- Farm Bureau Calls On Ukiah To Start Over On Annexation
- Riding Muni
- Smart Ridership Is Up, But At What Cost?
- FDR Warned Of Problems With ‘Trickle Down’ Plan
- Little To Celebrate
- Is This Us?
- Hawks Of A Feather
- State Needs To Creatively Bolster Firefighter Ranks
- Public Works Scam
- CA=ATM
- Exsanguinated To Death
FARM BUREAU CALLS ON UKIAH TO START OVER ON ANNEXATION
To Ukiah Mayor Doug Crane and City of Ukiah Council Members:
There was a public workshop held at 6:00 pm on June 19th, 2025, at the Ukiah Conference Center. It was indicated by Ukiah’s city manager and other staff that the city’s proposed annexation plan was open for discussion, direct input, review, transparency, and revision to reflect input from the citizens of Ukiah and citizens from the proposed annexation area. It was clear that NO ONE in attendance that evening supported the annexation proposal other than city staff.
On June 24, 2025 at the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors meeting concerning the tax sharing agreement and annexation, City of Ukiah Mayor Doug Crane, spoke and indicated very clearly that the city had not provided sufficient information, studies or details about the proposed annexation plan, its implications, and impacts to either the citizens of Ukiah, which he represents, or to the individual citizens, business, and agriculture in the proposed annexation area.
We remain strongly opposed to “The Annexation Plan” and strongly encourage the city council to terminate and rescind the current misguided annexation plan by a vote of the city council to start fresh with public input, involvement, and transparency.
Estelle Clifton, President
Mendocino County Farm Bureau
RIDING MUNI
Dear Bruce,
I wanted to take the opportunity to mention what I consider one of the glories of the Mighty AVA — your accounts over the years of riding MUNI through the tortuous social and geographical labyrinth of San Francisco.
While there are certain staples to the genre — e.g., the ex-Marine sizing up whether if necessary he can take that day’s psychotic passenger should he launch an assault on the elderly and disabled seated at the front of the bus; the older, hyper-aggressive Chinese women who body check their fellow passengers with the efficacy of N.F.L. linebackers — it’s the sheer variety and novelty of the characters involved that make these pieces a joy to read.
While I am undoubtedly biased by the 22 years I spent living in San Francisco during which time I rode MUNI on virtually a daily basis, I still maintain that a judiciously edited volume collecting these accounts entitled “Bruce Rides MUNI,” with an introduction by someone who knows you well — the Nephew, perhaps — and published by City Lights, would make a small but significant contribution to the literary life of the City.
Doug Loranger
Walnut Creek
SMART RIDERSHIP IS UP, BUT AT WHAT COST?
Editor,
Ridership on the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit train is rising, but the numbers tell a more sobering story. For the first 11 months of fiscal-year 2025, average weekly ridership reached 3,546 — a record for SMART, yet still well below its original goal of 5,000 daily riders.
To attract riders, SMART is heavily subsidizing fares. In fiscal 2024, it recovered just 3.7% of its operating costs from ticket sales — far short of its original 36% target. It appears the ratio will fall even further in 2025.
By comparison, the San Francisco Peninsula’s Caltrain covers nearly 70% of its costs through fares. BART, which is experiencing a financial crisis, still recovers 16% — more than four times SMART’s level.
Some view SMART’s low fares as an attractive European-style public benefit. But the comparison doesn’t hold up. In Europe, farebox recovery ratios typically range from 35% to over 80%. SMART is nowhere close.
Meanwhile, through 0.25% sales tax funding, SMART pulls about $50 million annually from Marin and Sonoma counties — adding up to $1 billion over 20 years. That’s money that could be redirected to urgent local needs like schools, infrastructure, wildfire resilience or climate adaptation.
Instead, we’re subsidizing an inefficient, diesel-powered train system with low ridership, high costs and traffic disruptions — especially at the San Rafael crossing.
Given these facts, is SMART really the best use of our public dollars?
Gaetan Lion
Mill Valley
FDR WARNED OF PROBLEMS WITH ‘TRICKLE DOWN’ PLAN
Editor,
It has been pointed out that the current policy of low taxation for the very rich is not only unfair but is bad for our economy. Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt recognized this situation in his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention of 1932.
“There are two ways of viewing the government’s duty in matters affecting economic and social life,” Roosevelt said. “The first sees to it that a favored few are helped and hopes that some of their prosperity will leak through, sift through, to labor, to the farmer, to the small business man. That theory belongs to the party of Toryism, and I had hoped that most of the Tories left this country in 1776.”
We all know that this trickle-down approach did not work then and it will not work now. We think, in actuality, the Tories did not leave in 1776. They are still with us and they now call themselves Republicans.
Sharlene Hassler
San Rafael
LITTLE TO CELEBRATE
Editor:
Please forgive me if I can’t get excited about celebrating the Fourth of July this year. My federal government is attacking institutions that I love and respect. Schools, libraries, public health and public lands are being derided and threatened by this administration. It doesn’t seem like freedom when we can’t choose who we love, whether or not we have a baby, what books we can read, how and when we vote, the list goes on. I feel lucky to be in a group that is not being attacked yet, but I know some day I will be on notice, as I am a vocal opponent of this federal administration, or should I say regime.
