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Growing unease about a wave of vineyard projects that call for clear-cutting forested hillsides has Sonoma County officials calling for an emergency halt until new regulations are crafted. Sonoma County Agricultural Commissioner Tony Linegar has proposed a four-month moratorium on vineyard projects that would remove trees from ridge tops or slopes greater than 15 percent.
Mitt Romney’s income tax return, showing an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent, doesn’t exactly bolster Republican arguments that taxes are sky high. But it may not boost Democratic bids to raise income tax rates, either.
What you're saying | 18 commentsSo did Sonoma County meet its earnings goal its first year after issuing $289 million in pension obligation bonds? It wasn’t even close. According to records recently posted by SCERA, the association achieved a return for 2011 of 1 percent, missing its mark by 6.75 percent.
What you're saying | 24 comments
The Petaluma City Council decision to spend about $10,000 trying to prevent an asphalt plant from opening on its outskirts commits it to a legal battle that may cost many times that, although it won’t bear the cost alone.
A former city councilman and longtime critic of Petaluma government is suing the city over what he claims is the misappropriation of millions of dollars in sewage treatment fees. Bryant Moynihan long has challenged how the city uses the money it collects from water and wastewater ratepayers, claiming it has been used to cover mismanagement of the city budget and to augment overspending in the general fund.
Facing a Friday deadline to turn in petitions, opponents of a Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit train are still not sure if they will be able to force an election to repeal the SMART sales tax. RepealSmart organizers think they have collected close to 15,000 signatures, but the threshold they must clear is disputed.
Santa Rosa City Schools took a first step Wednesday toward putting a tax measure before voters in November. While stopping short of agreeing to pay for a consultant to poll voters, the school board asked for more information on how a survey would be conducted and how to proceed with defining what the district would do with more money from a bond measure or parcel tax.
Windsor’s train station doesn’t have passenger rail service yet, but it’s already dictating how the town will grow over the next 20 to 25 years. Town planners have come up with a blueprint for development in a half-mile radius around the station, which is considered integral to a transit-oriented future in which people live and work within walking distance of trains and buses.
Environmentalists scrambled Wednesday to determine if President Obama’s reference to offshore oil drilling in his State of the Union speech posed a new prospect for oil rigs along the North Coast. Activists said the reference underscores the need to achieve permanent protection from oil and gas drilling for the rugged coast.
Should Doyle Park Elementary School be closed and replaced with a French charter school? Some teachers and parents expressed concern that the school, which serves a large number of Spanish-speaking students, will be replaced by a French school with predominantly white and affluent students.
Facing $8.3 million in potential cuts in the upcoming school year, Santa Rosa City Schools officials are considering putting a tax measure before voters in November. “We are at a point of almost desperation,” school board member Tad Wakefield said. Would you pay more to fund local schools?
President Barack Obama outlined his plan to invigorate the economy Tuesday in a State of the Union speech. Some Sonoma County residents who watched it said it was inspirational. Others said it was filled with election-year promises that may not come to fruition. What’s your take? Would you vote to re-elect him in November?
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