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YES ON F: IS SONOMA COUNTY REALLY READY TO REDUCE OPEN SPACE PROTECTIONS? Editorial - Published on October 8, 2006 In our view, for example, early acquisitions in areas far from the path of development were not the best use of limited resources, and the district was slow to pursue opportunities for public recreation. An area three times the size of Santa Rosa -- almost 70,000 acres -- is now protected. Consider some of the prominent projects secured with the help of Open Space District revenues: Taylor Mountain in Santa Rosa, the Montini Ranch in Sonoma, Tolay Regional Park outside Petaluma, Willow Creek near Jenner, the Fox Pond property on Healdsburg Ridge, the Carrington Ranch on the Sonoma coast, Prince Memorial Greenway between Santa Rosa and Sebastopol, the Windsor Town Green, Cloverdale River Park ... the list goes on. And the district has improved its record in promoting recreation in recent years. Since 2000, Staff Writers Bleys W. Rose and Mary Fricker reported, $70 million has been spent on recreation land. The Press Democrat today recommends a yes vote on Measure F, a proposal to (1) extend the current quarter-cent sales tax for open space protection to the year 2030, and (2) expand the district's obligation to acquire and develop public recreation land. In doing so, we are mindful of the criticisms of the district -- some appearing in this space -- and we are mindful that the sales tax wouldn't be our choice of solutions, if other solutions were available. On balance, however, we think Sonoma County is better off having a pot of money dedicated to acquiring public recreation lands, urban separators, scenic landscapes, open spaces, farm lands, wildlife habitat, streams and coastal areas. It is worth noting that this money is also used to leverage additional grants from the state and federal government. To date, officials calculate they have secured more than $23 million in outside funds. In the final analysis, the question becomes: How would you feel about living in a county that isn't fully committed to the protection of natural resources? The Press Democrat recommends a yes vote on Measure F. ________________________________________________ Press Democrat, February 23, 2006
MAJOR DONORS TO MEASURE M CAMPAIGN _____________________________________________________ Healdsburg Tribune 2/8/2006 By Pete Mortensen Windsor Town Council member Debora Fudge announced she will challenge incumbent Paul Kelley for the Fourth District seat on the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors. Kelley, who was first elected in 1994, will seek his fourth term on the board. “We have a critical challenge facing us right now,” Fudge read in a prepared statement Tuesday. “We have to preserve our way of life while forging a strong local economy. If we don't get it right, Sonoma County will look like any other cookie-cutter county, and we will have lost the very reason we chose to live here.” The announcement, coming four months before the June 6 primary election for the non-partisan post, ended months of speculation about who would enter the race. “I expected I would have an opponent in my reelection,” Kelley said when informed of Fudge's candidacy. “Anybody has the right to run, but I'm running for re-election based on what I believe in and what I've done for the whole Fourth District and the rest of the county.” Fudge said she had to evaluate her health and other issues before making the decision to declare her candidacy. She has served on Windsor's Town Council since January 1997 after serving for two years as a planning commissioner. She said the time is right to move on. “I've been watching the supervisor seat for 12 years, ever since Paul got elected,” she said. “There was a lot I wanted to do in Windsor before I left for a new challenge. I didn't want to leave Windsor until it felt like we were on the right track. I think Windsor has great momentum with great people coming up the ranks behind me, and now I can do this.” Though no one other than Kelley declared for the race until this week, Fudge was actually the second candidate to do so. Jaime Zukowski, a former mayor of the Ventura County city of Thousand Oaks and for three years a resident of Knights Valley, has been gathering signatures for a petition to appear on the ballot. Candidates may gather 4,000 signatures rather than filing the $969.68 nomination fee if preferred. Reached Tuesday, Zukowski said Fudge's candidacy might affect her own intentions, though she had not yet decided whether to go through with her campaign. “I'm very pleased to hear that,” she said. “I think she would be an excellent supervisor and a needed alternative to Paul Kelley.” Jason Liles, a Healdsburg City Councilmember, said Fudge has the “best base to run from” of any potential Kelley challengers, but it might be getting too late to enter the race. The Fourth District covers northern Santa Rosa, Windsor, Healdsburg, Cloverdale and unincorporated areas of the North County. “Anybody that was going to run