Welcome to the Blog. Day 1.

Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog. My name is Sarah Hazelton, and I'm a fourth year law student at Empire College School of Law. My hope with this blog is to shine some light on local news that doesn't get covered as widely as the more turbulent national/global news. I'm also hoping to provide a largely unbiased (or as unbiased as I can manage, I'm only human) view toward my content, whatever it may be.

I've never really blogged before, so this will be a bit of a learning experience for me. With this first post I just wanted to give a bit of an overview of the sort of content that I will have here, as well as a little bit of an "About Me," so that you know where the information is coming from, ultimately.

OVERVIEW!

Environmental News / Law at the Local Level: I will be following some of the California Environmental Protection Agency's weekly meetings. They are available for anyone to watch electronically HERE, but I will be providing a summary and my personal thoughts on the matter here, for those who don't have the 2+ hours to spend watching. By no means will I be able to watch/blog about every video posted there, but I will be making an effort once a week to listen in and then blog accordingly. 

Local Events in the Rohnert Park/Cotati/Santa Rosa Area: I will also be making an effort to attend some sort of political or otherwise relevant event or governmental agency board meeting in the Rohnert Park/Santa Rosa area once a month, and will do a write up afterward of what was going on, the outcome, and my thoughts on it. 

Animal Shelters/Humane Societies: I'd also like to use this blog to highlight outstanding efforts of the local humane societies in re-homing and caring for stray, lost, and otherwise homeless animals. 

Other: This isn't an exclusive list, but the subject matter will hopefully remain in the same family. I am primarily concerned with animal rights and environmental issues, and that is going to be my focus. I may make exceptions for big issues (like the recent election), but I think we all get enough of that in the general media that it might just be overkill.

ABOUT ME!

As I stated, I'm a 4th year law student at Empire College. I live in Rohnert Park, and have for three years. Before that I lived and grew up in east Texas. I have a history degree from the University of North Texas, and a master's degree in legal studies from Empire College. In May/June of 2017 I will have a J.D., as well, and will be working on taking the bar exam. 

During the day I work at Empire College Law Library as the assistant librarian part time, as well as working as a law clerk at a small, Petaluma firm part time. I also help with the Sonoma County Law Library on Saturdays as a student assistant. 

When I'm not at work or in classes, I spend a lot of my time either watching television, playing video games, writing, or walking my dog. 

In any case....welcome to my blog, let's get this show on the road!