Unincorporating Sonoma

As the Sonoma City Council struggles with issues both local and sometimes national or international, decides if the town must follow the Constitution, as it creates parking spaces, preserves the plaza, and pays civic bills, at times it may feel overwhelmed. There is a solution: Dissolve the city government by “unincorporating.” Once upon a time that was exactly what the city fathers did. (There were no mothers at the time.)
In 1860, a meddling San Francisco attorney named A. A. Green filed a legal action demanding that the Sonoma City Council (then called trustees) bring a legal action to obtain title to all lands – both private and public – laid out in the 1835 map of the pueblo. That map covered not only downtown Sonoma but also the surrounding lands, a total of 20 square miles. If the court ruled in Greene’s favor and ordered a revocation of titles and transfer to the city, then all titles to the lands traceable back to Mariano Vallejo and his brother-in-law Jacob Leese would be invalid.
Understandably, panic swept the settlers. They had paid for their properties, sometimes twice – once to Vallejo and once to the Alcalde – to be sure they got it right. They built houses, shops and barns, subdivided property, and put up fences. To unwind all this would be disastrous.
General Vallejo, who had served a term in the California State Senate and knew his way around the state capital, quietly came to the rescue of the shaken citizenry. One day in 1862, he mounted his horse and rode the 85 miles to Sacramento. There he had friends in the legislature introduce and pass a bill that revoked the Sonoma City Charter.
Thus, there was no official city, and no board of trustees to be ordered to bring an action to challenge property titles. By this subterfuge, the settlers’ property rights had been saved.
On the downside, the unincorporated community was left with no authority to improve streets which were muddy lanes in winter and dusty trails in summer, develop a water system, build sewer lines, drain swamplands or hire a constable. Nor could the trustees pay for fire protection. In 1866 a block of Napa Street burned to the ground, followed in 1867 by the flaming destruction of the Vallejos’ former palatial home opposite the plaza on Spain Street.
The plaza remained unimproved and uncontrolled. It was pockmarked by holes gouged out from the mining of adobe clay, it was used to graze cattle, and it was bordered by a fence so ugly it had to be torn down. In 1872, the Society of California Pioneers lobbied a bill through the legislature setting up a special committee authorized to sell the plaza to the Pioneers for a nominal $10, on condition they would spend $5,000 to beautify the 8 acres, put up a decent fence and build a meeting hall.
When the first railroad reached town in 1879, it rumbled down Spain Street, badly shaking the deteriorating Mission, and was permitted to build its station, roundhouse and turntable on the plaza, a transportation plus and an aesthetic disaster.
Unable to raise the $5,000 for promised improvements, the Pioneers gave up title to the Plaza in 1880.
Figuring that two decades of civic anarchy was enough, several leading Sonomans asked the legislature to authorize a local referendum to reincorporate Sonoma, which passed by a vote of three to one. The new Sonoma, was inaugurated as a “sixth-grade municipality” on Sept. 3, 1882. The new boundaries, however, encompassed only the core area, a square mile bordered by present-day MacArthur on the south, Fifth Street East, the creek in the west, and farther enough north to include the Mountain Cemetery and the new Vallejo home above Spain Street.
This new civic beginning accompanied a rise in tourism, new hotels, stirrings of revival of the wine business, which had been crippled by phylloxera, and a general rise in public spirit.
So no matter how frustrating city government may seem at times, unincorporation is not a viable answer. It has been tried.
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I am pleased that thanks to my recent column profiling the late pioneer sports broadcaster Ernie Smith (for whom the park on Arnold Drive is named), the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame has decided it will posthumously induct Ernie into the Hall later this year. It is a well-justified honor, and his children, Win Smith and Diane (Mickey) Cooke, both of Glen Ellen, will accept on his behalf. We are especially pleased that the Sun can have this sort of far-reaching impact.
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I enjoy the interaction of readers who correct, clarify or add to my historical stories. My old friend Thornton Jenkins (he sat behind me in geography class at Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley) straightened me out on the relationship between Mariano Vallejo and Mexican Gov. Juan Bautista Alvarado, pointing out that Gov. Alvarado was Vallejo’s nephew and not a cousin as I reported. Jenkins speaks with authority as a descendant of Mariano Vallejo’s sister, who was also Governor Alvarado’s mother.
Another friend, Robert Arnold, clarified the relationship of aircraft designer and manufacturer Donald Douglas to his friend “Hap” Arnold. Douglas’ daughter, Barbara, was married to General Arnold’s son, Bruce. This did not make Douglas an in-law of Hap as I wrote. Robert was on target, and had inside information since Barbara and Bruce were his parents.
A contributor of detailed information on such matters as the ferries and railroads has been Francis Russell, who has a phenomenal memory. Francis is the son of Harry Russell, popular vice-principal and principal of Tamalpais High, and his wife is Virginia Russell, longtime office manager for the fabled attorney and valley character, the late attorney Jack Coffee.
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