Editorial

The origins of Memorial Day are often attributed to General John Logan. It is true that, in 1868, he gave impetus to an official “Decoration Day” as it was first called, a time for remembering the Civil War dead and decorating their graves. But Logan never really understood the meaning of the day. Until his own death, he remained a radical reconstructionist whose fierce anger toward the South never abated.

— Rollie Atkinson

On the eve of a long ago Christmas a little 8-year-old girl

My wife, Susan, died from ALS in 2007 and donated her body to research. A few weeks ago, studies found that NFL players are at greater risk of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease).  Papers like this one ran stories about the news and rightfully so. But with Veterans Day approaching on Sunday November 11, how many of us know that a much, much larger segment of our population — military veterans — also is at greater risk of Lou Gehrig’s Disease?

There have been a number of great letters to the editor recently including the ones from John Crevelli and Brigette Mansell. They captured the frustration of being long term Healdsburg residents and seeing our town changing negatively while the town’s leadership isn’t representing the average citizen’s concerns. Most everyone I talk to in town agrees, so I think we are in the majority.

Another year is winding down and Christmas and the holiday

Summer will soon be upon us. Though spring cleaning gets us all ready for the summer season, pool and spa owners face a special set of cleaning and maintenance tasks. Improper discharge of pool/spa water and the chemicals in it into streets or storm drains can have an impact on streams and rivers. The following steps can help keep your pool or spa clean and functioning for recreational use without harming the environment:  

In December I went to a Regional Climate Protection Authority presentation at the Healdsburg city council chambers. The RCPA was created in 2009 to improve coordination on climate change issues and efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as was mandated by the ten county government’s partnership with the Climate Protection Campaign in 2005. The goal is to reduce county GHG emissions to 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2015. It was the CPC that first championed Sonoma Clean Power in 2004.

Readers owe a debt of gratitude to the Board of Directors of the Healdsburg Tourism Improvement District (HTID). We have rarely seen a letter that provided, word for word, greater entertainment value than the board’s response to a letter suggesting that transient tax money should now be reallocated from tourism promotion to low-income housing. We encourage readers to dig through their old papers, or go to the Tribune online, to again enjoy with us this amazing missive.