Editorial

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.

My husband and I are about to be left behind. I’m talking about something more predictable than the apocalypse: our son will be leaving home in the fall to go to college. We will still have two younger kids at home, so we’re not yet empty nesters, but I nonetheless have a strong sense of nostalgia as I contemplate how quickly time flies and the inevitable changes that are upon our family life.

It’s “back to school” time again and that means shopping trips for new school clothes, buying new notebooks, pens and erasers for the backpack and complaining about how early the first class bell is scheduled to ring.

At a public forum held on July 28 at the Villa Chanticleer, four community members participated in a panel discussion about possible changes to Healdsburg’s Growth Management Ordinance. Their prepared statements are reprinted below. The Tribune welcomes letters to the editor on this important topic, which will be on the Nov. 8 ballot.

All sorts of barnyard proverbs and euphemisms could be used to explain the current taxpayers’ dilemma. Not to beat a dead horse, but we’ve repeatedly warned about too many tax increases and bond measures on the next ballot. We don’t want to sound like Chicken Little and claim that the sky is falling, but decades of runaway pension costs are finally coming home to roost. Somebody left the barn door open and all that is left in our taxpayers’ barnyard is a pile of cow pies and horse biscuits.

Notes from Fitch Mountain

The spread of special events in our wine country has been getting harsh criticisms lately as the Board of Supervisors works to more tightly define and regulate these weekend and seasonal celebrations and marketing affairs.

Probably every issue of this newspaper ever published has contained at least one story or item about a death. That’s because when we share our lives and community together, we also share our passings.

Big decisions require big work. And voters have very big work cut out for them this November when they will vote to either end California’s prohibition on adult use of marijuana or delay the inevitable one more time.

We weren’t at the Dallas Black Lives Matter march last week where a rogue sniper killed five police officers. We were home with our families, maybe sharing conversations with our neighbors after another work day. We were with our kind.