Editorial

Except for all the unrepentant procrastinators among us, it is

Last month, Alliance Medical Center was contacted by the Health Resources and Services Administration, the branch of federal government that oversees Federally Qualified Health Centers. HRSA wanted to study how we work with pregnant women. It turns out that Alliance is in the top 1 percent in the nation in prenatal care! More than 90 percent of our patients who are expecting are receiving medical care beginning in their first trimester.

In Measure A, Sonoma County voters are being asked to approve yet another general purpose sales tax. Members of the County Board of Supervisors and others out on the stump are promoting Measure A as a “roads tax” that if approved would be spent 90 percent for road repairs and 10 percent for public transit items such as free bus passes for students, seniors and veterans. Unfortunately, the ballot language itself belies a different intent. The plain language of Measure A identifies a list of spending objectives starting with public safety and concluding with the troublesome catchall “other essential services.” Roads don’t even top the list.

Editor’s note – As we celebrate our 150th year of publishing, the Healdsburg Tribune seeks to balance a reverence for the past, a keen eye on the present and a healthy curiosity about the future. Occasionally, a forward-thinking reader sends us what we like to call “A letter from the future,” examining present-day Healdsburg from an imagined perspective of the future. Jay Beckwith submitted this thoughtful and interesting essay.

As members of the Fitch Mountain Association we recently received two emails from the association’s current secretary Ellen Silge regarding the recent tree and brush removal along North and South Fitch Mountain Road. She refers to the work as a “Roadside Slaughter.” She continues that Laura Tietz of Fire Free Fitch “is close to learning the identity of the PG&E person responsible” and “turning the inmate crew loose on Fitch Mt. Road.” Silge also said that “She (Tietz) has a meeting tomorrow (2/23) in Mike McGuire’s office with county officials who are interested in making the roads on the mountain safer and she’ll bring up this problem, as well as following through with PG&E executives and Cal-Fire. Silge finishes with a request from any property owner who feels that they suffered property damage caused by “the slaughter in progress or aftermath images.”