My Sonoma - One city, many unincorporated hamlets

Many residents of Sonoma Valley, The Valley of the Moon,  living outside the city limits of Sonoma have expressed annoyance and frustration with the fact that they have no vote on anything regarding city government even though they spend a great deal of money (including sales taxes) shopping in the City of Sonoma. That’s where most of the large grocery stores and other merchants are.

The larger area considered to be part of Sonoma Valley begins 12 miles south of the city of Sonoma where Highway 37, running east-west between Marin and Solano Counties, cuts through the wetlands bordering San Francisco Bay.  Wide at its mouth,  the Valley gradually narrows as the Maycamas Mountains on its eastern and western edges force a slight curve to the northwest.

Through its center is Sonoma Creek.  Its northern boundary is traditionally considered to be where Sonoma Creek crosses Highway 12 at the northern limits of Kenwood just north of Adobe Canyon, but the “border lands” between Kenwood and Los Guillicos were, in times past, considered to be part of the valley.

Despite its claims, no part of Santa Rosa, including Oakmont, was ever considered to be in the Valley of the Moon.  

Sonoma is the only incorporated city in Sonoma Valley.  The villages of Schellville, Vineburg, El Verano, Boyes Hot Springs, Fetters Springs, Aqua Caliente, Eldridge, Glen Ellen and Kenwood are part of Sonoma Valley, not part of the city of Sonoma, nor do they have separate local governments.  They are, instead, part of the unincorporated area, which is governed by Sonoma County.

In times past there have been attempts to “unify” the whole Valley, or at least some more parts of it, into one large city, so that the residents of these smaller villages could have more self government

With unification, everybody within the new city would have an equal vote.

While exploration of a valley-wide city began in 1962 with the Sonoma Valley Chamber of Commerce, the most significant push for Valley unification began in 1968 with a Chamber-sponsored “Congress for Community Progress,” a gathering of community leaders from inside and outside the city discussing civic issues of common concern.

There was agreement among those in attendance that valley-wide unification was the highest priority.  Out of that first meeting an ad hoc Sonoma Valley Council was formed to continue working on and studying unification.

The late Mel Larson, a longtime Boyes Hot Springs business owner, became chairman and chief proponent of a valley-wide city in which all residents would have a vote.

Over the next two years, Larson’s unification committee met and studies were commissioned. Those efforts concluded that unification was a sound idea both democratically and economically.  During that period also, Larson wrote a lengthy series of articles, published in the Index-Tribune, making the case for unification.  He also spoke at local service clubs and got their support, the Chamber of Commerce’s support and the backing of many civic leaders.  The Index-Tribune editorially endorsed it.

But after three years of trying, the idea never got onto a local ballot.

But then Supervisor Ig Vella, the valley’s representative on the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, took up the cause and proposed a valley-unification process.

All along the way, there were opponents, inside and outside of the city, who saw this as nothing but some kind of power grab in which they would lose their independence and autonomy.  

Nevertheless, in 1976, “Reorganization Measures, K and L,” were placed on the June ballot. If passed they would have created a merger between El Verano, Fetters Hot Springs, Agua Caliente and Boyes Hot Springs and the already incorporated City of Sonoma. Certain fire, water and maintenance districts within those areas would be incorporated into this new city.

Both measures went down in flames.  Inside the City, “no” voters led “yes” voters 1586 to 568 (3 to 1 against). Outside city limits the “no” votes ran more than three to one against as well (3,148 to 817).

The failed measures marked the end of any organized, community-wide effort to bring the various communities of Sonoma Valley into one governmental body.

Since then, however, the local fire departments have merged into one, and local police services for the Valley basically come from the same agency, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department.

Our local public schools are in a Valley-wide unified district and our hospital district is Valley wide.

City residents can still vote for their city council representatives, and non-city residents can’t. 

 My Sonoma - Does Sonoma mean Valley of the Moon?

My Sonoma Valley of the 1940s and early 50s was a great place in which to be a child. Open fields, fruit orchards and vineyards surrounded the one-mile square town of Sonoma, at the center of which was the eight-acre Plaza, originally laid out by Gen. Marianno G. Vallejo.

While the older kids had jobs picking prunes and other fruit during the summer, those of us under 10, were free to play, ride our bikes and explore the countryside around us, including the old stone quarries in the hills that rise north of the town.

