Well, that was rough. Despite a host of important and provocative items on the agenda, there were just a handful of council watchers in chambers at last night’s meeting, and some council members—and public commenters—got a bit testy.

Work still got done. Council voted to remove some newspaper racks from public spaces but declined to prevent people from sitting or lying on local sidewalks. They voted to reimburse the city’s water and sewer funds for $350,354 in misallocated legal fees, approved 10 hours of legal research on the question of how to deal with racist incidents behind the Safeway, and gave the go-ahead for the city to spend money on the EIFD (Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District) in hopes of profiting from that arrangement in the future.

In Part 1 of this two-part recap, we’ll cover the beginning of the meeting, which included an unusually substantive public comment period, the consent calendar and the newspaper rack debate.

Mayor Jill McLewis, Vice Mayor Sandra Maurer, Councilmember Phill Carter, Councilmember Neysa Hinton, and Councilmember Stephen Zollman were present in chambers for the Aug. 4 Sebastopol City Council meeting.

Proclamations

The city proclaimed August 24 as Ukrainian Independence Day.

Public comment for items not on the agenda

Public comment seemed particularly interesting this week:

• In public comment, Steve Levenberg of Sebastopol World Friends thanked the council for the proclamation above and reminded the council that Sebastopol has a sister city, Chyhyryn, in Ukraine. “The people in Ukraine really appreciate any show of solidarity. It just makes them not feel so alone,” he said. “Sebastopol World Friends has been a strong supporter of Chyhyryn and has raised funds since 2022 to benefit humanitarian projects in and around Chyhyryn. The most recent one being that of renovation of a dormitory that’s housing internally displaced people who have lost their homes and often lost their cities as a result of the war. It’s very exciting tonight to announce that Sister City International recently awarded Sebastopol World Friends the award for Innovation in Humanitarian Assistance.” He noted that Sebastopol World Friends continues to raise funds for the dormitory project, and said that Rotary Sebastopol, in coordination with a Ukrainian Rotary Club, received a $140,000 grant to help with the completion of that project.

• Bianca Blomquist praised the work of “Keep Sebastopol Local,” a group opposed to Grocery Outlet coming to town. “I just wanted to recognize the work that the Keep Sebastopol Local campaign is doing, and how important it is that the City Council sticks to its General Plan. Keep Sebastopol Local campaign is doing a great job of reminding folks of what that General Plan is,” she said. “But we just really encourage the City Council to continue to evaluate how the Grocery Outlet proposal will impact our workers and the small business owners and the small grocers and independent grocers that already exist in Sebastopol. Economists like to call this the local multiplier effect. That for every $100 spent at a locally owned business, it generates about $68 in local economic activity, and then this is compared with just $43 at a national chain … As the famous economist Michael Sturman says, ‘The more times and the faster $1 passes between hands without leakage, the more income, wealth, and jobs in a community.’”

• Laurie Ogg, representing the Sonoma County Commission on the Status of Women, presented a resolution proclaiming August 26, 2026, as Women's Equality Day in Sonoma County.

• The indefatigable Kate Haug held the council’s feet to the fire regarding the City's alleged misallocation of Water and Sewer funds:
  “I am here to ask why the council and city did not respond to the financial documents produced by the EFOC in the city’s Grand Jury reply? [See our article on the Enterprise Funds Oversight Committee report.] The EFOC has at least 50 pages of financial documentation based on actual city budgets. Why was this not included in the Grand Jury reply? When the council says they want to research more to determine the dollar amount owed to the enterprise funds, why didn’t they respond to all the financial analysis the EFOC has provided? The city organized the EFOC. The ratepayers pay probably $1,500 or more for each meeting, as staff is paid to prepare for and attend the meetings. Why is there no response to the fact that the finance administration cost tripled in nine years to almost $1 million, even though the number of accounts and services remained steady? How come there’s no response to the fact that the cost allocation plan wasn’t adjusted after doubling the size of the finance department, which most likely accounts for the fact that expenses tripled? How come there’s no response to the fact that the current council has allotted the enterprise funds for over 50 percent of their entire budget, even though we all know this is not a true allocation. The EFOC has recommended efficiencies in the finance department. Why hasn’t council responded? The EFOC has recommended getting bids for third-party vendors for billing to reduce costs to ratepayers. Why hasn’t the council responded? Why are ratepayers paying for the EFOC if the council is not going to address the issues with which the EFOC is presented? Why is there no response to the council from valid work that has been done? One of the EFOC’s recommendations is for a forensic accountant.”

• Lisa and Steve Pierce shared a 2-minute comment period to respond to a recent suggestion by the Building the Commons committee to move the library, city hall, the senior center, the community cultural center and other nonprofits to the O’Reilly site. Lisa said she hoped the library, at least, could remain downtown. “The library should be central and easily accessed by students and pedestrians in town, while the community center, which hosts events with hundreds of people, requires ample and available parking by the event space,” she said. “These two needs don’t lend themselves to being under the same roof.” Steve elaborated on this idea, noting that, if City Hall moved to the O’Reilly site, the library (9,400 sq. ft.) could remain where it is, and expand into the space between it and what is currently the city hall property—the in-between space being roughly 5,000 sq. ft. He noted that the existing city hall building would have to be torn down and replaced with a two-story building (8,000 sq. ft.). Altogether, these would add up to the 22,000 sq. ft. space the Sonoma County Library would, ideally, like a new Sebastopol Library to be.

• Kyle Falbo accused the council of “not representing the needs or the interests of the residents of the city of Sebastopol. These council members here are serving the interests of the city employees and city management.” After accusing councilmembers of never questioning the advice of the city manager, financial director or city attorney, despite the questionable recommendations staff has made over the last several years, he said, “We need electeds that serve our residents and the interests of our residents and are not just puppets for the city administration.”

Quick look at the Consent Calendar

The consent calendar consists of items that are routine in nature or don’t require additional discussion, often because they’ve been discussed extensively at a previous council meeting.

In addition to approving the minutes of earlier meetings, the council unanimously approved the following:

• Approved an amendment to the municipal code to give the City Manager the authority to hire a City Clerk.

• Approved voting delegates and alternates for the League of California Cities Annual Conference & Expo. Mayor McLewis will be attending the conference.

