June 25th, 2008 10:55am
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About John McCain’s visit to Santa Barbara on Tuesday, the Los Angeles Times reported: “. . . in this coastal city, the site of a disastrous oil spill in 1969, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was dogged by critics at nearly every turn for his recent embrace of offshore drilling.”
No surprise there. Californians made clear long ago that they don’t want more oil wells intruding on their ocean views.
Some critics …
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June 24th, 2008 11:16am
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Early on, Republican presidential nominee John McCain claimed he would compete for California’s Electoral College votes in the fall. But now we have to wonder if he was just talking. His embrace of offshore oil drilling as a solution to the nation’s energy woes may play in Peoria, but in Penngrove and Petaluma? Not so much.
Even McCain’s most prominent California supporter, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, took the time last week to …
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June 23rd, 2008 11:27am
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In a county that faces a shortage of physicians, here’s good news: four of the eight winners of this year’s Hispanic Chamber of Commerce scholarships are making plans to become physicians.
We attended the annual scholarship dinner on Saturday night and heard Dr. Ofelia R. Arellano, Dean of Instruction at the Petaluma Campus of Santa Rosa Junior College, deliver the keynote address. She warned of a “silent epidemic” in which …
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June 22nd, 2008 12:19pm
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Today’s column – available here – notes that Californians don’t lack for opinions about Proposition 13. Some think it saved them from being driven from their homes by high property taxes. Others think it eroded public services and undercut local government, transferring power to state politicians more adept at fundraising than solving problems.
Thirty years later, what do you think California should do about Proposition 13? Honor it? Abolish it? Change …
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June 19th, 2008 09:41am
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He was honorable and optimistic, enthusiastic and tireless – the mayor who attended the city’s Cinco de Mayo celebration on the day before a fatal illness forced him to take a leave of absence.
He was the politician who never held a grudge, the mentor who never stopped encouraging young people, the consensus builder who never failed to respect people with a different point of view.
And he loved his …
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June 10th, 2008 10:59am
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If you wonder why state politicians are hopelessly indecisive – and gridlocked – the newest Field Poll provides guidance. The survey finds most Californians want to balance the state budget by cutting spending, but the same folks can’t say where they would cut the budget. They only know they oppose cuts for for education, health care, law enforcement, higher education, mental health and other major programs.
In other words, Californians want …
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June 4th, 2008 10:16am
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Here’s what we know about the November election: Unlike Tuesday’s Primary, the turnout will be HUGE as voters rush to cast ballots for the next president of the United States.
And local budget woes will be center stage because later this summer the governor and the state Legislature will unload the state’s chronic budget problems on to cities and counties.
This means six candidates in the runoffs for three seats on the …
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June 4th, 2008 01:08am
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Among the candidates for county supervisor, only Valerie Brown could hope to win a majority of the votes and avoid a run-off in November. But the first returns from the First District suggest she may be disappointed. They show the incumbent Brown running far ahead of her rivals in the Sonoma Valley, but five percentage points short of the majority she needs.
If she can’t make up the difference in …
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June 3rd, 2008 10:00pm
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Last March, at a political rally in San Antonio, Texas, we stood near an African-American woman. She was holding up her young son so that he could see the person who could become the first African-American president of the United States, Barack Obama.
I thought about that woman and her son as the news networks declared Obama to be the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party. What is that mother …
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June 3rd, 2008 07:39pm
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So, at the 11th hour, you’ve decided you want to be a good citizen.
It could happen.
But you threw away the sample ballot that tells you where to vote.
No problem. The Sonoma County election department Web site – here – will tell you where to go. I mean, it will tell you where your polling place is located.
Don’t worry about long lines. I just voted, and, …
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Pete Golis is a columnist for The Press Democrat and a longtime resident of Sonoma County.
