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BROWN ACT VIOLATIONS CHARGED IN MEASURE O, REDISTRICTING EFFORTS
Healdsburg, California Healdsburg, California
January 2, 2025 Date, Date, 20202020
SONOMA ALSO UNDERGOING NEW DISTRICT ELECTIONS TRANSITION By Christian Kallen
➝ Redistricting, 2
Photo by Rick Tang
While most people focus on the holidays at the end of the year, and even the offices of the City of Healdsburg are closed until after the new year, what can best be described as “grumbling” continued in the weeks following the last City Council meeting, on Dec. 16. Not the Grinch kind of grumbling, but the dissatisfied complaints of residents over the way the city is handling the split into districts for a California Voting Rights Act-compliant way to elect city officials, including mayor and council members. The City Council essentially agreed to keep as much as possible the status quo, despite the fact that the legal requirements it faces is to toss out the status quo and start all over. Coincidentally, the City of Sonoma is also currently engaged in the process of crafting districts for city elections. It held its first public meeting on the topic on Dec. 18, two days after Healdsburg’s. Sonoma is using the same consultant in the process as well, Paul Mitchell of Redistricting Partners. Unlike Healdsburg, however, Sonoma never received a letter from the law firm of Shenkman & Hughes, but undertook the process on its own. In November, The Healdsburg Tribune asked Sonoma City Manager David Guhin if Sonoma had received a letter similar to the one Healdsburg received on Oct. 3. He said it had not.
DANCING WITH THE DEAD Participants and attendees of the annual Dia de Muertos in the Healdsburg Plaza can expect more dancing, music and cultural exchange on Oct. 26 this coming year.
The Year in Preview: 2025 NEW YEAR BRINGS NEW EVENTS, PROMISES, PROBLEMS Staff Report
“In the year 2525, if man is still alive If woman can survive, they may find …” So begins, and ends, the song “2525” on the 1969 charts by certified one-hit wonders Zager and Evans. It goes through a series of vignettes, each taking place a millennium hence—the years 3535, 4545 and 5555 follow, each bringing a remarkable leap in science, social deterioration and oppression. Thankfully it’s just a song, and we can look forward to the year 2025 with curiosity, if not enthusiasm. It starts not with a bang, but a hearing—about the
Transition to District Elections policy, at the City Council meeting on Monday, Jan 6. Whatever one may think of splitting sweet home Healdsburg into four or five or six or seven election districts, it’s going to happen. So far it hasn’t been a pretty process, yet it offers an opportunity for residents, workers and businesses to take a close look at what Healdsburg, well, looks like. The first major event that comes our way is the annual Lake Sonoma Steelhead Festival, on Saturday, Feb. 8. This oneday science fair of all things steelhead (and their allies, anadromous and otherwise), draws about 10,000 people on its single day of exhibitions and activities to the Milt Brandt Visitors Center. The festival started over 20 years ago in Healdsburg, but soon outgrew the Plaza and went to
the source, the Congressman Don Clausen Fish Hatchery at Lake Sonoma. The next weekend, Feb. 14-17, brings the Cloverdale Citrus Fair, one of the oldest annual harvest fairs in the state. It offers theme-park rides, plenty of carnival-type vendors, a wine competition, live music and other features. It also usually rains, so bring an umbrella for the big day, Saturday, Feb. 15. Details at cloverdalecitrusfair.org. March 17 brings the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade (7am) and Celtic Concert that same afternoon. The concert has been a midday event thus far, but the council encouraged the Community Services Department to consider moving it to the afternoon to reduce the impact on the Plaza. Stay tuned for the final March 17 plans. Earth Day has lately been recognized in
NEW HEAD OF SCHOOL AT ‘THS’ TRACIE MASTRONICOLA BRINGS BIG CITY ENERGY TO THE HEALDSBURG SCHOOL By Christian Kallen
Photo Courtesy of The Healdsburg School
NEW HEAD Tracie Mastronicola is the new Head of School at The Healdsburg School, coming to town from New York by way of San Francisco.
There’s a new face on the campus of The Healdsburg School this fall: Tracie Mastronicola, 46, has officially become the fourth Head of School for the 14-year-old independent TK-8 school at 33 Healdsburg Ave. “ The two terms are sort of synonymous in the fact that you’re sort of in charge of leading a group
Healdsburg by the Climate Fest, which drew some 2,500 people to the Plaza on April 21 last year. However, it’s not going to happen in 2025: The allvolunteer Climate Action Healdsburg has not been able to dig deep enough into the organization to find the energy or talent to produce it again this year. In May, expect the return of the Giro Vigneti, a semiannual bike tour sponsored by Sunrise Rotary. The May 17 tour consists of four routes ranging from 20 to 100 miles, beginning and ending at Bacchus Landing. Funds raised go to scholarships for local students as well as community and environmental projects. More information is expected soon.
The Wine Year
T h e He a l d s b u r g - a r e a wine tourism partners are launching into the new year
of students and a group of faculty and a group of families through their time at an institution,” Mastronicola said. “You’re really in charge of thinking through and shepherding these really important years from TK to eight,” roughly from the age of 4 to the onset of the teens. Those are crucial years, but Mastronicola’s experience in education to this point suggests she’s the one for the job in Healdsburg. Mastronicola comes to town most recently from San Francisco, where she worked as Associate Head of School at the San Francisco Friends School after serving as a middle school math and science teacher. Originally from New York, and educated at the University of Virginia, she had thought about the next step in her career but hadn’t known much about Healdsburg, and certainly not about The Healdsburg
with their intoxicating enthusiasm. For Wine Road it starts this month with Winter WINEland (emphasis unnecessary), Jan. 18-19. Next it’s Wine Trail, Feb. 15, then Barrel Tasting Weekend, March 1-2. Their annual Food & Wine Affair follows on Nov. 1-2 to close out the Wine Road year. The alternately celebrated and tolerated Healdsburg Wine & Food Experience comes back to town the weekend of May 18, again in the West Plaza Parking lot but hopefully for the last time. There’s high anticipation for Healdsburg event planners to add the Foley Family Community Pavilion to the product line later in 2025. Come autumn, the tasting experience moves onto Plaza Park itself for Healdsburg Crush, a Boys & Girls Club fundraiser returning on Oct. 13. ➝ New Year, 6
School—THS to its friends, family and faculty. “We’ve known about Healdsburg from a tourist perspective,” she said in a conversation this week. “I came up here a lot during Covid, but certainly didn’t know it in the sense that I lived here.” The fast pace of life in San Francisco conditioned her to expect something else fast-paced, until a friend urged her to consider the Healdsburg position. “I just didn’t take time to think, maybe we could move out of the city. Maybe I could move my entire family, maybe we could leave and live in Healdsburg! It seemed like a vacation spot to us,” she said. But she took the plunge, went through an extensive, and what she called “grueling,” interview process, and was picked to replace Andy Davies, the departing Head of School. ➝ Tracie Mastronicola, 4