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CITY COUNCIL VOTES TO ADD ‘MIDDLE CLASS’ TO BALLOT QUESTION
June 20, 2024
Healdsburg, California Healdsburg, California
Date, Date, 20202020
LAST-MINUTE CHANGES PITCHED TO BROADEN APPEAL OF GMO REVISION MEASURE By Christian Kallen
Background
Healdsburg voters adopted the GMO in 2000, back when Mike McGuire was on the City Council, to control residential growth. What was then called Measure M limited residential building permits for new construction to an average of 30 units per year, and no more than 90 over a 3-year period, with exclusions for low-income and accessory
Photo by Eddy Cumins
Faced with the task of crafting a ballot measure that was accurate, legal and appealing to the average voter, the Healdsburg City Council took pains to review the recommended wording for a November ballot measure that would amend the 24-year-old Growth Management Ordinance, or GMO. The proposed wording, to be placed on the ballot in the general election on Nov. 5 of this year, was presented as follows: “To encourage creation of workforce housing on underutilized parcels, should the City of Healdsburg exempt multi-family housing along portions of the Healdsburg Avenue corridor from the Growth Management Ordinance?” This would be the latest in a long line of attempted revisions to the GMO that the city and its voters have grappled with for the past eight years. And, as it turned out, that wording itself was subject to final revision even as Monday’s meeting took place.
UP IN FLAMES Visitors to Trattore Farms & Winery on Dry Creek Road watch as a hill across the valley erupts into flames and smoke on Father’s Day afternoon.
Point Fire Torches Dry Creek Valley 1,200-ACRE WILDFIRE BURNS HOMES, THREATENS WINERIES By Simone Wilson
A warm and sunny Father’s Day amid the rolling hills of the Dry Creek Valley outside Healdsburg took an uneasy turn early Sunday afternoon, when hundreds of residents, winery staff and tourists began receiving alerts on their phones about a wildfire near Lake Sonoma. Cal Fire, the lead response agency, named it the Point Fire after Stewarts Point-Skaggs Spring Road where it started. “It’s a bad spot, because it’s vegetation that likes to burn and produces embers,” said Marshall Turbeville, chief of the Northern Sonoma
working” that first day, Chief Turbeville said. As they tried to douse the Point Fire from the ground and air, gusts up to 40 mph kept blowing more embers downwind, igniting huge new swaths of vegetation. On top of that, according to Cal Fire spokesman Jason Clay, crews were working in “steep and rugged terrain” with homes tucked into trees along narrow, winding roads. In firefighter lingo, it’s called a “wildland-urban interface”—one of the trickiest to navigate. Santa Rosa residents Vivian and Eddy Cumins were enjoying a glass of wine on Father’s Day at Trattore Farms & Winery on Dry Creek Road, taking in a view of the hills to the west, quilted in forests and vines. They watched, mesmerized, as one of those hills went up in flames.
County Fire Protection District. Weather conditions, too, were ripe for fire, with low air humidity, and high heat and winds. During the next 12 whirlwind hours, the Point Fire burned through more than 1,000 acres of rural land southeast of the lake—destroying at least two country homes, threatening dozens of world-famous wineries and possibly damaging some grapevines, and prompting widespread PG&E power outages that lasted for days. As thick smoke poured across Sonoma and Napa counties, more than 300 residents of the northern Dry Creek Valley and its foothills rushed to evacuate, along with hundreds more lake and tastingroom visitors. “Everything that firefighters were doing wasn’t
“You have the beauty of the hill and the green and the vineyards,” Vivian Cumins said. “And then you have this beast of fire coming across and just starting to consume it.” As she and her husband evacuated the winery on the gentle orders of Trattore staff, she said they encountered a stopand-go line of cars along Dry Creek, many pulling boats—apparently fleeing from Lake Sonoma. “You could tell how rushed they were, because their boats were only halfway onto their trailers,” she said.
Memories of Fires Past
For those who call the valley and its hills home, the chaotic outbreak of the Point Fire on Sunday brought back memories of the Walbridge Fire that
➝ Ballot, 2
ASTI SUMMER CROSSING IN CONSTRUCTION, TO OPEN BY JULY 4 PERMANENT BRIDGE IN THE WORKS BUT LOCAL PROPERTY FEE MAY BE NECESSARY Staff Report Photo by Christian Kallen
STILL CLOSED Washington School Road at Asti Road just south of Cloverdale remained closed to traffic as of June 15.
Even as work proceeds through the end of the month to reopen the seasonal span over the Russian River near the community of Asti—the so-called Asti Summer Crossing—the County of Sonoma is finalizing preparations to turn
the crossing into a permanent one. “A Pe r m a n e n t A s t i Bridge will provide an additional, reliable, yearround egress, particularly during disaster emergencies, which are an increasingly frequent threat,” stated the County’s Road Projects division, part of what’s now called Sonoma Public Infrastructure (formerly TPW, or Transportation and Public Works). The total estimated project cost is $20 million, and the County of Sonoma proposes to fund $16 million of the total amount. “Property owners may be required to fund up to $4 million of project costs, depending on any grants that may be available,” the County said, suggesting a property tax or levy might be applied. “Several options are in play in order to get that money, including the
ravaged the area in 2020, tearing through a similar footprint (only much larger) and burning hundreds of buildings. It carried all the markers of that traumatic event: The screaming phone alerts. Flashing sirens. Road barricades. The sickly orange-yellow color of the sky. The frantic trips from home to car, stockpiling valuables. A goodbye glance at the house on the way out. The smell and taste of thick smoke—and, up closer, of burning wood and plastic. In a briefing Monday morning at the Cloverdale fairgrounds, a Cal Fire unit chief reminded firefighters they would be encountering Walbridge Fire survivors as they continued battling the Point Fire that day. “So please be mindful of that, and take a second ➝ Fire, 6
determination of a Bridge Assessment District in which that money will be collected via a property tax over a period of time,” said Kasey Williams of Sonoma Public Infrastructure. “That being said, nothing is set in stone just yet and we’re looking at all options, including additional grant money.” The recently completed Environmental Impact Study found no significant mitigation was required under the California E nv i r o n m e n t a l Q u a l ity Act (CEQA) and the findings were posted for public comment on May 29, when a 30-day period opened for review and any written objection. Construction of the temporary crossing began on Monday, June 10, and is now expected to be completed before the 4th of July holiday.