Editorial

The following snippets of history are drawn from the pages of the Healdsburg Tribune, the Healdsburg Enterprise and the Sotoyome Scimitar, and are prepared by the volunteers at the Healdsburg Museum & Historical Society. Admission is always free at the museum, open Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

There’s no use putting this off any longer; now is as good a time as any to tackle one of the most controversial topics of all. No, we’re not talking about capital punishment or global climate change; we’re talking about pie making.

Ollie, Ollie came back to me

April was Sexual Assault Awareness Month and in Sonoma County the topic was front page news for all the wrong reasons. Various local government agencies adopted resolutions affirming their support for survivors and increased awareness. But the positive proclamations were blunted by breaking news where the current town of Windsor mayor and a recent Sebastopol mayor were accused of multiple sexual assaults. One was arrested and booked into jail and the other incident has torn the town of Windsor into bitter and upsetting divides. Hundreds of past sexual assault victims have had to relive their horrors and pains through days other communities might have been celebrating positive educational and awareness programs and events.

Summer greetings from your community library staff. We have truly cherished seeing so many of you the last few weeks as we have reopened slowly but surely. You have our apologies about the various changes in hours — I know it has been important for the libraries to be careful with rolling out the hours to keep everything consistent across the county and take incremental steps so that we don’t have to roll anything back.

The Butterfly Whisperer

As the public school district serving the Healdsburg community, we are committed to continuous improvement and innovation to better meet the needs of all of our students. In this spirit, we are excited to announce the combining of two effective instructional models in Healdsburg Elementary School.

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.

Editorial response