Editorial

Newspapers and journalists have many jobs. Gathering the news, covering public meetings, publicizing community events, helping to find lost dogs and defending  the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment are just some of them.

As members of the Fitch Mountain Association we recently received two emails from the association’s current secretary Ellen Silge regarding the recent tree and brush removal along North and South Fitch Mountain Road. She refers to the work as a “Roadside Slaughter.” She continues that Laura Tietz of Fire Free Fitch “is close to learning the identity of the PG&E person responsible” and “turning the inmate crew loose on Fitch Mt. Road.” Silge also said that “She (Tietz) has a meeting tomorrow (2/23) in Mike McGuire’s office with county officials who are interested in making the roads on the mountain safer and she’ll bring up this problem, as well as following through with PG&E executives and Cal-Fire. Silge finishes with a request from any property owner who feels that they suffered property damage caused by “the slaughter in progress or aftermath images.”

Where the government is ³of the people, by the people and for

Two years ago, I was elected to a third term on the Healdsburg City Council by 2,276 citizens. Housing was certainly one of the most critical concerns of our citizenry. Given my educational and professional background, I was confident that I had much to offer in an effort to develop some solutions.

Thousands of people visited last weekend’s Steelhead Festival at Warm Springs Dam and Lake Sonoma. The people outnumbered the fish — and that has been our problem in the Russian River watershed for the last 60 years. The epic winter runs of spawning steelhead that once numbered over 50,000 are now down to a very few thousand, if that many.

Throughout the United States the week starting on the third Monday of September is recognized as National Pollution Prevention Week. Pollution prevention is reducing or eliminating waste at the source by modifying production processes, promoting the use of non-toxic or less-toxic substances, implementing conservation techniques, and re-using materials rather than putting them into the waste stream.