Columns

The students of the Class of 2020 will be marked and followed through history (their future) in forever terms, like the previous American generations of The Great Depression, World War II and the counterculture of the 1960s. Today’s graduates were born when the world was...

The term “rain garden” may bring to mind images of tropical forests or elaborate garden water features. In reality, they are one of the easiest ways to improve your yard while protecting our creeks, streams and Russian River. They are also a great excuse to play in the garden.

This is the Memorial Day that will not be happening. But most of what Memorial Day is about is words: words that are spoken at gravesites and written words read from time-honored tributes to America’s fallen heroes. For this year, in lieu of graveside...

Dear WUSD Partners,

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. 

Hey there, Healdsburg, how’ve you been? I miss you, and I miss being here on your op-ed page. I’m glad to stop in again, even for a week.

Our cities are facing the most difficult financial crisis in decades due to COVID-19. City councils face hard decisions. How deep can they cut budgets without paralyzing basic public services? Furlough part-time workers? Reduce salaries among management and other full-time employees? Buy new police cars or maintain public parks and recreation facilities? Continue generous, but unfunded, pension plans, or defer planned payments to the Public Safety Pension Stabilization Fund? Ask employees to forego contractual increases in salary, or endure workforce cuts?

When the town has a voter mandated competitive bidding process for our garbage collection, green waste and recycling and we enter into a contract pursuant to that mandate, can the town change the terms of the contract prior to the contract expiration?

I was on the newspaper team that created The Windsor Times in 1987. I could claim to be one of its parents. My parental instincts are kicking in pretty hard right now, as we must make forced decisions about this newspaper’s fate. If you are among those who believe it takes a village to raise a child, then you would agree the same goes for a community newspaper. Unfortunately, a virus, a changed local economy and the loss of too many newspaper readers to Facebook, Google and elsewhere has put this newspaper on unsustainable footing.

If you’ve been paying attention to the front page these past few weeks, you know this is the last print edition of The Windsor Times for the foreseeable future. This is a decision that has not been made lightly, not should it come as a surprise — our publisher has been warning of the increasingly unstable print business model for several years.