Letters to the Editor, July 1 - 4

Gimme shelter EDITOR:|

Gimme shelter

EDITOR: The front page of the June 21 Press Democrat – Santa Rosa’s daily paper – included an article about a $2 billion plan to shelter the state’s homeless. I quote from the third paragraph: “Lawmakers are putting the finishing touches on a plan to provide as much as $2 billion to help cities build permanent shelters to get mentally ill people off the streets.”

Don’t we have a state hospital right here in the Valley that is scheduled to close?

Just wondering.

Peter Kaye

Boyes Hot Springs

Talk about putting them out to pasture…

EDITOR: Driving on Arnold toward 116, taking a left on 116 toward 121, there are pastures on the left housing horses and cows. The first pasture you come to has the horses and cows. I remember the animals huddled under trees that bordered the pasture. Today as I drove by, I noticed these horses huddled together out in the hot sun. They were crowded together with their faces all together. The cows were laying down on the grass also in the hot sun. They were in plain view since the trees had been cut down.

Our summer is just beginning, our heat will be relentless. I am concerned.

Dale Miller

Sonoma

What do leaf blowers and church choirs have in common?

EDITOR: I am writing this letter to agree with Bill Lynch about the leaf blowers (“Tyranny of the Majority, and Leaf Blowers,” May 31). We moved from Southern California 47 years ago. We had lived just under the Los Angeles airport path. We are still in the same house on a cul-de-sac in Sonoma just kitty corner to a church. When we moved here our relatives would come from Los Angeles and ask us how we could stand the quiet. We loved it! Now two days a week for four to five hours each day we are forced to listen to the preachers and their choir amplify their services to the whole neighborhood. We have visited them twice to ask them to tone it down to no avail. They have about seven cars in their parking lot, which means at four persons per car there are about 40 parishioners. Many neighbors and ourselves have complained to City Hall. Their reply is that we need to call the police. We do not think that it is the police department’s job to quiet them down. I can still hear their music and preaching with all my windows closed and my TV on. What happened to being a good Christian?

We also have to listen to leaf blowers all around us. My husband is 72 years old and we have a large yard. He does all of our gardening by himself. Our garden is very tropical with lots of cuttings and leaves. We never use a leaf blower. They are very noisy and totally unnecessary. Just because gardeners want to make more money faster, we all have to suffer.

Please, in the name of decency, stop the noise pollution! We deserve our peace.

Grace M. Amari

Sonoma

Leaf blowers don’t exist in a vacuum

EDITOR: Leaf blowers be damned. I used for years a yard vacuum (electric)… Simply rake or sweep up the leaves on any surface, vacuum into a large bag and put into yard-waste bin. Very simple and neat.

Hugh Burrell

Ex-Sonoma resident

Mockery of city ordinances

EDITOR: I wrote the following to the Sonoma City Council…

Today, the landscaper across the street started leaf blowing at 8 a.m. The sound ordinance states that the gas blowers cannot start until 9 a.m. and are to stop at 4 p.m.

The noise ordinance states the allowed decibel level is 60, this blower registered 80 to 85.

There is such a lack of respect to the living, the dead and your existing city ordinances.

I called City Hall and asked for the Ordinance Enforcement Officer, (I believe that’s the title) and was told that I was to call the police department. I had to wait until 9 a.m. for someone to answer the business phone. I was told that someone would go remind the landscaper of the existing ordinances. Isn’t this the City’s job? I don’t want to call the police and neither does anyone else. The landscapers need to know that this is not the Wild West. If they want to do business in Sonoma, they need to observe your ordinances.

Homeowners need to be reminded as well. We all live in this small area and your existing ordinances were made to make our City of Sonoma a happy and a safe place.

Cecilia Ponicsan

Sonoma

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