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Is Sonoma County losing its soul? What creative new paradigm can we devise to ensure the agricultural integrity of Sonoma County by enabling young, talented winegrowers and farmers to have access to affordable land?

The best portion of a good man’s life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love. —William Wordsworth

When the world around us is chaotic and anxiety-inducing, sometimes it is hard to write about what is going on without sounding like one’s words are drowning in hyperbole. In times like these, we turn to coping strategies such as curling up with a good book or listening to music.

It seems a good bet that if there is a chicken in residence anywhere where there has been a culture of reading children’s literature out loud, the name Henny-Penny is naturally a popular choice for that fowl. Oddly, it isn’t true for the other names in this old English Folk Tale. When was the last time you heard somebody call the Thanksgiving bird, “Turkey-lurkey”? Or how about “Goosey-poosey” and “Ducky-daddles”?

Fifty years ago this month, an unusual looking aircraft resembling a large grasshopper was seen flying over the Russian River at very low altitude, arousing a great deal of interest from residents...

My neighbor is learning to ride her bike with no hands. She’s 9, and we live at opposite ends of a 300-foot lane off a busy residential street. Her family lives at the busy entrance and our family lives at the quiet end, but we see her often, riding her bike or scooter up and down, patient and determined, while her younger brother zooms around in circles, crashing here and there and always getting up.

In 2008, the folks behind SMART told us that if voters approved the quarter-percent 20 year sales tax they would build 71 miles of train and a 71-mile bike path and that annual operating costs would be $16.5 million per year. They also claimed SMART would alleviate traffic on 101 and help fight climate change. The problem is none of these promises ever materialized and now SMART is asking voters to approve an additional $2.4 billion on a 30-year tax extension nine years before the current tax expires. 

We at SMART ask that you don’t be misled by what is now a privately funded $1.7m campaign against our fledgling train. Facts are constantly being distorted by No on Measure I, as they’ve been doing since before the train was even on the tracks.