LocalLocal newsnews at your at your ngertips everyevery weekweek fingertips $1.00 JustJust $1!.00!
Greyounds sports Greyounds sports section teaser section teaser Sports,Sports, Page XPage X
at the newsstand at the newsstand
$1 at$1the at newsstand the newsstand
TheHealdsburg HealdsburgTribune Tribune The Enterprise & Scimitar Enterprise & Scimitar
Visit for daily updates on local news views www.healdsburgtribune.com for daily updates on local news andand views Our 159th year,Visit Number 43 www.healdsburgtribune.com Healdsburg, California
Our 155th year, Number 00© ur 155th year, Number 00©
OPEN MIC: SWIM BUT DON’T DRINK THE POLITICAL WATERS
Healdsburg, California Healdsburg, California
October 24, 2024 Date, Date, 20202020
HEALDSBURG’S CITY MANAGER SHARES THE SECRET OF STAYING AFLOAT By Jeff Kay
➝ Election Season, 4
Photography by Rick Tang
Early in my career, I worked for a city manager who had a saying that stuck with me: “I swim in political waters, but I don’t drink the water.” The work of Healdsburg’s city staff is inherently apolitical, but staying above the fray can be a challenge during a contentious election season like the one we are all enduring. I’ve worked through a lot of elections, but the tone of this one—both locally and nationally—has at times been discouraging. One particularly unfortunate trend in recent years is the incidence of individuals maligning public servants for political gain by challenging both their competence and their integrity (and I will admit to being a little defensive on this point). I’ve seen a rise in the quantity and severity of vitriol directed at public employees. In Healdsburg, there seems to be some sentiment that City Hall doesn’t care about locals as much as tourists and the wealthy. This is troubling to me, because it is completely inconsistent with what I witness every day. I’m quite sure that none of our employees arrive at work in the morning thinking, “I can’t wait to advance the interests of rich outsiders today!” Instead, our team is deeply committed to serving our residents, with a particular emphasis on those who need us the most. The result is exemplary public safety services, clean drinking water, safe streets, top-notch parks,
WINNERS The winning entries in Healdsburg’s 2024 Howl-O-Ween, with their people, at the Plaza on Oct. 19. The annual pet parade is sponsored by the Sonoma County Humane Society.
Pets Show People How It’s Done HOWL-O-WEEN PARADE BRINGS OUT THE BEST IN HEALDSBURG By Christian Kallen
Not every Halloween parade is as peaceful, or as colorful, as the one that circled the Plaza on Saturday before queuing up at the gazebo for an awards ceremony that featured prizes of kibble and chew toys. The very thought of almost 30 dogs in one place at the same time seems like a golden opportunity for a dog fight, but that happened the night before at the HealdsburgTerra Linda football game. Instead, the 29 pooches that entered in the 2024 Howl-O-Ween pet parade, sponsored by the Humane Society of Sonoma County, showed why they’re beloved by their people as they showed off costumes,
wigs, novelty rigs and, in at least one case, their stripes. It was the sixth annual Pet Parade, a relatively recent tradition that’s beginning to show some legs. With Vice Mayor Evelyn Mitchell hosting, and an all-city cast of judges including Police Chief Matt Jenkins, Fire Chief Jason Boaz, City Councilmember Chris Herrod and Fideaux pet store owner Erin Morris, the participating pets patiently awaited the results and warmly embraced the winners. The white-striped dog, dubbed Puppy Le Pew for this pre-Halloween event, got a lot of wary attention but no prize for owner Nikki Baxes, of the Ranch at Lake Sonoma. But the Baxes’ daughter, Lybell, made it work with her bewigged boxer Rosie, who took first place in the Medium Dog category. Other winners included a tiny UPS package from Stefanie Giffin in the Small
Dog category, Beauty and the Beast with the Rose by owner Jim Lewis in the Large Dog class, and a Best of Show nod to Top Gun, the shaggy dog behind the stick of a toy fighter jet, from Joyce Wang.
