Columns

Parklets vs. Parking Why are the parklets still taking up 49 public parking spaces in downtown Healdsburg? The Covid Emergency is over. I drove through the Plaza today. The parklets look like hammered dung. And there was no parking for me. Has the City...

Dang. What in the barnyard-livin’, truck-drivin’, T-shirt-wearin’, country-croonin’, cuzzin-cussin’, doggone tarnation is this? Photo of the week? Could be photo of the year, don’t you think? Maybe photo of a lifetime?  Seriously! Has anyone seen a Porsche like this? Porsches are strutted out polished to...

"Following the informal community meeting with Vertice Hospitality (SingleThread) at the film center on Feb. 7. concerning the group’s proposed uses for the former Raven Film Center and 150 North St., I wanted to express a few thoughts...."

Dear Editor: To exploit every single aspect of a small town is not to appreciate—it is to dishonor.  After fully participating in the Vertice LLC a.k.a. Single Thread “Farm” community input meeting (2/7/24) held in Healdsburg’s former movie theater, I remain committed to asking questions about...

This past weekend included the pleasure of kayaking Tomales Bay with a youth group. It’s fun to be out with tween-agers. Their energy seems boundless. Their enjoyment rising from the moment. Their wonderment a reminder of life approached with curiosity and fully explored.  Will creatures...

Last week’s column mistakenly identified California Spanish moss as Spanish moss. Oops—apologies.  What commonly hangs from trees in Sonoma is lace lichen (Ramalina menziesii), officially designated the state lichen by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2016. Lace lichen, also called fishnet lichen, is mistaken for Spanish...

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.

The picture above is a full arcing rainbow, portrayed in last week’s Photo of the Week dropping behind vineyards and trees, as if painted by John Constable. Christmas commemorates the birth of Jesus, who claimed to be the light. He asked that people “love...

Dear Editor: I am deeply concerned about the continued high turnover rate of the Healdsburg High School administration. From 2016 until now, only one principal has lasted longer than two years. What seems to be the problem? If they are being terminated, why do unqualified candidates...

A Ruse by Another Name? Some things are not for sale. Full-time residents of Healdsburg can see the “unapproved” and not “permitted” 330 Center St. ultra-luxury $12 million condos listed on MLS ( a site FOR real estate brokers) for what it really is!  We know this...