Small is Beautiful – a film about SDC – Comes to Sebastiani Theatre

Sunday, July 14 at 2:00 pm at the Sebastiani Theatre

Small is Beautiful – The Quest to Preserve the Valley of the Moon

July 14 at Sebastiani Theatre, you are invited to the Bay Area premier of “Small is Beautiful,”  a short film  created by local award-winning filmmaker Carolyn M. Scott, focuses on efforts to preserve the publicly-owned natural resources of the Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC) in Glen Ellen. The screening is sponsored by Sonoma Valley Next 100, a local non-profit organization that has been actively engaged in efforts to preserve the SDC since 2018.

The recent decision by Judge Bradford DeMeo has overturned the County’s Specific Plan and Environmental Impact Report that would have allowed a developer to demolish countless historic buildings on the SDC land, and in their place build 1,000 houses, a commercial center, and a luxury hotel.  The Judge’s decision has given new life to Sonoma Valley’s Next 100 proposal for the SDC, which is based on seven years of input from the local community.  The proposal is founded on four widely-supported principles:

• Keep the land at SDC in public ownership in perpetuity,
• Make sure the local community has a strong say in the future of the land,
• Protect the open space, and expand the wildlife and riparian corridors, and
• Choose a scale of development compatible with the rural character of the Sonoma Valley.

“Small is Beautiful” encapsulates the narrative of California’s urbanization, and puts it in a present-day setting. It shows how, in a crucial wildlife corridor and a high fire danger zone, the urban project proposed by a developer selected by the State not only threatens biodiversity, but also risks a massive surge in rural road traffic, endangering lives and increasing the risk during evacuation should the wildfires of recent years return to the Sonoma Valley.

The documentary also exposes the collusion between state mandates and profit-driven developers. As California faces stringent housing quotas, communities like the one in the Sonoma Valley grapple with the repercussions of urbanization, raising critical questions about who truly benefits from profit-driven policies that do not serve those communities.

The showing will also be a call to action. As Norman Gilroy says, “This is the time to re-imagine the SDC in a way that serves both the people and the environment of our beautiful valley —  for the next 100 years!”

We invite the community to join a panel discussion that will follow the film. Topics will range from housing and evacuation to infrastructure and wildlife.  Moderated by David Bolling, editor of the Sonoma Valley Sun, the panel will include the filmmaker Carolyn Scott; Norman Gilroy (architect, SV Next 100); and Bean Anderson (Glen Ellen Historical Society). There will be time for audience questions and comments.

To paraphrase the filmmaker: “Why is public land, funded by taxpayers’ money, allowed to be privatized and commodified without public consent?”