Editor:
When author Jack London saw Sonoma Mountain, he knew he’d found a treasure beyond value, and it would become his chosen place. It was fed by mountain water creeks, anointed by year-round sunlight, all of which bestowed soil so rich it would bring forth almost anything nature would produce.
In his travels to Asia and Japan he was introduced to organic and sustainable farming, which he would then bring to the Sonoma Mountain Valley he would call home. He had experienced and seen the desperation of poverty, the insanity of war, and the soul crushing meanness of cold detachment and unfeeling – the byproducts of class war.
Before the term ecosystem existed, London understood why and how the natural world had to be respected and cultivated to keep it viable, as did the indigenous people native to these places for millennia. If the ground and water from which everything grew was not nurtured and revered by those that enjoyed and depended on its bounty it would collapse. This innate knowledge, understood by those who lived in concert with the land, has now been lost or discarded by those who claim to own or steward it.
Land and water and climate have become commodities to be bartered or sold in the unceasing demand for the wealth produced by using and turning what nature took tens of thousands of years to create to become towns and cities. But some people among us are aware through hard-earned experience that once the changes of growth and development are foist upon ecosystems where everything is usefully intertwined it spells its inevitable demise.
One current glaring example of this utter folly is the (proposed) sale of Sonoma Valley Mountain land and water (the former Sonoma Developmental Center) for the building of a new town, that will have close to 1000 new (market-rate) houses accommodating 3 to 5 thousand residents, a high-end hotel/resort and 100s of thousands of square feet sporting any number of commercial businesses. A town of this size will impact the existing wildlife corridor between the Sonoma and Mayacamas Mountains that will make it no longer viable. Because of the ever-present danger and history of wildfires in this region, wildfire evacuation will be further impacted by addition of this town utilizing many thousands more cars on rural Highway 12. A nightmare scenario is easily pictured as the current wildfire in Los Angeles has proven.
In 2016 the State of California Department of General Services (DGS) announced the impending closure of the Sonoma Developmental Center and the planned disposition of its land, approximately 950- acres, to the people of the Sonoma Valley. It was pledged at this time that the state would act in accord with the County of Sonoma, and in agreement with the wishes of the people of the Sonoma Valley in the responsible development of the lower section of the already developed Developmental Center’s land along the Arnold Drive corridor. This never happened
Despite repeated input from appointed Sonoma Valley commissions for a scaled down development plan of approximately 500 housing units, one quarter of which would be designated as affordable, and re-use of the many still viable facilities and buildings, all such plans were summarily dismissed and ignored by the state’s agency, DGS, along with the full agreement of the countys appointed agency, Permit Sonoma, over the course of almost eight years. This resulting bungling and acting in bad faith has led to two lawsuits brought against state and county representatives by Sonoma Valley litigants effectively resulting in an inviolable impasse.
And all that remains is a burning question of how will new residents safely evacuate this lower region of Sonoma Mountain when engulfed by roaring wildfires?
Will Shonbrun,
Sonoma
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