- Ukiah Senior Center Needs Your Support
- High Prices Are Harming Wine Industry
- Legislature Land Line Proposal Will Endanger Public Safety
- That's Why…
- Humans Need Help, Not Chickens
- What’s Wrong With Being Progressive?
- Hold PG&E Accountable
UKIAH SENIOR CENTER NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT
To the Editor:
A letter to the valued members of our community:
Ukiah Senior Center is facing financial struggles and asks you to consider making the choice today to set up a one-time, weekly, or monthly financial contribution to the Senior Center to help fund the valuable programs and services offered to seniors and disabled adults in our community.
For over 5 decades the Ukiah Senior Center (USC) has been an integral member of this great community, and we are very proud of the fact that so many seniors depend on us for their physical and mental well-being. Every month over 4,000 community members, who may have lost a spouse or don’t have family members in this community, embrace our support or services as we may be their only conduit to “the outside world”.
Each senior has a different set of needs whether it’s on-premises meals, meals delivered to them, sessions of Bunko, cards, quilting, bingo, computer assistance, meditation, transportation to appointments, fraud-prevention, nutrition and a myriad of other services. We have a dedicated staff and hard-working volunteers who make sure the needs of every senior are met.
Now WE need the community’s support. Like most local businesses the cost of keeping the doors open has increased dramatically. We cannot sustain the monthly deficits that we’re experiencing every month and continue to provide the level of services our seniors expect and deserve. Most recently USC staff have taken a reduction in their pay to help get over the current financial need, therefore closing the Center each Friday.
So, this is our plea to you – our valued members of this community. Though 21% of our current funding comes from community donations; in order to sustain the large variety of services offered by USC, we are asking for your contributions and help to increase this percentage and raise the funding needed.
We are asking each and every one of you to consider supporting the Ukiah Senior Center by making a monetary donation today, maybe volunteering your time, or participating in one of our many programs, activities or events. The USC Board of Directors, the paid staff, the many volunteers and the hundreds and hundreds of seniors affected in this community would be greatly served and would be enormously appreciative of your involvement.
Ukiah Senior Center Board of Directors, Staff and volunteers continue to remain dedicated to the fulfillment of our mission. Everyone is working diligently towards discovering ways to ensure our continued ability to provide the large variety of services and activities USC offers. If you would like to partner with these efforts, please call the Executive Director, Liz Dorsey 707-462-4343 x 7001, we would love to work with you on this challenge.
Other ways to connect, visit us on the web at: UkiahSeniorCenter.org, or come to the Center at 495 Leslie Street, Ukiah – 707-462-4343
Liz Dorsey, Executive Director, Ukiah Senior Center Board of Directors
HIGH PRICES ARE HARMING WINE INDUSTRY
Editor:
Who thought up this moronic idea of charging visitors more for wine and other things in tasting rooms. Obviously, somebody thinks there is an endless gullibility of visitors to Sonoma County. I live here and if this becomes reality, I will terminate most, if not all, of my wine club memberships. Obviously, someone thinks that if they can create this pot of money, they can siphon some off for their own advantage.
As a mere consumer, I can tell you why wine sales are down: Greed. Charging $25-$100 for tasting, then charging $50-$200 per bottle for wine, and then, if we’re gullible enough to sign up for membership, benevolently giving us a 10% discount for forced shipments (oh, plus shipping fees), and you want to charge a fee on top of that? Enough.
Steve Haeffele
Santa Rosa
LEGISLATURE LAND LINE PROPOSAL WILL ENDANGER PUBLIC SAFETY
Editor,
AT&T wants to eliminate copper landlines through Assembly Bill 470. I think many Mendo residents would agree that landlines are essential infrastructure. As the safest, most resilient, dependable, time-tested telephone network, they work during power outages and emergencies. They reliably connect people to loved ones, 911, doctors and emergency personnel — all with exact location data. People continue to receive updates and evacuation notices on landlines during disasters, fires and public safety power shutoffs, after batteries on cell phones and VoiP systems die. The elderly, disabled and those with medical conditions especially need 24/7 access to family and physicians. Other modes aren’t reliable even in urban areas.
