Welcome to
‘The Springs’?
The Sonoma Valley Redevelopment Advisory Committee voted last month to officially change the name of the Sonoma Valley Redevelopment Project Area to The Springs Redevelopment Project Area. The change effectually unifies the collection of unincorporated communities strung along Highway 12 including Boyes Hot Springs, Fetters Hot Springs, Aqua Caliente and El Verano. For years, residents have referred to the area as The Springs, but now the name will be recognized by Sonoma County officials and will be used in official documents, local signage and collateral materials.
The name change will take approximately 18 months to institute in an official capacity, but the name will become more widely publicized and recognized in public projects. Design plans for the completion of the Gateway Arch project include a sign that will say “Welcome to The Springs.” The Gateway Arch completion project, which includes the signage, improved land use, seating and a sculpture is scheduled to be installed next spring.
City council adopts two-year base budget
The Sonoma City Council adopted a two-year base-operating budget for the 2008/09 fiscal year at a special meeting on June 27 lasting almost five hours.
The adopted two-year operating budget is $25,082,967, which includes two additional base budget items that came before the council with a bit of controversy: local non-profit organizations and the landscape and lighting assessment districts.
While Mayor Stanley Cohen suggested a base budget increase of $240,000 for the local non-profits, council member August Sebastiani wanted actually to wean them from dependency of the city’s finances. “I’d like to urge that we have an eye for the future,” Sebastiani said. “I support what they’re doing – I just don’t think it’s the city’s job to fund the non-profits.”
Council member Ken Brown suggested an increase, to $300,000 for the coming year.
The final result, however, was to adopt the mayor’s suggestion for one year, see how the funds fare and then revisit the issue.
Just who gets what is yet to be decided.
The council eliminated the city’s landscape and lighting assessment districts. This elimination added another $67,000 to the city’s base operating budget while at the same time providing a significant benefit to the residents of these assessment districts – saving them from landscape- and lighting-related improvement costs.
“I want to keep all of our citizens the same – it’s not fair for the city to pay for some neighborhoods landscape and lighting and not others,” council member Steve Barbose said. “I’m in favor of doing away with the assessment districts.” So they did.
The transient occupancy tax continues to lead as the city’s projected revenue producer for the next two years with an estimation that exceeds $2.6 million for FY 2008 and nearly $2.8 million for FY 2009.
“For all of our investments – the TOT is where it’s at,” mayor pro tem Joanne Sanders said.
Mayor Cohen judged that the city’s finance reserves are adequate and that the reserve amounts comply with the city’s established policy. The adopted city budget for FY 2008 is $12,702,210 and $12,380,757 for FY 2009.
Murphy’s Irish Pub changes hands
‘Same name, same atmosphere,’ new owners say
Murphy’s Irish Pub has a new owner after 14 years. The pub will be assumed by two long-time Sonoma residents and Murphy customers, Bob Smith and Bill Pollock, who intend to retain the familiar Murphy’s name, staff and comfortable pub setting.
Smith has served as pub attorney since it opened. The change officially takes place on July 1, exactly 14 years to the day that Larry and Rose Murphy opened the pub at the smaller location across from the present site, now occupied by Taste of the Himalayas restaurant. During those years, the small pub evolved into the present-day operation with an expanded food and drink menu, music, trivia night, drama and a venue for varied community activities.
Smith and Pollock, long familiar with Sonoma’s hometown pub, bring to the enterprise a wide range of experience in community involvement and business.
The Murphys chose as their successors people who understand the special dynamic of an Irish pub atmosphere. Smith recently explored Ireland for the second time, gaining further insight into this Irish pub tradition.
Larry and Rose Murphy plan to retain some involvement with pub activities.
Infineon NASCAR race the highest-rated TV sporting event
The recent NASCAR race at Infineon Raceway was the highest-rated televised sporting event last weekend nationwide.
The event earned a 4.7 rating on TNT, with the next closest sporting event being a Major League Baseball game on FOX (2.8).
One rating point equals one percent of all U.S. households. All data used were obtained from Nielsen Media Research.
‘Rose Garden kids’ not the bad guys
The names of the miscreants who vandalized the public restrooms at the Carnegie Library building in the plaza a couple of weeks ago may never be known, according to a city employee familiar with both the facility and the locals who frequent it. Dave Chavoya, who on Tuesday marked his 34th year with the City of Sonoma Parks Department, wasn’t there the night of June 18, when trash cans were knocked over, litter was strewn over the floor and feces from an abandoned ice chest was smeared on the walls.
Some workers employed at plaza businesses reportedly pointed a finger at the so-called “Rose Garden kids,” an assortment of young people who hang out near the building that now houses the Sonoma Valley Visitors Bureau.
But Chavoya said that although he has had occasions to run into these regulars, the experience has “always been very positive.”
He thinks it more likely that the damage was inflicted by “younger kids, 12 to 14, who are out of school” for the summer.
“Some of the older kids may litter but then they pick it up when they leave. They say, ’It’s our park and we want it nice,’” Chavoya said.
Craig Ward, who routinely drops by the Rose Garden after work to catch some sun and play Frisbee with like-minded folks, says he and his friends “do not deserve to be portrayed” as vandals.
“I’m 31 years old and I have a two-and-a-half-year-old child and twins on the way. I build homes in the community,” he said.
“When the cops came, we told them, ‘We’re not your problem.’
“We’re not here to trash it (the building). We’re the ones chasing people’ out of here,’” Ward added.
