Lower rainfall totals this year, but things still looking positive
Sonoma County still doing its part for water conservation, March rains helpful
Healdsburg Planning Commission decides on hotel limit restrictions
The Healdsburg Planning Commission approved an ordinance Tuesday evening that will limit the amount of hotels built in the plaza and in the city’s Downtown Commercial district near Piper, Vine, East and Mill Streets. If approved by city council, the two-pronged motion will put a strict limit on hotel development by prohibiting new hotel rooms from being built in the four-block radius of the Plaza retail zoning district and by limiting new hotels in the downtown commercial district to those that include no more than five rooms.
Sebastopol City Council preview
At the next Sebastopol City Council meeting, scheduled for April 20, the council will be revisiting the possible location for an art piece created by Ned Kahn, reviewing the city’s annual Level of Service Report and discussing whether or not it wants to allow the mayor to send a letter on behalf of the council calling for the resignation of Windsor's mayor. The meeting is being held virtually over Zoom, with open session beginning at 6 p.m. To view the full council agenda, click here.
Open Mic: Surprise Raid in Kern County Foreshadows What’s to Come
The Border Patrol conducted unannounced raids throughout Bakersfield on Tuesday, Jan. 7, descending on businesses where day laborers and field workers gather. Agents in unmarked SUVs rounded up people in vans outside a Home Depot and gas station that serves a breakfast popular with field workers. "It was profiling; it was purely field workers,” said the manager of a local gas station.
School reopenings more common in rural areas and in private schools, state data shows
New state mapping data details California’s school-reopening divide, in which hundreds of school districts — mostly smaller and rural or inland — are offering in-person instruction to elementary students while many of the state’s largest, urban districts remain indefinitely in remote learning.
Sebastopol Police Department audit released to the public
When protests against George Floyd’s killing spread across Sonoma County last summer, the Sebastopol City Council decided to contract attorney Jerry Threet for an audit to see where its own police department stood with the city’s values, according to Mayor Una Glass.
