Tasting Room Tipping Point?
A relatively modest proposal to build a 1,220-square-foot, 45-person tasting room inside an existing warehouse in downtown Healdsburg has ignited a familiar debate among residents about the town’s core character.
This would be the 28th wine-tasting room in Healdsburg, city planning officials said at a...
The City in Colors: Building Coalitions, Drawing Districts
As of Jan. 13, the DistrictR tool was live and functional, and anyone can draw up a city map of four, five or six districts, with the five-district model the only option for a rotating mayor, as Healdsburg has at present. Various tools are located in the upper right corner, as is common in such applications—a hand tool to move the map, a pen tool to select a district and color it, an eraser tool to fall back on. Residents have another three weeks to work with the mapping tool....
Winter Sports Hit the Courts and the Pitch
The winter prep sports season gets underway just as the “atmospheric rivers” hit Northern California, forcing most athletes indoors—unless their chosen sport is soccer.
Wrestling Gym to be Rechristened for Drew Esquivel
In what Superintendent Chris Vanden Heuvel openly said was a first, the Healdsburg Unified District School Board’s trustees voted to give a newly remodeled gym a new name: Drew Esquivel Hall, in honor of the late 2013 graduate.
Downtown Hotel Given New Life by City Staff Review
The controversy surrounding Healdsburg’s downtown hotel ordinance, which restricted new construction to five rooms per block face and was passed late in 2018 by a 4-1 vote of the City Council, took a new and for many unwelcome turn last week.
On Thursday, Sept. 7,...
Fall Sports Find Their Rhythm
The Healdsburg High School fall sports calendar is filling up with games, matches and sets in five sports—boys football, co-ed cross country, and girls golf, tennis and volleyball.
Football
The first football game on Sept. 1 found the Hounds on the short end of a 56-27...
Harvest: A taste shared between coasts
Oysters were a growth process for me. I’ve never been much for foods that require time to “learn to enjoy,” but summer parties on Nantucket often include bountiful trays of oysters and chilled shrimp, and nothing else. And if the evening stretches into a string of gatherings, there is often little else to eat. One night a friend laughed and said, “You’re really missing out on something delicious.”
Healdsburg Happenings, Nov. 27 – Dec. 5
Healdsburg's annual Turkey Trot got underway on schedule Thursday morning at 8am, as competitors raced though town for the Drew Esquivel Scholarship fund. The 2025 winners were Vincent Friesen (Castro Valley), Antony Cortes (Petaluma) and Kaeden Anderson (Healdsburg); top women's finisher was Rebecca Wheeler (8th place, San Francisco).
Where the Sidewalk Ends, the Farmers’ Market Begins
'There’s a magic hour on Saturday mornings when the sun hasn’t quite burned through the morning mist and the scent of basil floats on the breeze. It’s in that moment—coffee in one hand, tote bag in the other—that Healdsburg wakes up..." Meet our new columnist, Liza Gershman.
NCS tourneys extend season for Greyhounds
With this season’s NBL play now passed, both the boys baseball and girls softball teams look forward to the North Coast Section tournament of the top 16 teams in each division. The girls play in Division 5, the boys in Division 4.
Arts & Entertainment
Rising star in the kitchen
Melissa Yanc’s culinary path began at her grandmother’s side, learning her way around a kitchen since childhood. Over 16 years in the hospitality industry, she honed her craft through pastry school before opening her first bakery in Denver at the young age of 23.






