There were few homes built in the Mayacamas Mountains to our north, and our creeks which flowed south into San Francisco bay often led up steep canyons to tall, dark and mysterious  groves of old-growth redwoods that had somehow escaped the axes that felled so many parts of our natural forests to feed the building boom in San Francisco during the gold rush.

There was still a lot of un-farmed, undeveloped, relatively wild land all around us.

There were natural springs and spring-rain fed creeks all over the southeast part of the Valley.  I remember wading through flooded vernal pools in open fields, fascinated by the flocks of wild ducks and geese there.  Salmon and steelhead came up our many little creeks to spawn.  The baby steelhead, hatched in late wintering spring became the rainbow trout for which we fished when trout season opened in later spring.

Blackberries, an aggessive non-native bush, planted by early settlers here, had taken over some of the open fields, making a home and hiding place for large coveys of valley quail and pheasant.

In the summer, our whole family would go on blackberry-picking excursions, the result of which were delicious berry pies later in the evening.  To this day, a fresh-baked berry pie is my favorite dessert.

In my memory, there were places in my hometown in those days that probably looked like the Valley of the Moon that Franciscan Padre Jose Altimira saw when he first made his way north from Yerba Buena (San Francisco) to Sonoma Valley in 1823.

Yerba Buena, a remote outpost of Spanish California, was still a couple of decades away from the gold-rush boom town we know today as San Francisco.

The Franciscan monk and his party had to cross the bay by boat, then on horseback find their way up though the Marin headlands, ford the Petaluma River, slog through the salt marshes, and finally see a wild and verdant valley in which grizzly bears and mountain lions roamed and through which creeks, teeming with fish, wound their way down to the bay.

It is said that the native American residents of the Valley were the one’s who told Altamira that this beautiful place was called Sonoma. They said Sonoma was the word for “many moons,” explaining that because of the mountain range formation on the valley’s eastern rim, the moon would seem to rise again and again over their home.

The accuracy of this translation has been questioned by later historians, but the magical description of Sonoma as the “Valley of the Moon,” was forever engraved for posterity in the novel of the same name by author Jack London, who came here in 1904 ti live and write.  His “Beauty Ranch”  is today a California State Park.

Even in London’s day, Sonoma Valley was a remote part of the Bay Area. 

There was not Golden Gate Bridge. It took a boat trip, followed by stage or horseback ride to get here from San Francisco.

My grand aunt, Celeste Granice Murphy, who was editor of The Sonoma Index-Tribune from 1915 to 1946, published an interesting book “The People of the Pueblo – A Story of Sonoma,” in 1937 that gives a fascinating description of those early days in the 19th Century when Sonoma was an important outpost of the California frontier.

 My Sonoma - Flood control on Sonoma Creek

In 2016, the Sonoma County Water Agency withdrew its proposal to spend $3.8 million for a flood-control project for the upper portions First Street West from the Veterans Memorial Building down to the Plaza, citing opposition from some local veterans who objected to the parts of that project that would involve parts of the Sonoma Veterans Memorial Building parking area.

I know very little about that proposal, but it reminded me of the time more than 40 years ago when another group of Sonoma Valley residents objected to, and eventually stopped, an $11.5 million Army Corps of Engineers flood control project proposed for Sonoma Creek.

The funds for that project were to come from the federal government as the result of a study of the Schellville area near Sonoma Creek just before the start of World War II.  That area is a flood plain, but had been farmed for decades because dredging and dike building in the early 20th century had contained Sonoma Creek to keep it from flooding the plains around it.

When the dredging and levee maintenance got too expensive and was stopped, the creek began to revert to its annual and natural way of overflowing into the surrounding land, which is nearly at sea level.

Several landowners who farmed in the Sonoma Creek floodplain complained about annual winter flooding.  After WWII, the study was revived and eventually made it onto the Army Corps of Engineers projects list and it got funding authorization from congress.

Finally, in the late 1960s, as the Corps was beginning to plan the actual project, some local residents became concerned about the environmental impact and cost.

The Corps’ usual flood control methods then included turning a natural, meandering creek into a straight, concrete-lined “trapezoidal” channel with banks of rip-rap (large rocks) and enclosed in a chain-link fence. At one point, this large drainage ditch approach was envisioned for Sonoma Creek all the way upstream to Boyes Boulevard.  It was not a pretty picture.