Beverly West
Santa Rosa
IS THIS US?
To the Editor:
I’m curious to know: Apart from enforcers of the current political regime in Washington, are there American citizens who celebrate the fact that unidentified thugs, dressed in black tactical gear, are grabbing our neighbors from their homes or workplaces and tossing them into vehicles to imprison them in crowded detention centers? What has become of us?
As a culture, we Americans pretend to value freedom, we boast of being hard-working and ambitious, and we display bumper stickers advising lovingkindness. How is it that now we are encouraged by right-wing politicians to celebrate the vicious separation of families, the arrests of individuals who have lived in our cities and towns for decades and who are children and parents and grandparents? So many of them work hard to make a living, provide a service and belong to our community.
Is this who we are now? And if that’s not who we are, are we prepared to watch from the sidelines without demanding that our senators and representatives call out and prohibit these police-state outrages? What happened to our cherished rule of law, due process and common humanity?
Have we become so cruel or hopeless or cynical that we keep our heads down and hope that the gaze of the authorities — feeding on fear and intimidation — will pass over us and enforce our silence in the face of their hateful and illegal actions? We may avoid their attention, but history will understand that silence as complicity.
Brad Parks
Santa Barbara
HAWKS OF A FEATHER
Editor:
Engaging American military force in parallel with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bombing of Iran continued the abandonment of President Donald Trump’s campaign assertions that he would immediately end the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, while maintaining disengagement in any other disputes. Waging an aerial assault in conjunction with Netanyahu, who is the subject of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, is inviting a guilty by association world view of our president and the United States. This will not make America look great, flying wing to wing with Netanyahu.
Rob Liroff
Petaluma
STATE NEEDS TO CREATIVELY BOLSTER FIREFIGHTER RANKS
Editor,
According to news reports, California faces a significant reduction in the number of firefighters this season. That does not bode well.
Over 50 years ago while on a backpacking trip to Canada I was faced with the closure of all hiking trails due to numerous lightning-caused forest fires. The alternatives were to sit out the backpacking adventure or go and fight the forest fire. Yes, the Canadian government had sign-ups for any able-bodied soul to fight the fires. I simply signed on. The next thing I knew, I was being helicoptered to hot spots on a huge mountain face.
The Canadian fire service was prepared to write me a check on the spot. Officials were careful not to put their new contractors near the most dangerous parts of the fire.
It seems we could do the same by getting Gov. Gavin Newsom to cut through the red tape and allow young capable bodies to assist in low-danger “pop up” operations. This is not to take away from the skills of our existing force of firefighters, however, clearing a fire break with a mattock digging tool is rather intuitive.
Certainly this would bolster the forces that will be required this significant fire season that we face. By the way, after five days of some pretty rough work, I headed back to the Bay Area with a little extra pocket change and an adventure that I never forgot.
Howard Ortman
Sleepy Hollow
PUBLIC WORKS SCAM
Editor:
Jeffrey Beeman believes in the Hollywood motto if they build it, they will come (“Why California needs high-speed rail,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, June 29). It works in the movies, not in reality. It’s the biggest public works scam since the infamous Boston tunnel. Gov. Gavin Newsom was against it when he started his first term but then changed his view. If ever finished, it won’t transport many people from San Francisco to Los Angeles, which has a nearby high-speed rail system being built with private funds from Rancho Cucamonga to Las Vegas. You know that it will be built on time and on budget. Europeans have successfully built high-speed rail systems because they don’t have restrictions on the environment. It was part of the post-World War II rebuild for Europe. The money would be better spent for affordable housing. Or for those backing SMART to get to Healdsburg and Cloverdale. If a bunch of Texas Republicans had proposed the high-speed rail system and then the bad news came out, Democrats would have cried foul and investigated for fraud. But when California Democrats do it, we’re told it’s good for the environment.
Andrew Smith
Santa Rosa
CA=ATM
Editor,
There is something that Californians can do besides wring our hands about the passage of the Budget Bill.
We are a “donor” state. In fact, California’s donation is by far the largest in the nation, providing about $83 billion more to the federal government than it receives. (The Rockefeller Institute of Government and Cal Matters).
Yet, we are worried about losing funds for medical, food and other benefits needed by our middle class and working poor.
Our food banks are concerned that federal funding cuts will deprive Californians of food.
But, is not California the food bank of the nation?
The value of California’s agricultural crops is the largest in the US, with a total value of more than $33 billion. (USDA)
We can feed the rest of the country, but we cannot feed our own people?
It would seem fair that California should withhold some of the money it pays to the federal government, to offset the cutbacks that are hurting our people.
A polite letter to the White House explaining our logic might not be well received, but nothing about California, except money, is well received by the current administration.
California serves simultaneously as the nation’s whipping boy and its ATM machine.
Will we allow the federal government to raid our state? If defunding continues, California will be stripped of assets and discarded when the last of our natural resources and money have been extracted. And it will be our fault for letting it happen.
Frances K. Ransley
Garberville
EXSANGUINATED TO DEATH
To the Editor:
If democracy dies by a thousand cuts, the most recent and especially deep one being the passage of President Trump’s big bill, the question is: Have we bled out yet? Perhaps we’re so exsanguinated that we’re too weak to notice.
Susan Teicher
Urbana, Illinois
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