Farmers Market cold shoulder
Editor: I don’t know Jim Cahoon, Celeste Winders or anyone connected to the Sonoma Farmers Market. I do know that once a couple of years ago, I was at the market and asked the lady who ran it at that time – still runs it? – if she would like to look at the inexpensive and beautiful jewelry made by my Native American friend – who lives locally; to see if he could get a table at the market. She brushed me off like a fly and said they already had a jewelry person and turned away to cut off the conversation. I’ve only been back to the market once after that. I am also a big fan and customer of Rocket Cafe and they told me they were told that there is a SIX-year waiting list for them to get a spot at the market. It’s only natural local people would want to have a spot at their own local farmers market. After reading Jim Cahoon’s lengthy and 100 percent mean-spirited letter, together with my experience and that of Rocket Café’s, I can logically assume the people who run our market are perhaps not so much interested in having an authentic community market so neighbors can provide goods for neighbors but rather a club few can join for reasons of their own.
Sheila Reilly
Glen Ellen
Winders v. Cahoon – Round two
Editor: Regarding the letter directed towards me in last week’s Sun: Mr. Cahoon’s whole letter was intended to call my character and intentions into question. I would like to clear up some gross mistruths in his letter. My letter sent to The Sun was regarding the misrepresentation of Ms. Fitzpatrick as a vendor when she was indeed a member of the market board as well. Specifically, I felt there was a clear conflict of interest having vendors who monetarily benefit from board decisions sit as board members. I find it curious that Mr. Cahoon felt the need to viciously attack me publicly instead of answering the question about the issue at hand and would like to hear from the market board regarding how that conflict of interest is resolved. They have yet to respond with an answer.
Concerning the Electronic Benefits Transfer project, I first contacted Mr. Cahoon about the project; after a week of no response I sent him a follow up e-mail. I was not experiencing any “anxiety” of any kind, just merely following up. I later met with Mr. Cahoon and Ms. Shwartz and felt obligated to give FULL DISCLOSURE I was not one of their supporters but I was willing to work with them to bring this service to the community. I hardly came to them pretending to be best friends forever. It was always about the project and the people – not them or myself. I was willing to write a federal grant as a volunteer and this is no small task to undertake. We discussed the merits of the project and the generalities of the federal grant funding, then I left to review it more closely. Upon further review of the grant I had come to the conclusion the current market management was not equipped to manage the project and funding of that scale. I e-mailed Mr. Cahoon the next morning after we met and spelled out all the specific REQUIRED areas they were lacking to carry out the project and he e-mailed me back agreeing with me. This is the REAL reason the project never progressed not because I “ran off” with my “friends.” I suppose to hear Mr. Cahoon tell it, I ran off with the clowns in the market. I should be so lucky!
Projects which involve government funding require program directors. They require someone who speaks “grant language,” who can account for all the system requirements and program development. There are also mandatory training sessions, fiscal reports every three months, biannual/annual reports, as well as a detailed yearly fiscal report of the project and funding expenditures. The market agency must have DUN number, be registered with the CCR as well as multiple other standards that the current market agency does not currently posses before they can even apply with the United States Department of Agriculture for a vendor number, much less a federal grant. All of these things I spelled out to Mr. Cahoon in my follow up e-mail. It is interesting to me he failed to mention this in his letter attacking me. I never skipped out on the project and I would still be willing to do anything I can to help make it a viable resource for the community. However, Mr. Cahoon has chosen to not follow up with me beyond his letter of attack in the paper. I made myself available and he never e-mailed or called me again.
Mr. Cahoon’s letter was meant to slander and intimidate me for having the audacity to criticize their management and market dictatorship. I am not a vendor; I don’t have any monetary interest vested in the market. I just don’t like seeing people treated badly and bullied about, and anyone who knows me can affirm I am not intimidated easily. I am a part of this community and have every right to take issue with the way the market is operated. I’m not the only person who has voiced their opinion but merely the person he has chosen to attack. Mr. Cahoon does not have the right to speak for the entire community and say they are “weary” of my “tantrums.” To classify a well-constructed and detailed critique as a mere “tantrum” is both insulting and demeaning. I have had nothing but a positive response from community members so I beg to differ Mr. Cahoon and I thank you for your indirect contribution which has brought many new and wonderful people into my life. I am very pleased to have met each of them.
Celeste Winders
Sonoma
The importance of proclaiming Equal Pay Day
This year, for the first time in history, the city of Sonoma will recognize Equal Pay Day. On April 7, Mayor Steve Barbose proclaimed April 20 “Equal Pay Day in Sonoma,” before the city council, with appreciative members of the American Association of University Women, Sonoma Branch, and a number of public citizens looking on.
Equal Pay Day symbolizes the time in the new year in which wages paid to American women catch up to the wages paid to men from the previous year. The proclamation is significant because this important public official, the mayor, showed his support for the goal of pay equity for women. Public awareness of the importance of the issue is critical for getting needed legislation passed.
Why is more legislation needed? The pay gap finds women’s average pay to lag behind that of men by 23 percent, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics. Forty years after the passage of the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the pay gap has closed by 12 cents. At this rate of progress, if we do nothing to further support wage fairness for women in the workplace, equal pay won’t be realized for another 50 years, according to the national committee on pay equity.
The support of Mayor Barbose, council members, and the citizens of Sonoma will be noted by our U. S. Senators who have it in their power to pass the “Paycheck Fairness Act” – a badly needed legislation which would increase penalties for pay discrimination – an important step forward in closing the pay gap. This local action and citizen support has already been noted by Assembly member Jared Huffman who offered his congratulations to the city of Sonoma for “advocating for equal wages and equity in the workplace.” Letters to the senators urging no further delay in passing SB182 are also needed.
Let us not, as anthropologist Margaret Mead warned, “underestimate the power of ordinary citizens to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Catherine Beatty
Chair, Public Policy Committee
AAUW, Sonoma Branch
Questions McConnell’s values
Editor: As a proud citizen and independent voter, I consider remaining informed and objective about this nation’s politics my duty. I feel further obligated to disseminate my view when I believe a public official has acted unscrupulously.
Recently, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell lambasted the Democrats’ proposed banking regulation bill, which aims to reinstate fairness on Wall Street by repressing consumer predation, eliminating the manipulation of fine print, and holding executives accountable for their part in generating the current recession. McConnell bluntly renounced the bill, claiming its sole purpose is to create for future bailouts. Though the bill is still only in draft form, he also sharply threatened a future filibuster in order to prevent the passage of the legislation.
I was taken aback by such a vehement and premature objection from the senator, especially considering this is a widely supported reform proposition. However, I began to understand his motivation when I encountered a February edition of the Wall Street Journal, which includes an article about how Republicans were “stepping up their campaign to win donations from Wall Street … [by] striving to make the case that they are banks’ best hope of preventing President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats from cracking down on bankers.”
Actually, McConnell and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn recently held a private meeting with 25 of Wall Street’s most powerful executives. Though the details of the meeting were not publicly disclosed, the Republican duo were likely requesting pecuniary assistance from the bankers leading into November – in return for obstruction of the Democratic legislation. Since the Supreme Court has eliminated the ban on corporate campaign spending, it could be a lucrative deal for the Republican Party.
In my opinion, opposing this legislation under the false pretense it could hurt the American masses is simply exploitative. With millions of families struggling to make it through the recession, the least McConnell could do is be transparent about doing favors for the exorbitantly wealthy. I believe this calls into question both McConnell’s values and that of his party.
Robert Geoffrey Loebl
Berkeley, California