June 28, 2006
Hardware store was an important community asset

EDITOR: The news of Rex Hardware burning to the ground last Saturday night traveled faster than the fire that leveled that noble building. The Kentucky Street fire of 2002 was certainly tragic enough, but there is something especially poignant about this fire and its immediate effect on Petaluma. For those of us who regularly plied those wonderful swaying and creaking wood floors at Rex, rushing to pick up our missing 7-cent bolt, 5-cent nut or 3-cent washer, this place exuded a sense of what is right about small community-owned and run business. No Home Depot, Lowes or Orchard Supply can ever hope to re-create the cozy and true feel, and classy service-first ambience that Tomasini Rex Hardware has provided our fine town.

Reality check needed

EDITOR: In the June 25 Parade magazine, included with most Sunday newspapers, I read that the international homebuilder Centex Homes hires actors to "live" in its model homes and pretend to be regular family members during potential homebuyer walk-throughs. This is the same Centex that recently purchased the empty Casa Grande parcel from Petaluma City Schools. I have not read that any flat, usable space has been earmarked for sports playing fields in this multi-million dollar deal. If this is true, then this purchase by Centex will worsen Petaluma's already-deficient parks per residents ratio.

Column about negative campaigning misleading

EDITOR: Don Bennett wrote a column on the 6th Assembly District race and the negative campaigning that occurred, associating it with councilmember and Democratic Assembly candidate Pamela Torliatt.

Casa Grande PTSA thanks volunteers

EDITOR: On behalf of the Casa Grande Parent, Teacher, Student Association, we want to thank the more than 150 volunteers who took part as judges for the senior project at the end of May.

Learn more about the Living Wage movement

EDITOR: Once again, the Senate Republican leadership sank a proposal to raise the minimum wage last week, leaving the federal minimum at $5.15 per hour, where it has been mired at the bottom since 1997. Opposition to raising the minimum wage was justified by its opponents on the basis of a failed and discredited free market fundamentalist doctrine that claims that raising the wage for workers at the bottom of the economic ladder would lead to higher levels of unemployment.

Community support needed for Rex Hardware

EDITOR: In the wake of the Rex Hardware tragedy, I propose that the community come together and support the Tomasinis. That store has been the heart of Petaluma for over 60 years. It was the place that neighbors ran into each other and stopped to chat, reaffirming the bonds of friendship and connectedness. It was the place that you could find gizmos and gadgets to fix anything and if you didn't know how to make those gizmos and gadgets work, they showed you how to use them. It was an icon of a lifestyle passing us by.

Governance recipe: secret sauce

Above all the principles of democracy is the principle of publicity, according to William Ebenstein, author of "American Democracy in World Perspective." The book goes on to say that "secrecy is the death É of the democratic process" and that government conducted in secrecy is "one of the essential principles of totalitarianism."