Editorial

— Rollie Atkinson

The holiday season is here with the accompanying shopping, decorating, gift giving, entertaining and feasting. As we celebrate, we also tend to generate lots of waste. Did you know that an extra million tons of waste is generated nationwide each week between Thanksgiving and New Year’s? Here are a few ideas and suggestions on how to have a wonderful, gift giving holiday season and still be earth friendly.

I appreciate your three informative November articles on the

The Russian River flowed for millions and millions of years, eons before the earliest of Pomo people established fishing villages here 10,000 years ago and called the river Ashokawna.

The editorial on DUI priorities mentioned many positive results

For some members of the Healdsburg community who took pride in Healdsburg being a big school district, enrollment decline may seem unfavorable. However, the research over the last 30 years on school size has demonstrated over and over that less is more. HUSD’s current enrollment of 1,850 students is an advantage, not just because there is more money per student but also because of the more intimate, personalized learning environment it creates. Our students are not just a number, but individuals with strengths, talents and challenges.

Last Thursday, Laura Tietz of Fire Free Fitch, Dave Henderson, president of the Fitch Mountain Association and I met with Fourth District Supervisor James Gore, Sonoma County Fire Chief Al Terrell and Fire Inspector Steve Mosiurchak to discuss the pilot fire protection program being proposed for implementation on Fitch Mountain.

In Healdsburg and throughout Sonoma County, issues related to housing have been in the spotlight for many months. The city is keenly aware of our community’s housing needs and has been working hard, alongside our residents, to address these serious housing problems. Providing affordable housing to working families and building government subsidized, affordable housing units continue to be top City Council priorities. Much has been accomplished and a great deal remains to be done.

Readers owe a debt of gratitude to the Board of Directors of the Healdsburg Tourism Improvement District (HTID). We have rarely seen a letter that provided, word for word, greater entertainment value than the board’s response to a letter suggesting that transient tax money should now be reallocated from tourism promotion to low-income housing. We encourage readers to dig through their old papers, or go to the Tribune online, to again enjoy with us this amazing missive.