against (Kelley) as an incumbent probably should have started awhile back,” Liles said. “But certainly, (Fudge) has the best base to run from. I think a woman from Windsor has the best chance of anybody going against Kelley. He's a very tough campaigner, he has a great campaign staff and he'll raise a lot of money. You've got only four months to overcome a 16-point deficit.” In 2002, Kelley defeated Fred Euphrat with 58 percent of the vote to his challenger's 42. In a non-partisan election, any candidate who receives more than 50 percent of the vote is the winner, which always occurs in a two-person race. When multiple candidates are in contention, the top two vote-getters engage in a run-off campaign in November if neither took a majority of the vote. Gerry Forth, who lives in the Dry Creek Valley, contemplated running for the board of supervisors but decided to throw his support behind Fudge when he learned she would be running. “I feel she probably represents the best opportunity for a nice, balanced voice to be heard in the county,” he said. “She's someone I'll be pushing and promoting and helping.” Bill Patterson, a Windsor resident and former Green Party candidate for Town Council and the Board of Supervisors, said Fudge's candidacy is a “pleasant surprise.” “Paul Kelley, in my view, is not impossible to defeat,” he said. “As a woman candidate from Windsor, which we view up here as a critical town with a lot of votes, Debbie Fudge is very popular in Windsor. If she wins Windsor, there's a very good chance of her winning this election.” The slate of candidates for the election is not set in stone. Anyone wishing to pay the nomination fee may do so as early as Monday or as late as March 10. The deadline to file a petition in lieu of a fee is Feb. 23. Patterson said he is hoping for a two-candidate race. “I would discourage anyone else from entering that race, unless the strategy may be that we deny Paul Kelley the required 50 percent and have a general election the next November,” he said. “That would be the only other strategy.” Kelley said his work on behalf of Sonoma County is evident. “I am running for re-election for Fourth District Supervisor as the leading advocate on the Board for widening Highway 101, building use facilities, agricultural preservation and open space. I've done a lot over the last years, and I'm looking forward to representing the Fourth District in the future.” His challenger Fudge, meanwhile, said she has worked over the last 12 years to transform Windsor. “We need vision and leadership to set the right direction, as well as the experience to understand the ramifications of every decision and to know good ideas from bad,” she said. “Above all, it takes courage and strength to settle for no less than we deserve. I am running for supervisor because I know how to do this. Since 1995, I have been shepherding Windsor from a state of runaway sprawl to a nationally recognized state of great planning and natural resource conservation. Now it's time to do it for the county.” Transportation, water quality and quantity and the economy are critical issues for the coming years in Sonoma County, Fudge said. “We need to improve our local economy with different types of jobs than have been willing to locate here so far,” she said. “We'll be looking at some new jobs to locate here that have typically been locating in Silicon Valley.” Though Kelley made no specific comment on Fudge's candidacy, he said he is looking forward to “a campaign in which we talk to the voters and give the voters an opportunity to vote.” ________________________________________________________ Graton sewer district nearing goal of zero-discharge system Years of political and economic work coming to fruition as system strives to stay out of the River By Patricia M. Roth - Sonoma West Staff Writer GRATON - “It's really the sewer that created a community in Graton. How much more basic can it get? If you live in a town you flush and don't think about it,” remarked Jane Eagle, president of the Graton Community Services District (CSD) board of directors. In Graton, however, the community was forced to think about it - and that led to the work that's being undertaken now at the sewer plant, a $2-million capital improvements project that's economically feasible and environmentally sensitive. Looking back on how the CSD was formed, Eagle told a tale of sewer bills rising by leaps and bounds and how citizens united to spare their small community from being swallowed up by new development, which was seen as the only way to stabilize rates. They broke away from the Sonoma County Water Agency and jumped through the bureaucratic hoops to form a community services district. This had been precipitated by a mandate from the state to upgrade the sewage treatment process to tertiary treatment levels to meet discharge standards or stop discharging into Atascadero Creek. Eagle said they didn't mind doing that, but they wanted to do it their way. Graton wanted to be in control of its own destiny, growth and wastewater. “We wanted to