General Plan preview
EDITOR: It’s been a long time coming, but at our next Windsor Town Council meeting, April 4, the Town’s general plan for the next 22 years (2040) will be presented along with the environmental impact report. Staff and consultants will recommend certification and adoption. Like many projects, yours, mine and the Town’s, it became a bit more involved and took more time than expected.
A general plan provides policies intended to guide the Town towards a future that embodies the qualities and character of our Town that we hold dear to our hearts. It can provide order where there could be chaos. The new plan sets forth a vision with goals and objectives that are not altogether different from our existing plan, but it provides many updated policies to reflect issues that have become more and more important to our community over time, such as health, smart and effective growth strategies and climate protection.
Going into the review and looking toward receiving final input from all those concerned, I believe it will have my support almost in its entirety. With that said, the certification of the environmental impact report (EIR), is calling for the council to find overriding considerations for the conversion of 60 acres of vineyard land to upwards of 200 housing units in the area north of Jensen Lane.
In legal terms this conversion and elimination of prime and important farmlands cannot be mitigated; once it is gone, it’s gone forever. My belief and position for the last 23 years on your council has been to stop sprawl and preserve open space.
There is no real and truthful overriding considerations to this conversion, it is simply for the money. Do we need housing on the edge of our community when we have sufficient infill lands to meet our housing obligations? Are you ready to pay the price of increased traffic from those areas where development cannot be walkable to the store or services? How much of the goings on in our current society is strictly for the money? I look forward to your input, both in agreement and disagreement.
Sam Salmon
Windsor
Fair memories sought
EDITOR: This is the last chance to get your memories included in the upcoming Healdsburg Future Farmers Country Fair book on the early history of the fair.
Anyone with memories or photos of the fair before it moved to Recreation Park who would like to participate in this book is urged to send their memory of the fair to Gabriel Fraire at ga******@so***.net. The deadline is April 15.
The board of the Future Farmers Fair of Healdsburg hopes to have this edition of the early years of the fair ready by this year’s fair.
Gabriel Fraire
