Columns

Summer greetings from your community library staff. We have truly cherished seeing so many of you the last few weeks as we have reopened slowly but surely. You have our apologies about the various changes in hours — I know it has been important for the libraries to be careful with rolling out the hours to keep everything consistent across the county and take incremental steps so that we don’t have to roll anything back.

Suspending flow for fish

Sonoma County may be a land of bounty and beauty, wine and luxury, but it is also a place of wild extremes. Most of the time we shield ourselves from these extremes with our modern appliances, Golden State infrastructure and accumulated wealth. But lately, our extremes have become so extreme that we not only can’t ignore them, but we are now struggling to endure them.

A message to the Healdsburg community from Mayor Evelyn Mitchell

On average, each Californian uses about 85 gallons of water every day, but it depends on the season. In winter months, it’s as low as 60 gallons per day and in summer months, it’s as high as 110 gallons per day. That’s between 12 and 22 of those 5‑gallon water cooler jugs, every day for every person. About a quarter of that water literally gets flushed down the toilet. More than half comes from faucets, showers and appliances.

Last week’s biggest local news was about the local news. That would be us. Maybe you caught the big change, or maybe you didn’t. Let us explain further. Last week we transformed ourselves into SoCoNews and launched a great new website, unfurled a new news flag and launched a new identity. We are SoCoNews, which is short for Sonoma County Local New Initiative, our new community-based nonprofit owner. It’s more than a name change, even though our local news mission stays the same and all the people here are still on board and continuing to work harder than ever.

Are you a farmers market shopper? I’m guessing many of you reading this are regulars, but maybe some of you are a “when friends or family are in town” kind of attendee and some have never been. If you do shop at the market, when did you first discover it and when did you decide that farmers markets were a viable and desirable shopping option?

Thank you, Burke

Hello, Healdsburg. The start of summer means long, light-filled days, family vacations and hot weather. It also heralds the advent of another wildfire season and with the current drought situation, it’s even more dry than usual. Here’s what we’re doing to help our community — and here’s what you can do — to prepare for disasters such as wildfires.

The following snippets of history are drawn from the pages of the Healdsburg Tribune, the Healdsburg Enterprise and the Sotoyome Scimitar, and are prepared by the volunteers at the Healdsburg Museum & Historical Society. Admission is always free at the museum, open Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.