look like a West County country community,” she said, “and we wanted to be the best sewer district we could.” So led by people like Marta Williams and with “broad base support from the Graton community,” residents fought for autonomy and won. With “zero discharge” as their mantra, they chose to implement an ecological and affordable solution to improve the sewer plant. Many of the solutions are so unconventional the district must prove to the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board that they'll work. They include using a tertiary filtration system that will give the district more irrigation options and make the water more saleable: a fuzzy ball filter and a hydroponic loop possibly covered with a greenhouse with plants for sale; replacing toxic chlorine gas disinfection with peracetic acid, which breaks down quickly into vinegar and is used by the food processing industry for sterilizing; and expanding the redwood forest soil filtration and groundwater recharge system to keep water within the local watershed. The district plans to replace aging aerators and pumps with low energy, high efficiency equipment that runs on demand. Their goal is to implement energy strategies that will reduce their utility bill, and to create ways to bring in income down the road; for instance, harvesting redwood trees which they've have been planting on site in a redwood forest. The recently sworn-in board of directors has all of this and more on its plate. The CIP tops their list of responsibilities. Veterans Eagle and Judy Christensen, treasurer of the board, are serving second terms. First-time boardmembers (though not new to the cause) comprise the board majority: David Jeppesen, vice president; Ellen Swenson, secretary; and Susan Capelis, boardmember. The board this year is overseeing a $2.7-million budget, including the $2-million CIP and a $700,000 loan reconsolidated at a lower interest rate, as well as an operating budget. With financing secured, an engineer has been hired and the search is on for the right contractor. Plant site work is expected to start in June, starting with raising the berms for flood protection around the plant (which was proven to be needed during the New Year's floods). “It's unspeakably exciting,” said Eagle. “The CIP is something we have been working toward for the last 15 years. It's a work of art. “It's been our dream since we started this fight, first off, to stop the exponential increase in sewer rates and create a project that is environmentally sustainable. And to be able to take something as basic as wastewater from a high-tech, high-toxic system into something that is environmentally sustainable is tremendously exciting for all of us who care about the environment,” she said. Board members believe that once the facility is up and running it will serve as a model and draw people nationwide. They credit CSD General Manager Bob Rawson and engineer Pete Lescure of Lescure Engineers for being able to carry the project through. “They're proficient experts and visionaries in their fields,” said Eagle. Rawson is a wastewater consultant whose company, Wastewater Solutions, Inc., takes him on consulting jobs worldwide. He's a grade five wastewater operator, which allows him to operate any wastewater facility anywhere. He has been teaching at Santa Rosa Junior College for 26 years and has patents pending in various applications. But being the contract general manager of the CSD is “almost a first love. I live locally. I love being out here in this environment,” he said. Rawson said that because of the makeup of Graton's board and community, they're “going to allow something very innovative and sustainable” to take place at the facility. “It's really great. It isn't everywhere you can do this. “We have an opportunity to demonstrate sustainable, leading edge technology and maintain local control and we do it by working with biology and nature instead of against them,” said Rawson. “We'd like this to be a place where people can come and see those kinds of leading edge technologies and where they can be demonstrated. Graton, in my opinion, likes the idea of being innovative, especially where it doesn't hurt anything.” Lescure's background includes working with small community and decentralized wastewater management systems. He has experience in the design and construction of both conventional and alternative plants and is able to see the best aspects of each. When Rawson and Lescure get together, the why's and how's of things biological and chemical become a topic of conversation - from bringing an aerated lagoon to resemble a more activated system to how viruses can hide within particles. Not to mention metals, phosphorus and turbidity. It's really another world that the board of directors greatly appreciates. “Bob is the heart and soul of it. Peter is the engineer, very innovative. And together they are a dynamite team. It (the facility) is going to be cutting-edge. It will be low-tech, alternative, green and it's all being done as economically as possible with payoffs for