Trader Joe’s sought for Fiesta Plaza

Two Sonoma women have launched an e-mail and Internet campaign to try to bring a Trader Joe’s supermarket to the Fiesta Plaza in Boyes Hot Springs.
Cathy Claeys was inspired by an article in the Oct. 5 edition of the Sun in which Jodi Azevedo, the property manager for the shopping mall on Highway 12, said that she would love it if Trader Joe’s moved into the space vacated by the Salvation Army thrift store.
Azevedo suggested that Sonoma Valley residents could campaign for a Trader Joe’s, as did residents of Novato in Marin County. There, the Novato Mother’s Club and its off-shoot, the Novato Healthy Food Coalition, successfully lobbied Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods to open stores.
So Claeys approached her friend MaraLee Ebert, a well-connected woman who does such things as help raise funds for Woodland Star Charter School.
“She is a powerhouse… who has this amazingly huge list of e-mail addresses,” said Claeys.
They sent out an e-mail appeal to Valley residents asking them to go onto Trader Joe’s Web site and fill out a “location request form.”
Claeys, a mother of two, has a job in sales that requires her to travel around the Bay Area; she always stops at Trader Joe’s.
“If there’s a Trader Joe’s in the town I’m in, I will stop there. Probably twice a month,” she said. “The basic reason why – so none of the (existing Sonoma Valley) grocery stores get mad at me and start bouncing my checks – is (Trader Joe’s) has affordable, organic food.”