I am sympathetic to the plight these people are in and truly believe the only reason I'm in a house and not in one of these camps is that I somehow avoided the misfortune that has befallen these individuals. A lot of those who find themselves homeless are only there due to a precipitating crisis that they were unable to get out from under. That being said, they do not belong on the only east-west connecting bike path between two towns, where the only other alternative for cycling is to be on the shoulder of roads that are 35-55 MPH. They shouldn't be using open fires to heat tents.

Ever since the Boise ruling cities have been aware that they cannot arrest homeless individuals for camping on public land if there are not enough shelter beds for them within the municipality. The failure of the county to act on this in a timely manner is the big problem here; this camp existed in a smaller capacity in previous years and it should have never formed a second time. They should have made funds available proactively to have the temporary housing they are putting up available before the rain season began in November. Santa Rosa and the county waste time fighting over who is responsible for the camp, as its county own land within the Santa Rosa city limits.

I'm sure I'll get some hate for this but we need to cut our losses with the SMART train and not extend the $0.0025 sales tax in march. SMART is up and running and should now be able to operate on their own revenue. They should cancel any plans to extend further north the Windsor, Healdsburg, and Cloverdale as this expansion will probably cost close to a billion dollars based on the current state of the track through Healdsburg and beyond (failed bridges, completely washed out sections along Foss Creek, etc). We should develop a more efficient bus bridge from these locations to the airport and invest in ending the homeless crisis now.