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

Local activists are urging customers to boycott Whole Foods to protest the company ownership’s opposition to health care reform and organized labor.

With four stores in Sonoma County, one in Napa and two in Marin, Whole Foods is the dominant purveyor of organic groceries in the North Bay. Georgia Kelly says that joining the boycott has meant disruptions in her personal patterns, but she feels living out her personal values is more important.

Ben Boyce (left), director of the Living Wage Coalition, contends that while John Mackey is certainly entitled to his own personal beliefs, others who do not share those beliefs have a responsibility not to provide the financial support to perpetuate them.

"Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments..." wrote Whole Food CEO John Mackey (right)  in his Wall Street Journal essay, "The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare."

"Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health." Read the full article  here.

Will Shonbrun's response, an Open Letter to Whole Foods Market, was first published in the Empire Report. You can view the main Facebook page supporting the boycott here.

The start of this new school year at Sonoma State University was marked by grim financial news and warnings that things will almost certainly get worse next year.

The faculty and staff at Sonoma State are resigned to the cutbacks that the current economic climate has necessitated, said SSU Faculty chair Susan Moulton (left)  as she opened yesterday’s University Convocation. But there is also lingering unhappiness over the perception that the pain has not been equally shared by the school’s administration.

While much attention has been focused on the faculty’s furloughs, Associated Students President Heather Hanson pointed out that they have been feeling the financial hardships across the past decade, and the most recent moves present a double impact on students, as they must pay more even as fewer classes are being offered.

In addition to the furloughs and other budget cuts, University President Armanana noted that his school has been forced to close enrollment for the spring semester next year, and cut back on admissions for the 2010-11 school year but 450 students, effectively denying access to a university education for hundreds of eligible young people.

Sonoma County business leaders appear to feel the worst is over, economically speaking, and are beginning to express cautious optimism about the future.

Ben Stone, (left) Executive Director of the Sonoma County Business Development Board, cautions that significant challenges still face important sectors of the local economy, notably in commercial real estate, tourism and the wine industry.

The Business Confidence Index is compiled 2-3 times per year, and has been an ongoing project of the EDB for nearly 10 years.  The most recent level is shown in the chart below, which tracks that history.

The current overall confidence reading of 4.6 (on a scale of 10) is a rebound from last winter’s low of 3.62. But the current figure is still below the 2001 trough recorded just after the 9-11 attacks, and well below the three-year readings around 6 from 2004 through 2006. That history is among the charts included in the most recent full report, which you can read here.