Ryan Lely/Sonoma Valley Sun
Caltrans began repaving Highway 12 between Agua Caliente Road and Fremont Drive on August 4.
Highway 12 paving begins
Commuters may be the only ones who don’t notice the Caltrans paving project underway on Highway 12 between Agua Caliente Road and Fremont Drive – but locals will likely hear all about it.
“It’s only happening at night,” Caltrans spokeswoman Alicia Sequeira said Monday. “The work will get very noisy at times.”
But Sequeira said the scheduling wasn’t meant to discomfit residents so much as to keep traffic disruptions to a minimum during the roughly two weeks crews will need to grind, dig and repave the roadway – first lining storm drain openings with black sandbags to prevent runoff from the 4,000 tons of asphalt used. Work commences daily at 8 p.m. and cease at 6 a.m., and flaggers will be onsite to direct drivers.
“You’re going to be losing like a lane here or there,” Sequeira said, adding that any specific delays should be no longer than 15 minutes.
The 7.1-mile stretch from Agua Caliente to Schellville isn’t the only part of Highway 12 getting a spruce-up. Daytime projects include sewer maintenance near Waterman Avenue and culvert repair between Kunde Winery Road and the Kenwood Inn. In addition, South Valley drivers can expect one-lane delays along Highway 121 between Ramal Road and the Sonoma/Napa county line.
Sequeira said the Sonoma portion of the project should be completed by Aug. 15.
Three booked for fraud
A trio of Santa Rosa women with a shared home and criminal history were arrested last week at Friedman’s Home Improvement Store on Broadway for burglary, conspiracy and passing bad checks.
Around 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 30, the manager of Friedman’s in Santa Rosa faxed to its affiliates an alert about three women who had tried to bilk the store out of $2,800 in gift certificates using checks written on a closed account, Sonoma police Sgt. Dave Thompson said Friday. At roughly the same time, one of the alleged suspects was trying to use similar checks to purchase two $500 gift certificates at the Sonoma Friedman’s.
Due to the checks’ amount, the Sonoma sales clerk asked the store manager to okay the purchase. Instead, he called the police, and the arriving deputy detained 26-year-old Jessica Llarinas of Santa Rosa, whose two friends were waiting outside the store in a silver Hyundai sedan.
Llarinas allegedly admitted to having passed the checks – which bore her correct name and address – but said the other two, Jo Lynn Rodriguez, 25, and Nikkita Hillyard, 21 – had put her up to it. Llarinas was taken into custody at the scene, and her companions were arrested later in Santa Rosa. Hillyard was also booked for providing a false name to police.
‘Treasure Artist’ nominations open
The City of Sonoma’s Cultural and Fine Arts Commission is now accepting nominations for the 2008 Sonoma Treasure Artist of the Year Award.
First awarded in 1983, the Sonoma Treasure Artist is selected and recognized for outstanding achievement in a chosen artistic medium including the performing, visual, theatrical, literary and craft arts. The public is invited to submit names of individuals they feel would be worthy of the Sonoma Treasure Artist honor, along with a brief description of the artist’s work and contributions, and reasons for the nomination.
Past recipients include food writer M. F. K. Fisher, musician Norton Buffalo and local theatrical lights Roger and Diana Rhoten.
Submit nominations in writing no later than 5 p.m., Friday, Sept. 12, to City of Sonoma, Attn: City Clerk, No. 1 The Plaza, Sonoma, CA 95476. For more information, call 938.3681.
Fight lands man in emergency room
A long-simmering feud between two groups of young men resulted in a skull fracture but no arrests following Sonoma’s City Party.
The trouble erupted around 10 p.m. Tuesday, July 29, when multiple callers alerted police to a fight involving 10 to 20 people behind Sassarini Elementary School on Fifth Street West, Sonoma police Sgt. Dave Thompson said Friday. Arriving deputies saw several people running east toward Fourth Street West, and several others heading northbound on Fifth Street West from the corner of Andrieux Street. One deputy asked the latter group why they were sweating and breathing heavily, and was told it was due to “jogging.”
Moments later, another deputy was interviewing a 19-year-old man at Sonoma Valley Hospital’s emergency room who had reportedly been involved in the fracas and was struck on the head with a two-by-four. No description was offered of the person who had struck him, but interviews with the victim’s friends indicated that members of both groups – altogether, at least seven Sonoma and Boyes Hot Springs residents between the ages of 16 and 22 – were in a similar fight several months ago, and each faction had been giving the other menacing looks during the City Party that evening.
A separate and apparently unrelated fight was broken up earlier in the evening behind the Sonoma Barracks around 8:30 p.m. Several participants had already fled and no citations were issued.
At press time, Thompson said the investigation was continuing.
