Wine, weed, water and us
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.
Water conservation, car washes and water waste
Summer is upon us. We have completed our spring cleanup around the yard, made sure no standing water is present on our properties attracting mosquitos and set up our outdoor furniture. Summer also marks an important time of the year for water conservation. By using water wisely in the summer, it helps preserve our healthy watershed for the remainder of the year. Even though we received a lot of rainfall this winter, it is important to minimize water waste throughout our community.
Recalls past and present
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.
Partisanships; we have them
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.”
