonoma Sun (March 22, 2007), medical practice is changing and perhaps our hospital should be part of a larger system. With many hospitals in trouble, it seems likely that a solution to the problem will include cooperative arrangements among a number of hospitals.
Ed Nelson
JoAnn Nelson

Cirrus and fairness
Editor: It was with amusement and a bit of heartbreak that I listened as my sweet partner Marlie was being interviewed over the phone for a nice long spell about the hospital options. First, she would favor one, then another, and then back to the first. The amusement was in realizing how human and honest this was. The heartbreak was a sense of the impending minefield into which the Options Committee, bless their hard-working hearts, appears to be going to step once it decides any one way.
The Cirrus proposal, for a medical spa and hospital and office buildings at the corner of Eighth Street East and Napa Road, like the other options, has many strong points and some detractions. What I’d like to present here is not an argument for that proposal, but a plea to disband the illogical and unfair arguments that are being used against it. In Measure C, I saw both sides resorting to lowest-common-denominator tactics and I didn’t like it then, and I don’t like it now.
So here goes.
1) “The Cirrus Proposal” is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” This isn’t an argument. It’s name-calling.
2) “The Cirrus Proposal is the same as the Rosewood Hotel overlooking Sonoma.” No. The Rosewood Hotel would have ruined the view of the hillside as we came into town, would have ruined a big piece of open and beautiful land and would have contributed immensely to downtown traffic and clutter. The Cirrus proposal destroys no hillside viewscape, takes over land of no particular beauty in its present use, and doesn’t mess with downtown traffic at all.
3)There is an innuendo that things from Texas are bad. Not true, think of Austin, a town full of book-readers and movie-makers to rival Northern California and a music scene to rival Nashville.
4) Well, then, the innuendo continues: big businesses from Texas are bad. While this may be somewhat true, big businesses that are iffy can probably be found in every state of the union, and fond as I am of Sonoma Market, the people who work there and the high quality of food (though, fellow Chris, I’d love to see the return of the organic raw chocolate nibs, hint, hint), I’m also looking forward to the opening of a store operated by one of the best businesses in this country, for environment, for encouraging worker creativity and for keeping a low rate of pay difference between the highest- and lowest-paid workers, that company being Whole Foods. From Texas.
5) Well, then Big is Bad, right? Ah, here is an argument close to my heart, but if this is so, why do we encourage a 954-pound gorilla called the Sonoma Jazz Plus Festival to stomp through town once a year, why did we allow the big swath of development out along Fifth Street East, why, indeed, did we dismantle our small hometown police and replace them as a subset of the larger (and more-efficient) Sheriff’s department?
6) Annexing the 73 acres to allow the hospital to be part of city land will inevitably lead to sprawl. False. The Sonoma City Council has to declare what the land use, i.e. zoning, will be on all the newly acquired land. They can easily zone it agricultural. In fact, I’d love to see them zone it Organic Agriculture, and if the Cirrus proposal, or some hybrid comes into being at this site, grow, for once, really healthy food for the hospital on this land. And heck, even have some big beautiful organic pathways and gardens nearby for the healing process. Actually, there is a wonderful organic Garden Park out that way, come to think of it.
Anyway: this is enough. Cirrus may not be perfect, but the proposal deserves to be free from this sort of level of argumentation.
Chris Elms

A jazzy thank you
Editor: Saturday, March 31 at Backstage Theatre for Sir Earle of Blues, thank you for pure heart gold! Steve Schain special living bass, Sally Blue hold for all to see a video, Judy Blue knock-out flowers that transport, George Koehler lights, soundings, carry the keyboard and for the boogie-woogie message!
Wake up Sonoma for all our pleasure; here is a master and his disciples! Go study with, play with and be there for the next shot!
Ken Brown, you’se knows who to bring us! That’s what I’m talking about!
More to our treasures! Sir Earle always gives me a wake up! Sammy Hayashi, Ali Baba discovered by a billionaire, lives in Palm Springs, gallery for him is being built on Melrose, in L.A. Gypsy Boots gone on to organic fields for ever!
Otto Hitzberger gave Adolf the boot! Pele de Lappe, gorgeous baby lady master! Stanley Mouse – come home! Michael Shinn, keep up with music, and your power images! Richard Johnson gave us a taste with uniplane, world peace Federalist Party, Quonset huts into manufactured homes!
Dusty Baker a.k.a. George Dolinski

(Editor’s note: Earl Blue is a jazz pianist. Sammy Hayashi, an artist who’s known as “Ali Baba.” Gypsy Boots was an early advocate of health-food. Otto Hitzberger was a German-born sculptor who refused to do a sculpture for Adolph Hitler. Communist artist Pele de Lappe was born in Paris in 1916. Stanley Mouse drew images used by the band the Grateful Dead. Michael Shinn plays the dobro. Richard Johnson was the founder of the World Federalist Party, the inventor of the circular-winged uniplane, and an advocate for using Quonset huts as affordable housing.)