• Extend the contract with 8th Wave, a contractor hired to deal with HUD compliance and other issues involving Gravenstein Commons.

The issue of creating a TOT sharing arrangement with the Barlow Hotel—reimbursing the hotel for 50% of its TOT taxes—was moved to the regular agenda for more discussion, but we’ll cover it here.

Public commenters Kyle Falbo, Michelle Kelley and Bianca Blomquist argued that the wording of the amendment to the development agreement gave the city no leverage to ensure those funds would be used to market all of Sebastopol and not just the Barlow Hotel.

Here was the language in question:

“The Developer is required to use the TOT rebate for advertisement of tourism in the City of Sebastopol, including the Barlow Hotel. The City is entitled to request and receive, at least annually, documentation on how the TOT was spent.”

The council seemed satisfied with the amendment as written and voted to approve it on a 3 to 1 vote, Maurer dissenting. (Mayor McLewis recused herself because she runs a small business across the street from the proposed hotel site.)

Regular Agenda

Most newspaper racks to be removed from public right of way

As part of Mayor McLewis’s ongoing efforts to spruce up the city, the council asked city attorney Alex Mog to come up with an ordinance to deal with unsightly, often abandoned newspaper racks. He introduced this ordinance at last night’s meeting.

According to the staff report, the highlights of this ordinance include the following:

Under the ordinance, newsracks are prohibited near certain critical access points, such as within ten feet of any fire hydrant, crosswalk, curb ramp, or driveway. Additionally, the ordinance prohibits newsracks in locations that impede the flow of pedestrian, wheelchair, or vehicular traffic.

There are a number of other rules regulating placement of newsracks in order to minimize blight by overconcentration of newsracks in certain location. For example, the ordinance requires newsracks to be located at least 100 feet of each other, and prohibits more than three (3) newsracks on any individual block. A permit is required before any new newsrack can be installed, and the ordinance establishes requirements for staff to process the requirement in a timely manner.

Under the ordinance existing newsracks have six (6) months to come into compliance with the various location requirements or be removed.

The proposed ordinance’s maintenance standards are intended to ensure that newsracks are maintained in a safe and clean condition. Among other requirements, newsracks must be kept free of graffiti and any plastic/glass parts must be unbroken and free of cracks.

Additionally, the name, address, and telephone number for the owner must be affixed to newsrack.

Newsracks remaining empty for sixty days will be deemed abandoned under the ordinance. An abandoned newsrack may be removed by the City and disposed of if it is not claimed by the responsible party within thirty days.

Vice Mayor Maurer noted that this language would require the removal of the large 8-box rack in front of the theater at the corner of Main Street and Bodega. She also raised a concern about impeding the freedom of the press to distribute their work.

Speaking of the 8-box rack in downtown, she said, “So in that rack, there’s a little library. There’s the Community Voice. There’s La Prensa, which is a Spanish news, and there’s the Bohemian. So were any of these papers reached? Did anybody reach out to them to ask them their opinion of removing the rack?”

No one had.

The problem, according to City Manager Mary Gourley, was that the city didn’t know who (if anyone) actually owned the racks around the city, though she said they were endeavoring to find out.

In public comment, Michelle Kelly “liberated” an old, defunct, faded red plastic realtor circular box and wheeled it into the council chamber. She wondered if realtor and other advertising boxes raised the same constitutional issues as newspaper racks. (City Attorney Alex Mog said commercial speech was a form of free speech.) Kelly also noted how these racks and boxes crowded the sidewalks and wondered why the ordinance hadn’t mentioned ADA sidewalk-width requirements. Finally, she questioned the “3 per block, 100-foot spacing” and asked for more objective, evidence-based design standards. Regarding boxes like the one she brought in, she said, “They’re blight wherever they are. This is horrible … Nobody wants this.”

Kate Haug worried about the cost to the city of this ordinance and wondered if the problem of junk racks couldn’t be dealt with in a more forthright way.

“I’m just wondering how much all of this is going to cost to notice and re-notice and go back and forth. Many of these boxes, I too have seen over the last four years, they’re completely shot and abandoned. They look like garbage standing on the street…It almost just seems—if it’s not in use for like three months—that it should just get picked up and put into the garbage.”

Oliver Dick worried about the liability of having defunct metal racks cluttering the public right-of-way. He suggested that the unhoused might pick them up and throw them at passing cars, and the city might be held at fault for that if the owners of the racks couldn’t be identified.

As the co-owner of the Sebastopol Times, I suggested the city simply call up the few remaining print newspapers—the Press Democrat, the Bohemian and the Community Voice—all of whom have or use distribution services, and ask them for their help in dealing with the issue of unsightly or unused racks.

In council comment, Councilmember Zollman echoed the concern about the liability —though not about rack-throwing homeless people—but said he was worried about the cost of enforcement. Oddly, seemed concerned that the street-level enforcement of this ordinance would be left up to the police. (Enforcement would actually be up to the building inspector.)

Hinton said she was comfortable with the idea that sticking a notice for six months on racks to be removed would be enough to notify newspaper distributors and the owners of the racks about their impending removal.

In the end, the council voted 3 to 2 (Maurer and Zollman dissenting) to approve the ordinance and pave the way for the removal of at least some of the newspaper racks around Sebastopol.

Weather experts agree that a “super” El Niño season is developing this fall. In this community meeting, McGuire and a panel of experts will dive into what weather forecasters project in the coming months and how you can stay informed and keep your family safe during severe weather events.

What: Super El Niño Town Hall - Separating Fact from Fiction
When: 6 p.m. Tuesday, August 4, 2026
Where: Virtual
Who: Senator McGuire, climate researcher Dr. Daniel Swain, Bay Area meteorologist Mark Tamayo, and leadership from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the California Office of Emergency Services.

RSVP or send your questions here.

If you need help registering for this event or with any other legislative matter, call McGuire’s office at (707) 576-2771 or email Senator.McGuire@senate.ca.gov.

Thanks to Tasha Beauchamp for passing this information along.