The $11.5 million construction cost plus the annual maintenance costs were also questioned, with one local resident, prominent wine-maker August Sebastiani, pointing out that the flooded land in Schellville could be purchased for $1 million.

In fact, buying the land and letting it flood naturally was one of the solutions proposed by the groups opposing the project.

A local citizens study committee was appointed by then supervisor Ignazio Vella. The discussions dragged on into 1972.

After months of study and many public meetings and a separate study by a group from the University of California, the Corps saw that its original project was not going to earn popular support. Our local congressman, Don Clausen, also could feel which way the winds were blowing.

The local committee recommended more environmentally friendly solutions; the Corps took it under study. The original flood control project was canceled.The issue sort of faded away.

Today, some of that land is now public and allowed to flood.  The intersection of Highway 12 and Highway 121 at Schellville still floods in some winter storms. With global warming and sea level rising perhaps Schellville will become a bayside community.  

 My Sonoma

Business on the Plaza

 When I was a boy growing up in Sonoma, there seemed to be at least two or three bars on every block of the Plaza, more if you counted the ones that were part of a hotel or restaurant (Union Hotel, Swiss Hotel and El Dorado for example).

Fast-forward to today, and it seems that there are always some group of folks concerned about preserving the old Sonoma character of our downtown business district.  They want to go as far as regulating how much of any one kind of business, including winery tasting rooms, can go there.

So how many liquor or wine establishments are too many for downtown Sonoma? How many restaurants are too many? Ice cream shops? How about lawyers and real estate sales people?  

Classic, old-fashioned Main Street with small grocers, drug stores and haberdashers serving the needs of locals, has been gone from downtown Sonoma for decades. Only a very few (like Eraldi’s) have survived. The evolution of our small-town, small-shop economy began long before tasting rooms.

Safeway, which used be located just south of where the art museum is today, moved west five blocks to Fifth Street West.  Food City Market, which sold wine, was located for years in the middle of First Street East between Spain St. and Napa Street. It closed and was replaced by a complex of shops, some of which sell wine.

Adobe Drug, now Pharmaca, used to be where the Sunflower Caffe is now, but moved to their new building in the mid 1960s.  There were two other drug stores downtown in those days: Simmons Pharmacy, where Chico’s is today, and Fribergs Rexall Drugs, where Rudy’s Restaurant is on Broadway. Shone’s Market was located across the street from Fribergs. There was a Greyhound bus station at the corner of Spain and First Street West.  The post office was where Mary’s Pizza is located.

Mission Hardware burned down, and in its place a combination gift store and wine tasting room rose up.

The list goes on.

Many small merchants have come and gone in the downtown area over the last five decades. While Darwin’s theory may be not  precisely applicable, there is no doubt that economics is the major cause of the changes that occur continuously in the Plaza business community.  How can it not be so? 

Retailing was a hard way to make a living on the Sonoma Plaza even before there were large out of town shopping centers, outlet malls, Amazon, Zappos, eBay, etc.  Today, trying to earn a living in a small retail shop on the Plaza has to be mostly a labor of love.  Yet thankfully, many people are still willing to give it a try.

It is hard to say what came first, higher rents that squeezed small independent businesses or changes to the national and regional economy and how goods and services are sold. Either way, it is hard to believe that any city ordinance, quota system or micro-managed business licensing policy would have made a difference for the better.

The mix of business types in downtown Sonoma today reflects both the strengths and weaknesses of our local economy and also the realities of the marketplace in which we all choose to spend our money.

Over the past four decades there have been a growing percentage of local residents who have chosen to shop in Santa Rosa, Marin, Napa and other places out of the Valley. Many more now buy a lot of goods on line.

Had we made more of an effort to support downtown Sonoma businesses during that same period would more of the old merchants survived?  Possibly.  But you cannot legislate that.

The mix of downtown Sonoma businesses is the result of many factors, mostly economic, over which city government has little or no control. It seems a fool’s errand to try.

Sonoma was a wonderful place to live and work in those days, and it still is today.  

 My Sonoma

Bear Flag Monument

I found a copy of an original "Official Programme" from the "Semi-Centennial Anniversary of the Raising of the Bear Flag" tucked away in a folder in my dad's oak file cabinet. The date for the local celebration was June 15, 1896.  The actual date of the first raising of the Bear Flag is June 14, 1846.

The 1896 event included a parade with Major E.A. Sherman as the Grand Marshal.

