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If we didn’t know it before, it should be painfully obvious by now that our future fire protection services, energy utility bills and many local special taxes will all cost us more in our immediate future — and forever.

Free food for government pooches

One of my favorite things about working with preschool-aged children is watching their minds work and grow. They are constantly absorbing information, adding to their files, observing and cataloging. I love meeting them where they are and then giving them one more piece to add to their knowledge—a new bit of vocabulary, an expansion of an idea, a question to get them pondering. But even more than that, I love how they surprise me and tickle my funny bone, just by being themselves.

I am not watching the Super Bowl. It has become a corporate spectacle. Commercials take top billing and the show has become bigger than the game.

Looking for a lost pet or a new four-legged friend? See the list of incoming strays and the slideshow (above) of cats and dogs available for adoption from the Sonoma Humane Society, Healdsburg Center.

100 years ago – January 16, 1919

One thing already appears certain for 2019 and that is that all of us will continue to confront more and more fake news from the daily torrent of tweets, talk radio, faceless social media, Russian robots and our Nextdoor gossipers.

I am not watching the Super Bowl. It has become a corporate spectacle.

Wanna be a commissioner?

What do you get when you combine one grumpy 17-year-old teenage boy and one Mom who doled out a to-do list on the Monday morning school commute? A very electrically charged conversation, one that would have gone better if all parties could have agreed on the outcome.