Our overlapping droughts
It’s official: Sonoma County is now suffering through multiple droughts, all at the same time. Some are related to one another and some are not. Some are being worsened by the coronavirus pandemic and its related economic impacts. One of the droughts we can mostly blame on Mother Nature, but the others are totally on us.
Shots full of facts
Facts matter, but only when enough people accept and believe them. Reader comments to last week’s editorial in this space offered much disheartening proof to this. Our “disturbing picture” satire that proffered that the 2020 Presidential Election was fraudulent and Biden’s victory was illegitimate was celebrated by some as bold fact telling, mistaking mockery for concession.
Introducing SoCoNews
Last week’s biggest local news was about the local news. That would be us. Maybe you caught the big change, or maybe you didn’t. Let us explain further. Last week we transformed ourselves into SoCoNews and launched a great new website, unfurled a new news flag and launched a new identity. We are SoCoNews, which is short for Sonoma County Local New Initiative, our new community-based nonprofit owner. It’s more than a name change, even though our local news mission stays the same and all the people here are still on board and continuing to work harder than ever.
Misleading claims about cannabis
There are several misleading claims in Ron Ferraro’s April 28 op-ed, Cultivating Cannabis in Sonoma County. The public hearing process is not normally a three to five year process. If the county and the industry had not brazenly decided on cannabis regulations without listening to or responding to neighborhood concerns, cannabis applications would have moved much more quickly through the system.
