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Letters 12/15/2025

By AVA News Service on December 15, 2025

SAVE THE SCHOOL STREET TREES

To the Editor:

Thank you for your article concerning the City of Ukiah’s School Street Project (“School Street trees in downtown Ukiah not imperiled. Yet.” 10/31/25). I am writing today to alert the public about a petition to save the trees and the upcoming opportunity for public engagement.

Ukiah is the “City of Trees”, an urban forest that benefits nature and people, providing shade during the summer and glorious color every fall. School Street is especially beautiful and is the cultural heart of the City, with many special events in addition to daily shopping and the weekly farmers’ market.

The City of Ukiah has begun a School Street Multimodal Transportation Corridor Study to consider changes that include traffic flow, bike lanes, sidewalk widening, and accessibility.

It will also consider the removal of trees in order to protect infrastructure. More information is available at https://ghd.mysocialpinpoint.com/school-street-corridor-study/home/.

A petition to save as many trees as possible is available at https://c.org/HYnWVMVqc8, along with an explanation of concerns. At this time, 2,933 people have signed. I have written to City Council, asking them make individual determinations for each tree in the study zone. Removing a tree should be the last option, not the first.

On Thursday, Dec. 11, at 3:45 p.m., there will be a final walking audit along School Street starting at the Ukiah Valley Conference Center, 200 South School Street.

That will be followed by a community workshop from 5-7 p.m. at the same location.

Thank you again for keeping the public informed about this important matter.

Dennis O’Brien

Ukiah

ICE WASTE

Dear Editor:

Once again, the city of Ukiah has erected its holiday ice rink on School Street near Alex Thomas Plaza. But the “magic of winter” cited by the city’s website comes with costs and consequences.

One consequence is that the Saturday Farmers Market — a year-round event that brings customers to downtown — is pushed off to Clay Street where it is left out in the rain for 11 weekends while the covered Pavilion is reserved for setup and then the comfort and partying of the skaters.

Then there are the costs of setting up and running this energy hog. It takes more than five weeks for setup and dismantling the structure, leaving a little more than six weeks for renting and recovering some of the costs with entry fees and sponsors.

It’s time to rethink this 10-year-old “tradition” (first the city rented the equipment, then bought this White Albatross). Patrons should wonder whether skating on slushy artificial ice in our climate is really fun. Parents should also wonder what they are teaching their kids in this age of global warming.

The city — and its partner, the Greater Business and Tourism Alliance — need to reconsider whether the ice skating rink is a cost-effective endeavor to attract visitors to downtown during the holiday season, or whether there are less expensive and less disruptive ways. For example, closing off one or two blocks of School Street for rollerskating could be entry-free, guilt-free fun.

Bruni Kobbe

Ukiah

TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY’S LAUGHABLE PLAN FOR FLYING

Editor:

After reading Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s comments about bringing civility back to air travel I had to guffaw. Duffy must not realize that the sardine-tin conditions on the planes in which we commoners fly are a major cause of incivility while traveling. If he would like we hoi polloi to be more civil, 1950s style, perhaps he could reverse the miniaturization of seat, aisle and bathroom spaces on planes to pre-1980 deregulation size. I think in the current size bathrooms on airplanes it would be far easier to slide a pajama bottom up than to wrestle my nylon stockings back up under my pencil skirt while juggling my little handbag and matching pill hat.

Martha Johnson

Santa Rosa

PRESIDENT BOOR

To the Editor:

This human being who is our leader calls another country and its inhabitants “garbage.” He calls those who have come to the United States from there “garbage.” Disgraceful.

Here is a man who cannot accept nor understand that Somalis (and many others) are simply human beings, like him. But unlike him, they were not born with the opportunities and wealth that he was. It is impossible for me to believe that Americans who call themselves Christian can keep quiet.

Dee Baer

Wilmington, Delaware

OUR GREAT CRIME

To the Editor:

What does it say about us as a people that during this time of strife, danger and momentous decisions we have placed our trust and elevated to leadership such a flawed, self-serving, venal, willfully ignorant person?

It appears we have fallen far from our ideals, from what it has meant to be an American.

This does not have to be the end of the American dream, unless we no longer care; we can reclaim our power and our ideals. We may have to fight for them, because evil will not willingly give up its place on the throne. Yet isn’t what we built here worth that effort?