the future,” said Jeppesen. “They are designing a lot of systems where money can be made for the sewer. It's real exciting.” “We have such jewels helping us,” added Christensen. Not only Bob and Pete, but operators Brian Kelley and Willie Rodriguez, volunteer Richard Miller, intern Ed Myers and environmental engineer John Rosenblum, who's been working with Lescure to save money on the power bill. Christensen earned the nickname “the tree mom” for the work she's done for five years to plant and nurse hundreds of redwood trees in the CSD's sustainable redwood forest. “It's exciting to figure out what we can do with the land,” she said. Christensen envisions a park with picnic areas and nature trails in Graton's future - if not at the district then somewhere in the community. For now, “every step is really important. Sometimes it's been two steps forward and one step back, and we're still going forward. Right now we are working on a Construction Manager at Risk contract that will save the district money and keep us on the cutting edge,” she said. “Collaboration is especially important in this case,” explained Lescure. “Anyone who has remodeled instead of rebuilt, which is what we are doing, will understand the benefits of that. We're trying to minimize the unknowns and find out if there are less expensive ways of doing things.” Meanwhile, “Bob has to keep the plant in operation and meet current discharge standards while we're doing all this construction.” In other words, “you still have to cook dinner while you're remodeling the kitchen. It's going to be a dance,” he said.
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 CLOVERDALE TO CONSIDER SETTING URBAN GROWTH LIMITS Published on January 24, 2006 © 2006- The Press Democrat Cloverdale, the only city in Sonoma County without a boundary limiting its outward expansion, might be changing its ways. The push comes as planners forecast a 50 percent increase in Cloverdale's population over the next 15 years. ________________________ FARMER IN GMO CASE BACKS BAN: CANADIAN INVOLVED IN HIGH-PROFILE COURT CASE SPEAKS ON BEHALF OF MEASURE M Published on October 13, 2005 Percy Schmeiser, the controversial Canadian farmer whose legal fight with Monsanto Corp. catapulted him to superstar status in the anti-GMO movement, is urging Sonoma County voters to ban genetically modified crops. Schmeiser, 74, is halfway through a weeklong list of Sonoma County speaking engagements sponsored by GE-Free Sonoma, which is backing Measure M on the Nov. 8 ballot.
GMO BAN SOLE LOCAL MEASURE ON BALLOT Published on August 15, 2005 © 2005- The Press Democrat A measure that would ban genetically modified crops in Sonoma County will be the only local initiative on the Nov. 8 ballot, Janice Atkinson, assistant registrar of voters, said Sunday. The measure would impose a 10-year ban on the growth and sale of genetically altered crops, fish, trees, animals and other organisms in Sonoma County. Violators who knowingly grow or raise such crops or animals could be charged for all abatement costs and fined up to $1,000. _________________________ Debate heats up over county GMO initiative August 31, 2005 By DAN JOHNSON The two groups, firmly planted on opposite sides of a rural Sonoma County fence, each depict themselves as dedicated friends of "the people" seeking to boost agricultural production, the economy, health and human rights, and often portray their opponents as ignorant, self-serving rascals whose scare tactics leave people shaking in their boots. Actually, both groups have done extensive research and are working around the clock to spread their viewpoints to Petalumans and other county residents on a highly charged issue that they agree has extraordinary short- and long-term implications. Underlying these general similarities, however, lie extremely different perspectives on an ordinance that seeks to prevent agricultural and environmental contamination from genetically engineered (transgenic) organisms -- plants, animals or microorganisms whose genetic code has been altered to give them characteristics that they naturally don't have. Although much of the general public still is unfamiliar with the GMO debate, it has become one of the hottest squabbles in recent memory, sometimes bitterly dividing communities and even households. Several countries, including Australia, Brazil, China, the 25 nations of the European Union, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Russia and South Korea, already have legal bans or restrictions on the planting of transgenic crops. Marin and Mendocino counties recently passed similar ordinances, while several other California counties rejected them. "Sonoma County needs to pass this initiative because the federal and state governments are asleep at the wheel in regulating GMOs," Henson said. "Contaminating the genetic source of food products threatens food security, and by comparison dwarves other environmental threats." GE foods were introduced into the United States in the mid-1990s. