Editorial

It is Wednesday, September, 17, 2014, I’m writing from Room 111B at Healdsburg District Hospital (HDH). My room overlooks a lovely courtyard, for which I am most grateful as I recover from my right knee replacement by Drs. Tomasin and Rose.

For some reason, we have taxes on our minds this week. Tax Day (April 15) just happened and we’re busily wadding up all the extra forms with pencil mistakes and late night calculations. We just hit the “Send” button on our TurboTax or stubbornly filed our income taxes the old fashioned way with a licked stamp and envelope.

Ceremonies are being held across America this year to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War to “thank and honor” veterans and to allow for public reflections on a time and war that seems very distant from the country we live in today.

Two weeks ago, Cynthia Murray’s commentary published on our Tribune’s editorial page immediately captured my attention. Her opening paragraph spoke of the need for public discourse to depart from its extreme focus on rights and to emphasize more the importance of responsibilities. Because of the opening paragraph’s traditional and conservative tone I found myself nodding – yes, yes, as I read it.

It felt a little, I don’t know, discomfiting reading about the Santa Rosa Press Democrat’s recent coverage of its change of ownership. It was like stumbling into someone’s private party that I wasn’t invited to and wondering “What am I doing here?”

Healdsburg’s GMO (Growth Management Ordinance) is a complicated citizen’s initiative that was passed in 2000. In essence it limits the number of homes that can be built in a given year to 30. Since then the population has increased by less than 500 people. It is very difficult to provide housing opportunities for working folks in our community as median home prices have risen dramatically, inventory shrinks and nearly one third of re-sales are for second homes. Two years ago a committee was formed to look at amending the GMO. A compromise was reached that would give us a few more units for a 15 year period and then revert back to the current GMO. It wasn’t perfect, actually far from it. The original author of the GMO measure attended and spoke at the meetings. However he would not support even the modest changes the committee proposed, but agreed to remain neutral. He insisted that the GMO wasn’t broken and didn’t need a fix.

The late Ernie Rapley was an old time newsman. He worked for the