Letters to the Editor, Oct. 24
"I am an affordable housing advocate, but Measure O and its aftermath are riddled with issues. I see it as a huge, uncertain affordability experiment, not a plan..." So writes a long-time Healdsburg resident about the city's plan to create an exclusion zone from the Growth Management Ordinance...
Squirrel Causes Sunday Morning Power Outage
“It has been hypothesized that the threat to the internet, infrastructure and services posed by squirrels may exceed that posed by cyberattacks,” according to a cybersecurity expert cited in a Wikipedia report. And it happened in Healdsburg last Sunday...
Preliminary City Budget Presented for Suggestions, Revisions
A special five-hour meeting time was blocked out for the Healdsburg City Council on Monday night this week to allow plenty of time for council review, and public comment, on a proposed two-year budget for the city. It even started an hour early, at 5pm, in the usual meeting room at City Hall. But barely an hour and a half passed before Mayor David Hagele gaveled the meeting over, at 6:35pm...
‘Fit and Over 50’ at Local Health Clubs
Much has been written about the awarding of culinary stars, ratings of 90-point wines and the ascendancy of the million-dollar, two-bedroom home. But one award made to a Healdsburg business should not slip through the cracks—the naming of the Healdsburg’s location as North America’s “World Gym of the Year.”
The Year in Preview: 2025
The first major event that comes our way in 2025 is the annual Lake Sonoma Steelhead Festival, on Saturday, Feb. 8. This one-day science fair of all things steelhead (and their allies, anadromous and otherwise), draws about 10,000 people on its single day of exhibitions and activities to the Milt Brandt Visitors Center, Lake Sonoma.
Wrestling Gym to be Rechristened for Drew Esquivel
In what Superintendent Chris Vanden Heuvel openly said was a first, the Healdsburg Unified District School Board’s trustees voted to give a newly remodeled gym a new name: Drew Esquivel Hall, in honor of the late 2013 graduate.
Faherty Opens As Council Considers Formula Stores
The new proposal was to expand the formula-free zone one block further into the Downtown Commercial district. McDowell showed a map where a red line marked the border of the proposed formula-free zone; it surrounds most of seven city blocks adjacent to the Plaza, marking a significant expansion of the prohibition zone.
Fall Sports Find Their Rhythm
The Healdsburg High School fall sports calendar is filling up with games, matches and sets in five sports—boys football, co-ed cross country, and girls golf, tennis and volleyball.
Football
The first football game on Sept. 1 found the Hounds on the short end of a 56-27...
Measure O Defeat Shows Split City
When the sound and the fury, the smoke and the flames dispersed, Measure O went down to a definitive defeat, roughly at a 60-40 split. Clearly this was not what the Healdsburg City Council intended when in June they rationalized themselves into putting it on the General Election ballot.
Healdsburg Jazz Comes Home
The music festival that put Healdsburg on the jazz map begins this weekend, starting with a Juneteenth Celebration in the Plaza on Saturday, June 17, and ending nine days later on June 25 with another celebration, this one an immersion in the brassy, rhythmic...
Arts & Entertainment
Día de Muertos celebrates 9th year in the Plaza
Despite the weekend’s rain, Corazón Healdsburg’s ninth annual Día de Muertos celebration brought around 2,500 community members into the heart of downtown Healdsburg for a vibrant and heartfelt tribute to loved ones who passed during the past year.






















