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Healdsburg
April 13, 2026

‘Factory Farms’ Measure on the Ballot: Yea or Nay?

Guard dog and chickens
Measure J, the initiative on the November ballot to shut down a number of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations  (CAFOs) or “factory farms” in Sonoma County, has encountered widespread opposition among public governing bodies, most recently including the Healdsburg City Council...

Veterans bring out their best

Alice Beck Darrow, 106 years old, holds aloft a silver bullet.
More than 100 people with military service during wartime and peace gathered at the Villa Chanticleer Annex for the 17th annual Veterans Day breakfast,. These were the men and women one sees around Healdsburg working in local businesses, shopping at the markets, helping out with civic events and, in general and in private, making Healdsburg a better place.

Council Opens Window to Park Sponsorships

What will become the largest public park in Healdsburg is moving closer to reality, but there remain two key issues that stand between the present and the ribbon cutting: who’s going to pick up the tab, and what it’s going to be called. Possibly with...

Fairy Doors Open into Imaginary Spaces

Fairy door in Healdsburg
Walk through the town of Healdsburg on any given day and one will often find a family or a group of children running around trying to find as many doors as possible. The doors spark imaginations—who doesn’t want to know where the fairies reside when they are not working?

Riverkeeper Head Recalls Local Icon, Activist Marty Griffin

Two men with paddle
Environmental pioneer and Westside Road winemaker Dr. Martin Griffin died this week at his home in Belvedere, Marin County. He was 103 years old. One of his proteges, Don McEnhill of Russian Riverkeeper, tells of the impact Griffin had on his life.

Valorizing Valette for its Wine

When one thinks of celebrations at The Matheson in downtown Healdsburg (the town’s de facto club room), one usually goes straight to the top, literally the top-floor Roof 106 brasserie and bar where all manner of shindigs have occurred over the years. However, this year’s release of Valette Wines, which shares a proprietor with The Matheson, was a decidedly ground-floor affair.

SingleThread Leases Former Film Center

Even as the new three-screen Plaza Cinema Center gained approval for a downtown Healdsburg location, the fate of the former Raven Film Center has remained uncertain, a 15,000-square foot question mark at the south end of the Mitchell Plaza shopping center. It now appears that...

Greyhounds Grapple with Bigger Schools

Rodrigo Madrigal grapples with his Cardinal Newman
Weight classes have a meaning, and a strategy, although judges today are pretty strict in their weight calls. The technology of measuring weights is so sophisticated these days, there are few if any ways to “nudge” the scale. “So if you go to a competition and you step on a scale, and you are a 10th of a pound over, you are disqualified” in the weight class, Scott Weidemier said. “There’s no leeway. They’re all digital scales these days, that are certified every year.”

Greyhounds Hand Vikings Back-to-Back Loses

Healdsburg runner sliding home
Hopes are always high at the beginning of a baseball season, and when they are rewarded by a five-game winning streak midway through league play, hopes can soar. That’s the position the Healdsburg High varsity baseball team is in this week, having won 5 in a row and looking for more...

The Ruse approved for abuse rehab

Front door of The Ruse on Grove Street
After two hours of discussion on Sep. 23, the commission voted 5-1 to approve the conditional use permit for the property as a “luxurious 13 bed Substance Use Disorder Facility,” to be renamed The Ruse Treatment...
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Arts & Entertainment

North Mississipi Allstars

Blues from the Hill Country 

“Modern Mississippi music.” If you ask singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Luther Dickinson to define what the North Mississippi Allstars (NMA) create, that’s the answer he’ll give. It’s the path he and his brother Cody have been traveling down ever since NMA dropped their 2000 debut, Shake Hands with Shorty, and one the band members will share when they hit the LBC stage on May 9.
Kelly and Noah Dorrance

Roots in the community

Actors pretending to drive

On the road again