Editorial

100 years ago this week: With many residents of this city and its outlying valleys and many visitors from other parts of the county present, a new subordinate grange was organized in Healdsburg Monday night. The organization meeting was held in Red Men’s Hall, 43 persons having signed as charter members. The charter is to be kept open until next Saturday, when a meeting will be held for the purpose of closing it.

Sonoma County and its residents have become victims of too many cumulative impacts. We have backroads with too many wineries and valleys with not enough water. We’ve had tons of illegal cannabis for decades and are now fighting to figure out how to make it legal and grow it in the right places. Farmers need lawyers and land use consultants just to plant a crop or plow a hillside. We’ve had a generation-long debate about preserving our rural character but we can’t even agree on what the term exactly means.

History has proven that recall elections are one of the worst facets of our representative democracy. They are almost always misdirected, often full of vengeful emotions, very costly, and, almost always ineffective. It may be a very good thing that most recall election attempts never make it to a ballot. California has had 179 attempted recall elections in the last 100 years. Only 11 have qualified for a ballot and, of those, only six have been successful, the last one notably in 2003 when Gray Davis was recalled from his governor’s post.

The Sonoma County Supervisors are considering an update to the county cannabis cultivation ordinance. It would allow for ministerial permits for cultivation through the agricultural commissioner, if one qualifies, instead of a 3-5-year public hearing process. Staff has come up with very restrictive policy, and documented no significant environmental impacts due to the limited amount of potential available acreage.