Columns

Our shared disdain for PG&E turning the lights out on us while we were running from the threat of the Kincade wildfire is not the only thing that should be uniting us right now. This time there was no loss of life. This time we “only” lost 141 homes in Sonoma County, nothing close to the 5,600 torched by the Tubbs fire in 2017. But this time the economic impact in evacuation costs, days of lost work, a week of lost business revenues, canceled trips to our Wine Country and possibly the permanent closure of some local businesses is much more widespread.

Every year comes and goes, but also leaves behind important dates that get remembered, written in newspapers and history books, and are sometimes turned into annual commemorations. (Oct. 8 is such a date for Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park Tubbs Fire survivors.) As 2020 is now running out of dates and makes way for 2021, we can begin to chronicle which dates over the last 12 months we may remember over the years to come.

Labor Day came and went without much notice. Between the fires, the smoke, the heat, the pandemic, the politics, Labor Day was passed by. Having a three-day weekend isn’t special when you can’t leave home. As sad as it makes me feel, prior to the lockdown, having the three-day weekend was probably the thing most people enjoyed about Labor Day. Somewhere along our winding path we lost track from where we came.

The following snippets of history are drawn from the pages of the Healdsburg Tribune, the Healdsburg Enterprise and the Sotoyome Scimitar, and are prepared by the volunteers at the Healdsburg Museum & Historical Society. Admission is always free at the museum, open Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

What do you want for Cloverdale?

On Thursday, Jan. 21, Jeremy Decker, Superintendent of Windsor Unified School District, spoke on Zoom to the Windsor Democratic Club about COVID-19 vaccinations and plans for reopening schools.

Remembering Brian Elliott