The Board of Supervisors, 575 Administration Drive, Room 100A, Santa Rosa, CA 95403.

! Dear Supervisors: ! !

I write in opposition to the existence and further expansion of the Ratna Ling printing operation on Seaview Road, the ridge above where I live. Everything that Ratna Ling has done has been based on the claim that it was necessary in order to print sacred texts for distribution to the refugee Tibetan community in Northern India. This is nonsense, as explained below, and because its very basis was deceit, it follows that permits have been issued and exceptions made, for a reason that does not make any sense and must be spurious. Justice would be served, and the health of the locality greatly improved, by an immediate moratorium on the printing operation, and the dismantling of any plant or equipment which was supposed to be justified by the original deception. I shall now explain the reason for this position.

Ratna Ling, under the auspices of printing sacred texts for Tibetan refugees in India, moved their printing and warehouses from a well-situated port location where such industrial activities are permitted by local codes, and where printed books could easily be shipped out to India. Instead, at what must surely be a multi-million-dollar cost, they set up in a remote rural location, in total opposition to the wishes of the existing residents, the countys General Plan, and the health of the forest, which has to be cut down to accommodate such industry. Huge construction vehicles, barreling at speed through the Kashia Rancheria, have run people off the Seaview Road. All this expense and aggravation because, supposedly, there is no other or better way to send books to India.

However you look at this, it makes no sense. It makes even less sense when you remember that these days, with computers and e-mail, it is COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY TO PRINT BOOKS AND SHIP THEM OVERSEAS! And that was the whole justification for this entire activity. Everything can be sent as an attachment in an e-mail, and printed on the other end. Whatever is going on there, it cannot be for the reason that this is the only way, or even the best way, to get books to India, since this is obviously untrue. Therefore, the huge costs of this printing operation to all concerned are not counterbalanced by any positive reason not even from the viewpoint of the Tibetan refugees who, I should have thought, would be better served by learning to run their own press on site. And having massively abused the regulatory process, the entire operation should be required to be dismantled immediately.

! Sincerely yours, ! ! !

Russell Wells Timber Cove, CA