Editor’s note: We realize that it’s August. It’s hot and dry, and you’re probably more concerned about fire than rain right now, but this article from Sebastopol’s Permaculture Artisans came across our desk, and we thought it worth reprinting. The main takeaway is this: because it’s August, you still have time to prepare your home and property for what may be very heavy rains this winter, due to the super El Niño forming in the Pacific. We are not reprinting this as an advertisement for Permaculture Artisans, but as a heads-up. Forwarned is forearmed.

By Erik Ohlsen

A record-breaking Super El Niño event is taking place in the Pacific Ocean as we speak. With it comes a major threat of catastrophic weather events throughout California this winter. Historically, El Niño events and their impacts have caused major damage throughout the California region, especially in 1982/83 and 2007/08, when we received double the average rainfall. The chance of significant rain events — including the potential for flooding, severe erosion, and catastrophic drainage failure — is probable (but not conclusive) during a big El Niño year, like the one forming right now.

The good news is it’s only August! There’s still plenty of time to assess your land, farm, business, or landscape to ensure you are well prepared for the potential of major storm events.

Below, I outline our approach to preparing for such a season and five specific actions you can take to prepare.

Prepare for the surge

When designing landscapes to handle large storm events, we focus on what we call the “storm surge.” What generally happens when a major storm event occurs is that it tests all of our drainage, water catchment, and flood control measures. Unfortunately, many landscape water management systems are designed for average rain years and, during severe storm seasons, they can be overwhelmed, leading to erosion and flooding.

When water entering a system (drainage or catchment) can’t escape fast enough, this usually means that the water coming into the system is at a higher volume than what is being released from the system. Be it a drain pipe, a rain tank, a pond, or a water harvesting rain garden—all of these systems need to be designed such that a greater volume of water can leave a system faster than the water entering. This allows for the system to handle the storm surge, when enormous volumes of rain dump in short periods of time. These are the moments we design for.

I remember back in 2007/08 when we received 12 inches of rain in 24 hours. An “atmospheric river” sat over us and dumped everything it had. The soil was already saturated. Many drainage and catchment systems failed. Many landscapes, homes, and businesses flooded. I don’t want to see a repeat of that this year. This time we have a chance to mitigate the damage.

The most fragile and dangerous infrastructure we have are drain pipes, culverts, and impervious surfaces like roofs and driveways. These systems have quite a difficult time handling major storm events like those we’ve seen in past El Niño years. This is why the ecological (and intelligent) approach to water management includes major catchment systems like rain gardens, ponds, contour swales, and terraces. These catchment systems, if designed and built correctly, act as “buffers“ to major storm surge events. These systems allow water to move into buffer zones that are designed to handle the ‘12 inches in 24-hours’ event. These earthen structures can intercept the volume of water that pipes and culverts are trying to convey away from roofs, roads, and driveways, and not only absorb the water safely but also recharge aquifers to heal dehydrated and abused landscapes. In fact, it’s this exact combination of catchment, storm-surge buffers. and intelligent drainage that ensures our farms, homesteads, and landscapes can not only handle major rain events, but thrive because of them.

In Permaculture, we utilize a principle called “The Problem is the Solution.” Water inherently is not a problem. Water is liquid gold worth more than nearly anything on earth. Water is life, water is sacred, and how we manage it on our landscapes and farms should reflect honor and care for its sacred powers—its powers to feed us and the Earth, to grow our food, and keep ecosystems green and thriving.

In all seriousness, if you are living in an accelerated-rain-weather portion of the world with the El Niño forecast that is upon us, I urgently advise you to ensure your water management and drainage are intact and built sufficiently to handle what may come this year.

Here are five specific techniques to utilize on the lands you steward, in preparation for major storm events:

1. STORM SURGE BUFFERS

Rain gardens, contour swales, terraces, and other water management systems can receive and infiltrate enormous amounts of water in the landscape. These techniques have been used for thousands of years across the globe to not only manage storm surge events but also increase water availability to landscapes. They provide buffers in storm events, allowing water to rest safely until the storm passes. Structures like these are built in conjunction with piped drainage systems to allow for sophisticated catch-and-release flows of significant volumes of water to protect the land against major storm events.

2. STONE ARMORING

Landscapes and farms that rely on surface drain systems, swales, diversion ditches, terraces, rain gardens, and ponds need to look at ensuring water can enter and leave systems safely. The potential for major erosion is extremely high during major El Niño-driven storm events. By correctly armoring inflows and outflows with stone or plants, soil can be kept in place, water quality is kept pure, and water can safely enter and leave your drainage and catchment devices without causing major erosion.

3. CLEANING DRAINAGE SYSTEMS

This year, it may be more important than ever to make sure your gutters are fully clean, your culverts have been mucked out, and all of your drainage pipes unclogged, so water can move safely through the systems. Much of the urban flooding that happens during major storm events is caused by clogged pipes (this is why pipes and culverts should not be solely relied on for drainage). So, this year, of all years, ensure all your drainage pipes, culverts, and gutters are well cleaned and ready for the winter.

4. SURFACE WATER RUNOFF

Roofs, driveways, roads, compacted pathways, concrete patios, and all types of impervious surfaces will quickly shed water during rain events. Have a plan for this water! Whether it’s a well-designed drainage system, catchment system, a carbon sponge, or some other technique, don’t assume that water will escape surfaces safely during an El Niño-driven storm event. It’s quite possible that water will move extremely fast, and if it has nowhere to go, it will pond up, flood, or create erosion. Assess these areas specifically and ensure you have a solid and safe plan to let water escape.

5. GULLY STUFFING

Recently, our dear friend Brock Dolman has been pushing an ancient technique across the state of California. Aptly named “Fuels to Flows,” gully stuffing is an incredible and simple technique to repair erosion gullies ( huge erosion channels, usually fed by culverts) with brush and biomass harvested from woodlands and forests. Why this is so brilliant is because the material being harvested to fill gullies is often posing major fire danger. It is small trees, brush, and branches that are considered “fuel ladders” or “fuel loads” that increase the speed and catastrophic nature of wildfires when they move through these areas. So, working from a fuels-to-flows, gully stuffing approach, we are removing the fire fuels to protect the forest, and then using them to repair erosion systems across the landscape, which inadvertently catch and store water, create habitat, build healthy soil, clean water, and increase water infiltration.