Bruce Higgins

San Diego

SMART HAS BEEN A FAILURE, TAX SHOULD NOT BE EXTENDED

Editor,

From my perspective, the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit train (aka SMART) has been anything but smart from its inception. I think it’s been pretty stupid.

Now SMART officials and their supporters want to continue throwing more money down this hole by continuing the sales tax to support the service. I think the bad consequences will compound over time.

North Bay voters should say no. Instead, I suggest a proposal be looked at for the tracks to be paved over for five years or so. Then, it should be limited to use by buses and trucks.

Jeffory Morshead

Greenbrae

SOME REMINDERS ABOUT MILITARY LAW AND UNLAWFUL ORDERS

Editor:

These thoughts are addressed to those who have never served in the U.S. military (any branch). The rest of you know them to be true. Anyone who joins any military unit is taught that he or she (or they) are under the jurisdiction of not the U.S. court system but the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Many of the basic tenets are emphasized. Many recruits sleep through the instruction. Because of the importance of discipline to military performance, and especially obeying orders from a superior, harsh penalties (including death in wartime) can be imposed by court-martial on those who disobey.

However, Article 90 and Article 92, dealing with disobeying orders, stipulate “lawful orders.” The recruit indoctrination also teaches that obeying unlawful orders may lead to prosecution and punishment determined by court-martial.

Legal analysis and precedent have shown that unlawful orders include not just internationally designated and recognized war crimes but also orders to suppress lawful protests in violation of First Amendment rights. A day doesn’t pass when President Donald Trump doesn’t break the law, or threaten to, in oh so many ways. I suggest he and his minions tone down the rhetoric.

J. Chris Kuhn

Santa Rosa

PARDONING CRIMINALS

Editor:

It’s time to limit presidents’ power to grant pardons.

It is time to place some controls on the privilege of presidential pardons, which is being grossly abused by this administration. No only has Donald Trump pardoned scores of Jan. 6, 2021, insurrectionists who did his bidding and virtually sold pardons to billionaires who have generously contributed campaign funds, but the list now includes ex-Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was convicted of cocaine smuggling (while we blow up boats in the Caribbean); David Gentile, who was convicted of defrauding investors of $1.6 billion; ex-Congressman George Santos, who was convicted of fraud; and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who pleaded guilty to fraud and is tied to Trump’s sons in establishing the Liberty Financial cryptocurrency marketplace. The Justice Department is being weaponized to persecute Trump’s “enemies” and ICE is rounding up individuals for deportation without any semblance of a fair judicial process. It’s time we take back the rule of law.

Leland Davis

Santa Rosa

MOVE OVER, DUTERTE

Editor,

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is our very own Rodrigo Duterte.

Duterte, the former president of the Philippines, is sitting in a jail cell at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. He is charged with crimes against humanity for ordering people to kill alleged drug offenders rather than arresting them and holding them for trial. This, of course, is exactly what Hegseth has been doing.

Perhaps, someday, there will be a jail cell waiting for Hegseth in The Hague.

Kenneth Hopkins

San Francisco

GOING AUDIO

To the Editor:

I am a lifelong reader and, until recently, a snob about audiobooks. I too believed that audiobooks were fake reading. After the 2024 election, when our political climate became so toxic that I could no longer listen to the political podcasts I had used for many years to entertain and educate me when I was out for a run, I finally turned to listening to audiobooks instead.

Here’s the main thing I learned: I can now read two books at the same time — one while sitting in a comfortable chair at home with my dog in my lap and a second one while running. I am surprised by how much I enjoy the audiobooks. They keep me distracted from the effort required by long miles on the road, and a gifted audiobook actor adds an element of theater and fun to the experience.

Karin Kramer Baldwin

Petaluma

IT’S ABOUT THE READER

To the Editor:

Tired of listening to the radio during my daily two hours in the car commuting to work, I picked up my first audiobook at the library 30 years ago, when they were still on cassettes, and I was hooked. Hundreds of books later, mostly fiction, I am amazed by how a good reader’s voice can enhance the author’s work beyond the printed words.

When one reads printed dialogue, the mind does not “hear” in foreign accents or regional American dialects. A novel by a Scottish, Irish or Australian author is enriched by the reader’s accent, just as actors on a stage bring a playwright’s printed script to life. And no longer was I frustrated and impatient driving to work, as traffic jams just increased the time I had to enjoy reading.

