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.

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.

Unless you’ve been closely following Sonoma County happenings, you may not be aware that another local, iconic bridge, the 1915, Parker-through-truss, Lambert Bridge, is in jeopardy of being removed from service. Like our Healdsburg Memorial Bridge, until recently, this bridge had a Caltrans reported structural Inventory Rating (a rating used for federal funding purposes) of zero tons. Its Sufficiency Rating is 4.8 compared to our Memorial Bridge’s Rating of 2 on a scale of 0 to 100. In June of 2013, I became aware of this threat and corresponded with our County Supervisor, Mike McGuire.

It’s no surprise that young adults increasingly support gay marriage and think it’s just fine for two moms to have kids. Young people grew up with gay friends. They could have a gay stepbrother or a lesbian minister.

— Rollie Atkinson