Gully stuffing is also quite effective during storm-surge events, as this material takes the velocity out of the water, keeping it high in the landscape for longer periods of time, preventing flooding and unchecked erosion. Brock Dolman and Occidental Arts and Ecology Center have recently gained more traction in mainstream adoption of this ancient technique. Here at Permaculture Artisans, we have been working with Brock for decades, doing this exact work across the region.

Don’t wait to take action. The worst time to deal with a flood or erosion event is during the event itself. If you’re reading this now, you have a few months to get this figured out and implement a plan.

Erik Ohlsen is founder and owner of Permaculture Artisans, as well as a renowned certified permaculture designer and teacher. He also runs the Permaculture Skills Center in Sebastopol.

Senator Mike McGuire is hosting Super El Niño Town Hall today at 6 pm

Thanks to Tasha Beauchamp for passing this along.

Weather experts agree that a “super” El Niño season is developing this fall. In this community meeting, McGuire and a panel of experts will dive into what weather forecasters project in the coming months and how you can stay informed and keep your family safe during severe weather events.

What: Super El Niño Town Hall - Separating Fact from Fiction
When: 6 p.m. Tuesday, August 4, 2026
Where: Virtual
Who: Senator McGuire, climate researcher Dr. Daniel Swain, Bay Area meteorologist Mark Tamayo, and leadership from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the California Office of Emergency Services.

RSVP or send your questions here.

If you need help registering for this event or with any other legislative matter, call McGuire’s office at (707) 576-2771 or email us at Senator.McGuire@senate.ca.gov.

Sebastopol Girl Scouts – Bee a Daisy
Monday, Aug. 3, 4 pm to 5 pm, at Ives Park 7400 Willow St., Sebastopol. Free; RSVP requested.

A fun and informative Girl Scout welcome event for TK and kindergarten-aged youth and their families, hosted by Girl Scouts of Northern California. Young participants will learn about pollinators through bee-themed activities and crafts, while adults can find out about joining an existing Girl Scout troop or starting a new one in the community. For questions, contact Heather at hwilber@gsnorcal.org or (707) 524-9200. Register.

Sourdough Bread Basics
Tuesday, Aug. 4, 10:30 am to 1:30 pm, at Gather, 122 N. Main St., Sebastopol. $165.

Ready to start baking sourdough at home? In this hands-on workshop, Tawnya Deeths of The Peaceful Acre Baker guides you through the essential techniques for creating beautiful, flavorful sourdough in your own kitchen. You’ll learn the foundations of mixing, fermenting, shaping, and baking naturally leavened bread, while demystifying starter care, flour selection, and the fermentation process. You’ll take home a living heirloom sourdough starter, one shaped loaf ready to bake that evening, one proofed dough to bake later, a rattan banneton basket, and recipes and workshop notes. Bring a stoneware or glass mixing bowl for transporting your proofed dough home; no prior sourdough experience required. Reserve your spot.

Hessel Grange Potluck with produce and seed exchange
Tuesday, Aug. 4, 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm, at Hessel Grange, 5400 Blank Road, Sebastopol.

Join the members of the newly reopened Hessel Grange to share a meal and get to know each other and the community and celebrate the reopening of this shared community space. Bring a dish to share and, if you’ve got ‘em, seeds or homegrown produce to swap. Info at fluidroots

Sebastopol City Council Meeting
Tuesday, Aug. 4, 6 pm, at the Sebastopol Youth Annex, 425 Morris St., Sebastopol. Free.

The Sebastopol City Council will consider an ordinance regulating newspaper racks and weigh reimbursing $350,354 in misallocated attorney costs to the Water and Sewer Enterprise Funds. They will also discuss an ordinance to prohibit sitting or lying on public sidewalks, as well as legal options regarding graffiti and racial mockery by high schoolers at Safeway. Council will also get a report on the Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District (EIFD) and next steps, including a $40,000 consulting agreement. The public may attend in person, by Zoom, or by phone. See agenda and documentation.

Film: Wild Inside
Tuesday, Aug. 4, 6:30 pm, and Sunday, Aug. 9, at 2:15 pm, at Rialto Cinemas, 6868 McKinley St., Sebastopol. $16.

In 2023, Flaco — a male Eurasian eagle-owl, the largest owl species in the world — was discovered missing from his cage at the Central Park Zoo in Manhattan. This documentary follows what happened after Flaco, who had lived his entire life in captivity, was released into New York City, revealing the delight, concern, and fascination of millions in the city and beyond. Director Penny Lane will appear in person for a Q&A at the Sunday, Aug. 9 screening. Get tickets.

Fiber Arts/Sewing: Beginning Sewing
Wednesdays, Aug. 5 to 26, 5:30 pm to 8:30 pm, at Chimera Arts and Maker Space, 6791 Sebastopol Ave., Sebastopol. $299.55

Learn the basics of sewing in this four-week series with no experience required, taught by Shannon Marshall, owner of Sonoma County Sewing Company. This is a series of four 3-hour classes and all supplies are included. Each week, there’s a different project, designed to be fun and easy for beginners, and all supplies are included. The skills you are learning during this series will set you up for success with any kind of sewing projects you want to get into. Register here.

Peacetown Concert in Ives Park
Wednesday, Aug. 5, 5 pm to 8 pm, at Ives Park, Sebastopol.

Peacetown opens this week with The Familiar Strangers, playing from 5 pm to 6 pm. Put together by the ubiquitous Kevin Russell, The Familiar Strangers play an Americana grab bag of roots music from western swing to classic country, blues rock, swing jazz and even a little bit of gypsy jazz! They’re followed up by The Angel Choir, playing from 6:30 pm to 8 pm, a powerhouse of female singers, including Loralee Christensen, Dallis Craft, Candy Girard, Alison Paige, Ellie James, backed on guitar by the incredibly talented Emily Froberg. All of these amazing women are artists and stars in their own right, but coming together they create something unique and beautiful! As always, there will be food trucks, plus cold beer, fine wine and soft drinks for purchase. Folks are encouraged to set up chairs early in the day. Bring your loving heart and your dancing shoes!

