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HUGE Holiday CALENDAR
~ 50 & 51
River Regulations that may Impact Homes ~ 14
Local Coastal Explaining
Tick-Borne Disease in ~ 30 & 31
Protection Plan Then to Now ~ 16
the End of Life Option Act ~ 19
By Teri Shore
A new survey of Sonoma County
voters commissioned by Greenbelt Alliance found that 75 percent would definitely or most likely vote “yes” on a potential county ballot measure to renew and expand protections from sprawl for greenbelt lands designated as community separators between Sonoma County’s towns and cities. By the end of the poll that rose to 78 %.
By Vesta Copestakes
Two recent events stand out in
We need to renew and add to community separators or risk losing more agricultural lands and open space to housing tracts, malls and big box stores. The existing protections for community separators that voters approved by 70 percent nearly two decades ago expire at the end of 2016.
my mind as connected. One is a community meeting about flooding of Green Valley Creek that strands people on one side or the other of a main road that gets blocked by flood waters. The other is a series of creek clean-ups performed by volunteers determined to get waterways clean of trash before the rainy season.
Greenbelt Alliance and its allies are now calling on the Board of Supervisors to go beyond a renewal to strengthen protections and add priority greenbelts to community separators. The Board of Supervisors is expected to decide in November whether to just renew or to strengthen and expand community separators with a ballot measure in 2016.
Whether El Niño brings rain - lots of it - or just a little rain with high wind, we still need to do something about getting creeks and drainage ditches ready for winter. Water will come down the ditch/creek and will seek its path to rivers and the ocean. How much is the only question.
As Board elections approach, 67% of voters stated they would view their supervisors more favorably if they placed a measure to renew and expand community separators on the ballot.
Riparian corridor rules have changed over the years to protect fish and wildlife habitat. Gone are the days when people could dredge a creek that runs though their property to insure fast flow. As one elder at the community meeting mentioned - there was a time when people took their farm equipment into the creek that passed through their land to remove everything in the path of water. Blackberries, trees, rocks, and dirt.
SPACE cont’d on page 10
HEROES cont’d on page 12
The EVERYTHING to DO Calendar: pgs 53 - 71
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