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1 week ago | 
sebastopoltimes.com | Dale Dougherty
The Western Sonoma County Union High School District (WSCUHSD) board meeting on April 9 was held on the El Molino Campus with all trustees present. There are usually several interesting items presented in public comment ahead of the formal agenda for the meeting. Thomas Boag of the Sebastopol Rotary Education Foundation announced three grants for programs in the district.
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1 week ago | 
makezine.com | Dale Dougherty
DALE DOUGHERTY is the leading advocate of the Maker Movement. He founded Make: Magazine 2005, which first used the term “makers” to describe people who enjoyed “hands-on” work and play. He started Maker Faire in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2006, and this event has spread to nearly 200 locations in 40 countries, with over 1.5M attendees annually. He is President of Make:Community, which produces Make: and Maker Faire.
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2 weeks ago | 
sebastopoltimes.com | Dale Dougherty
The fires in L.A. in January are still fresh in memory. The earthquake in Myanmar is also a reminder of the devastation caused by natural disasters. Floods, tornados, high winds — how prepared are we as a community for the unexpected? This article explains why the CERT program, which was discontinued years ago in Sebastopol and most of Sonoma County, is coming back.
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2 weeks ago | 
sebastopoltimes.com | Laura Hagar Rush |Dale Dougherty
Protestors came out in droves to the four corners of downtown Sebastopol on Saturday in what might the largest turnout for a protest in recent memory. So many brought their own colorful handmade posters echoing “Hands Off!” However one might describe the national mood, this local protest was surprisingly upbeat.
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2 weeks ago | 
sebastopoltimes.com | Dale Dougherty
By Matt WoodI wasn’t surprised when I received the email last month telling me that my job as a civil rights attorney at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights was being eliminated. After all, the president had campaigned on eliminating the federal Department of Education and firing as much of the civil service as possible. What surprised me was the response I received when I told other parents in Sebastopol about it.
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1 month ago | 
sebastopoltimes.com | Dale Dougherty
Richard Schoellhorn recently took this photo of an American Eagle perched at the top of a dead tree near the Occidental Road bridge. I was thinking of writing a satirical caption like “An executive order this week removed the designation of the American Eagle as the National Bird.” In doing a little research, I found quite the opposite story. The American Eagle had actually never been officially named the National Bird until late last year.
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1 month ago | 
makezine.com | Dale Dougherty
New book gives many examples of how AI chatbots can be a tool for learning and creative expressionKen Kahn’s new book, “The Learner’s Apprentice: AI and the Amplification of Human Creativity” demonstrates the many ways that AI chatbots can be a tool to enhance the creativity and learning of anyone, but most specifically students.
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1 month ago | 
sebastopoltimes.com | Dale Dougherty
One speaker referred to March as “layoff season” at Wednesday night’s board meeting for West Sonoma County Union High School District. This kind of March Madness, when the board meets twice in the month, is not a lot of fun for the school board, but it’s especially hard on the certificated and classified employees as well as the community. The high school district is one of the largest employers in the area.
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1 month ago | 
sebastopoltimes.com | Dale Dougherty |Laura Hagar Rush
By Dale DoughertyI shared the story of Sebastopol Times with 27 people at the Sebastopol Area Senior Center last Thursday. I explained that this version of Sebastopol Times will be three years old next month, and some there remembered the old Sebastopol Times. The appreciative audience asked a lot of good questions. Many were concerned about misinformation. One person asked, “How do you know what the truth is?” I replied that it’s up to us to decide who or what sources to trust.
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1 month ago | 
sebastopoltimes.com | Dale Dougherty
Tommy died on Thursday, February 27, 2025 after a long illness. Tommy was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on April 28, 1941. He moved with his family to Fontana, California, when he was 10 years old. He attended Fontana High School then Chaffey Junior College before entering the Air Force. He then attended San Jose State while starting his job at Hewlett Packard in Palo Alto, California. He married the love of his life in 1968.