Landlines have saved countless lives. According to filings by the California Public Utilities Commission, AT&T moved landline revenue to its wireless operations and isn’t maintaining the equipment. The company no longer wants to be a “carrier of last resort.” I think the Assembly caved to AT&T when it approved AB 470 before summer recess. Only the Senate is left to protect the public. Please contact state senators to reject AB 470.
Nina Beety
Monterey
THAT'S WHY…
To the Editor:
A recent article tited ‘How Conservative Christians Cracked a 70-year old Law’ details how right-wing evangelical groups successfully lobbied the Trump administration to undercut the Johnson Amendment, which since 1954 has banned partisan political endorsements by houses of worship and other nonprofits.
But the article does not note that the I.R.S. “reinterpretation” of the law — which allows congregations to endorse candidates from the pulpit — is deeply unpopular among a vast range of nonprofit groups, religious communities and many Christians.
In a letter to President Trump, put together by the Interfaith Alliance and other leading NGOs, over 1,000 nonprofits that signed oppose this dangerous change to law and policy. The groups warn: “This is not a matter of religious freedom or speech. … It would open the door for political actors to use charitable nonprofits as conduits for anonymous campaign funding.”
A 2023 Public Religioin Research Instittue poll found that three-quarters of Americans, including majorities of every religious group surveyed, don’t want political endorsements by tax-exempt churches. Current law strikes the right balance, allowing houses of worship to engage in moral advocacy, but not to tell their congregations whom to vote for.
The radical change is intended to co-opt and weaponize organized religion as a tool of partisan political power. That’s why faith communities nationwide are sounding the alarm.
Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons
Washington
HUMANS NEED HELP, NOT CHICKENS
Editor:
As someone who joined the protest lines for the first time on “No Kings Day” and has been at it ever since, can I just say: It’s groups like Direct Action Everywhere that give protests a bad name. We’re in the middle of a full-on slow-moving coup, and DXE is standing outside someone’s home bullhorning a pregnant woman and her husband? Can they think of nothing better to protest than people who bring us organic (and delicious) Rocky and Rosie chicken? May the judges throw the book (or some eggs) at DXE.
In the November election, 85% of Sonoma County voters supported their local dairy, poultry, pork and beef farmers — not DXE. Go home or go try Marin County.
Better yet, start reading and watching the news, and protest something that really matters. Like ICE kidnapping people off the street and hauling them to concentration camps without even bothering to find out if they’re citizens or green card holders or other legal residents. Or just the fact that we’re now building concentration camps. Or Donald Trump abolishing foreign aid, the Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency and FEMA.
It’s the humans who need help here. Not the chickens.
Teresa Mariani Hendrix
Windsor
WHAT’S WRONG WITH BEING PROGRESSIVE?
Editor:
Why has “progressive” become a bad word? I have friends now searching for different words to describe a liberal political leaning that they think will have a more positive connotation and greater acceptance. I think progressive is a great description of my political beliefs, because here is just some of the progress I hope to see: a working-class living wage, affordable housing, health care for all, stellar K-12 public education, equal and fair taxation and government programs that embrace diversity and inclusion. Are these hopes lofty, idealistic or even naive? Maybe, but bad? Why? I don’t know the perfect path forward, but I am sure there can be no progress to a more equitable and thriving future when everything being accomplished right now by the current administration is thrusting our country backward.
Margot Sersen
Sebastopol
HOLD PG&E ACCOUNTABLE
Editor,
Regarding “Why is my bill so high? And other frequently asked questions about PG&E bills” (Personal Finance, SFChronicle.com, Aug. 3): While it is stated that rate increases over the past six years have contributed to the high cost of energy in California, the story doesn’t go any deeper into the reasons.
The primary reason is the lack of any accountability in the rate-making process from the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates the investor-owned utilities, like PG&E.
The state’s utilities have done everything they can to increase their profits by building capital-intensive, and in many cases, unnecessary transmission and distribution infrastructure.
At the same time, the utilities have used their political muscle to suppress the use of grid-enhancing technologies, methods to expand the capacity of the grid with much less capital-intensive strategies.
Because utilities get a guaranteed rate of return on capital deployed, they have no incentive to use less expensive methods, so ratepayers end up taking it on the chin.
And despite what the story said, we can do something about it by supporting consumer advocacy groups like The Utility Reform Network and the Solar Rights Alliance.
Rick Brown
Petaluma
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