Results will be made public Wednesday of an official ongoing study of local health, well-being and quality of life in Sonoma County. The Portrait of Sonoma County 2021 assembles and analyzes local quality of life and opportunity, through the United Nation's 'Human Development Index.' For a peek into the findings, which will be used in efforts to ease inequality, KRCB spoke with Alegria De La Cruz, director of the Sonoma County Office of Equity. Reporter Marc Albert began by asking if inequalities identified in an earlier 2014 report have generally improved or worsened: That was Alegria De La Cruz, head of Sonoma County's Office of Equity. An online launch of the report will start Wednesday… read more

Going to your designated polling place every election is now officially a thing of the past. A state law called the Voters Choice Act has permanently changed elections in California. While the coronavirus pandemic prompted more vote by mail. All future elections will involve mail ballots or what are called vote centers. "We'll have fewer locations, but they'll be open for longer periods of time," said Deva Maria Proto, Sonoma County's top election official. "Voters in Sonoma County can go to any of the vote centers and get their ballot printed out. In the past with polling places, you had to go to your assigned polling place to get your ballot, and so now it's going to be the place that's… read more

After rocketing to a prodigious start, the rainy season seems to have fizzled out. Forecasters say there is still time for things to turn around. For all the doom and gloom prompted by clear skies, Matt Mehle a National Weather Service Forecaster, says a lull in the rains isn't unusual. "It's not uncommon for us to see a mid-winter dry spell, that actually is very common for the Bay Area. January tends to have that dry spell." Persistent high pressure and a weather phenomenon more common in the summer have acted as goalies over the last several weeks, shunting incoming storms far to our north, Mehle said. "We did have a 'Rex block,' basically acting like an atmospheric traffic jam for the… read more

Sonoma County Democrats have made an endorsement in the upcoming county sheriff election. The organization has endorsed former Healdsburg police chief Kevin Burke in the now four way race set for June. Attorney John Kelly is with the Sonoma County Democrats. He said Burke greatly impressed the group's endorsement committee. "Kevin Burke, from the beginning of his interview had the entire room listening with rapt attention to every thing he said. As the chair of our party said, 'Kevin had her at hello.' He identified repeatedly, places in the Democratic Party platform that were concurrent with his values, he gave concrete examples of how he implemented those. He walked through the history of… read more

Because educators and district officials in Rohnert Park, Cotati and Penngrove can’t come to an agreement over salaries, they are heading into a mediation session this week. Called a fact-finding hearing, both sides will present their final offers along with supporting data and arguments. But members of the Rohnert Park Cotati Educators Association, or RPCEA, say they aren’t even sure the district’s superintendent or school board members will even attend. On Tuesday, RPCEA members–teachers, nurses, librarians, counselors and speech and language therapists–picketed in Rohnert Park and showed up in force at a school board meeting, asking that the district agree to a new contract, one that… read more

Beds are scarce at local hospitals and ambulance response times are rising as Sonoma County strains under a cresting Omicron tide. Those were among the main takeaways from an online county town hall meeting Tuesday. Gary Green is an infectious disease physician with Sutter in Santa Rosa, who spoke on the tele-conference. "The vast majority of patients, 99 percent of the patients admitted to our hospital are unvaccinated. It's a dangerous time to not be vaccinated." County Health Officer Sundari Mase says the sharp uptick is having more seek medical care, as infections among hospital staff mean longer waits for care. "Our new case rates are reaching levels not experienced in the two years of… read more

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has announced a settlement with Navient, one of the nation's largest student loan companies. Bonta says Navient steered borrowers into costly repayment plans and predatory loans. "As a former student loan borrower myself, I know what it feels like to write painful triple digit or even quadruple digit checks every month," Bonta said. "But that tough feeling pales in comparison to what Navient's exploited borrowers felt when they were trapped by poor servicing conduct and into expensive loans that they couldn't afford." Bonta says the settlement includes $11.5 million dollars in direct restitution for 43,000 California residents and about $261 million… read more

A tsunami advisory went into effect this morning for the entire California coast, including the San Francisco Bay and Sonoma Coast. An undersea volcano in the Tongan islands erupted shortly before 8:30 PM PST last night, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The Advisory was issued at 7:28 AM this morning by the National Tsunami Warning Center. Wave surges of one to three feet are expected to impact the San Francisco Bay starting around 8:10 AM. The National Weather Service says tsunami waves will arrive in pulses throughout the day. Avoid venturing onto the immediate coastline today as waves can unexpectedly rise far up onto the beach. Dangerous currents, riptides and sneaker waves are… read more

