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Stay with bidding, Purpose of measure O: PD letters
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Stay with bidding, Purpose of measure O: PD letters

Stay with the bidding

EDITOR: Measure Q it only asks if Windsor voters want to allow trash hauling contracts longer than 10 years and eliminate the competitive bidding requirement.

In 2016, Windsor’s waste contact was $56 million. What will it be in 2026? With the growth that has occurred since 2016, it could be $75 million – $100 million. This alone is reason to support the 1996 initiative and put our contract out to tender. Do voters want to keep the current City Council and any future Council honest and accountable? Do voters want to scrap a public trash hauling contract negotiation process?

The duration of our contract is currently 10 years. Santa Ana put the 10-year, $700 million contract up for bid in 2022. They received bids from four waste companies. Republic Services, which won the bid, began using electric garbage trucks in Santa Ana in 2024. A competitive bidding process can provide newer, cleaner technologies and equipment.

I urge the voters of Windsor to vote no on Measure Q. By not soliciting competitive bids, we are closing the door on considering alternatives. Imagine, we could end up with a fleet of electric garbage trucks and lower rates. Join me in voting no on Measure Q.

MARY ANN BAINBRIDGE-KRAUSE

Windsor

The purpose of measure O

EDITOR: In Healdsburg, opponents fail to recognize the goal Measure O. Instead, the capacity studya hypothetical modeling exercise, is used to scare people. The measure only sets the stage for a process to make multifamily housing possible. For 20 years, no multi-family housing (other than subsidized affordable housing) has been built because growth management ordinance therefore restricted construction permits.

As a result, developers built luxury condominiums and hotels under development agreements (Saggio Hills/Montage and the The Mill District). This blocked future permit allocations for years.

Measure O identifies 15% of Healdsburg’s acreage to exempt multifamily housing from the GMO. Why do that? When Measure O passes, the planning department and the public will refine our vision and define what is allowed in three areas. Revised land use regulations will determine massing, heights, unit sizes, density, etc. to allow housing that is “accessible by design”.

We may wish for more workforce housing, but unless the GMO is amended, banks, developers, contractors, and investors will not undertake multifamily projects in Healdsburg that are affordable to middle income earners.

RICHARD BURGH

Healdsburg

Stop the killing

EDITOR: Bombs continue to rain down on Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, and for the most part, everyone is silent. How many innocent people must die? Stand up and stop insisting on genocide in our name.

KASHUBA TUESDAY

must be based on

Creating problems

EDITOR: The Republican Party is very good at creating problems and blaming them on others. Debt is the most obvious example. The border is different. A large percentage of those crossing the borders come from countries like Honduras and Guatemala, where the Reagan administration helped install far-right governments that, over decades, have created conditions that drive people out of those countries. Right-wing climate denial and refusal to adopt abatement and reversal policies make things worse from there. I hope we don’t elect another group of those destructive and dishonest people into office in November.

EDWARD MEISSE

Santa Rosa

School bond costs

EDITOR: Thanks for letting us know where the school district tax money will go (“How School Districts Would Spend Bond Money,” October 20). I will not vote for another bond issue until the pension issue is resolved. Our property tax money, which should be going to schools, is paying exorbitant pensions that we didn’t get a vote for. Because of this, we continue to receive bond issue after bond issue to pay for the things schools need.

My current property tax includes three Windsor school bonds, one from 2008 due in 2026, another from 2008 due in 2041, and one from 2016 due in 2046. And now this new one we will be paying off. by 2060. It is not fiscally responsible to pay for 35 years for something that seems to only last eight years.

The Democrat press says the cost will be $57 per $100,000 of assessed valuation, but the assessed valuation goes up every year, so the property tax amount will go up, too. Where did all the previous school bond money go and why do they need more money every eight years?

ANNETTE FLACHMAN

Windsor

You can send letters to the editor to [email protected].