Letters to the Editor

Readers speak out on affordable housing

Editor: California law requires that 20 percent of the funds received by the Community Development Agency be used exclusively for low-income housing development and support.  Moreover, of all housing categories required by the state, Sonoma is deficient in housing designated for the lowest income earners. Accordingly, low-income rental housing not only meets the needs of the community, but meets the legal requirements placed upon the city.
Every time an affordable rental housing project is proposed or planned in Sonoma, some members of the community rise up in protest claiming that crime and drug use will increase, neighboring properties will fall in value, and other rental properties will suffer. Setting aside whatever bigotry and small-mindedness drives some to make such allegations, none of them have been borne out through actual historical experience here in the city of Sonoma. Firehouse Village, for example, remains a tidy, attractive, safe and affordable rental development supported by city funds in its creation.
For decades, the City of Sonoma and its City Council have vigorously supported the creation of affordable housing. Subjected to Planning Commission, Design Commission and City Council review, these projects are among the best planned and well-run. I commend members Brown, Barbose and Gallian of the City Council for their support of affordable housing, and suggest that council members Sanders and Sebastiani need to set aside their oft-stated biased opinions and look honestly at the needs of an underserved segment of this community.
Larry Barnett
Sonoma

Editor: August Sebastiani, Sonoma City Councilman, stated, “The bottom line to me is my long-standing opposition to subsidized housing. I do not believe that is the long-term answer for Sonoma. I do not believe in community-ism.”
Has our society, which claims to be a Christian nation, fallen so low that we do not care about those among us who need assistance? Is the concept of rugged individualism carried to this extreme moral or healthy for us as a society? I would ask Sebastiani what the disabled, elderly and the working poor should do. Are they to live on the streets? I think we are better than this – that we are a community that will survive and prosper only through interdependence, compassion and caring. At least I hope and pray that this is so.
Tess Hagemann
Santa Rosa

Editor: Shame, shame, shame on those who have not awakened; the ones who negated passing the vital affordable housing issue ­– council folks as well as neighbors! This issue is as important in Sonoma as it is everywhere in America.
We’re only a few days from our most recent dawn of newness … our new president is encouraging us all to know that we are all connected in all types of communities, but [no community] anywhere can be so insulated that it attempts to control who does and does not reside in its environment.
Beyond our native peoples, every American in this country came from somewhere else. Where are the welcome mats and inclusion to any and all who want to live in Sonoma, a place that you residents claim is open, friendly and a great place to live?
And Sebastiani said in his comment that he does not believe in community-ism. That’s insane. He is community; he and his immediate and family of heritage have been part of community. “The Community “ (though invisible to him) has supported him for generations – probably those who live in affordable housing! His comment is elitist, exclusive, and disingenuous at best. Perhaps he needs some enlightening reading materials.
In 2009, we would all do well to know that we need one another. Diversity, regardless of economics, health status, education and ethnicity, is the new democracy.
Talibah Chiku
Sonoma

Editor: My name is Daniel Werthman, and I am a student at Edwin Markham Elementary in Vacaville, Calif. The reason I am writing to you is because I am doing a research report on the beautiful Mission San Francisco de Solano and I need your readers’ help.
I will be making a replica of your mission, as well as delivering an oral report. I need all the information and facts I can get. I am asking for souvenirs, postcards and other information that will be helpful. I am looking forward to hearing from you soon. I really hope your readers can help me. Thanks for all the help!
Daniel Werthman
c/o Maestra Llamas
Edwin Markham Elementary
101 Markham Ave.
Vacaville, CA 95688

Editor: Let us continue if we may, a previous writer’s metaphor of Sonoma Valley and Gaza (Letters, Friday Jan. 23, 2009). Let us however use the Sonoma Valley and the 1.5 million people she posits living here as the border towns and cities of Israel, not Gaza. And let us now imagine that our Sonoma Valley is being bombarded daily, and over a period of six years, by rockets and missiles from Napa.
Exactly how long do you think we Sonomans would allow our civilian men, women and children to be bombarded by those Napans? Exactly how much trauma would we allow our children to suffer before responding?
Perhaps she is not aware that the Hamas government in Gaza does not recognize Israel’s right to exist within any borders and that it has avowed Israel’s destruction. Perhaps she is not aware that before Hamas fired its rockets into Gaza, supplies and people passed daily between Gaza and Israel. Perhaps she is not aware that before invading Gaza to stop the rocket fire, Israel offered Hamas a ceasefire, which Hamas rejected, and then responded to by firing hundreds of rockets into Israel on that very same day. Perhaps she is not aware that Israel warned Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations that if the rocket fire into Israel continued, it would be forced to invade Gaza to stop the rocket fire. Perhaps she is not aware that Gaza shares a border with Egypt, a country it recognizes, and yet Egypt refuses to open its border to Gaza.
The fact of the matter is that if rocket fire into Israel were to stop, there would be not one Israeli bullet fired into Gaza and not one Palestinian casualty. The fact of the matter is that if Hamas were to use the border crossings, sea and land, for commerce – and not for smuggling in weapons with which to attack Israel, Palestinians and Israelis alike would be able to live peacefully and prosperously while working towards a long-lasting, fair and just peaceful co-existence.

Jerry Sanders
Sonoma