What's in a name? That which we call a school by another name...can turn sour. Hundreds of students poured from the doors of a Sebastopol high school Friday, ending school after third period. It wasn't about COVID or any national issue--but the school's on-again, off-again, on-again name change. Chanting, students marched to key intersections. At Gravenstein and Bodega highways, senior Hannah Berkheimer revved the crowd with a bullhorn. "You are walking out of class today because you are angry! You are walking out of class today because you don't want your history at West County to be erased, because there are no more Analy High and El Molino students, only West County students. This is… read more

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday Celebration Committee is holding its forty-first celebration honoring the legacy of Dr. King with a virtual community-wide event. This year acknowledges the King family’s admonition to remember the deepest meaning of his lifelong work – to not just celebrate his birthday and “dream” of a more just future, but to build and sustain his vision of equity and to secure everyone’s right to vote. The event takes place this Sunday, January 16th, from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm on Zoom & Facebook. read more

This morning at 11 am, people will be rallying in Los Angeles to save their jobs, their livelihoods and their very industry, they say. Others will join a socially distanced crowd in front of the San Francisco headquarters of state utility regulators to oppose moves that many say are a bald-face money grab by PG&E. One that will sabotage the state’s green future. Imagine I plant and tend a kitchen vegetable garden. It regularly feeds my family and if I have a bountiful harvest, I can give away or even sell all those extra zucchini or tomatoes. But does my growing my own vegetables increase the cost that you pay for zucchini and tomatoes at the grocery store? Most would say, no way, there’s… read more

Just after 5 pm Monday, Sonoma County's public health officials sent out an urgent appeal for residents to voluntarily stay home, and they banned any large gatherings until mid-February. The appeal is for all Sonoma County residents to stay home as much as possible for the next 30 days. While the new notice is not a stay-at-home order like in the early days of the pandemic, health officials are recommending that people limit travel outside the home to just going to work or to school and making only necessary trips such as going to the grocery store or the doctor. The county said due to the rapid rise of COVID cases surging through the community, Sonoma County Health Officer Dr. Sundari Mase… read more

Despite a current hold on most court business for public health reasons, the criminal trial of a former Sonoma County sheriff's deputy proceeded Monday because it was already underway. Jurors and alternates sat motionless, but seemingly riveted, as the last minutes of David Ward's life, captured on jerky body camera footage, played out on a monitor for the jury. Shouted commands, expletives, and staccato lights from cruisers puncture the early morning of Nov. 27 2019 in the rural enclave of Bloomfield, where Ward's life ended, just blocks from his home. In his opening statement, defense attorney Harry Stern said former deputy Charles Blount "seized the initiative," during the incident and… read more

PG&E will likely be the first utility to access California’s wildfire liability fund, after the company’s equipment started the massive Dixie Fire. In 2019, California had a utility crisis. The state’s biggest electricity providers were causing increasingly deadly and costly wildfires. PG&E had already declared bankruptcy as a result. It was one of Governor Gavin Newsom’s first big tests in office. “This is a serious moment," Newsom said at the time. "And as I’ve said, I’ll remind you, it’s not just about turning on your lights, it’s not just about paying your electric bills. It’s literally about the economy of this state.” The governor and lawmakers had only a few months to figure it out.… read more

Vigils commemorating last year's attack on the US Capitol Building were held Thursday in Sonoma and Santa Rosa, two of hundreds of events across the nation. KRCB's Marc Albert spoke to several of the roughly 75 people gathered in Courthouse Square... here's a sampling of their comments.... read more

After testimony from about two dozen cannabis growers, Sonoma County officials appeared close to offering some tax relief, ahead of an overhaul of cannabis regulations likely more than a year away. That relief, likely in the form of postponing taxes due for 90 days, is expected to return for consideration on January 25. On Jan. 5, the county board of supervisors heard tales of financial hardship. Growers lament that cratering wholesale prices, and high taxes and fees, are crushing them. Andrew Douglas Gardner was among them. "The cost of processing, the cost of the square footage tax put my cost of cannabis to be a little over $320 just to get the cannabis processed and to pay the… read more

