Don't Blow It Again Dear Trustees, Sonoma Valley Unified School Board has an abysmal record in hiring superintendents. The last three served only two years each, and two of those three required heavy payouts, then you gifted a bonus to the most recent superintendent after... Continue
Editorials
Gratitude is a multi-faceted feeling. It can be intensely personal. It can be on behalf of others. It can be about things, and it can be about people. And it can even be about the state of a nation. Historically, America’s Thanksgiving Day has been... Continue
The Sonoma Collaborative’s Housing Affordability Roadmap is a welcome addition to the discussion about affordable housing and the challenge to dramatically increase it. The Collaborative is a project of the Sonoma Ecology Center, focused on the preservation and creation of additional Affordable Housing in Sonoma... Continue
Scary masks, skeletons in the closet and frightful costumes; these all have been part of Halloween forever, but today the situation in America has turned into a real Halloween nightmare. Now the masks are covering the faces of ICE agents as they terrorize communities, skeletons... Continue
On September 23, the Trustees of our Sonoma Valley School District identified Prestwood School as the elementary site to close at the end of the current school year. The choice of Prestwood, on the Eastside of Sonoma, was a rational decision. It was also a... Continue
Almost a year ago we began to editorialize about the crisis in our Sonoma Valley School District. Facing a huge budget deficit due to continued deficit spending by the Board, as it delayed action about the reality that the student population had declined over 40... Continue
In the late 1990s a group of community members became concerned about providing a safe refuge for dislocated families, abused women and others in need. Volunteers like Elizabeth Kemp and her “brown baggers” began feeding unhoused people, and Sy Lenz’ efforts brought needed attention to... Continue
In our age, government has adopted many practices of business. Government workers are commonly unionized, and salaries are established through collective bargaining. A version of standard business accounting has been adapted by government using what are called GAAP rules, Generally Accepted Accounting Practices. Government owns... Continue
The City of Sonoma recently announced that it projects a General Fund budget surplus for the 2025-26 fiscal year of $200,000. This is good news, given that previous projections indicated a serious deficit. The passage of Measure T last election raised the local sales tax... Continue
On May 6 the Sonoma County Planning Department (aka Permit Sonoma) declared that a new draft EIR and Specific Plan to guide the commercial development of the Sonoma Developmental Center will be completed and ready for preliminary public review by April of 2026. Some of... Continue