Editorial

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.

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.

Palm Drive dissolution

Most of the time journalists go around looking for trouble. Lately, we haven’t had to look very hard. Our reporting has focused on the viral pandemic, the wildfires, the drought, climate change, civil unrest, constitutional insurrection and attacks of  “fake news” against our very being and profession. It’s never been more challenging to seek out troubles and alert our public about problems that need solutions. We watchdog our government leaders to uphold our public trust, our laws and our democracy. We sit through endless school board meetings and local government sessions looking for anything that might smell fishy. We count on you, our readers, to act on your civic duties as voters, taxpayers and independent voices. We can’t force you to read our news or speak up, but we will never tire of imploring you to raise your voices to power and to defend our fragile democracy.

Editor:

Remember when one of our biggest arguments was over “paper or plastic” when we went grocery shopping? Turns out, we were all wrong. Now it’s canvas or bring your own recyclable bag. New mothers used to be torn over whether to breastfeed their babies or use infant formula from purified cow’s milk, vegetable oil or soy. Many people once viewed breastfeeding as “unnatural.”

Voters can’t let the hospital close