Deli section at fig pantry, after removal of sedan.
Photo by Ryan lely/Sonoma Valley Sun
Driver totals fig pantry deli
Sonoma Police and the California Highway Patrol are investigating an early morning crash Thursday at the fig pantry on East Napa Street in which the driver retrieved one clue and left another.
“One of the guys in the cottages came out, saw the guy stumbling down the street,” said maintenance man Justin Toulze, adding that, “He came back, got his jacket and walked down Eighth Street East. The actual bumper and license plate is still inside.”
Sonoma County Sheriff’s Lt. Scott Dunn said the vehicle, a black 2007 Dodge Charger, had been reported as stolen. The car was traveling north on Eighth Street East around 1:20 a.m. and failed to stop at the intersection, according to the CHP. No skid marks were visible on the roadway.
The impact shattered the front wall of the pantry’s delicatessen – on the right side facing the building – scattering equipment and food throughout the building’s interior, knocking the front door in, too, but leaving the main market itself almost untouched. Curious neighbors and patrons stopped by to inquire, one taking a cellphone picture of the damage.
A sign on the market door said the business would be closed indefinitely. Pantry partner John Toulze, supervising the cleanup, said a structural engineer would assess the damage but that the outlook wasn’t inspiring. “The deli accounts for half our business,” he said. “We don’t know when or in what capacity we’ll reopen.”
Brush pile prompts fire warning
Following a one-acre blaze off Gehricke Road Friday, state fire authorities are reminding locals that looks can be deceiving. “When you think your burn pile’s out, it’s not,” said CAL FIRE prevention specialist Suzanne Blankenship.
The fire began shortly before 5:20 a.m., when 40 mph winds reignited a three-week-old pile of burned brushwood and pine at the Emery Ranch. Deborah Emery said the debris had been cleared from near the site of the Cavedale Fire, which burned 2,100 acres between Napa and Sonoma counties in the summer of 1996.
Blankenship said rugged landscape and high winds drew a three-agency response, including two engines and crews from CAL FIRE, two engines from Schell-Vista and one from the Sonoma Valley Fire and Rescue Authority. Two water tankers completed the detail. A CAL FIRE bulldozer cut a containing line around the blaze but that most of the mop-up was being done by hand. Crews were released from the scene around 1:30 p.m.
“The terrain access was very difficult – they had to walk in,” Blankenship said. “It’s challenging and hard work.” Friday’s fire was the third wildland incident in Sonoma County last week, according to Blankenship, who has been inspecting property and sending informational mailers to homeowners on Lovall Valley, Cavedale and Trinity Roads.
State law requires that every wildland home be surrounded by a 100-foot defensible space (or as far as the property line, whichever comes first). The first 30 feet should be clean of all brush and trees; in the remaining 70 feet, trees should be cleared of lower limbs and underbrush to reduce fire spread. For more information on fire prevention, call the local CAL FIRE office at 967-1400 or download the 16-page booklet “Living with Fire in Sonoma County” available at http://www.firesafesonoma.org.
School board selects new superintendent
Valley school officials have tentatively selected one of four candidates to succeed retiring superintendent Barbara Young – but they won’t be revealing the results just yet.
The announcement was made following last Friday’s closed session of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District. All candidates, according to board president Cam Hawing, were “intelligent and capable.”
Hawing said the board is negotiating the terms of a tentative contract. A visit by several board members to that candidate’s present district, in order to interview staff and board members there, is planned within the next week. Only after that would the trustees be ready to make a final decision, and announce their selection.
SVHS starts
“Green Revolution”
When it comes to recycling, some Valley teens are acting locally and thinking globally in more ways than one.
“Today, April 14, 2008, will go down as a momentous day in Sonoma Valley High School history,” said junior Melissa Carlson, her voice taut with excitement. Her twin sister Alexa explained, “Because today’s the day that Sonoma Valley High School launches a school-wide recycling program for plastic bottles, glass bottles and aluminum cans.”
The program is called “Green Revolution,” and the Carlsons – co-presidents of the SVHS Earth Club – were speaking from a short video played Monday during the school’s homeroom period and posted on the SVHS Earth Club website (http://www.youtube.com/user/EarthClub).
Their announcement represents a year-and-a-half of work involving the Sonoma Ecology Center, the California Department of Conservation, the SVHS Key and Leadership clubs and a variety of local businesses.
“I really applaud them, because the way you get the word now is different from when I was a kid,” said Patty Moore, of Sonoma’s Moore Recycling, who advised the club on recycling logistics and helped club members gain an adjunct seat on the Ecology Center board.
The video features the affable “Ranger Andy” (SVHS Spirit Commissioner Andy Metzler) who, with the aid of several high-fiving companions, advises students about what’s acceptable for the more than dozen blue-and-white containers placed throughout the campus. Melissa reminds students that food isn’t recyclable – “This belongs in the trash.” Alexa adds, “You can’t put any other trash, like these weird chip bags or styrofoam.”
Alexa said Tuesday that the club’s effort is the second at SVHS in recent years. The first fizzled from a lack of student involvement, but Moore and Melissa both aver that the high-school social dynamic has changed since then.
“It’s not the few against the many, it’s the many that are putting this program on. I think that’s what’s so great,” Melissa said. “It gives everyone in the community hope for a brighter future.”
The “Green Revolution” recycling program will be formally introduced to the community at 4 p.m. today at Sonoma City Hall, when the SVHS Earth Club will be met by “Inconvenient Ride” – a half-dozen cyclists riding 5.400 miles from Washington, D.C., to Seattle in order to plant trees and spread the word about global climate change.
