Editorial

The first two months of 2022 are shaping up to be the driest January and February in California history, prompting state officials to warn of dire water conditions ahead. 

At 66, Edward El has a new lease on life — literally. In two weeks, he’ll move into his own apartment in Berkeley after spending the better part of the past 16 years homeless.

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.

This week, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law that requires large employers in California to offer workers up to 80 hours of COVID-related paid sick leave.

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.)

Storage not shortage

When the annual “state of the county” economic report and forecast focuses on the 3,600 lost hospitality service jobs instead of the interrupted travels of wine country tourists, we will find ourselves living in a better Sonoma County.

When California voters legalized marijuana for recreational use in November 2016, it was also a victory for Gavin Newsom, who spent months traveling the state as the face of the campaign. At an election night party at a San Francisco nightclub, the then-lieutenant governor celebrated this “point of pride,”telling attendees that California had sent a “message powerfully to the rest of the nation.”

​​While COVID-19’s omicron wave appears to have crested, it leaves in its wake sick nurses and burnt out bus drivers,short-staffed hospitals and canceled surgeries, school districts scrambling for substitute teachers and grocery store cashiers forced to choose between their health and their finances.