Caltucky, Hoss Farm and Charlie Torch
Thursday, Aug. 6, 8 pm, at HopMonk Tavern (in The Abbey), 230 Petaluma Ave., Sebastopol. $24.35

HopMonk presents a wild night of progressive bluegrass, jamgrass, and Northern California string-band energy. Rising jamgrass powerhouse Caltucky headlines alongside California all-star band Hoss Farm and the family-powered acoustic roots of Charlie Torch, featuring the Manning family of Berkeley’s renowned Manning School of Music. Expect blazing picking, harmony vocals and a dancefloor full of good vibes all night long. Mostly standing; 21+ only. Get tickets.

Chimera First Fridays Open House
Friday, Aug. 7, 5 pm to 8 pm, at Chimera, 6791 Sebastopol Ave., Sebastopol. Free.

Chimera Arts, Sonoma County’s maker space, continues its First Fridays at Chimera Arts, a showcase of the local maker community. There will be live music from Callie Watts and Kris Dilbeck, food and beverages, activities and demonstrations.

Sacred Garden: Ecological Place Making and Ancestral Traditions
Friday through Sunday, Aug. 7 to 9, 10 am to 4:30 pm daily, in Sebastopol (location provided upon registration). Tuition on a sliding scale: $400-$450.

Come join this magical weekend of ecological landscaping, garden design, and traditional skills. In this 3-day, hands-on program, learn how to design and manage a self-sustaining, ecological food forest combined with an herbal medicine farm. Learn about ancient traditions of kitchen gardens and skill sets from around the world.
Explore vital systems of sustenance developed by ancient peoples, discover how these systems are in use today, and how to incorporate them into your life and land. Register.

Film: Grateful Dead Meet-Up at the Movies
Saturday, Aug. 8, at 4 pm, and Monday, Aug. 10, at 6:30 pm, at Rialto Cinemas, 6868 McKinley St., Sebastopol. $16.

Celebrate the 35th anniversary of an iconic Grateful Dead show as it returns to the big screen. Dead Heads around the world will gather for the Grateful Dead Meet-Up at the Movies, featuring the complete June 17, 1991 concert from Giants Stadium. Get tickets.

The Beat Farmers with Gill Brothers Band
Friday, Aug. 7, 8 pm, at HopMonk Tavern (in The Abbey), 230 Petaluma Ave., Sebastopol. $35.75

Return of The Beat Farmers, the San Diego roots-rock band that ran from 1983 to 1995 and built a reputation for a one-of-a-kind mix of cowpunk, rockabilly, blues, and boogie-woogie — a combination of music, mayhem, and stage presence that fans still remember. The original lineup featured Country Dick Montana, Jerry Raney, Joey Harris, and Rolle Love. The Gill Brothers Band opens. Mostly standing; 21+ only. Get tickets.

Rooted & Restored: Forest Hammock Floating Sound Bath
Friday, Aug. 7, 7 pm to 8:30 pm, at a private forested property in West Sebastopol (address provided upon registration). $55.

Settle into a hammock beneath the trees for a deeply restorative evening. The experience begins with a gentle yoga session led by Sunee of Soul-Fi Sound Healing, followed by a sound bath journey with crystal bowls, chimes, and elemental tones — all woven together with the natural sounds of the forest. Find out more.

Grandma’s All Apple Breakfast & Fritter
Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 8-9, 9 am to 12 pm, at the Sebastopol Masonic Center, 373 N. Main St., Sebastopol. Varied prices.

Now in its 37th year, this beloved tradition serves up “Grandma’s Apple Fritters” — a recipe you won’t find anywhere else. Stop by for breakfast on your way to the nearby Gravenstein Apple Fair or grab a boat of fritters to dine in or take out. The all-apple breakfast menu includes apple pancakes topped with fritters, bacon, scrambled eggs, homemade apple jam, homemade Gravenstein applesauce, apple juice, and coffee, tea or milk. Free parking is available behind the Masonic Center and on the street. All proceeds support the community activities of La Fayette Masonic Lodge. $17 adults; $9 children ages 8–12; free for children under 8. A boat of Gravenstein apple fritters is $10. Get tickets.

Gravenstein Apple Fair
Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 8-9, 10 am to 6 pm, at Ragle Ranch Regional Park, 500 Ragle Road, Sebastopol. Varied prices.

Now in its 53rd year, the beloved Gravenstein Apple Fair returns to Ragle Ranch Park. The fair offers a full weekend of local food and drink, music, crafts, games, agricultural demonstrations, family fun and apples, apples, apples. General admission: $23 adults, $10 children 6-12, free for kids 5 and under; family passes, $55 (online only, Aug. 7). Local discount and premium upgrades available. Get tickets.

Conservation Science + Art: Butterflies & Moths with Megan Gnekow
Saturday, Aug. 8, 10 am to 4 pm, at the Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation, 900 Sanford Road, Santa Rosa. $145; all materials included.

Learn scientific illustration while exploring the conservation challenges facing California’s butterflies and moths. Join artist and educator Megan Gnekow to explore the threats these species face, practice accurate illustration techniques, and discover how human behavior affects butterflies, moths, and their host plants — plus steps you can take to help them thrive. The workshop is accessible to artists of all experience levels. Register.

CatVideoFest
Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 8-9 and 15-16, 12 pm, at Rialto Cinemas, 6868 McKinley St., Sebastopol.

CatVideoFest is a joyful compilation of the latest and best cat videos culled from countless hours of submissions, sourced animations, music videos, and classic internet powerhouses. Each year, local theaters partner with nearby cat-focused charities and shelters, and a portion of ticket proceeds from every show goes directly to local cats in need — in this case, benefiting Forgotten Felines of Sonoma County. Get tickets.

End of Life Choices
Saturday, Aug. 8, 12:30 pm to 2 pm, at Sebastopol Area Senior Center, 167 North High St., Sebastopol. $8.

Join Mary Abbott and Taya Levine with End of Life Choices California for a compassionate and informative discussion designed to support you and your loved ones. Learn how to gently share your values and end-of-life wishes. Understand legal end-of-life options in California, including medical aid in dying. Gain clarity, confidence, and peace of mind for future planning. All are welcome. Only a few spaces left. Call to register: (707) 829-2440.

La Luz with Spacemoth
Saturday, Aug. 8, 8 pm, at HopMonk Tavern (in The Abbey), 230 Petaluma Ave., Sebastopol. $38.86 (including service fee). Mostly standing; 21+ only.

