Job skills, high school diplomas, personal responsibility and building low income housing-they're all wrapped up together in YouthBuild Santa Rosa.

YouthBuild has been active in Sonoma County for the past 13 years, but the overall program has a much longer history.

A new cohort of YouthBuild students is forming now, with required interviews on Dec. 15. Casey McChesney outlines the application process.

  The 2001 YouthBuild class were joined by then Santa Rosa Mayor Mike Martini (front, second from left), Congresswoman Lynne Woolsey, and County Supervisor Mike Reilly at the grand opening of their new office seven years ago. The program is now preparing to move into new, larger quarters in early 2009.

From the Basque region of Spain comes a flourishing new business model that emphasizes cooperation as a key to innovation.

Georgia Kelly(left) is the founder of the Sonoma-based Praxis Peace Institute. The Praxis website has details about the seminar they hosted at Mondragon in September, as well as a schedule of upcoming events, including their annual lunch, Dec. 6 with featured guests Swami Beyondanada and actress/activist Mimi Kennedy.

Cooperative governance also leads to unorthodox responses to typical business problems. In the audio clip below, Kelly describes how the leadership and workforce at one of the Mondragon companies dealt with a unanticipated slowdown.

The workforce at the Mondragon Cooperative's technology center.

Greenbelt Alliance's recently published Smart Infill: A practical guide to creating vibrant places throughout the Bay Area  was written to inform decision makers about the benefits of these policies, and cite examples where they have been successfully employed. One of them, says Daisy Pistey-Lyhne, is the Town of Windsor.

Sonoma County has been a leader in adopting community separators or Urban Growth Boundaries for its cities. Those are a key first step in redirecting growth away from sprawl patterns back into urban infill.

For more information about the Sonoma County branch of Greenbelt Alliance, click here .

Greenbelt Alliance also regularly hosts hikes throughout the BayArea. You'll find a list of upcoming events here.

It's one thing to set ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but quite another to map out exactly how Sonoma County can reach the goals it has set.

 Sonoma County's Community Climate Action Plan will be unveiled tonight at the Climate Protection Campaigns office in downtown Santa Rosa, at 31 D Street. The community is invited to the free event which is scheduled 6:30 - 8 pm. For more information, click here. A link to the action plan will also be posted there after Oct. 8.

  .

Read more about Sonoma County's greenhouse gas reduction goals here

  Same sex weddings and Community Impact Reports could both have a notable effect on the Sonoma County economy.

On  October 6, the Petaluma City Council is expected to vote on a resolution requiring Community Impact Reports (CIRs)  for new large retail developments in the city, including those shown on this map.

The Living Wage Coalition of Sonoma County is the leading local advocate forCommunity Impact Reports.