Editor: Publicly, Sonomans embrace small town charm, which exists mostly in Kodachrome photos (c. 1950) buried in the attic and in minutes of Chamber of Commerce meetings. They hate stores like Staples.
Privately, those who actually live here paycheck-to-paycheck (vs. dividend check-to-dividend check), could care less about appearances when it comes to getting things they need at a price they can afford.
Tourist-trapping charm is fine on the Plaza, whose pricey shops don’t sell much of what local residents need or can’t get cheaper with a short drive to Napa. Q: How many real estate offices are needed around the Plaza, where there are also six Big-Box banks within three blocks of each other? Small town charm?? How many locals do these businesses serve? Certainly not laid-off teachers or hundreds who’ve lost homes to foreclosure.
Put to a vote, Sonomans would welcome – e.g., on the decidedly uncharming 8th St. East corridor – a Costco or Walmart, with their hundreds of new jobs and low priced goods ordinary people now buy in Napa. Annex land with a Big Box on it and the City could afford to subsidize rich tourists at the Jazz Festival. Schools wouldn’t have to lay off so many teachers and more streets would get paved.
Invisible from influential hillside mansions and newsrooms (and Council Chambers?), too many locals are un/under-employed or terrified of joining them and many are on fixed incomes. Inflation is savaging their necessities: food, shelter, healthcare, gas, clothing, utilities. Ordinary Sonomans can’t stand much more charm. They need, and deserve, the Staples of life.
Bob Edwards
Sonoma
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