Main Street

This Saturday, the Easter Bunny will return to Healdsburg,
courtesy of Healdsburg Rotary. The annual Easter Egg Hunt features
2,000 eggs, candy from Powell’s Sweet Shoppe, gift certificates
from McDonald’s, and a raffle for bicycles provided by Spoke
Folk.
The egg hunt is a photographer’s dream. The green grass at Fitch
Mountain School, the kids in bright clothes, and the exultations
when eggs are found – well, it’s just cute as heck. The event
begins at 9 a.m. sharp and there are separate hunting areas for age
groups, even a special spot for toddlers. The Easter Bunny will be
there as well.
Lillian Costa died a couple of weeks ago. I hadn’t seen her in a
few years, not since Alzheimer’s took her in its steely grip.
Lillian and her late husband Lou were a great love story. Lou was a
cop for many years and loved to tell stories about his many
adventures. He wasn’t a tall man but he had the arms and shoulders
of a heavyweight boxer, and he was a cop in the days when you had
to knock somebody around once in a while in rough and tumble
Healdsburg. Lillian often chided Lou when the stories got a little
too ribald, but the love between them was always evident. Lou
called her his angel and she smiled and blushed every time she
heard it. Lillian loved to sing, cook, laugh and smile.
If you don’t drive on South Fitch Mountain Road, you might not
know that the viaduct a mile or so past the city limits is being
repaired (again) and the road is closed until the end of May. The
viaduct was originally built from redwood and the county comes out
periodically to patch it. This time the redwood beams were too old
to fix, so they’re being replaced with steel. A county bridge guy
told me there are 18-20 viaducts like this around the county that
are gradually being upgraded.
Unless you’re up for serious illegal off-roading, Fitch Mountain
Road is the only way around the mountain from either side, so a
total road closure is a big deal. It creates an inconvenience,
makes it harder for public safety folks to get to your house and
makes it impossible to evacuate in a wild land fire. The access
issue is significant and the county is to be commended for
scheduling the work to be complete before fire season.
On the continued subject of Fitch Mountain, there is not much
progress on a deal for the county Open Space District to acquire
the top of the mountain for public access. The local attorney who
claims to represent the property owners lives in a parallel
universe where one can be an obstructionist and then accuse
everyone else of getting in the way of the deal.
Fourth District Supervisor Mike McGuire was an advocate for
opening Fitch Mountain to the public while he sat on the Healdsburg
City Council and he hasn’t forgotten it. He asked for a current
appraisal for the value of the property, which will be bad news for
the attorney from the parallel universe who will have to tell his
clients that he should have advised them to sell the land a few
years ago when it was worth much more.
Rumors, anyone? While a few delusional diehards (like me) hold
out hope that the Postal Service will decide to reestablish a
retail presence downtown, most believe the decision is final to
keep the Post Office at the carrier annex, despite traffic and
disabled access issues and the persistent feeling that the Postal
Service doesn’t understand (or care) what its customers want.
So, what will happen with the empty lot at the corner of Center
and North Streets? I’ve heard two rumors so far – a senior
apartment building and a small hotel. No one is in a position to
confirm or deny the housing rumor, but Hotel Healdsburg owner
Merritt Sher went on the record stating that his hotel group (Hotel
Healdsburg and H2hotel) are not looking at the site.
It would be great to see a 2-3 story building there, a structure
with some architectural personality, to anchor that part of
downtown. Maybe it could have apartments upstairs and some kind of
retail downstairs, perhaps even a specialty retail that serves all
sectors of the community with an affordable shipping and mailing
counter, a place to pick up your mail … you know? Like a Post
Office?
Ray Holley never gives up. He can be reached at ra*******@gm***.com.