The program described the "Line of March" as follows:

"Start at the depot of the S.F. & N.P. R.R., thence south on First Street West, then East to Broadway. Countermarch on Broadway continued on Napa Street to First Street East, thence to the grandstand near the flag pole. The parade starts upon arrival of the morning train."

The program includes music, an address from Mayor Henry Seipp, introductory remarks by H.C. Gesord, Grand President of the Native Sons of the Golden West, a raising of the Bear Flag by Harvey Porterfield, Ben F. Dewell and Henry Beeson, three survivors of the original Bear Flag party, the reading of a historical essay by E.A. Thompson and a "Grand Oration" by Merton C. Allen.  

Also included in the file was an account of the parade and celebration including a verbatim reprint of Thompson's essay.  Space does not permit reprinting all of either, but some of the description helps paint the picture of how we celebrated history in Sonoma 111 years ago.

"The procession was headed by the Petaluma band, and behind it came the veterans of the G.A.R., Ellsworth Post, fifty strong.  The Native Sons of Santa Rosa Parlor No. 28 followed...Santa Rosa band came next. Behind it came the pioneers and ladies of the Bear Flag Party. The Pioneer Society of San Francisco marched in line...then came Native Daughters and citizens generally in carriages and vehicles. The procession was nearly a mile long.  During the triumphal entry into the city a salute of fifty guns was fired. All principal buildings were decorated and suspended across the streets were banners."

Thompson's essay heaped praise on the Bear Flaggers and scorn on the Mexican authorities.

Here are a few examples of his lengthy address that day:

"The ground upon which you now stand echoed the footfall of the vanguard of pioneers in the acquisition of California. Here, in the answer to General Castro's order for them to leave the country, they crossed the Rubicon of Mexican sovereignty, and rested not upon their arms until he who made that order was forced to fly from Santa Clara to Soledad, from Soledad to the Ohitas, and from the Ohitas to San Luis....It drove him and not the Americans from the province of California.

"Of that gallant band of thirty-three men who captured Sonoma only three are now known to be living...the rest have passed away...though unseen, the spirits of these brave men are in our midst today."

Thompson then read out the names of every member of the Bear Flag party.  And then his address continued on for what must have been (based on the text I read) another hour.

Thursday marks the 161st anniversary of the raising of the Bear Flag here.

The basics not easily gleaned from the old clippings include: There was a "revolt" against Mexican rule in California with the intent to establish a California Republic and ultimate union with the United States.  It began in Sonoma on June 14, 1846 with the "capture" of General Mariano Vallejo and the raising of the Bear Flag. The Bear Flaggers were in charge of Northern California for about 25 days and then the republic was dissolved and became a U.S. territory on July 9, 1846 with the news that the United States and Mexico were at war and that the American Flag had been raised over Monterey.

Whether the Bear Flaggers were a drunken bunch of frontiersmen, hapless agents of the U.S. government or visionary lovers of liberty and the American way depends on which "historian" one reads.  There is no doubt that during the Sonoma celebration of 1896, those three surviving Bear Flaggers were considered heroes.

 My Sonoma -How Field of Dreams Became Reality

On April 19, 1994, The Sonoma Valley Field of Dreams was opened for use.  The seven-acre sports field/park located on city land behind the police station was just a dusty expanse of star thistles and weeds until a group of Sonomans, led by Gary Nelson and Bob Stone, made it a reality.

It all started with Dottie, my wife, who was the president of the Sonoma Valley Babe Ruth League at the time. Practice fields for youth baseball were in very short supply. 

Dottie noticed the open space behind the police station and wondered if it could be used for practice fields.

“I was thinking that we could mow the weeds, build some make-shift backstops and draw some base lines and at least teams would have someplace to have practices,” Dottie said at the time.

She persuaded me to set up a meeting with Sonoma Mayor Henry Riboni, which I did.  She gave Henry her pitch and he said O.K.  

But, as soon as we started talking to the coaches and others involved with youth recreation, it became apparent that just mowing the weeds and building some makeshift backstops wasn’t going to be nearly enough.  The site wasn’t level. It was little more than a cow pasture and had all kinds dips and holes. It was also rocky as heck.   

Very quickly the discussion moved from creating a rough, makeshift practice area, to building a full-blown, turfed and irrigated field complex with properly constructed fixtures like backstops.  

