Party City! Wow! That was quite a party. The Farmers Market on Tuesday evenings in the summer is always a pleasant time. Adding a “City Party” makes the chosen Tuesday truly a remarkable experience. People from all over the Valley came and enjoyed themselves –... Continue
Editorials
Big and small We’ve driven to Sacramento recently, and to Santa Rosa, of course, very often, and we have seen houses and people everywhere. Yes, there are some open tracts of land not yet filled with cookie-cutter homes or big-box stores, as well as some... Continue
Summertime blues The youth, of course, know best. “Slow-noma,” they moan. “Nothing to do in town.” We remember when there was a bowling alley here. We remember when there was a slot car track. We remember when there was a public pool at the high... Continue
Readers may recall our hearty endorsement of Arnie Riebli for a seat on the Sonoma Valley Health Care District board in 2006, when he ran in a contested election. At that time we wished we could vote for him twice because we thought he brought... Continue
Timing in life is everything. No sooner had we pondered the Ten Commandments in this space last week than the head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church reportedly announced that he wants to display the “ark of the covenant,” kept hidden for thousands of years in... Continue
Washington, D.C.’s school voucher program for low-income kids isn’t dead yet. But the Obama Administration seems awfully eager to expedite its demise. About 1,700 kids currently receive $7,500 vouchers to attend private schools under the Opportunity Scholarship Program, and 99% of them are black or... Continue
Both, in large numbers, “hit the road” last Sunday, with the locals once again turning in fast times at the front of the pack, sweaty times in the middle and happy times throughout. As a fundraiser this year for the Sonoma Valley Education Foundation, this... Continue
So much emphasis is focused on tourism here in Sonoma Valley that sometimes it seems we locals get treated as an afterthought. Fortunately, that’s not really true and we’re in the midst of several occasions this spring that emphasize the point. Consider, for instance, the... Continue
Test scores for 2008 have been announced, and Sonoma schools are not getting top grades. These are the Academic Performance Index base reports, posted last week on the California Department of Education Web site; they give a composite score for student performance at each school.... Continue
Arch to nowhere Remember U.S. Senator Ted Stevens and his infamous “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska, for which he secured millions in congressional funding? That federal boondoggle comes to mind when we read about the Springs Redevelopment Advisory Committee considering the expenditure of yet more... Continue