Page 2 - Sonoma County Gazette June 2017

Dear Readers,
We have an annual tradition at the Gazette to invite readers to act like tourists where we live. Go on a vacation, but spend it right here at home.
It’s fun to look at our home the way guests see us. The perspective is rather enlightening. Invariable the words come to mind...“These people are so lucky to live here.” Of course it’s more than luck, although being born here is definitely lucky. But most of us came here from somewhere else. Something makes us pull up stakes from our former home and call Sonoma County HOME.
One of the most attractive aspects of living here is also what brings tourists to vacation here...open spaces that offer views along with fresh, clean air. During a recent election we voted to keep open spaces into the future and we are working to guarantee them into the distant future. Open spaces not only make our home beautiful, they clean our air, rest our eyes, release stress and generate income.
Tourism brings jobs and money without brining permanent people. Our tourist economy is a whole lot of why our home is Paradise. The down side of tourism is that the majority of jobs are in the service industry and those jobs typically don’t pay a Living Wage. It’s something California is working on with legislation requiring employers to pay a wage sufficient to maintain life.
Another down side is that the less buildings we have, the higher the
cost of the buildings that do exist. That causes expensive housing. Tourism complicates the issue by creating vacation rentals in neighborhoods where investors purchase homes for tourists because they can make more money renting for a weekend than they can year round. What then? Neighborhoods don’t feel like a community and housing goes to people who don’t live here.
In a way we are dealing with the down side of success. So we work together to find solutions we can live with. The more people take care of our home, the better the home is for people who live here as well as people who
come here for vacation. In the mean time, we need to enjoy what
we have created. With so many parks, all it takes is an inexpensive
park pass and the whole family can enjoy a Vacation at Home.
2 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 6/17