Town hall meeting next week
EDITOR: In the midst of all the craziness coming out of Washington, D.C., a strong California can lead the way forward on so many of the issues that matter most.
We hope folks are able to join the community conversation at our annual Sonoma County Town Hall. We couldn’t be more excited to be hosting the event in Sebastopol on Thursday, Aug. 2.
There will be an all-star lineup of local and state leaders on hand to get input, hear concerns and answer questions from Sonoma County residents.
Our town hall kicks off at 6:30 p.m. at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, 282 S. High Street.
Our featured speakers include Sebastopol Mayor Patrick Slayter, incoming Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Essick, Caltrans Interim District Director Jim Davis, CAL FIRE Sonoma-Lake Napa Unit Chief Shana Jones and Sebastopol Fire Chief Bill Braga.
We’ve got a lot to update you on, including our historic investments in our kids and public schools; our state’s red hot economy and jobs outlook; housing and homelessness funding; record investments in fire prevention and response; fire recovery and rebuilding and our state’s progress on combating climate change and blocking President Trump’s plans to open up oil drilling off our coast.
And there will be plenty of time for conversation. We look forward to seeing you on Aug. 2 at the Town Hall.
State Senator Mike McGuire
Dissolved
EDITOR: Thank you for your article about Pine Grove Square. I appreciate its historical perspective and wish it had covered the present and future.
The Pine Grove Square Sub-committee, by any of its names over the last 9 years, is dissolved, having completed its purpose. That’s why it’s not doing any more work. This was clear from the quote you included from our City Manager/Attorney Larry McLaughlin.
History does provide valuable lessons. From this experience, I have learned that: people perceive parking in the downtown area (more than in this one municipal lot) to be inadequate; people do not want to lose this particular parking lot’s capacity; people want housing in the downtown area; people want affordable housing, notably for the “missing middle” workforce and elders, in the downtown area.
I urge people to participate in local governance and contribute to the discussion of these important issues.
Sarah Glade Gurney
Member, Sebastopol City Council
Basin re-prioritization expensive
EDITOR: You may have missed the article in the Press Democrat or the public meeting held in Healdsburg in June that discussed proposed action by the California Department of Water Resources to change the prioritization of the Wilson Grove Highlands Formation Basin from very low to medium priority. The “basin” is roughly described as an irregularly shaped area bounded on the south by Chileno Valley, Bodega Bay on the west, and the Tolay Fault on the east; and the contact point with the Fransciscan Formation on the north. Roughly put, this comprises a large portion of West County south of Russian River Road, extending south to just north of Petaluma, and on east to include Sebastopol, Forestville, and west to Bodega and almost to Tomales Bay.
What does this mean? The re-prioritization from very low to medium occurred although the report states there is no or insufficient data to document any land subsidence, groundwater decline, general water quality issues; and projections of declining population growth for the next ten years. The result of this re-prioritization is that a new Groundwater Sustainability Agency will need to be formed and a Groundwater Sustainability Plan will need to be developed. Using the costs incurred by the Santa Rosa Plain and in Sonoma Valley, this will likely be, at a minimum (given the complexity of the proposed basin area), in the neighborhood of yearly costs of $400,000 in administrative overhead and $2 million in conducting groundwater investigation(s) and plan development. While the state does offer some grant money (usually requiring a local match of funds), it is a competition among the state’s 538 recognized basins. These costs will have to be paid by those located within the basin, possibly as assessments for water use, well fees, etc. The Groundwater Sustainability Agency will also have regulatory authority over groundwater use in the basin.
There are some technical limitations, which I will not go into here, with the methodology and data set(s) the California Department of Water Resources used for the re-prioritization. You can view this information at their website: www.water.ca.gov/
Programs/Groundwater-Management/Basin-Prioritization. You may submit comments regarding the proposed re-prioritization at this same website through 8/20/2018. I would also recommend you inform your local state and county representatives of any of your concerns.
It is hard to say that groundwater sustainability, that protecting all our water resources (both surface and groundwater), is not a priority and desirable outcome for the West County. It is equally hard to say that the re-prioritization and forming a new bureaucracy and compiling exhaustive data and expense is justified for a basin for which there is no evidence of current or projected overdraft. It is easy to say that maintaining our water resources involves, no requires public participation and benefits from thoughtful discourse. A voluntary community working together to find answers to preserve and invest in a shared legacy.
Mark Calhoon
Sebastopol
