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Healdsburg
July 8, 2025

Wine words: #45 Local Winemaker on the Global Stage

Chris Markell’s career as a winemaker tells a story of the evolving Sonoma County wine business throughout the past four decades. 

E Pluribus Unum

To make America great again, as Mr. Trump keeps promising, shouldn’t we start in our own communities? We realize that all of America’s communities are unique and have different notions of what greatness means. But isn’t there a very definitive set of values and pursuits that fit under the banner of “We, the people?” Isn’t it a belief in freedoms, rights and responsibilities that unites the alt-liberals of northern California (most of us) with the poor working class of coal country West Virginia?

Cityscape: Spotlight on Age-Friendly Healdsburg

In the fall, the city applied to the World Health Organization's Global Network of Age-Friendly Cities and Communities to become the first city in Sonoma County to receive an Age-Friendly designation. At the core of the Age-Friendly City concept is Eight-to-Eighty, meaning that when a community is designed for an 8-year-old, it also fits an 80-year-old and ultimately everybody. Age-Friendly communities have walkable streets, housing and transportation options, and access to key services and opportunities for residents to participate in community activities.

Burg Savvy: Catching Water

planning today’s soup it’s going to rain again onion or garlic? I remember standing at the bus stop in the rain when I was a kid in Catholic school, leaning my head back and sticking my tongue out to catch rain drops. It’s a natural, primitive instinct....

Money in the wrong places

Our economy in 2019 did very well. It made lots of money, piled up big corporate profits and created billions in new wealth. Historic stock market levels were recorded on Wall Street, the Gross National Product kept increasing, now for 124 months in a row, and the low level of unemployment keeps getting bragged about.

Decoding Teenagers: When You Nail Something

There is something very satisfactory in knowing that you have completed a task well. Self pride and worth, that feeling of accomplishment is a natural mood booster. This last week, my two teens and I went hand in hand. We all “nailed something” as the old saying goes. And, it all happened right before our much needed and deserved Thanksgiving break.

Someday we’ll laugh about this . . . right?

Bagel Bites When Thomas gets off the bus he has three questions, usually in this order: “Where’s Posey?” (Posey is our cat); “Is the mail here yet?” (Thomas considers it his job to retrieve any mail we receive); and “What’s for dinner?” My answers are usually...

Decoding Teenagers: College bound

The other day I was catching up with my younger sister on the phone. As we were talking I found myself smiling at the absurdity of our conversation. She was rambling on about the perils of kindergarten acceptance. Been there, done that I thought. But I calmly reassured her that her 5-year-old would be fine, and in 10 years the kindergarten search would turn into a college search. That’s where I am. What a huge, monumental leap our teen son and my family will be taking in just a few years.

Library Modernization Just a Summer Away

Interior library
'We are fielding a lot of questions these days about our upcoming Building Modernization Project. The planning stage of the project is nearing completion and we still anticipate a start date for construction around Sept. 1...'
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