Future uncertain for Sonoma Community Center

In a glorious historic building that fosters community involvement in the arts, a dark picture was painted by representatives of the Sonoma Community Center on Tuesday night. Faced with a $100,000 deficit and lacking capital to repair and operate the 94-year-old building, the center could be forced to move or close within two years.
“We no longer have the luxury of inaction,” Executive Director Kathy Swett told a community meeting. “The center’s days in its present form are numbered. That is the reality.”
The center called the public meeting to hear any and all ideas about how to sustain its operation. About 60 people attended.
The center’s landmark home at 276 East Napa Street is a big part of the budget challenge. It needs at least $2 million in improvements, said Pam Gibson, community center board treasurer. Emblematic of the problem is the building’s boiler – it’s the original unit, and it has outlived its parts suppliers. “Things are hanging by a thread,” she said.
“No other non-profit has this kind of building to support,” said audience member Suzanne Brangham.
Built in 1915 as the Sonoma Grammar School, the brick structure on East Napa Street has been home to the center since 1953. It sponsors programs in drawing, painting, pottery and ceramics, theater, music and more. The center provides space for groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and the Red Cross. Several prominent Sonoma Valley non-profits started there, as well. Some know it as the home of an annual free Thanksgiving party, others as the place Santa goes after lighting the Plaza tree.
That legacy is threatened by a $100,000 operating loss incurred last year, the fifth annual deficit in a row. Means of income include class fees, facility rentals and memberships. After a recent drive, the membership stands at 700. Swett said that 400 new ‘silver’ memberships, or 2,000 family memberships, or four new tenant leases would balance the budget.
“Program revenue is up, but we will never offset the building maintenance costs,” Swett said. A new catering kitchen soon to come on line, funded by the Rotary Club of Sonoma Valley, stands to increase event rentals, she said. No income number was forecast.
Expenses have been cut, Gibson explained, including laying off staff, cutting benefits by half, reducing the executive director’s hours and mandating a staff-wide furlough for the month of August.
To set the stage for the public brainstorming session, Gibson outlined some ideas from prior meetings: lobby the City of Sonoma to buy the property and lease it back to the center, sell naming rights and, the unpopular option, sell to a private party and relocate.
Ideas on Tuesday included aggressively marketing Andrews Hall and the rest of the facility for short- and long-term rentals, including inviting non-profits, schools and arts-related groups to move in permanently, as well as lobbying the Sonoma City Council for more support, and pushing for a ballot measure to increase the Transient Occupancy Tax with a portion helping to fund the center.
Short term, the consensus called for a strong “Save our Center” drive. Volunteers would mount an informational campaign to explain the dire situation – “I had no idea it was this bad,” many people remarked at the meeting – and solicit donations.
Many of the ideas hinge on the help of volunteers. The passion level was high Tuesday night but, said Swett, it must be maintained. “It’s about long-term sustainability. Not a one-year campaign, but a plan for viability 10 and 20 years from now.”
To lose the Center would be “to lose the symbolic soul of this community,” she said. “We must reaffirm the community ideals this building represents.”