Letters To The Editor

"I was so happy to see that the City of Healdsburg has given us a chance to suggest an official City flower, plant or tree as representative of Healdsburg," writes reader Mary Kelley. "I was especially pleased to see that all of the options are California Native Plants. There are five different plants from which to choose, and the sixth option is a category which encompasses a variety of species of Oak trees."

"What happened on Senior Prank Day was deeply disappointing and caused real harm—there’s no denying that," said school counselor Mr. Flores. "But I want to acknowledge something else just as important: the courage and integrity it took for this student’s father, Mr. Clow, to share such a raw and honest reflection with our community."

The father of a high school senior writes, "My child’s mother and I were promptly notified by HHS Principal Tait Danhausen that our child would not be allowed to walk for the graduation ceremony as a consequence of their actions. Walking for graduation is a privilege that signifies a major milestone in any child’s life. Needless to say, friends, family members and community members who know my child were devastated and mortified by the horrible choice my child made."

Readers weight in on the latest news from the city on districts, parklets and Birds: "I spoke to the gentleman who had the contract to maintain the bikes a couple of months ago.  He told me how difficult the job was. He had to pay for all the replacement parts upfront, and wait for reimbursement from Bird. That is why so many bikes were in such a state of disrepair..."

"I was flying from Nepal to Bangkok when the 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar. Mid-flight on March 28, news alerts began sounding. On landing, I learned that a massive earthquake had hit Myanmar, not far from where we had been working days earlier.:

The City Council’s informal decision on Dec. 16 to adopt a five-district, selected mayor format for city government in the redistricting process drew immediate reactions from several community members, who felt the decision was made unnecessarily quickly and short-circuited public discussion of the options. Here are a few of their comments:

The City Council must address this issue with a “formula retail ordinance” that expands the boundaries of the retail area and codifies “formula business.” The 2030 General Plan protects businesses directly facing the Plaza, but not those around the Plaza, which explains why Faherty can slip into Ooh la Luxe’s space.

"I am an affordable housing advocate, but Measure O and its aftermath are riddled with issues. I see it as a huge, uncertain affordability experiment, not a plan..." So writes a long-time Healdsburg resident about the city's plan to create an exclusion zone from the Growth Management Ordinance...

"We voted on Prop. 12 in 2018 to ban factory farming of the kind promoted by the Yes on Measure J people from outside the county, which was a statewide initiative. It went into full implementation on January 1, 2024. It has barely had the opportunity to go full swing and here we are targeting only Sonoma County. Why?" So asks one reader in our Letter to the Editor column, found online only this week...

"As the Executive Director of Corazón Healdsburg and Chair of the Board, we are writing to express our support for Measure O...." So begins our first entry in this week's Letters to the Editor. The second letter takes a different point of view altogether.