Stick to auctions

EDITOR: Measure Q only asks if Windsor voters want to allow waste transportation contracts lasting longer than 10 years and remove the requirement for competitive bidding.

In 2016, Windsor’s trash sales were $56 million. What will it be in 2026? With the growth recorded since 2016, this could reach $75 million to $100 million. This alone is a reason to maintain the 1996 initiative and launch a call for tenders for our contract. Do voters want the current and any future city council to be honest and accountable? Do voters want to forego a public process to negotiate the garbage hauling contract?

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

I urge Windsor voters to vote no on Measure Q. Without requiring competitive bids, we close the door to considering alternatives. Imagine, we could end up with a fleet of electric garbage trucks and reduced prices. Join me in voting no on Measure Q.

MARY ANN BAINBRIDGE-KRAUSE

Windsor

Purpose of measurement O

EDITOR: In Healdsburg, opponents fail to recognize the purpose of 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 was built (other than subsidized affordable housing) because the growth management ordinance building permits therefore restricted.

As a result, developers have built luxury condominiums and hotels under development agreements (Saggio Hills/Mount and the Mill district). This held up future permit allocations for years.

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

We might wish there was more workforce housing, but unless the GMO is changed, banks, developers, contractors, and investors will not undertake workforce-affordable multifamily projects in Healdsburg middle-income.

RICHARD BOURG

Healdsburg

Stop the massacre

EDITOR: Bombs continue to rain on Lebanon and the Palestinian territories and, for the most part, everyone remains silent. How many innocent people must die? Stand up and insist that there be no more genocide in our name.

MARTI KASHUBA

Cotati

Create problems

EDITOR: The Republican Party is highly skilled at creating problems and blaming others for them. Debt is the most obvious example. The border is another. A significant percentage of those crossing the border come from countries like Honduras and Guatemala, where the Reagan administration helped install far-right governments that, over decades, have created conditions that push people to leave these countries. The right’s climate denial and refusal to adopt policies to reduce and reverse it are making the situation there even worse. I hope we don’t elect yet another group of these destructive, dishonest people to power in November.

EDOUARD MEISSE

Saint Rose

School deposit fees

EDITOR: Thanks for letting us know where the school district’s 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 dollars, which should be going to schools, are being used to fund exorbitant pensions that we didn’t get a vote on. Because of this, we continue to receive bond issue after bond issue to pay for the things that schools need.

My current property tax includes three Windsor school bonds, one from 2008 that will decrease in 2026, another from 2008 that will decrease in 2041, and one from 2016 that will decrease in 2046. And now this news that we will pay. until 2060. It is not financially responsible to pay for 35 years for something that apparently only lasts eight years.

The Press Democrat says the cost will be $57 per $100,000 of assessment, but the assessment increases every year, so the property tax amount will increase as well. Where did all the money from previous school bonds go, and why do they need more money every eight years?

ANNETTE FLACHMAN

Windsor

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