A new report analyzing millions of traffic stops across California found that Black people were disproportionately stopped and searched by police. The annual report on police stops highlighted five major California cities. Out of nearly 3 million reported vehicle and pedestrian stops, Black people were twice as likely to be searched than white people. Police were also nearly three times as likely to use force on Black people rather than white people. Steven Raphael is co-chair of the Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board, which released the study. "The disparities are more narrow when you look at more precise measures that are suggestive of policy that has bias," Raphael said. "This… read more

Nighttime temperatures are warming up after dipping as low as 30 in Sonoma County on Saturday night. Last week, we heard from the group Homeless Action Sonoma County, and their concerns about how the county government, in their view, wasn't doing enough to help homeless individuals, particularly during nights of freezing temperatures across the county. KRCB News then spoke with county officials to ask them about those concerns. We started by asking...in the past, the county has demonstrated it can quickly mobilize emergency shelter for hundreds during times of disaster. Why can't it do the same to shelter the county's more than 2000 homeless individuals during times of frost? “We have done… read more

With overnight temperatures dipping near freezing amidst soggy weather stretching more than a week, advocates for the homeless are demanding immediate help. Kathleen Finigan is a volunteer spokeswoman for the group Homeless Action of Sonoma County. "This is a moral crisis as well as a health crisis. Every year, I and other members of Homeless Action have gone to our mayors, in August, saying, 'OK, here we are again, looking at winter. What are you going to do to help people,?' And nothing changes. Nothing happens." Finigan said. According to Finigan, two unhoused Guerneville residents died last week, at least one due to exposure. She accuses county officials of taking credit for 53 new… read more

Aside from the topline figure, and that it was signed into law, few details have emerged about President Biden's infrastructure bill, approved in early November. Local transportation officials say some of the money, distributed via complex mathematical formulas, is already on the way. Other money, for thousands of small local jobs, will be noticed by anyone going anywhere, according to John Goodwin, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the regional agency that distributes most federal and state transit funding in the Bay Area. "That's a really exciting development," Goodwin said, "even if its not super sexy, in terms of a big new project. This is the bread and butter… read more

With recent rains, water levels at local reservoirs are on their way back from near oblivion. In two months, the amount of water in Lake Mendocino has tripled. While the lake is one of the region's major sources of drinking water, don't get too impressed, it was close to empty toward the end of October. The amount of water behind the Warm Springs Dam at Lake Sonoma is also on the rise. That reservoir has risen by a third since the rainy season got off to an early start with an unprecedented October deluge. The two dams now hold close to fifty seven thousand, six hundred (57,586) more acre-feet of water than they did two months ago. That's enough to meet most of the county's household needs… read more

Sonoma, Marin, San Francisco and Alameda county officials announced Wednesday they will no longer allow indoor mask mandate exceptions for small settings like college and fitness classes in which everyone is fully vaccinated. The four counties -- along with the city of Berkeley, which operates its own public health department -- said that their local indoor mask requirements will no longer have exceptions as of 12:01 a.m. Thursday. "Everyone, regardless of vaccination status, must wear a mask in all indoor public settings," said Ted Appel, a Sonoma County spokesperson. Health officials in the five jurisdictions cited rising local case counts and the emergence of the highly contagious… read more

2021 has been a year of milestones for California, and the state just crossed another: 5 million COVID-19 cases. On June 15, Governor Gavin Newsom stood atop a stage at Universal Studios in Hollywood; the day marked California’s economic reopening after more than a year of pandemic restrictions. “We’re not just coming back, we’re gonna come back more focused on inclusion, more focused on equity, and we’re gonna come back roaring back," Newsom said at the time. But the number of COVID-19 cases has only increased, despite expanded access to vaccines and booster shots. On June 15th, the state’s 7-day case average was 880. As of this week, it’s well over 15,000. The number of cases statewide is… read more

With Christmas behind us and the holiday season drawing to a close, you may wonder how to properly dispose of your fresh-cut tree. If you have weekly residential garbage service, you can place your tree curbside the night before your regularly scheduled pick-up day. Those in Cloverdale, Healdsburg, Petaluma or Santa Rosa, that’s the week of December 27. In Cotati, Rohnert Park and unincorporated Sonoma County, that’s on the week of January 3. Trees over six feet should be cut in half. If your tree will fit, you can also cut it up and put it in your compost or yard waste bin for collection. There are also a variety of tree drop-off locations around the county and in many cities (see photo).… read more