Letters to the Editor

Keeping Valley teens safe

Editor: Teen Safe Ride has been serving the Sonoma Valley for almost 15 years. Teen Safe Ride makes sure that any teen in the valley does not have to ride home in an impaired state or with someone else who is not safe.  The current system used for Teen Safe Ride is that Operation Youth issues a voucher at the beginning of the school year. The voucher has their name, street number and student ID number on it.  When the student needs a ride they call Vern’s Taxi and Vern’s takes them home, to the address on the card. Teen Safe Ride pays the bill at the end of the month.  Students are given one voucher at the beginning of school and one at the middle of the year.  Vouchers are dispensed in the Operation Youth run No Name Cafe at the high school. Operation Youth’s program director is responsible for giving out vouchers and has the opportunity to counsel students who want to use the program too frequently.
This program gives the student support for safety and their longer-term future.
Teen Safe Ride raises money from individuals and through grants from local organizations. Right now we are waiting for some grants and we need an immediate injection of cash to keep operating through the holidays and into early next year.
If you would like to help us keep our students safe, please send your tax-deductible dollars to Operation Youth, P.O. Box 570, Sonoma CA 95476.
John Randall
Sonoma

Where is the next ‘super’ leader?

Editor: The school district will now search for a superintendent. The firm Leadership Associates has been retained for a fee of $21,000 inclusive per the Sun’s December 13 staff report.
The last super search ran $70,000 for “a nationwide search,” which yielded a guy from Petaluma. He was released a year early with full salary ($126,000?) paid on top of the new interim superintendent’s salary who replaced him (the retiring Barbara Young). The $70,000 search and his $126,000 salary paid for work not done is so very unsettling.
Can the board run a prominent ad in the Press-Democrat aimed at an in-county candidate without incurring the “professionals” fee? The $21,000 certainly isn’t as daunting as $70K. Nonetheless, the process last time included “focus group” meetings that were apparently ignored. The focus group I attended desired openness and transparency – an emphasis on communication and cooperation. That regime created an environment wherein it wasn’t even OK for school board members to visit classrooms without a formal pre-approval.
What of the very talented school people with whom we are already familiar such as Louann Carlomagno, Dave Rose, and Mickey Kopp? What about people not in the education industry? Superintendent is the only position not requiring an education degree. There’s a reason. Board members, please consider someone with outstanding leadership skills but not of the education business machine, at least including the past and present leaders of the Ed Foundation, the Boys and Girls Club, and the Mentoring Alliance. Does the community know that any candidate can hold this position? Turn the community’s innovation potential on. What does the position pay? Who is already here in town that might be the truly ‘super’ leader?
Washington and Sacramento have much of the school business tied up as tight as a tick. Bring in someone who will push back and ask new questions with a willingness to give Sonomans the hardest answers. Begin this new dawn with a trust in your community rather than a confidence that “we can’t handle the truth.”
Gary De Smet
Sonoma

El Verano’s famous chickens
Editor: This is in regard to another letter I had written: my chickens are illegal on my property and I must get rid of them. This I never knew until a neighbor complained. I live outside the city limits, in El Verano where the feral chickens have been made famous by the media.
Hundreds of cities, across the country, are allowed to have hens in residential areas, with certain permits. I have documents with this evidence, plus many newspaper articles.
So here we are in an area that we present as still rural and country, what with cows and horses being inside the city limits, and chickens too, by the way.
Chickens are seen, less and less, in the chicken town of El Verano, because of the same thing that is happening to me. I have not given up. As a citizen of this country I have a right to try to change things that are encroaching on my previously happy lifestyle, and that would not encroach on any other’s either. My seven hens don’t bark, or have midnight dalliances in mating season that make your hair stand on end. I am not talking about the animals that are kept up; I have very nice neighbors that have well-mannered pets.
I have a limited time to get rid of my hens. They are truly pets and lay eggs too. They eat out of my hand, and do humorous things. They take wonderful sunbaths, with their eyes rolling back in their heads and their wings all askew. They look dead. It is just bliss.
Doreen Proctor
Sonoma

Getting back to good turkeys

Editor: I am delighted to read John McReynolds guest columns in the Sun. The one on wild turkeys was informative to know we can now get back to good turkey flavor.
Then John’s writing on the joys of harvesting. It was fun to read. John, sounds like you are having a great time with your new freedom from the “kitchen.” Keep on enjoying and taking us along for the ride!
Rusty Cuevas
Sonoma

Step one, now two and three
Editor: Good sense finally prevails at our hospital! Step one has been taken. The plan outlined by CEO Gerlach is quite similar to the one proposed by several doctors in 1995 and considered by the board. Had such a plan been accepted, we would have an updated hospital that would be largely paid for. Instead visions of grandeur from the board wasted six to ten million dollars.
We cannot forget these errors of that past or they may be repeated in the future. An independent audit must be done to show where all this money went –– into the pockets of attorneys, architects, planners, consultants, P.R. firms, elections, advances and guarantees to doctors that left as soon as their guarantees were up, administrators and five vice presidents, in addition to options on land that never had a chance of being used. Large amounts of bond money were spent before any bonds were passed.
Step two must now be taken. Passing a bond that will upgrade the current hospital and buy all of the available land near the current hospital. The neighbors on Andrieux should stop worrying because an updated hospital on the current site will serve for at least 12 to 15 years. At that time medical practice will have been so changed that a small new facility may be all that is needed.
I meet three mornings a week with the core doctors of this valley that recommend a large percentage of the patients to the hospital. Collectively they have over 9,000 patients. No bond will pass without their support. They can and will support a common sense bond to solve our hospital needs.
Step three determines the amount of the bond needed to buy the land and upgrade the current hospital. When clear honest figures are given to the people of this valley they will pass a hospital bond. I’ll work wholeheartedly to help. We have the right CEO and at least three members of the board that understand the situation. Let’s move forward.
Bob Cannard
Sonoma