Opinion

Calling Peptoc

Wishing all Healdsburgers a happy and healthy 2022. The recent rain, followed by sunshine has a few, early blades of mustard grass already popping up. In case you didn’t know, “IDlewood 3” (433) was the town’s original telephone exchange and now “Hedda Healdsburg” wants to know all! Please send your newsy items to me in care of The Healdsburg Tribune.

The oldest people in Sonoma County can remember the days of Prohibition (1920-1933) and we still have a cluster of World War II survivors who can tell stories about food and gas rationing and local coastal blackouts to hide from Japanese submarines. Our most elder Baby Boomers can recall when the county’s population almost doubled between 1950 and 1970, from 103,405 to 204,885. (Today’s population is 486,000.)

A tribute to Rena

I’m submitting this terribly late in hopes it’s able to be seen before our final market, Saturday, Dec. 18. If so, you’ll know this will be a packed market: filled with plenty of produce despite many farms ending their season and all our delicious prepared and packaged food vendors you’ve come to know and love. We’ll also have close to 30 craft vendors, many who come throughout the season on a rotating schedule, but lots of new ones who’ve just come for our Fall/Holiday Craft Market. This will be the biggest week for this event.

The Healdsburg City Council adopted a climate emergency declaration in 2019 and has taken some isolated actions since then. However, the city lacks a comprehensive Climate Action Plan with deadlines and staff/budget allocations. Healdsburg 2040, a citizen-led grassroots organization, believes the city council must prioritize climate action in its goal-setting session on March 7, 2022.

We often banter about the word and the concept of what we call “community.” There’s probably no single definition we can use. Does community just happen, or does it require some sort of strategic planning? We combine the word when we talk about community policing, community mental health, community economic vitality, community diversity and even community journalism. When we say community, we don’t always mean communal; sometimes we also include conflict.

Last January, now a whole year ago, America may have experienced both its worst and best days of the year.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been cruel to all of us for many reasons. Of course there have been thousands of cases of illnesses in Sonoma County and now 414 deaths, almost all of them taking place unaccompanied by family or loved ones. Jobs and businesses have been lost and all our daily lives have been restricted by ongoing public health rules requiring us to wear masks, get vaccinated and tested and to limit our public interactions.

As we continue our eternal vigilance over our free press and the freedoms of speech, peaceable assembly and the people’s right to petition their government and seek a redress of their grievances, we can report that it is not the freedom of the press that is at stake these days. What is at stake is the survival of the press itself.