Editorial

Recent revelations about past financial mistakes inside Healdsburg District Hospital should not be taken as any reason for patients, doctors and community partners to withhold support or question its medical excellence. A business turnaround looks to be in place and elected leaders of the North Sonoma County Healthcare District last week expressed their vote of confidence in a new management team, now completing its first full year on the job.

The news this week is good. Sonoma County was just rated the eighth healthiest county in California, based on findings in a national survey of 3,000 counties. Good health is always good news.

The big mystery about the exciting new Russian River riparian setback rules is whether anyone really has a clue how they’ll work.

Last August, I was called to help a man with his dying wishes.  He had three.  The first was to go to Zen Hospice in San Francisco for his final days.  The second was that a Tibetan Llama accompany him with prayers and chanting for the last part of his journey, and the third was for medical cannabis so that he could reduce his reliance on prescribed opiates and die with a “clear mind.”

The Russian River Watershed Association through its member agencies strives to inform community members about our watershed. This series of articles serves as a tool to educate the community in ways to promote and maintain healthy watersheds.

I was glad to see my friend and colleague George Snyder go out in style last week. His memorial in Occidental last Saturday drew a mob of his friends and family who packed St. Philip the Apostle Church as everyone knew they would.

The future of farming will be on parade next week during the

Plenty of us like to blame the government for all sorts of

We weren’t at the Dallas Black Lives Matter march last week where a rogue sniper killed five police officers. We were home with our families, maybe sharing conversations with our neighbors after another work day. We were with our kind.

Despite recent rains, the cumulative average rainfall for the water year to date (July 1, 2013 – March 9, 2014) is still well below average. The Santa Rosa basin currently, as of March 14, has 14.1” compared to an average of 25.2”. The Ukiah basin has 11.45” compared to the average of 30”. While the drought status in much of the county was updated from “extreme” to “severe,” water storage levels in Lake Mendocino and Lake Sonoma continue to be well below average. Lake Mendocino’s water supply storage capacity was at 50 percent and Lake Sonoma’s water supply capacity was at 73 percent (as of March 14).