The health and well-being of the fish in California’s waterway and oceans is a perennial concern for the state legislature, something they will take up in their annual Fisheries Forum in Sacramento tomorrow.  North Coast Assemblyman Wes Chesbro chairs the joint Committee that is hosting the forum, and offers a preview today.

  Sonoma County is rich in arts and culture, but those enterprises aren’t always tuned in to each other, or supported by local business and government. As part of an effort to create a more unified vision for everyone, the Sonoma County Economic Development Board is hosting a community conversation on the subject this evening at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts. Bruce Robinson talks about it with the man who will be leading the session.

That public input session will be held from six to eight this evening at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts. It’s free, but if you want to attend, you’re asked to register in advance, and you can do that here.

  The long-awaited SMART commuter trains and the currently running Northwest Pacific freight trains are not waiting until 2016 to co-exist on the tracks that traverse Sonoma County.  They’re already sharing the line while it is getting rebuilt.

John Williams, president of the Northwest Pacific Company which operates the freight trains, says they have been slowly increasing their loads, but growth has been sluggish.

To see a time-lapse video documenting the rebuilding of the Cinnabar Bridge in Petaluma, click here.

  Cathy Millison, who has been the City Manger for Santa Rosa for the past three and a half years, has announced her retirement, effective in the fall, so the search is on for her successor. As part of that process, the city council has invited the citizenry to share their ideas of what criteria should be part of that recruitment effort. We get more on the whole process in this conversation with the city’s other top official.

That public input session is scheduled for 3 o’clock this afternoon in the Santa Rosa City Council chambers.