Sonoma’s 20-year-old urban growth boundary (UGB) is up for renewal. The current language is said to allow annexing land at the city edge for affordable housing, 50-80% of area median income (AMI). (In Sonoma today, 80% AMI is $86,400 for a family of four— teachers,... Continue

With all the breaking national news, many taxpayers have little bandwidth in their attention span to focus on the state budget. Moreover, the state budget process can be indecipherable even for political insiders. But taxpayers should be paying attention for the simple reason that it’s... Continue

I have been watching a CNN series on the 70s on Netflix that came out in 2015.  There is a segment on Watergate and Nixon’s resignation. Never once in this pre-Trump era coverage did I hear that congress was trying to undo the will of... Continue

In 2007, the undersigned were members of the Sonoma Valley Health Care Coalition, a volunteer citizens group formed by the opposing factions in a divisive community dispute over a parcel tax measure needed to sustain our local hospital.   After numerous community meetings, it became clear... Continue

I would like an objective and comprehensive study to determine if in the long run, undergrounding power lines is cost effective. If the payback period were let’s say 20 years, would this work? If this question were asked in 2016, probably not. However, with the... Continue

October 22, was a big day for The Ting Project!  The Sonoma City Council approved the donor recognition bricks, which will allow us to move forward with the submission of plans for the issuance of a construction permit.  When the City Council voted 4-1 to... Continue

The issue of parking has come up recently; folks are concerned about providing parking for higher density housing on Donald Street, the lack of parking on the Plaza, and whether there would be enough parking if the Cheese Factory is expanded. To reduce greenhouse gas... Continue

The cause of last week’s explosion and fire at the NuStar Energy refinery in Crockett (Contra Costa County) has not been revealed. What is known, however, is that the refinery reported, “…nothing out of the ordinary was taking place before two storage tanks suddenly burst... Continue

Here we go again. PG&E is negligent in upgrading and maintaining their power grid. Instead they got greedy and gave their shareholders and upper management huge bonuses. So now the people must pay for their greed and negligence.  People just replaced the food in their... Continue