‘Healdsburg Ciclovía’ Cycling Event Proposed Downtown

Healdsburg city leaders approved a new, comprehensive event policy at their meeting last week, replacing the outdated one that’s been in place for the past decade. And during their discussion, we learned that AVFilm — the local film org that’s opening a movie theater downtown — will be throwing their annual “block party,” the opening event for the AVFest film festival, in Healdsburg next spring. It usually happens outside the Clover Theater up in Cloverdale, but the historic theater closed in October. Also: This one hasn’t been approved yet, but it came up at the meeting that the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition wants to hold a big “Healdsburg Ciclovía” cycling event next September that would close a bunch of streets downtown. We’ll see what happens with that request. But back to the new event policy: City officials reportedly felt that, with the growing number of events that they (and partnering businesses and orgs) have been throwing in Healdsburg the past couple of years — especially in the plaza — it was time for a more detailed policy that streamlines the permitting process. The new policy outlines three different types of city events and specifies different “fees, obligations and expectations” for each of them, Healdsburg Tribune News Editor Christian Kallen reports. You can read the full story in the Tribune or explore the new policy on the city’s website. (Healdsburg Tribune & City of Healdsburg)