Illegal pot farms
EDITOR: Thursday’s article about the pot farm cleanup (“Abandoned pot farm damages county land”) prompted me to ask: Even if taxes aren’t levied on growers, will illegal growers really want to come into the legal fold, or will they continue to make higher profits on the black market by avoiding the headaches of red tape, paying no taxes, stealing water and leaving trash? Illegal growers are already established. Why should they change their ways?
LINDA LLOYD
Santa Rosa
Judge Daum’s orange
EDITOR: In Saturday’s article about Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Elliot Daum placing a picture of an orange in his courtroom instead of a picture of the current president (“SR judge’s display stirs navel-gazing debate”), Edelweiss Geary, the head of the local Republican Party, may have used mangled syntax, but she was quite correct when she said that “this kind of treatment Barack Obama did not get.” What Daum did requires a sense of humor.
HUGH HELM
Santa Rosa
Keeping health law
EDITOR: I’m so proud of the people of Sonoma County who filled the Piner High gym Saturday for the town hall meeting sponsored by Rep. Mike Thompson and state Sen. Mike McGuire (“Big crowd cheers lawmakers’ call to save health care act,” Sunday). More than 1,000 people came out, and our message was loud and forceful: Do not allow anyone to take away all the benefits of the Affordable Care Act.
As a family physician in Sonoma County since 1987, I have seen the devastation to patients and families when jobs and insurance were lost, and then someone had a major illness. Some lost their homes. Others declared bankruptcy.
Since the Affordable Care Act, I have had patients who finally got insurance and got pap smears that saved their lives. Or they finally got good treatment for mental illness, and they never had to worry that pre-existing conditions would keep them from getting the care they need.
Our town hall meeting was part of the resistance building across America. We are lucky to have legislators who stand with us. But we, the people, need to continue to show up. I have joined both Indivisible and Healthcare Professionals for Equality and Community Engagement to keep the movement growing. In these dark days, resistance is my sunshine.
DR. BO GREAVES
Santa Rosa
A week without Hispanics
EDITOR: I would like to see the entire Hispanic community in the United States — legal residents and illegal immigrants alike — call in sick for, say, a week, preferably in the middle of the growing and tourist season, maybe in July or August. Just think of how all those non-Hispanics could rush in and take those jobs and save the day. In reality, I believe the entire country would be paralyzed — and, hopefully, a lesson learned by Donald Trump and his ilk.
MIKE TUHTAN
Sebastopol
Trump and the media
EDITOR: Donald Trump’s increasingly strident campaign against the press is deeply worrying for those who rely on the media for our awareness of the world and as a watchdog on our government. Neither of those two roles can be effective if we lose trust in the media.
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