Larry Barnett lives in Sonoma where he was elected to three terms on the City Council and served twice as Mayor. A thirty-three-year resident, he currently serves as Chair of Sonoma's Planning Commission. He has been married for 48 years, has two daughters and three grandchildren.
The rise and fall of schemers, empire builders, and big talkers
When I hear a developer say how much they love Sonoma, it makes me cringe. I’ve lived here long enough to have seen and heard it all before; what such big talkers often mean by loving Sonoma is craving to possess it.
Don’t get me wrong, I feel tremendous affection for our community. I never say I love Sonoma, though. Love is a word I don’t use about things, only about people and the relationships most dear to me.
Nowadays, love is a word that gets thrown around easily. People say they love chocolate, their new pair of running shoes, a television show. If pressed, they might admit that love’s too strong a word; after all, there’s little that can be said that’s stronger than love.
Love can be selfless, directed at caring for and giving to others; that type of love is a virtue. Selfish love is all about getting, and all too easily becomes a vice, even an addiction. In that case love is a cypher, a stalking horse, a facade that masks true intent. Over time, all is revealed about character in the giving or the getting.
Selfish love can be so all-consuming it even consumes itself. Like Pretas, the Hungry Ghosts of classical Buddhism with bloated bellies and needle-thin necks whose thirst and hunger are perpetually insatiable, some people love Sonoma selfishly, and end up tragically destroying character and vitality, their own and the community’s.
Empire builder’s grand schemes almost always come couched in promises and platitudes about all the good they’re going to do for the community. With some all-too-rare exceptions, the good these big talkers intend is usually to make themselves a boatload of money, to make their cake and eat it too. Sure, the community may gain a bit of new tax revenue, but comparatively, it’s just crumbs. The grand schemes usually collapse, of course; selfish love always builds an unstable house of cards.
What then builds and supports community? Affection, generosity, honesty, respect; there are many ways to care for others and a place. Such actions of giving are more naturally selfless and less prone to the pitfalls of consumption. Generosity at any level, from offering simple kindness to donating vast riches, provides its own rewards.
Some developers who profess their love of this place are actually intent on creating a reflection of themselves, a form of self-love. Rather than appreciating history, diversity and difference, they often seek homogeneity, producing a sameness that looks and feels artificial, an ersatz world like that depicted in corporate America’s phony feel-good advertising. It’s love objectified, abstracted into a simulacrum that mocks genuine life and human feeling. No wonder big schemes collapse.
In my thirty-five years of calling Sonoma Valley home, I’ve witnessed one empire-builder after another come and go. Sometimes it’s boredom that does them in, other times divorce or running out of money. Occasionally, its fraud, deceit, and the just hand of the law that brings them down; it’s always something. Call it Karma, just desserts, or what goes around comes around; it’s the reason I don’t unduly worry about big talkers.
I’ve gone on record as a devoted student of the Small is Beautiful School of Life. It’s why I enjoy living here and why I’ve been an active public citizen; Our community is small and beautiful, small in scale with many beautiful people. I really like that.