La Luz, the Seattle-formed band led by Shana Cleveland, has carved out a distinctive niche blending psychedelic rock, surf rock, and indie garage rock. Known for lush harmonies and dreamy melodies, their sound draws on the surf and psychedelic influences of the ‘60s wrapped in a modern indie aesthetic — nostalgic and forward-thinking at once. Spacemoth opens. Get tickets.

Kate Haug: Collaborative Practices — A Community Drawing Rally and Opening Reception
Saturday, Aug. 8, 2 pm to 6 pm, at Sebastopol Center for the Arts, 282 S. High St., Sebastopol.

This retrospective of Bay Area artist Kate Haug’s work engages the Bay Area’s history of technological innovation, political activism and testing of social structures. Collaborative Practices features Haug’s past projects, including “News Today: A History of the Poor People’s Campaign in Real Time,” “Summer of Love Trading Cards,” and “Public Post,” a collaborative wheatpaste that critiques digital culture. New work includes “Mothership,” an interdisciplinary dive into the complex space of Motherhood through community drawing and public programming.

From 2 pm to 4 pm, join a community drawing rally for “Draw Your Mother/ Draw Your Child” and make work to be hung in the gallery as part of the interdisciplinary work Mothership. From 4 pm to 6 pm, have a drink and celebrate the opening of Collaborative Practices. There will be a live performance starting at 4:30 pm which emphasizes collaboration and community as part of artistic practice.

Here are the exhibition-linked events in August.

• 15 Minutes for Moms/ with Sebastopol Regional Library Family Storytime - Aug 5,12, 19, 26

• Studio Process: Mother Mandala - Aug 9

• Science Buzz Cafe - The Science of Motherhood in Collaboration with Knowable Magazine - Aug 10

• Zine Workshop “Draw Your Family / Draw Your Story” - Aug 15 & 16

• Mom/Tot/Baby/ Kid Clothing Swap - Aug 22

• Neighborhood Cocktail Hour and Ratepayer Town Hall - Aug 28

This week’s unexpectedly smoky skies and unhealthy air were quite a scare. They were also a reminder of unpredictable fires in the not-so-distant past as well as the active fires in the Pacific Northwest and the more distant lands of France and Spain.

As Laura reported in two stories on July 30th, the Woodside fire at the coast generated a lot of smoke that the wind pushed into Sebastopol, the Sonoma Valley and Marin. KRON’s Chief Meteorologist, Jeff Ranieri, showed off-the-charts bad air quality readings of 1,485 in the 7 pm broadcast.

There’s no question that the air quality was at a hazardous level, but I was curious about the number — the 1485 reading. I wrote to Tim Dye of TD Environmental Services in Petaluma who is an expert in air quality monitoring, and who was involved in the launch of airnow.gov. He has also done work comparing consumer-grade air quality monitors, such as PurpleAir, and the accuracy of their sensor data against the professional-grade monitoring systems that are used by government.

What did he think of the 1,485 reading for the air in Sebastopol? “It looks like those numbers are way too high. I suspect they're coming from actual PurpleAir (devices), which without corrections can over report by sometimes 50+ percent,” he replied. “Based on the AirNow data, the peak appears to have been an AQI 430 — Hazardous — on July 30 at 6:00 pm,” he added. Again, this is a really high number on AirNow, whose AQI chart goes to 400. So the reading was still off the charts.

Dye recommends following the EPA's fire and smoke map (fire.airnow.gov). “This resource incorporates the PurpleAir data but calibrates or corrects it to make it comparable to the official government stations and then plots both the air sensors and the reference monitors together,” he said.

Fortunately, by Saturday, the air above us cleared and AQI readings had dropped to 50 or below, which is considered good. The forecast is that AQI will remain at the good level into next week. It makes one appreciate breathing fresh air and seeing blue skies again.

Return of the Porch

By Kavya Krishnamurthy

Porchfest Sebastopol finds a new neighborhood host

The creator of Porchfest Sebastopol, Greg “Ceni” Ceniceroz, has announced that this year’s Porchfest venue will once again be, in the spirit of the event, on neighborhood porches. Sebastopol’s third annual Porchfest will take place on Sept. 12 on the porches and driveways of homes in Belmont Terrace, that little north-end neighborhood behind the Sebastopol Community Church.

Last year’s Porchfest, dubbed “Hardly Porchfest,” took place in Ives Park after some High Street neighbors, who didn’t appreciate the crowds, loud music, or, to be fair, the concertgoers peeing in the bushes, nixed the event.

For this year’s event, the Porchfest Sebastopol board surveyed various neighborhoods with an interest in hosting the event. Belmont Terrace, which is home to two Porchfest board members, “jumped out with a lot of enthusiasm,” Ceniceroz said. “And there was just so much enthusiasm, we ran with that for this year because I think that Porchfest belongs on the porches.”

With support from the Belmont Terrace Water District, the Community Church, and eight homeowners that want music on their porches, Porchfest 2026 will have nine stages, one of which—a DJ set— will be in the Community Church parking lot.

The Porchfest board has hosted at least five meetings to address neighborhood concerns and questions. “We had lots of questions about ‘How can I participate? What can I do? Can I have a big sale?’ Some of the questions were about event insurance. One question was about county permits.”

They’ve applied for a permit to close some of the streets for the day so that there is less through-traffic from non-locals. Residents and locals will still be able to use the streets. “We’ll have lots of volunteers at the closures, and we’ll have volunteers walking around the whole day.”

Porchfest is a nonprofit, and the event will be run almost entirely by volunteers. The only paid workers are the sound engineers.

Porchfest Sebastopol 2026 will feature almost entirely bands based in Sebastopol or Santa Rosa. So far, their lineup includes 50 artists, listed below.

The event will take place on Saturday, Sept. 12, from 12 pm to 6 pm. It is free for the public. Cenizeroz promises “a rip-roaring fun day of community building and free local music.”

Grant applications for SW100 are due Aug. 10 — and there’s still time to join to vote for your favorite applicants

Sebastopol West 100 (SW100), a giving circle focused on Sebastopol and West County, opened its annual grant application window on July 20. Applications are due August 10. This is the program’s second year. Last year the group handed out giant cardboard checks, totaling $295,000, to eight nonprofits in West County. The winners included Food For Thought ($100,000), the Sebastopol Area Senior Center ($50,000), Sebastopol Community Cultural Center ($50,000) and five others who were awarded $15,000 to $25,000.

