While the presidential election yesterday was a sweeping victory for Democrats from the top of the ticket on down, many local races in the north bay were much more narrowly decided.

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To view the complete list of Sonoma County's unofficial election results, click here.

 For the statewide California election results, click here.

 

 

 

The antidote to urban sprawl, says Greenbelt Alliance, is taller buildings and higher population densities within established urban core areas.

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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.

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

 

Playing soccer isn't a well-traveled path out of homelessness. But for one formerly troubled Santa Rosa man, it's working.

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Cornelius Bracy, a formerly homeless  soccer player from Sonoma County, will be  part of the American team at the Homeless World Cup that takes place in Australia next month. The Homeless World Cup began in 2003 as a "catalyst for lasting change through the development of street soccer worldwide in a way that creates maximum social impact for the players involved--the socially excluded, homeless people and people living in poverty."

 

Julius Ujeh, a soccer coach from Nigeria, began a Street Soccer league for homeless young adults in Sonoma County. The program, originally started in Australia, has given young adults a purpose that teaches discipline and self-motivation. 

Street soccer is a mini-version of the traditional game of soccer, which can be played on any hard, flat rectangular surface, roughly the size of a tennis court. The new "traveling field" (shown below) gives the U.S. team an attractive, safe surface on which to play, and a sense of identity for the players.

Four players compete on each side (one of them is a goalie) and games last for 14 minutes each. While games are short, they are very fast-paced. The name of the event was coined in 2003 during the first Homeless World Cup.

 

Proposition 2, the ballot measure to ban restrictive cages for calves, pigs and chickens in California may have ripple effects that reach well beyond the state's farms.

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You can read the state's impartial summary and analysis of Proposition 2 here.

 

Arnie Riebli, managing owner of Sonoma County's Sunrise Farms, says passage of Proposition 2 would put him out of business (photo courtesy of the Sonoma Index-Tribune).  Supporters of Prop 2 like the Humane Society of the US and the Sierra Club say it would end crueltyto farm animals and increase health safety.

 

To see a list of opposition to Prop 2, click here.