News

In early March, the Rotary Club of Sebastopol voted to donate $10,000 to the Rotary International Disaster Response Fund for Ukraine. Since then, the service club has raised an additional $19,000 for a total donation of $29,000 — and the donation amount keeps growing.

The following are crimes excerpted from Sebastopol Police Department daily crime log entries and listed at the time the alleged violation was reported.

The sounds of summer will soon be coming from the direction of Ives Pool, where the Sebastopol Rotary Club will again be teaching local 7-year-olds how to swim. Sebastopol Rotary's Learn-to-Swim Program is now in its 36th year, and the club is looking for volunteers to help with this year's program.

Amid a dwindling water utility fund, the Healdsburg City Council is considering the possibility of increasing water rates by roughly the equivalence of two 5.4% rate increases. Rate prices will vary per household and some may see an over $7 increase.

La Familia Sana, a nonprofit located in Cloverdale, is growing its partnership with Corazón Healdsburg in hopes of bringing more resources to the area. In the past, both organizations have helped one another when it comes to helping families — whether it was with housing supplies, food or COVID-19 tests, a partnership was already there.

Many people have shaped the apple growing industry of western Sonoma County over almost 150 years. They have put down deep roots in their orchards and beneath their family trees. They have been the primal forces that have met and endured both nature’s surprises and multiple market upheavals with multi-generational resolve and resourcefulness. All these individuals possessed many strengths and talents but only one was endowed with a major-league worthy fastball and a knee-crippling curveball. And that farmer-pitcher was Graton’s Lee F. Walker Jr.

Every year, Healdsburg Junior High’s (HJH) leadership class plans a fundraiser to benefit a local Healdsburg organization. This year, students decided to raise money for local animals in need — they raised roughly $1,000. Bethany Carlson, guidance counselor at the junior high, said students chose to start a monthlong school-wide coin drive for the Humane Society of Sonoma County in Healdsburg.

Cloverdale’s cannabis businesses are going to see a decrease in city taxes, following a 3-1 vote by the Cloverdale City Council on March 23. The council gave the green light to a resolution that amends the city’s existing blanket cannabis excise tax rate of 4.5% for cannabis businesses in favor of a tiered tax rate that varies tax amount by type of cannabis business.

Sonoma County Sheriff detectives are currently investigating a murder and a separate but related stabbing incident that occurred in Guerneville on March 23.

The City of Healdsburg will be receiving an over $7 million California Department of Water Resources grant to add 4.5 miles to its municipal recycled water distribution network and expand recycled water deliveries, a big win for the city when it comes to building drought resilience amid another year of dry conditions.