The Petaluma Police Department held a bar-b-que yesterday where they presented awards to some deserving officers and employees, and recognized the department's first group of citizen volunteers #PPDVolunteers. The group will donate a couple of days each month to shouldering select administrative tasks in order to free up Petaluma's Finest to better [...]
For the time being, it seems as if the Burghers of Petaluma are entertaining the possibility that a little growth isn't a bad thing.
Last week - along with about 25 other involved citizens - I completed the 10-week Citizen's Academy course offered by the Petaluma Police Department. It was informative, fascinating and occasionally disturbing as when the instructors would tell the class about emerging trends in criminal behavior or the recent State of [...]
Historically, when the word "growth" has been uttered in the local cloisters of power, it's usually been coupled with other words such as "surgical removal," or "over our dead bodies." Lip service is given plenty to "increasing revenues," but given the progressive bias for regressive taxation, intrusive regulation and hectoring [...]
After all the foot-dragging, hysteria, disingenuous arguments, outright lies, and frivolous litigation that verged on blackmail, Petaluma will finally plug some of the "retail leakage" that serious citizens have been complaining about for nearly a decade.
...and another chance to fix what was ignored last year.
Woo-hoo. We're heading into election season. Be afraid...very afraid! California is experimenting with an open primary and there are clients for every taste...as long as you're not looking for an experienced, pragmatic, fiscally-savvy, business-friendly realist. Oh, wait, that's right, this is California. What was I thinking?
I was a school board member for more than ten years, so I appreciate the struggles faced by California's schools, large and small. Since between 80% and 90% of any school's budget goes to teacher salaries and benefits, discussions about school-funding always influenced by opinions (pro and con) about teacher's [...]
Petaluma rejoices in the antics of its own, locally-grown, Three (Progressive) Stooges. This trio of lovable loons continually entertains a gullible constituency with fiscally insolvent fantasies of no-growth, anti-big-box, impossible-to-sustain, fair trade, living wage Utopianism.
When the issue of the Keller street garage's plague of flying rats (aka, the dove of peace, squab, pigeons) resurfaced, hizzoner was contacted to comment. Giving da mayah any kind of public forum invites the world to view the most prominent symptom of our fair burg's dysfunction. Suffice it to say that his [...]