SW100 is at it again this year, and their goal, according to co-founder Craig Litwin, is to give away even more money this year. Over the last two years, the group has raised more than $750,000. They’re hoping to hit a million before the year is out. They’ve also added Hessel to the list of towns/areas they serve.

SW100’s giving circle is a fun concept: Annual membership is $1,300, which can be contributed in one payment or spread out monthly. Some members give much more, but all members have the same direct say in where funds are awarded. Last year the group got 77 grant applications. Its grant committee winnowed that down to 16. The membership then voted on which of those organizations would be the final winners.

If you join SW100 before Sept. 20, you can help choose this year’s winners, which will be announced at a big party on Oct. 20.

Litwin said SW100 is having a couple of upcoming get-togethers for members and those interested in becoming members. They’ll be at the upcoming Senior Center Open House on Wednesday, Aug. 19, 4 pm to 6 pm. They’re also co-sponsoring a film at the Rialto on Sept. 3, called “Join or Die,” a documentary based on social scientist Robert Putnam’s book, “Bowling Alone,” on how declining community engagement contributed to America’s civic unravelling. They’re also planning to have a big party for members on Sept. 17 at the Sebastopol Community Cultural Center.

Learn more at SW100.org.

Um, that’s not what we meant…

On Tuesday morning, we posted a story called “Are you ready for the Gravenstein Apple Fair?” Alas, on some readers’ phones, the title got cut off so that it read like so:

No news is bad news

I (Dale) was up in the mountains in the northernmost part of California last weekend. I picked up a local regional weekly paper for $2 at the market. While I was happy to see a newspaper, I was so disappointed in how little news it contained. There was very little actual reporting and a whole lot of advertising, mostly grocery store circulars. It seemed more like a remnant of what a newspaper should be.

In its place, I found The Plumas Sun, which publishes daily but only online. The Plumas Sun was formed as a non-profit by a community group after the newspapers that covered Lassen and Plumas counties went dark in 2023. They started publishing online the same month that the century-old print newspaper closed.

From their About page:

The prospect of no local news was unimaginable to many of us who believe accurate information is a cornerstone of democracy. We quickly gathered a core group of local citizens and began discussing an alternative to the information void we were facing. By the last week of July we had a name, a website, a fiscal sponsor and an editorial team. The Plumas Sun is a collaboration of local residents and organizations working together to inform, educate and engage with the public across all communities of Plumas County, California.

Not having local news is “unimaginable.” The good news is that these newspaper revival efforts are happening in communities across America, and it’s happening right here in Sebastopol with Sebastopol Times, which started in April 2022 after our local paper ceased operation.

Through the direct financial support of those who value local news and the small, dedicated team that produces it, we are able to sustain an organization that informs, educates and engages citizens of Sebastopol and West County. The good news is you get to know what’s going on in your own community.

If you are not a paid subscriber to Sebastopol Times, isn’t this good news reason enough for you to join others in supporting this essential, independent service that we still call a newspaper?

The week of July 27 to Aug. 1

Don’t blink, you might miss Bodega!

Visitors, don’t be shy -
stop in on your way by!
All ages here have a blast,
you don’t have to just drive past.

The Big Event is almost here!

Have you ever heard of The Big Event? Well, it happens the first Sunday of August out in Bodega—the small rural village on Bodega Highway, about a mile inland from the coast and Highway 1.

The Big Event happens in downtown Bodega on Sunday, Aug. 2, from 10 am to 5 pm. “Sonoma County’s shortest parade” starts at 10:30 am, closing down Bodega Highway for 10 to 15 minutes or so. People passing through to Highway 1 might enjoy the detour past iconic buildings, including the schoolhouse from The Birds.

Better yet, stop and join the historic town of Bodega for some small-town fun. Enjoy free parking and admission, plus BBQ plates, great drinks and treats for sale to benefit Bodega Fire, and a jumpy house for the kids. There will be music all day from two dance bands: Trainwreck Junction plays from 11 am to 1:30 pm, then The Hots play from 2 pm to 5 pm.

The Artisans’ Co-op Gallery is hosting a gallery-wide sale and raffle at 17175 Bodega Highway the same day and time. Many of the artisans pop up in front of the fire station during The Big Event. This craft fair is an iteration of what used to be known as its own “Artisans’ Day.” You can discover what new art is being crafted for you or someone you know.

Gold Ridge to rent and staff the Bodega Fire Station

As many of you know, most of the volunteer fire departments of West Sonoma County have consolidated into the Gold Ridge Fire Protection District. This includes the stations of Bodega, Freestone, Hessel, Twin Hills, Wilmar, Two Rock, Lakeville, Camp Meeker, Fort Ross, and most recently Sebastopol. Most of the other stations have been folded into the Sonoma County Fire District.

For the last year, the remote Bodega station hasn’t exactly been operational. However, at its most recent meeting, Gold Ridge agreed to lease the Bodega Fire Station for the next 15 years. They plan to staff it in the near future so it gets back up and running.

Until this last year, individual volunteer firefighters have “staffed” the independent volunteer fire department. Now many of these skilled volunteers (many of whom are professional firefighters) have taken jobs at other stations or districts. Luckily for Bodega, there haven’t been major fires or floods, like some busier years in the recent past.

The fire station is still owned and managed by Bodega Fire, a nonprofit organization that at a meeting earlier this year renamed itself “Bodega Community Fire Association.” Bodega Fire still manages the station itself, the adjacent post office and the town’s main hall, and the original historic station.

Now that it no longer runs the fire department, the board is in the process of rewriting the bylaws. If community members want to give input and approval before everything is legally finalized, you can review the proposed bylaws in their draft format at www.bodegafire.org.

Bodega Fire meetings occur every second Tuesday of the month at 7:30 pm. It’s open to the public and held at McCaughey Hall, 17184 Bodega Highway. There was a motion at the last meeting to put the addition of a public restroom for the hall on the next agenda. If you have input about this item, come to the meeting on Tuesday, Aug, 11.

