Constituting perhaps a third of Sonoma Valley residents, our neighbors who are predominantly Spanish speakers are very much a significant part of our community. We at Three House MultiMedia, the parent company of the Sonoma Valley Sun and El Sol de Sonoma, try to view the Sonoma community as a whole, and our mission is to serve that whole community with news and information.
To do so, we want to reach what might otherwise be disparate parts of the whole, and that’s why we’ve published from our very first edition in 2004 the companion newspaper El Sol de Sonoma, with its motto “Illuminating the Valley of the Moon.” During that time, we’ve also supported programming in Spanish on the local radio station KSVY 91.3, and we’re finding that to be a particularly effective way to reach many of our Latino neighbors.
Healthy organizations challenge themselves to improve, so we’re changing El Sol from a weekly to a monthly publication. It will still be distributed with the Sun on the first delivery of each month, and it will continue to have important information for Sonoma Valley residents. But this change will let us focus staff resources more on those avenues, especially radio and TV, that we expect to have the most impact in the community.
There are common threads that run through all our lives, due in part to our choice to live in this wonderful locale. Whatever our native language, we all want a good education for our youth, we all want a safe, stable neighborhood and we all want a responsive, helpful government. We all want to save for future needs, and we all want to enjoy the many cultural and recreational offerings of the area.
Whether differences among neighbors are linguistic, cultural, political, religious, economic or social, we are one community, geographically, at least, and we at Three House will continue our efforts to make news and information another common thread, helping to knit our community together.
Bunting and Banners
Those are the usual trappings for a political debate, and perhaps we’ll have a few.
What we will have at “The Debate” on Wednesday, April 23, hosted by the Sonoma Valley Sun, are the candidates running for Valerie Brown’s seat as the Sonoma County District 1 Supervisor.
The event, with participation confirmed for Brown and challengers Dave Reber and Will Pier, will be televised live at 6:30 p.m. on SVTV27, so all residents with Comcast service can watch the candidates in action. They will give introductory remarks and then respond to a series of questions posed by the Sun’s editorial board. There will also be an opportunity for questions from the audience, and viewers at home can call in questions, too.
County supervisor is an important, powerful position. Reportedly paid an annual salary of $148,295, plus over $60,000 in benefits, the supervisor directly represents residents in the unincorporated areas of Sonoma Valley, which have a population some three times that in the Sonoma city limits. Unlike the city, where voters select all five members of the council, voters who live in the county select only one supervisor; the other four are selected by voters in other areas of the county.
This opportunity comes once every four years. We at the Sun encourage voters to educate themselves on the differences among the candidates in order to make an informed decision, come June 3. And we’re here to help.
