Public Citizen

Larry Barnett lives in Sonoma where he was elected to three terms on the City Council and served twice as Mayor. A thirty-five-year resident, he currently serves on Sonoma's Planning Commission, where he recently was Chair for two years. Until her passing, he was married to his wife Norma for 50 years, has two daughters and three grandchildren.

When the hypothetical becomes real

The recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to affirm that a web designer is entitled to refuse to create a website for a same-sex couple’s marriage on religious grounds is problematic. Not only were there no actual clients who requested the web designer’s services,... Continue

Toward a more creative life

Were you one of those special children who knew exactly what you wanted to do for a living? Many of us didn’t know what we wanted to be when we grew up. For me, the problem was the question. A more engaging one is “How... Continue

Turn on, tune in, be woke

Is today’s anti-woke movement just a continuation of the anti-hippie movement that began in the 1960s? At that time, the collision between Flower Power and Pentagon Power split America into two cultural camps that have been at odds with each other ever since. The divisions... Continue

County budget has good news for Valley parks

The Board of Supervisors approved a $2.3 billion budget for the 2023/2024 Fiscal Year. I am incredibly grateful for the hard work of our budget staff in the County Administrator’s office, and our CAO Christina Rivera, for guiding us through the process. Some highlights from... Continue

That’s just the way it is…

Chapter 58: Summer 1949 • Sonora, California ~ As Sonora was a backwater with no Catholic school, five Franciscan nuns in black habits and white wimples were imported every summer to bring the local schoolchildren a proper religious education, and for five weeks the nuns... Continue

The sly, beautiful trickster

On the evening of the Summer Solstice, after walking my dog and watching the sunset, I spotted a coyote trotting along the fence line between the Montini property and open space. To watch, I pulled over next to the pasture where cows were settling down... Continue

Notes from a snarky patriot

And now we celebrate – with booze, barbecued dead animal parts, & high explosives – the birth of the most Powerful Country On Earth, created by a document painstakingly handwritten on parchment with a sharpened quill dipped in the best homemade ink in a time... Continue

Mom canned apricots this morning

Chapter 57: 1949 • Sonora ~ Larry’s diary (age 15) Jul 16 2nd night of pageant. Gov Warren was there. Uncle Charlie and Aunt Velma came up. Got to bed after 2. Almost late for scene 3. I was an actor in the Big Columbia... Continue

Consciousness without intellect

In a previous column about consciousness, I proposed that it is a matter of degree, stretching from the microscopic to the macroscopic, from the sub-atomic to the super-massive, and everything in between. In the smallest, single-celled organisms, consciousness appears as simple awareness, which is to... Continue

Powered by money

Where do you draw the line and consider someone wealthy? Is it if they own a home that is now worth a million dollars? Does it matter that they paid very little for it 30 years ago? A million dollars sounds big. In today’s world... Continue

Columnist