For SVHS grad Jacquelyn Torres, Tuesday was another normal morning at the Santa Rosa Junior College – or so students thought. Suddenly, panic. Nearby, a teen had been shot and wounded. The suspect was at large. Cops everywhere. Lockdown. “Students feared for their lives, the tension in the air was heavy,” Torres said. “A glimpse inside the locked classrooms would reveal students, some crying, others fighting the tears, texting loved ones, keeping up with the slow developments of the news, and hoping that they weren’t next.” A few hours after the 9:17 alert, two suspects were taken into custody. But the trauma lingers. Her generation has grown up in this kind of world, and is deeply troubled by it. “Is this what we students have to fear every single day we walk on campus?” Torres said several SRJC students told her that the lockdowns only involved the locking of doors. “The lights were not turned off, desks were not pushed against the doors, and they were not asked to move away from the walls. Perhaps SRJC should start adapting more effective lockdown procedures, as these young adults are being put at risk.”
PG&E swears it made “the right decision” to cut off power to Northern California, and will do it again. (And might have already, which you know by now if you’re reading this by the light of your LED lantern.) The company line: “Given the choice between hardship and safety, we will always choose safety.” Meanwhile, we humble customers and politicians such as Gov. Newsom and State Senator Bill Dodd, have roundly denounced the shutoff, calling it drastic, dangerous and arbitrary. Newsom said the outage was “unacceptable.” Dodd, speaking truth to Power: “It was severely bungled, and it can’t be allowed to happen again. While public safety power shutoffs have a role to play, they cannot be executed in a cavalier or haphazard manner.” But PG&E has sole discretion to order such an outage, and remains ready to pull the plug. From HQ: “Given the devastating effect of wildfire on our customers and communities, we believe we made the right decision.”
Homecoming memories — the parade, the floats, the mass brawl at the football game. Eleven (11!) Dragon players were ejected after fighting with Petaluma players late in the October 19 game against Petaluma. After separating the players, officials convened a brief on-field meeting that included the school principals. The game was called and Petaluma declared the winner. The fracas effectively ended Sonoma Valley’s season one game early. Because ejected players are ineligible for a team’s next game, the school decided to cancel its season finale versus Vintage High School for lack of game-ready players. You know it’s bad when the team runs out of players and the refs run out of penalty flags.
The Republic of Thrift store continues its great support of Sonoma Valley schools. Jeannette Mammini and company just sent another round of checks to Parent Teacher Organizations, “representing our first of three payments for the 2019/20 school year. With this latest deposit, coin jar funds, sponsorships, etc. we’ve donated over $250,000 in total since we opened in 2012.”
— Val Robichaud, page3@sonomasun.com
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