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Editor, Index-Tribune:
This is a response to Carmen Bozzone Michels. It was my letter you were referring to about the Dollar Store closing a local business (Index-Tribune letters, May 13). But I was talking about Sonoma Party Supplies, which was located at 18340 Sonoma Highway and is now a MetroPCS store, not Sonoma Rentals. And a number of the stores you mentioned were bought out by bigger corporations, they didn't leave of their own volition.
I believe everyone would agree that Sonoma's character is unique. If we have to have a big-box store for some economic reason, it should be out on Eighth Street East, where it belongs, with the other warehouses. It should not be on a corner that almost everyone in town drives by on a regular basis only to be reminded that this is no longer the small town they grew up in or chose to move to.
If we wanted a big-box store just down the street, we would live in Rohnert Park. And once you go down this path there is no turning back.
Does anyone remember that what is now Silicon Valley used to be referred to as the Valley of Hearts Delight because of its natural beauty? And it isn't just the immediate area around the Plaza that needs protecting, it's all of it. You're killing the very soul of Sonoma.
M. Chenet
Sonoma
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I'm waiting for your suggestion as to exactly what should be done with the large building "on a corner that almost everyone in town drives by". As with so many who critcize and make no positive suggestions, you don't put forward any ideas. How about we move the small businesses who may go under into the abandoned structure and create a Sonoma Business Mini-Mall?
Come to think about it, if you live in a location where Staples will be "just down the street", then you live "just down the street" from Rite-Aid, Lucky's, Safeway, and then there's the chains. Big O, Taco Bell, McD's, Jack in the Box. You would do well to read Ms Sanders letter in this issue. We will never, ever be Rohnert Park.