Free Republic

Betsy Bueno got the call from a neighbor on July 10. “It’s really bad with the dog and the horse, Betsy,” her acquaintance said. “Can you please go check?” So Bueno drove roughly a half-mile north of her home, to a field abutting Petaluma Hill Road in unincorporated Sonoma County, to a scene she had visited many times in the preceding months. This time it was much worse. A large German shepherd had taken a brown and white horse (known as a paint) to the ground, and was viciously attacking it. The exhausted horse thrashed and shrieked, but was unable...

A Northern California chapter of Antifa got their plans foiled by a loyal supporter of President Trump. On Thursday, the Trump supporter revealed documents, messages and recordings he accessed by infiltrating a far-left Antifa group in Sonoma County. The leader of the Antifa chapter is said to be a 25-year-old college student who was arrested in 2020 for assaulting a police officer. Furthermore, another member made shocking comments when discussing a potential Saturday, May 1 “May day” protest. “It’s May day baby, it’s May day,” the leader, dubbed Marb, said during a meeting. “Come out and take something over with...

OLYMPIA — Freshman Wasmine Ghosheh said she noticed it in the dorms. When the 19-year-old from Sonoma County, California, arrived at The Evergreen State College in September, she met students who were supposed to have roommates but ended up with their own rooms. “There’s a lot of space — it’s spacious, let’s say,” Ghosheh said the Friday before Thanksgiving break in a nearly empty cafeteria on campus. Evergreen’s enrollment this fall was 2,854 students, down more than 40% from its peak head count a decade ago. The decline, corresponding with an economic recovery and mirroring a trend in liberal arts...

The fire is spreading to the SW and East. The map updates if you refresh, and can be zoomed in and out. Many areas have been evacuated and others are under Evacuation Warnings. Many areas are in power outages and planed outage areas. https://sonomacounty.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=2cb4401e1fc0494dbf9d9e22aa794617

<p>SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP) — Watermelons are set to replace piglets in an annual event celebrating agriculture at a California fair.</p> <p>The Press Democrat reported Saturday that the Sonoma County Fair has eliminated the pig scramble from Farmers Day due to rising public concern and protests over animal welfare.</p>

The mother of 10 children who were allegedly tortured in a dangerously run-down Fairfield home defended herself Monday as an “amazing mother” and denied that she and her husband subjected their children to years of physical and mental abuse.

Before a crowd of more than 100 civic and business leaders, Santa Rosa Junior College President Frank Chong on Friday vowed to resist federal immigration operations on campus and defy all requests for information about undocumented students, even if it lands him behind bars. “If it’s about release of information, we’re not going to cooperate. If they end up on campus, we’re not going to cooperate,” Chong said. “We will engage in civil disobedience and I will be willing to go to jail in order to protect the rights of my students.” Chong’s defiant words came during a packed, noontime...

WASHINGTON, DC — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Tom Homan confirmed on Thursday that a man arrested in connection with setting a fire in Sonoma County Wine Country is an illegal alien from Mexico who has been twice returned to his “home country.” Homan also confirmed that ICE has issued detainer requests for Jesus Fabian Gonzalez five times now in the past year alone, including the one issued on October 16 in relation to his most recent arrest on suspicion of arson. All of the arrests were made “by Sonoma County on various felony and misdemeanor charges,”...

SONOMA COUNTY, CA — Multiple wildfires were burning early Monday in Sonoma and Napa counties, threatening homes and businesses and prompting mass evacuations as well as school cancellations and power outages. A fire in Santa Rosa crossed Highway 101 at about 2 a.m. and ignited structures west of the freeway in the area of Kohl's Department Store on Hopper Avenue, according to the Santa Rosa Police Department.

CLOVEDALE (CBS SF) — The Mayor of Cloverdale hopes it’s just a misunderstanding, but the Bernie Sanders campaign appears to have left her small town with $23,000 in unpaid bills after it hosted their ‘A Future To Believe In’ rally last June.

At last, Marine private and son of Healdsburg John Saini is coming home. Born to an Alexander Valley grape-growing family in 1923, Saini (sigh-EE-knee) was 20 when he died early on in World War II’s deadly, three-day Battle of Tarawa. He was buried on the Pacific atoll along with more than 1,000 other Marines and sailors and more than 5,000 Japanese and Korean soldiers. Informed of his death, his shattered immigrant parents in Healdsburg, Mike and Mary Saini, awaited word of where he was interred and how they might return his earthly remains to Sonoma County for proper, Catholic burial....

