Page 28 - Sonoma County Gazette - January 2018

Feliz Año Nuevo
After a busy year-end of festivities and continuing to provide original pro- gramming that serves the community, KBBF welcomes 2018 with best wishes to our listeners and to the readers of RadioLand. The New Year sees everyone at the station digging deep to nd the programs, coverage, information, and com- munity events that make a di erence to the people of Sonoma County. ¡Feliz año nuevo a nuestros radioescuchas!
Alan Bloom writes on the KBBF blog that the October res in the North Bay burned within 100 yards of our antenna, destroying a communications site to the south, but leaving the station’s site untouched.
By David Abbott
Last November, the City of Santa Rosa grew by approximately 714 acres and
KBBF Antenna Dodges the Bullet
“It started in 2013 with Andy Lopez and began to surface more regularly after his death as a public safety issue,” Santa Rosa Council Member John Sawyer said. “The conversations were about a large island in the middle of the city served by the sheriff’s department. The question was: who’s responsible for what, where?”
An electrical outage during the res put our live programming in peril, how- ever. Fortunately, we had an emergency generator at the ready and were able to integrate using it seamlessly, keeping our vital live coverage going without a break. Bloom reports, “We were never o the air.”
But according to Sawyer, timing is everything, as the groundswell to annexation happened while he served as an elected official and former Fifth District Supervisor Efren Carrillo was on the Board of Supervisors.
Alicia Sanchez, KBBF’s president of the Board of Directors, adds, “In a time when there was no power, cellular, or Internet, radio came through.”
“Efren was dedicated to annexation and failure was not an option,” Sawyer said. “It seemed almost poetic that he was a native of Roseland and I was a native of Santa Rosa: Him chair of the board of supervisors and me, the mayor. There was something fitting about that.”
Thinking back on those critical moments as res were breaking out in several locations, Sanchez remarked that it was evident the community recognized KBBF’s role as “the rst responders in the Spanish-speaking community.” People rose up to support the station in many ways, bringing by donations of cash and household items for people impacted by the res.
Years of work leads to Roseland Annexation
gained about 7,400 new residents, as the annexation of Roseland finally came to fruition after years of work by both city and county officials.
The historic agreement comes at the end of a process that gained momentum after the death of Andy Lopez, when questions of law enforcement jurisdictions came to the forefront of discussions of what was then a small, unincorporated area in the southwest part of the city.
KBBF’s impact was felt further away as well. The res had been burning a couple days when, late one night, a call came in from the BBC in London. This was how Jorge Ramos wound up interviewing Edgar Avila, KBBF’s Director of Programming, about how locals were su ering due to being unable to access services and resources.
Welcome Roseland Community Celebration
November 1, 2017 marked the o cial date that Roseland became part of the city of Santa Rosa. To celebrate this historic milestone, there will be an afternoon esta at Roseland Neighborhood Village, 779 Sebastopol Road, on January 20th. At the noon opening, Roseland community members will speak. The family festivities – which are scheduled until 4pm – also include games, music, performances, and food.
In addition, educators involved in Sonoma State University’s Literacy Lead- ership class will be on site to distribute books written in Spanish and English to students who lost possessions in the res. The group shares, “As future literacy leaders, we are passionate about the power of literature and community. Litera- ture has the ability to comfort us in a special way. There’s magic in holding your own book, a book that allows you to get lost in adventures, sagas, capers, and more. Books are windows to other places. They allow us to escape for a while and would be a comforting distraction for those who were traumatized with losing their homes. Books are also mirrors that allow us to see how others have lived through challenging situations. We feel validated and emotionally sup- ported by reading our own struggles in other’s lives.”
Creating an island
Make a Resolution to Support KBBF
For many years, as Santa Rosa began to grow, the city allowed large tracts of land surrounding what became Roseland to be developed, often at the request of the developers.
Usher in your New Year by becoming a sustaining member of KBBF, La Voz de tu Comunidad. Consider contributing $4.99 per month or making a dona- tion. Our sta is comprised of all volunteers. Visit our website at KBBF.org for more information.
City officials allowed it to happen, claiming they did not want to upset residents of Roseland who might be concerned about urbanization in their rural pocket. Critics maintained it was because the city was not interested in costly investments to infrastructure in a historically low-income and largely Latino area.
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“There were so many moving parts and so many people involved: More than 60 in the city and county,” Sawyer said. “It speaks to the dedication of the city and the county. There was a lot of compromise.”
ANNEXATION cont’d on page 29
Things began to change in 2004, when the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) put a stop to the annexations taking place around Roseland and an earnest effort to hammer out an agreement began.
But in 2008, the recession stopped that in its tracks, so the idea lay fallow until February 2013.
By 2016, most of the financial issues had been hammered out and many of the infrastructure and jurisdictional aspects of the agreement were underway.
Compromise