Readers are welcome to send letters of 300 words or less to to [email protected].

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 Council completely sold out to the hotels and downtown businesses?

Tim McGraw
Fitch Street

Candidate’s Jobs

I enjoyed your article (Jan. 25, “Assembly Candidate Faces Revolt Among Party Delegates”) about the challenges to Rusty Hicks—that he is both party head and running for an Assembly position, two things that presumably are full-time. But the article didn’t mention that he has a third job—according to the flier that came in today’s mail, he is “an Associate Professor at College of the Redwoods—teach[ing] incarcerated students at Pelican Bay State Prison.”

So, puzzles here: How long has he had this (full-time?) job while also being party head? Is he on leave of absence now that he’s running for office? And is he really an “Associate Professor”—a title normally used for a faculty member who has earned tenure, or is he a member of the Associate Faculty?  (As far as I can tell, his academic credentials are that he has an undergraduate degree and a law degree; that’s normally good enough only to be an adjunct professor, which is a non-tenure-track position, and a different title, of course.)

Maybe there isn’t anything here, but if there is, hopefully it won’t take a lot of effort to find out.

A Windsor Resident

Response from College of the Redwoods:

I can confirm that Rusty is an Associate Professor/Faculty member at College of the Redwoods (CR). Associate Professors/Faculty, sometimes referred to as adjunct faculty, are faculty who are not full-time employees. They are not eligible for tenure; that is reserved for full-time faculty.  

Rusty has been teaching Political Science to incarcerated students at Pelican Bay State Prison through our Pelican Bay Scholars program since January of 2023.

Rory Johnson
College of the Redwoods
Dean, Del Norte Education Center & Pelican Bay Scholars Program

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