Andrew Berman

Evanston, Illinois

TIME TO PREPARE FOR REMOVAL OF SCOTT DAM

Editor:

I lived for a number of years in Wyoming. There is a proposed dam on the Wyoming-Colorado border that would cost $150 million of public money and would benefit 100 irrigators, allowing them an extra hay cutting each year. One farmer was quoted as saying, “We are, at the end of the day, at the mercy of Mother Nature.” Rather than irrigating alfalfa, they are switching to native grass hay to feed their cattle.

The lumber mill industry crashed when it became cheaper to send raw logs to Japan for milling than do it at home. The Midwest factory belt is a hollow shell because of China’s industrial growth. Viticulture — the primary business in Redwood Valley — is facing a similar fate.

The rolling vineyards and the industries supporting them are dependent on a model that developed 100 years ago when Scott Dam was built. The reality that led to the dam’s construction no longer exists. The 100 businesses or so affected by loss of the dam have up to a decade to prepare. Due to shifting priorities, Sonoma County lost most of its apple, pear and plum orchards to vineyards. It may be that Redwood Valley is the canary in the coal mine.

Jeffrey J. Olson

Clearlake Oaks

PARDONS FOR CRIMINALS

Editor:

I had wondered how the current president selected the people he thought deserved to be pardoned. We saw pardons for those who physically attacked our legislative houses, which seemed unjust. But he was just getting started. The list of convicted criminals pardoned because they were his supporters is long, and it’s being added to every day.

But now we know that there is nobody too evil or too hostile to our country to receive this gift. Juan Orlando Hernandez, the convicted ex-president of Honduras who boasted of inundating our country with drugs, is now a free man coming in safely to reside here — courtesy of the convicted current president of the United States, all this while non-criminal residents of our country are being abducted and sent to faraway prisons.

We must be careful. It seems no one is safe from his “generosity.”

Patricia F. Clothier

Santa Rosa

DIABLO CANYON NUCLEAR POWER PLANT IS NOT NEEDED AND POSES RISKS. WHY KEEP IT OPEN?

Editor,

While Gov. Gavin Newsom stepped on the world stage of the climate change battle at the United Nations COP30 conference, we ask that he end the damage being done in California at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant in San Luis Obispo County.

Diablo Canyon heats the ocean with its once-through cooling system, which has since been banned for new facilities because of the tremendous damage it causes.

According to a report from the California Coastal Commission: Diablo Canyon’s cooling system draws in 2.5 billion gallons of seawater a day and discharges it to the ocean 20 degrees warmer. The marine life sucked in and killed each year by the cooling water is equivalent to what is found in 9,300 acres of nearshore waters.

Also, accumulating radioactive waste on an active earthquake fault is dangerous.

Thankfully, Newsom has accelerated renewable energy production so much that the California Energy Commission found that the state’s system is over-reliable, even without Diablo Canyon.

Now, Newsom must shut down Diablo Canyon and prove what he stated last month at COP30, “that a safer, more sustainable world is possible — one degree cooler at a time.”

Linda Parks, board member, Environmental Defense Center,

Los Osos, San Luis Obispo County

MURDER AT SEA

Editor,

I paced the living room until I wore out. Then I went outside and walked up and down the block without a jacket. I came back in and threw my pillows around the place and let out a scream. I felt so helpless.

This all happened after I watched the news and saw the report about yet another apparently illegal boat bombing by our government, ordered by the Trump administration. And this time, according to reports, the planes were ordered to go back and bomb the only two survivors. I consider this to be a war crime of the most depraved order. I also consider it to be just plain murder.

This should be an impeachable offense for President Donald Trump. If we don’t impeach him for this, I don’t think we can call ourselves the greatest country on Earth. We can’t even call ourselves civilized.

Penny Clark

Novato

WHY DRUGS?

Editor:

We are being told that strikes on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific are in the interest of the United States. First of all, no one has confirmed that these strikes are actually hitting drug boats. Second, as long as there is strong demand for drugs in the United States, we can be striking boats until we are blue in the face. Dealers and their mules will find a way to satisfy the demand.

Here is what no one — including the media — is talking about: What is causing the high demand for drugs in this country? That’s what our dear leader ought to be asking himself. Of course, that would require compassion and action on behalf of the working class. Let’s not hold our breath on that one.

Astrid Harper

Santa Rosa

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