The family of 13-year-old Andy Lopez, can take their wrongful death lawsuit to trial, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. The child was shot as he turned, shot as he fell and shot as he lay face down. Andy was penetrated by seven of the nine shots fired by one of the terrified deputy. He died ripped on the sidewalk. Full Coroners report and Dash cam data remain un available in recognition and respect of officer protections.

An electronic cigarette exploded in a 15-year-old Windsor boy’s mouth, causing him to lose about a half-dozen teeth, police and fire officials said. The explosion sent hot shards of the device scattering, with some still hot like embers on the floor when firefighters arrived after a 911 call came in just after 1 p.m. Jan. 17 at a home on Summer Rain Drive off Los Amigos Road, said Cyndi Foreman, a fire prevention specialist with the Central Fire Authority of Sonoma County. “His teeth literally fell out with braces on them,” Foreman said. “He had lacerations to his lip and...

With only two weeks left before the close of a survey about discrimination against Sonoma County’s gay, lesbian and transgendered people, organizers with the county’s Human Rights Commission are reaching out to those people, and especially those on the fringe of the local community, to ensure their voices are heard. The online survey is part of an effort to assess the experience of county residents who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, queer or intersex and to determine what, if any, programs or services may be needed to ensure their full inclusion in housing, employment, social and political arenas. More...

Dear Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, As Chair and Vice Chair of the Sonoma County Community and Local Law Enforcement Task Force (CALLE), ... The California Supreme (Court Copley Press v. Superior Court 2006) effectively changed California Penal Code, so that all independent oversight agencies, such as civilian review boards, oversight panels, and civil service commissions, must now cloak all officer records and findings of misconduct in strict confidentiality..., any independent investigation that would yield specific information about officer misconduct and patterns is stifled, and must come through an internal law enforcement investigation, or motions approved by a judge. Even...

A priest at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital was praying over a woman critically injured by gunfire after she rammed three deputies with a car at the end of a 20-mile pursuit, her mother said Friday. Although the chance of survival was not good for Karen Janks, 46, a former San Francisco resident who recently moved to Santa Cruz, she was still holding on and “has a very strong heart,” said her mother Gail Janks, 73, of San Mateo.

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (KTVU) -- Sonoma County is poised to establish an independent auditor for its sheriff's department over a year after a teenage (Mex)with a pellet rifle was slaughtered by a(Sanoma)deputy. A 21 member "task force" has been meeting to work through well justiied community rage. "We're going to get something built and then we're all going to work on making it better every single day," declared task force member Amber Twitchell. "My fear is nothing is going to change, " Elaine B. Holtz.. >real American dreamers<<. // snipp // Jeff Westbrook, 57, a Santa Rosa program manager at...

Gov. Jerry Brown signed historic groundwater legislation Tuesday, imposing new rules in the Golden State that could limit how much water commercial and residential users are allowed to pump from underground aquifers — a move decades in the works, spurred this year by California’s drought. The new laws, which take effect in January, will require local government officials to ensure use of groundwater basins is sustainable, protecting underground reserves and averting other environmental damage. The regulations could have a ripple effect on thousands of farmers and ranchers across the North Coast.

Job growth accelerated in Sonoma County for the fourth consecutive month, dropping the county's unemployment rate in May to a six-year low, the state reported Friday. The county's jobless rate fell to 5.0 percent in May, down from 5.3 percent in April and 6.5 percent a year ago, the state Employment Development Department reported. It has not been this low since May 2008, when it also stood at 5.0 percent. The local economy created 3,400 jobs between April and May as employers expanded their payrolls for the fourth straight month. Since the beginning of the year, the economy has added...

Three environmental groups are challenging Sonoma County's approval of a 54-acre Annapolis vineyard in a case that reflects long-standing conflict over expansion of the county's $600 million a year grape industry. If the lawsuit were to succeed, it would wipe out the county's vineyard development law, itself born amid controversy between growers and environmentalists 14 years ago. That friction has intensified with the recent growth of forest-to-vineyard projects near the coast, a cool region hospitable to pinot noir grapes, the most expensive varietal grown in the county. The law — officially named the Vineyard Erosion and Sediment Control Ordinance, known...