The Sonoma Valley Youth Soccer League had the same need of practice space as Babe Ruth baseball. So did the girls softball league. The Boys and Girls Club also had an interest in the project.

The best thing we ever did was get Gary and Bob to lead the fund-raising effort. Our committee grew and included Fran Meininger, ED of the Boys and Girls Club, and probably most important, my lifelong friend, Les Peterson, of Peterson Mechanical.  It was Les who not only took the lead in developing all of the infrastructure, including upgrading the well, irrigation, etc., but he was also our best contact for others in the building trades who donated a great deal of the necessary labor to complete the job. 

After John Serres leveled the land for us, donating a great portion of his time and labor, all of us got involved in clearing rocks off the dirt and getting the irrigation pipes put in.

We got some major cash donations from Bob’s foundation as well as from Mary Fazzio of Mary’s Pizza.  More than one thousand local folks chipped in with money, labor and in-kind donations.  

The city agreed to lease us the land for a dollar a year.

It was a wonderful example of how a well-organized, all-volunteer effort can achieve incredible results.  Since its completion in 1994, additional amenities and improvements have been made, and the field provides recreation for hundreds of youths in our community and as a site for other community events, like the music festival.

Today, it is managed and maintained by an all-volunteer board representing users groups who raise the necessary funds and oversee the field upkeep.

It is a real dream come true.

 My Sonoma - Valley of the Moon. Our hospital

I was born in Sonoma Valley’s first hospital on Burndale Road.

My brother, Jim, was born at Sonoma Valley’s second hospital, at Buena Vista. I also had my tonsils and my appendix removed there. My sons, Ryan and Darin, were both born at Sonoma Valley Hospital at its current downtown location.

Over my lifetime, virtually every member of my family has been treated at, and spent time in, Sonoma Valley Hospital.

My earliest memories are of the one in Buena Vista. It was at the end of narrow and bumpy Castle Road. To me it was a spooky place in the dark woods.

I was 13 when my appendix flared up and Dr. William Newman, local family doc, performed the appendectomy there. The operating room had a big window that faced the north hillside.

The night following my surgery, I came out of the anesthesia to lots of shouting and swearing. It was sometime after midnight. I was in a room with three other beds. The commotion was coming from a guy who’d been in a car wreck and had a broken leg. He was intoxicated and the nurses on duty were having a hard time getting him to settle down.

The next day, the guy was splinted up and no longer in a combative mood. He was a talker, and whether I wanted to listen or not, I was trapped. I don’t recall all of his ramblings, but it involved his drinking and partying exploits. There was one thing I remember vividly. It happened on the second or third day of our rooming together.

The nurse stopped by my bed in the morning and asked if I had gone to the bathroom (No. 2) since my surgery. I answered no – it hurt to stand and get to the bathroom. She said, “We’ll have to do something about that.”

After she left the ward, the guy said, “You know what she’s going to do to you now – give you an enema.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

He explained the process. Very shortly thereafter, I found the will to get myself to the bathroom before the procedure was necessary.

Roommates are no longer among the amenities of Sonoma Valley Hospital, but they had both an up and down side.

Shortly after my appendectomy, there was a big campaign for a new hospital downtown.

My Dad, Mike Mulas, August Sebastiani, August Pinelli, George Nicholas, Homer Bosse, Tom Polidori, Louie Minelli, D.A. Pfeiffer, Rich Peterson, Judge Ray Grinstead, Dr. C.B. Andrews and virtually every doctor, lawyer, banker, insurance man, merchant, realtor, dairyman, vintner and farmer in Sonoma Valley stepped up to lead a Valley-wide campaign for the hospital on land generously provided by the Sebastiani family on Andrieux Street.

The whole town got behind it. It was a triumph of community unity, spirit and generosity, led by the generation of Sonomans who had come through the Great Depression and World War II. They understood that Sonoma just wouldn’t be a real community without its own quality hospital.

In  2013, I was invited recently to join in an effort to finish raising $11 million to finish out the hospital’s new emergency room and surgery wing. A $35 million bond, passed by the community two years earlier was almost enough to complete the job, but not entirely.

Gary and Marcia Nelson, and Les and Judy Vadasz, among others, made our fund-raising job easier with incredibly generous, multi-million-dollar donations. It took a lot more local donors and a year, but the $11 million was raised and the new wing opened in February of 2014.