A group representing several thousand former Sonoma County employees is suing the county to roll back a reduction in health care benefit for the retirees.

Former Sonoma County Deputy District Attorney Greg Jacobs, vice president of the Sonoma County Association of Retired Employees (SCARE), contends the county has ample fiscal resources to keep paying the retirees’ promised health care benefits.

Sonoma County Supervisor Valerie Brown says that while the board made the cuts reluctantly, albeit on a 5-0 vote, other counties have had to take even harsher actions.

Amidst budget 6contractions elsewhere, Santa Rosa Junior College has found an opportunity for growth in the city’s southwest quadrant.

SRJC’s Dean of Continuing Education, Kerry Campbell-Price, says students were quick to find the new location, and virtually all of the classes there this semester are already full.

The new location for SRJC's Southwest Center -- it's too small to be considered a satellite campus -- is well situated for students arriving from multiple directions, and enjoys a much more visible presence than the center's former site at the Santa Rosa Labor Center.

Click on the link below for a map to the center.

Southwest Santa Rosa Center
950 Wright Road, Santa Rosa, CA 95407

Matriculation Student Services Office
(707) 527-4229

Public support for a government-run “public option” health care plan is growing, says Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, and it has her strong backing, too.

Public support for a single-payer system has long been strong across the nation, Woolsey says, and that is now translating into support for the public option concept, even among elected officials.

The Progressive Caucus of House Democrats will be a strong and united voice behind the public option, Woolsey predicts, because on this issue they have started out in agreement on what must be done.

Congresswoman Woolsey has spelled out her position on the pending health care reform issue in op-ed pieces in the Marin Independent Journal and the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.

Listen below to hear the full 30-minute KRCB interview that was broadcast August 28th.

As the above graph shows, Health Care Reform  means different things to different people. The figures are based on a survey conduceted by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, which has also developed a n interactive website where you can do your own side-by-side comparison of the various health care report plans that have been put forward.

Amending Proposition 13 to assess commercial properties differently than residential property would not just raise more money for cash-strapped California, it would also address the inherent unfairness in the 31-year old initiative.

Corporate property owners have gotten increasingly sophisticated in the legal mechanisms they use to mask or avoid reporting changes of ownership of their commercial lands, and those tactics result in the loss of several million dollars of tax revenue to Sonoma County every year, says Chief Deputy Assessor Bill Rousseau (right) . He advocates legislation to rein in those maneuvers.

Business interests and other defenders of Proposition 13 often assert that changing the way commercial properties are assessed would lead to increases costs for small businesses. But San Francisco Assessor Phil Ting notes that the same logic has not seemed to apply to the savings that commercial landowners have been reaping from their underassessed properties.

Join Close the Loophole on Facebook