True sustainability demands honesty

Sustainability is a concept seeking to account for the earth’s ability to carry aggregate human environmental effects now and into the future. One major effect, greenhouse gas emissions, has clear and measurable negative consequences that threaten the environmental stability upon which our current societies and... Continue

Well, Well, Well

Understanding water in Sonoma Valley is simple: It’s complicated. The Valley has two water sources: (1) The Russian River, via the Sonoma Aqueduct managed by the Sonoma County Water Agency. It provides water to metered customers in the Valley of the Moon Water District (VOMWD)... Continue

Preserving institutional memory

People come and people go, but the memory of their actions remain. We call this form of memory "history" and in the case of institutions like government, that history is recorded. Among the methods used by government are minutes of meetings. Meeting minutes record what... Continue

Looking back to look ahead

A new Sun story reexamines three past General Plans from 1964, 1974 and 1985. Each in its own way points to the cultural biases and social movements of its decade while simultaneously acknowledging the unique history and natural features of Sonoma Valley and the City... Continue

Editorial: Going to the ballot?

‏Historically, Sonoma's city government has placed measures on the ballot infrequently, and almost exclusively for matters of revenue or taxes; for instance, to raise the Transient Occupancy Tax or increase the sales tax. Only rarely, and then in cases of annexations (Maxwell Village Shopping Center),... Continue

Editorial: Another failure to lead

The Sonoma City Council has once again failed to exercise leadership, this time on the issue of leaf blowers. After months of dithering, debate and delays the final result of this week’s meeting was... let the voters decide. This is not what council members are elected... Continue

Do we need leaders?

The opportunity to choose our political leaders is the heart of democracy. To be sure, this is not the only way a society can be organized politically, and like any other political system democracy has its plusses and minuses. For most of western history monarchy... Continue

Can government enter the 21st Century?

Perhaps a better way to phrase our editorial question is: Can government leave the 18th Century? It was during the 1700s that many of the conventions and methods used by democratic government were developed and refined, and many of those were borrowed from even earlier... Continue

Ban Leaf Blowers?

On September 9th the Sonoma City Council will meet to consider its ban on leaf blowers. When a straw-vote was taken a while back there appeared to be three votes in favor of a ban, but if history teaches us anything about the leaf-blower issue,... Continue

A time for evolution

We hear considerable talk from politicians and so-called experts about the need to ‘grow our economy.’ Call us contrarian but more than grow, we believe our Valley’s economy needs to evolve. Growing the same wine/tourism industry that is putting unsustainable pressure on our environment and... Continue

Editorials