News

On a recent visit to Jon Wright’s Feed Store for chicken feed, I noticed that Jon still has a poster of his customer Joe Montana in his #16 Jersey on the back wall next to the wood burning stove in his office. It brought back the memory of Nicholas Montana, a boy in my fourth grade classroom, who, while reading the book “Ishi: Last of his Tribe” and learning about California botany and the native buckeye tree, asked, “Ms. Kelley, are you talking about conkers?  It was what his grandfather called the nut of the buckeye, and in my mind I saw children throwing them at each other in the Mayacamas Mountains. That led to a parallel motion picture where I envisioned children of the Pomo or Wappo people, or Ishi from his Yahi tribe, also collecting and throwing buckeye nuts at each other, in their time and in this place we now call California.

Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch, along with the district attorneys for Napa, Humboldt and Lake Counties, announced on March 12 that no criminal charges would be filed against PG&E related to the October 2017 Northern California wildfires. After an extensive review, each office determined that insufficient evidence exists to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that PG&E acted with a reckless disregard for human life in causing the fires, the standard necessary to sustain criminal charges.

New children’s museum offers interactive exhibits

Within a day of waking up to the devastation and fear caused by the fires, several local breweries had come up with a plan to create a special brew in support of those affected. Richard Norgrove, owner and brewmaster of The Bear Republic Brewing Company got a phone call at 2 a.m. in Oregon from his head brewer Rob Kent. He knew something was wrong, but that was just the start of it.

OK, so you remember how local Italian restaurant Molti Amici suffered a fall from grace last November and was forced to close its doors just over a year after opening? The three SingleThread alumni who opened the high-fashion restaurant at 330 Healdsburg Ave. said they hoped to...

Two seats on the Sebastopol City Council are up for election on Nov. 3. Both of the incumbents, Michael Carnacchi and Neysa Hinton are seeking re-election. Challengers in the race are Evaristo "Evert" Fernandez, Diana Rich and Vaughn Richard Higginbotham. Sonoma West Times & News submitted questions to the candidates. Fernandez's responses are included here in a Q&A format. The responses have been edited for length in some places.

What a difference two years makes. That sentiment could be widely heard, from Maine to Marin Tuesday night, as the results of national and local elections displayed a marked flip from one party to another—again, as they had in 2024. At the state level, and...

Healdsburg City Council will meet on Monday, May 20 at 6 p.m. at city hall, 401 Grove St.