EM the MC
“As you may know, this event has been one dear to my heart for many years,” said Vice Mayor Evelyn Mitchell. “I have had the privilege of being a judge first and now the emcee for a number of years.” Before becoming a member of the City Council, where she now enters her sixth year, Mitchell served on the Board of Directors for the Humane Society of Sonoma County (HSSC) for 12 years, five of them as the board president. During that same span of time the old Healdsburg Animal Shelter on Westside Road suffered numerous financial and
COUNCIL NAMES PARK FOR ‘CULTURE BEARER’ LAURA FISH SOMERSAL GETS THE NOD OVER FORMER MAYOR ABEL DE LUNA By Christian Kallen Photo courtesy Healdsburg Museum
NAMESAKE Pomo ‘culture bearer’ Laura Fish Somersal
will lend her name to the new Saggio Hills park, on the north end of Healdsburg.
In a momentous decision that almost wasn’t reached at all, the Healdsburg City Council voted 4-0 to name the Saggio Hills park after Native artisan, historian, linguist and “culture bearer” Laura Fish Somersal. Fo u r n a m e s w e r e broached to the Council for
legal troubles, and the only solution was for the county Humane Society to take over the local shelter. As well as the dogs, cats and occasional bunny, the trade-off included a large new animal shelter under construction nearby, next to where Bacchus Landing has since been built. The new shelter was designed by an architect with little understanding of or familiarity with animals, said Mitchell. “The way the building was developed was not by an animal-welfare person,” she said, laughing today. “He thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be pretty to have big tall ceilings?’—but there’s a lot of noise when you’ve got dogs barking.” A concrete dog run had to be removed and other mediation fixes made in order to make the shelter work. It’s now one of two HSSC shelters in the county, the other being on Hwy 12 just east of Sebastopol.
Friend-Raising
its final decision at the Oct. 21 meeting—Smith Robinson, Pomo-Wappo Park, Parque de la Luna for former mayor Abel De Luna, and Fish Somersal. A recent change to the city’s facilities naming conventions allowed De Luna—who is still alive, and in fact showed up at the meeting with his wife, Emilia—to be considered. Despite Robinson’s acknowledged contributions to Healdsburg’s community and national visibility as one of the few (if not only) Black men in town during the 1940s and 1950s, and the current appreciation of Pomo contributions in public statements, it came down to the two representatives of their respective people and culture, Hispanic and Native. Somersal’s name was the preferred recommendation of the City’s Parks and Recreation Commission at the Aug. 29 meeting. However, a substantial amount
of public comment was received from backers of De Luna prior to the meeting, many of them duplicates, and the public-speaking portion lasted more than 40 minutes. But after much heartrending conversation and not a few tears, the voices of the Native peoples prevailed over the advocacy of Healdsburg’s considerable Mexican-American residents, and the Council chose Laura Fish Somersal. However, De Luna’s contributions did not go unacknowledged: far from it. Acting on a suggestion from Councilmember Herrod, the Council agreed by unanimous consent to direct City staff to craft a resolution renaming the Healdsburg Community Center after De Luna, and to bring it back to the Council as soon as possible.
The failure of the Healdsburg Animal Shelter caused much local distress at the time, and a certain amount of mistrust when the HSSC took it over. “People are very passionate about their animals, as you know,” Mitchell said. “And we got some resistance from people. They were mad at us because the other shelter was fiscally in trouble.” Mitchell recalled that they “had a bit of an uphill battle to get the community on board.” Part of the Humane Society’s outreach was to take over a small pet parade that Natalie Tappan of the now-closed Healdsburg Doghouse had been hosting. “The pet parade seems like a small thing overall, but it was a way that the community can see who we are and what we do, and reach out to them in that way,” Mitchell said. ➝ Howl-O-Ween, 7
See a longer version of this story at healdsburgtribune.com.