The Golden Age isn’t trickling down to the masses

Editor: Donald Trump has told us several times that we would be entering a new Golden Age. It does appear that the gold has arrived for him.

He reported income of $2.2 billion in one year. The rest of the family has done well too.

Meanwhile, the American people face continuing and increasing inflation, high gas prices and reduced support for medical insurance.

When will the people see our Golden Age?

— Bob Hesse, Sonoma

Connections to the mafia

Editor: Back in 1960 I was a young, divorced interior designer dating a very nice man I had met through business.

At one point he introduced me to the wife of one of his friends in order to help her redecorate her apartment.

I’ll never forget that, on one of our dates, while waiting for me and in order to impress my father, he was showing him the plans for a shopping mall he was in the process of building.

Years later the husband (who I had never met) of this woman was shot down in the garage of One World Trade Center by John Gotti’s men!

It was only then that I understood that my old friend must have had connections to the Mafia!

Funny that the firm charged with “refurbishing” the reflecting pool is owned by a man of Italian extraction whose family made its vast fortune building shopping malls in Ohio.

Sounds to me like the mafia must still be alive and well, including Trump’s childish fixation on them!

— Pearl Seymore, Sonoma

Anti-vaccine nonsense should have no platform

Editor: Speaking of fear mongering, I strongly urge The Press Democrat and all newspapers to never print a single word from crazed anit-vaxxer conspiracy theorists again.

A letter in the July 15 newspaper reiterates the same tired, scientifically-disproven lies that so often torture the minds of these misguided individuals.

Vaccines are safe and effective, and the completely disproven nonsense suggesting they are not is not simply aggravating, but actively leads to the preventable deaths of children and the resurgence of horrible diseases that we think of as eradicated.

Please don’t encourage these cowards and fools, stop giving them a platform, they do not deserve it.

— Micah Dirksen, Napa

Newspapers should continue to stand up to misinformation

Editor: The Press Democrat is doing a great job on the Letters to the Editor where they respond and clear up misinformation with their footnotes. The 2020 election has been validated as fair over and over by 60 court cases and then-Attorney General Bill Barr.

This election occurred during Donald Trump’s administration where his staff controlled election interference and the lack of it.

Donald Trump is going to appear on national television Thursday night and compel the nation to believe that the election was compromised based on zero evidence.

Republican stalwarts such as Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham attested to the fact that Jan. 6, 2021 was unacceptable and attributable to the then president of the United States of America.

Now the sycophants will beg you to believe different. I beg The Press Democrat to stand up to misinformation in all its shapes and sizes. Thank You.

— Michael Burroughs, Santa Rosa

Sebastopol Library closure has cut off community

Editor: As a resident of Sebastopol I feel how the loss of our library is impacting us.

We mourn the experience of community that our branch site has long fostered.

It will apparently take several more months to repair the existing building with mold inside and dry rot outside.

What is needed in the meantime? I believe it isn’t simply a matter of finding a new space for picking up holds and then walking out as proposed by the library director.

I believe that the library should be looking for a larger space that would also provide a bookcase of new books that would normally go to the branch, as well as holds, perhaps some periodicals, armchairs for reading, tables for talking or doing puzzles, some conviviality restored, all within Sebastopol proper.

This doesn’t imply a whole new branch setting, but a space that would accommodate community.

Farming out holds to Forestville and short term Bibliobus never served these needs.

A few of our excellent Sebastopol Library staff could come back to manage the site.

Right now staff are looking for spaces to hold programs in addition to pickups.

But again this is not the same as creating a library-like space while we wait for the repairs to be done.

Sebastopol, like any other city the county library serves, deserves this.

— Dr. Joyce Johnson, Sebastopol