Page 40 - Sonoma County Gazette 11-17

Greetings fellow Occidentalites. I am currently sitting in a beautiful garden in Ajijic, Mexico to write my column. My Mother, Aunt & I came here to see my Uncle & pay our respects to the passing of his wife, their sister. Ajijic is a beautiful city of 30,000 cradled amongst mountains, on
the shore of Lake Chapala, Mexico’s largest. The rainy season here just ended, resulting in clean air, wonderful blossoms everywhere, a full lake and a generally idyllic atmosphere. This place seems so alive with people, plants and animals, and interesting old-world architecture jumping out at you. It’s my first time here and though I am saddened by my Aunt Barbara’s passing I am thankful she got me here to experience this place she called home. It’s good to be around family, whatever form that may take, and regardless of the occasion being a happy or sad one.
Speaking of home and sad occasions my Mom and I left Sonoma County the day after the horrific fires broke out. My thoughts and prayers are with all who have experienced loss as a result, may you find shelter in the love of those around you. As I saw in an image from the PD online “the love in the air is thicker
than the smoke.” I am proud to be a Sonoma County citizen. I feel guilty to be breathing clean air and looking at clear skies, and yet feel that I have been given an opportunity to charge my own batteries to return strong and committed to helping my community in what is sure to be a long healing process.
I send thanks and love to all the people who put their lives on the line for us everyday, and to all who are pitching in to care for the community.
The closeness of this disaster has certainly reminded me to get my own affairs in order and I think it is worth mentioning to the community at large. Hopefully the scale of destruction seen here will not be revisited again, but we do live in areas prone to wildfire and earthquakes. Even the smallest scale disaster can upend a family or small community.
In regards to a possible disaster, the amount of details to contend with is part of what paralyzes us (me) as well as the unknown of when it may come or whether for all our preparation we may still be woefully unprepared. That said, any amount of effort is worth the time and may help you or those around you if/when the hour of need comes. This could be writing a will, creating an evacuation plan with your family, checking to make sure your safety equipment works, etc. This could also be making a donation to your fire department, stocking up on non- perishable food and water, or preparing a box of precious items that can be gotten at a moments notice when every second not wasted could prove invaluable. These are just a few ideas, start somewhere and make some progress, you certainly won’t regret it.
A great organization and resource for Occidental is the Community Council. Their website is www.occidental-ca.org There is a page dedicated to Occidental Emergency Preparedness that has lots of info about how to prepare as well as contact info for emergency related entities.
On to less stressful things.
On Saturday, November 4th Bodega Land Trust is holding its annual fund-raising dinner and silent auction. They are celebrating 25 years as an organization and would love for you to join them. The dinner is $20 and 5:30-8:30 at McCaughey hall in Bodega. More info at www.bodegalandtrust.org
There is a West County Rising fund-raiser on Friday, November 10th for
fire victims to be held at Negri’s. spaghetti dinner, live music, dance party & silent auction. The benefit starts at 5:30pm and will go until we have danced
our shoes off! Tickets will be sold at the door, $30-$100 sliding scale. Local relief organizations will be present to learn how to stay connected and of service to the community.
Also on the 10th, at the Phoenix theater in Petaluma is another fund-
raiser that I would like ya’ll to know of. My friend Kevin is in a band called Malfunkshun. They & several other bands will be playing to help a new non-profit music school in Santa Rosa called SoCo Music Coalition. www. socomusiccoaltion.org for more info. The concert starts at 8pm, is $15 and all ages.
40 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 11/17
The Fires I enjoyed Sunday, October 8, as a crispy clear, warm Fall day in public service: starting at our Fire Department’s free pancake breakfast, then sta ng the City table at our crowded Farm Market on The Plaza, and concluding with a poignant goodbye to our Open World visitors from Ukraine, at a lovely outdoor dinner.
Later that night, as I breathed smoke and watched grey ash oat down in the darkened sky, our world changed forever: res raged out of control across Sonoma and Napa counties. As I submit this article, we don’t know the full extent of the devastation.
We do know for certain the dedication and professionalism of our public safety personnel: our volunteer re ghters, police o cers, reserve o cers, and city sta . On a holiday, these folks rushed to duty in response to a dynamic and unprecedented disaster.
Our community stepped up, too, to open our evacuation shelters and make sure that re victims were safe, had access to food, water, and bathrooms. Volunteers o ered to cook, to serve as nurses, doctors, and counselors, to organize information, to care for children, and to handle many other tasks. Residents o ered spare rooms to displaced families and backyards to distressed pets. Businesses delivered sandwiches and supplies.
“Our re and police departments have been incredible in this emergency as have the residents of Sebastopol,“ Mayor Una Glass says with gratitude. She continues, “Coincidentally, I had directed Sta last month to prepare a report on our emergency procedures and preparedness. It will be presented to the City Council in the coming month.” This future agenda item will provide the opportunity to debrief on this experience in order to be more e ective during the next emergency.
Thank you to everyone for your spirited and generous mobilization in response to this crisis. Our hearts go out to the evacuees, to those who have lost everything – homes and businesses – and to those waiting to hear about their families and friends in the stricken areasy.
On Other Matters - Pay Attention until Adjournment
Each Council Agenda includes a series of items at the end called “Reports.” This part of the meeting presents the opportunity for Sta to address the whole Council, as well as Council Members to share with our colleagues what each of us is doing in Sub-Committee work or on a County-wide assignment and what each of us hears from the community.
The last minutes of each meeting are often ignored. The public has gone home for the night, their issues already discussed. The few dedicated Council watchers hang in there, with depleted attention.
The reality is that the “Reports” part of the agenda gives us the opportunity to update each other and our constituency about our individual e orts. This is our one important chance to stay in communication with each other, because otherwise, pursuant to the Brown Act, more than two Council Members cannot talk to each other about city business in any other setting.
This part of the agenda is key to knowing how Council Members spend our time on assignment outside of regular meetings, what countywide boards on which we sit decide, and what we’re thinking about current and future issues.
To Car or Not to Car - I recently reported on an article that I read in the September issue of American City and County, titled “Millennials in Transit.” The column on current issues and trends provides insights into the latest social, nancial, and political movements shaping our communities.
The 83 million people born between 1982 and 2003 are rejecting cars in favor of alternative modes of transportation. Millennials want to live in walkable communities with transit nearby and easily accessible. Pragmatic consumers of mobility, they are multimodal, searching for the best trip option, not jumping in their private cars every time they go somewhere. They look for optimization: of time, money, and life in general.
They shun cars as an unsatisfying and unnecessary expense and prefer more frugal, debt-free lifestyles that respect the environment and use technology wisely.
Young people’s shifting attitudes toward transportation will change the way our city plans and operates. Will parking spaces, parking lots, parking structures, and three-laned roadways be the highest and best uses of our real estate for future generations?