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration ruled that these foods are "substantially equivalent" to other foods, but many government scientists caution that the genetic engineering process is unpredictable and could present new hazards to human health and the environment. "I do not contend that all genetic technologies are bad, or that they all lead to a threat of ecological or agricultural contamination," he said. "Much of the research into transgenic technologies is very exciting, and may offer great potential to farmers and others around the globe. However, the current GE crops being grown -- mainly corn, canola, soy and cotton -- have, in fact, proven to be seriously harmful to our U.S. agricultural economy, to our farmers' rights and to our natural ecosystems almost everywhere they are grown." Henson feels that without regulations, farmers' rights are violated because GE crops from neighboring farms will contaminate other farmers' crops and seed stacks through pollen or seeds brought by wind, winter, animals, birds, insects and trucks and farm machinery. "Farms from miles away can be affected," he said. Advocates claim that people's health could be impaired by inhaling GE pollen, eating GE plants and being exposed to toxic herbicides and pesticides that are used to kill new "super weeds" and "super bugs" that emerge as farm pests evolve resistance to GE crops. "We would have herbicide-tolerant super weeds growing by the side of the road in Petaluma and other places. This initiative isn't just about agricultural crops," Henson said. He contends that the initiative would help protect Sonoma County's ecosystems from irreversible genetic contamination by GE plants, fish and trees. "From an ecological perspective, genetic engineering can be disastrous. It boggles the mind to think about the consequences, because it could impact all domestic food products. Some back-crossing of DNA from genetically engineered crops to native relatives already has occurred in corn, cotton and canola," he said. Henson emphasizes the possible long-term risks of using transgenic organisms. "Once they enter the environment, there's no turning back because they start spreading and contaminating other crops and wild plants," he said, adding that Monsanto and the handful of other chemical companies creating GE products have been driven by greed rather than public welfare. Lex McCorvey, the executive director of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau and the Sonoma County Family Farmers Alliance, which was created to defeat the initiative, is on the other side of the big fence from Henson, and it's clear that their ideas haven't cross-pollinated. "After a lengthy analysis, the SCFB believes that the benefits of genetic engineering far outweigh any of the perceived risks," he said. "It will benefit the local agriculture, environment, economy and health care." He contends that the initiative would stifle the agricultural industry, and that local farms could suffer a competitive disadvantage. "In agriculture, people need to deal with many outside influences, and any effort we can make that allows them the tools they need to stay in business is positive," he said. "Also, we haven't found any negative long-term ramifications to consuming genetically engineered products. Companies need to go through an eight-to-12-year regulatory process before these products are approved." McCorvey feels that the county's grape industry would be at a competitive disadvantage if it couldn't use a disease-resistant vine stock being developed and that dairies would suffer because they wouldn't be able to grow their own genetically modified silage. "We have a lot of dairy farms in Petaluma, and this initiative could be very damaging to them," he said. McCorvey also feels that genetic engineering can help, rather than harm, the environment. "I haven't seen any evidence that it will harm ecosystems," he said. "I'm more concerned with deforestation and how it can destroy redwood trees. We need to find new ways to protect the integrity of ecosystems. "Jonas Salk wouldn't have developed a polio vaccine if people were prevented from doing something unless it has been conclusively proven without exception." While supporters of the initiative claim that all enforcement costs would be paid by violators, McCorvey estimates that it would be difficult to enforce, and could cost around $250,000 annually to implement. He also criticizes proponents' claim that the initiative allows for medical research in a contained environment. "Most communities require only a level-1 laboratory. A contained environment is a level-3 laboratory, and no biotech company would want to build one here when it isn't required anywhere else in the world," he said. Despite the strong disagreements, Henson and McCorvey share one common view. Many people don't understand the impact that the initiative will have, and need to become better informed, they both said, still standing on opposite sides of the fence. (Contact Dan Johnson at djohnson@arguscourier.com)
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