If a humble taxpayer can pretend to fathom the situation in the Sonoma Valley Unified School District, it appears School Trustees (the Bosses) hired a part-time interim superintendent (the Employee) to tell them what to do. This became necessary after the popular former superintendent apparently... Continue
Columnist
My heart and prayers go out to those who suffered a loss during the California wildfires. The widespread destruction of life and property saddens us all. On the positive side, the community came together and with the help of our first responders and because the... Continue
By B.J. Bischoff It's been a somber and stressful two weeks here in Sonoma Valley. Everyone I know knows someone who has lost everything in the wildfires that started October 8 and blazed for over a week. The Nuns Fire (and Partrick Fire, which merged... Continue
It wasn’t quite four in the morning when my wife and I were abruptly awakened by the doorbell. Thoughts raced through my mind. Who was it? The police, immigration, or a relative with bad news? Cautiously we peered out the window and saw it was... Continue
My wife and I moved to Sonoma in April of 1990 after purchasing a six-room bed and breakfast inn on West Spain Street. It was later in that year, in November, when we first encountered what we used to call "the slow season." By December,... Continue
We moved to Sonoma because it seemed safe and quaint. But this fire rocked our boat. It’s been a week of fear and shock. Contrasts like people skidding their cars around corners and cutting people off in anger and stealing, to kind people waiting patiently... Continue
The color of Mars, the color of blood, the color of sunlight through a sky filled with smoke, red on the Cal Fire map means the land is burning. Buddhist paintings depicting wrathful deities often show the figures surrounded by red flames. Though deities like... Continue
It is a common occurrence for a community member to approach me with questions and concern about the future of Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC). I get it entirely -- SDC is special. The bucolic setting and iconic status of SDC is a common thread that... Continue
I’m hard-wired for formal prayer. I find myself reciting the Our Father when an earthquake hits, and oftentimes at night as I go to sleep. “How weird,” I think, stopping in the middle, but then a Hail Mary (a woman about whom I hold equally wobbly beliefs), arises... Continue
For all the attempts to cast humanity in the brightest way possible -- religious positivism, new-age soul-making, liberal visions of the evolution of virtue, and fairy-tales with happy endings -- the dark side keeps casting a shadow across history. Is this simply, as some believe,... Continue