Side note on the town’s central hall: you can reserve it for special meetings or events through the fire station office. Not only can you rent McCaughey Hall, but you could also separately rent chairs and tables to use at any other location of your choice.

That’s a big bench

In front of the Bodega Country Store, you may notice a beautifully handcrafted redwood bench. It’s too huge to miss. It’s essentially a giant log that’s been shaped to be more comfortable to sit on. I’m sure it will be used to view this year’s parade.

A key idea behind the bench is the sheer mass acts as an extra physical barrier between the building and the road. Five years ago this month, a car flew through the front of the store. Hopefully this new addition will deter another damaging accident.

It’s still the same Casino Bar & Grill

The Casino Bar & Grill is one of the central attractions in Bodega. Since 1949, it’s been a watering hole and local daily hub for news and support resources. Amazingly, they’re still completely cash-only. They do have an ATM if you don’t remember the paper.

Evelyn Casini was considered Bodega’s matriarch, and the town was at a huge loss when she passed in September 2024. She managed the café long after her husband, Art, passed away. She started working there as a young woman, and she was still bartending and cooking there 75 years later in 2024. She would’ve reached her 100th birthday milestone this October 1.

When the Casino announced they were closing for maintenance, there was a brief hum of concern: Were things going to change now that Casini was gone? The family closed for a full week back in April.

Rest assured, it was not at all a full remodel. All the same charm remains, just improved upon. As you can imagine, after 77 years in business, there were some much-needed repairs. Things like new red barstools and fresh paint brighten up the place.

Still stitching…

Last but certainly not least, the Bodega Quilters are at it again with some fresh eyes and ideas. The group, which has been stitching away since 1980, works together to produce a single quilt that is raffled off each year.

Keep your eyes out for this next season’s neighborly labor of love. All quilters—young and old, beginners to advanced—volunteer their time and talent. The raffle tickets are sold at events and markets all year to raise money for the Bodega Community Fire Association and the Bodega Land Trust.

The theme for this new quilt is “rural traditions.” As you can imagine, there are various interpretations of such a broad topic. The quilt will be finished near the close of this year and ready to display at the beginning of 2027.

If you’d like to dedicate some time and energy to this community project, please reach out by email to granahaneva@gmail.com, or contact us by phone if you know anyone who’s involved.

On Tuesday, the Sebastopol Planning Commission voted unanimously to grant the Sebastopol Farmers Market an amendment to its current use permit. The amendment included three significant changes:

• Expansion into the West America Bank parking lot — that’s the little spur connecting the Downtown Plaza to Bodega Avenue.

• Use of the full plaza parking lot for 11 months out of the year;

• Expansion of hours to include time at the beginning and end of the market to allow for setup and breakdown. The hours that the farmers market is open to the public will remain the same — 9 am to 1:30 pm — but the market will have use of the parking lot from 7:30 am to 3 pm.

The appeal window for this decision is seven days, which means that anyone who objects to the decision must file an appeal with the city by Tuesday, Aug. 4. According to a city document, “This requires the submittal of a completed City Appeal Form, written statement and payment of the applicable fee delivered to the Planning Department at 7120 Bodega Avenue, Sebastopol, California, no later than 5:00 P.M. on Tuesday, August 4, 2026.”

An earlier effort at expansion

The Sebastopol Farmers Market was founded in 1989, but it has been located in Sebastopol’s downtown plaza since 1995. In his introductory presentation, consulting planner John Jay noted that the farmers market’s use permit has been modified over the years as needed to accommodate its growth and expansion.

Barbara Hom, the market’s manager, had originally asked to expand the market into the West America parking lot in June 2024, but when the city looked into it, they discovered the market was in violation of its original permit, which required a vendor ratio of 80% produce and 20% other. By then, however, Hom had already expanded the market into the West America parking lot.

At the time, some local store owners opposed this expansion.

The farmers market has a lot of fans, however, and some of them got pretty riled up. As we reported at the time, one merchant, who asked not to be named, choked up when she started to describe the hate mail that her business had received during this time.

After a nasty few months of confusion and innuendo, the planning commission amended the market’s permit to extend the market’s hours of operation and changed the vendor ratio to 40% farmers / 40% other foods / 20% arts & crafts, which Hom said was the modern norm at most farmers’ markets.

The market withdrew from the West America lot and bided its time.

A new plan

As the old saying goes, “Good things come to those who wait.” Hom reapplied to expand the farmers market into the West America parking lot in February of this year.

In her presentation to the Planning Commission this week, she argued that expansion was a matter of economic necessity.

“Today, we are facing significant financial challenges,” she said. “During the past two decades, our costs for labor, materials, services, insurance, and other operating expenses have increased dramatically. To remain financially sustainable, we estimate that we need to increase our income by approximately 20%.”

“Currently, vendors pay $40 a booth,” she continued. “That’s our only income, except for some merchandise sales, which is very small. We average about 50 booths a week. If every booth were filled every Sunday throughout the year, which is rarely the case, our maximum annual booth revenue would be $104,000. At present, we are operating at a loss.”

The new configuration calls for 75 vendor spaces:

Given the drama last time around, this week’s Planning Commission meeting was a low-key affair. Two people spoke in public comment in favor of the expansion. Of the 24 letters received by the Planning Commission before Tuesday’s meeting, 20 involved Grocery Outlet (which was not on the agenda), and three supported the expansion of the farmers market; one, from a local store owner, expressed the desire to find a different solution.

Alan Porter wrote, “I fully support the plan to expand the Farmers Market into the West America lot. In the last 3 or 4 years, the market has become something amazing, with more and [more] interesting vendors. But they are bursting at the seams and need more space.”

Tessa Grul, owner of Dressers, was concerned about the Farmers Market’s all-day takeover of the parking around the downtown plaza on Sunday. “To take away so many of our already limited [parking] spots kills our business,” she wrote. “I think it’s great that the market wants to expand; however, this should not happen at the expense of other businesses. We are all trying to make our businesses succeed during challenging times. I believe this can be worked out, and there is a way for us all to thrive…I would love for us all to support each other and find a real solution. To be clear, I don’t think the market taking more parking for longer to the detriment of other businesses would be a fair outcome.”

In her presentation to the Planning Commission, Hom argued, “We're very aware of the need for parking, the parking map. We understand that parking is an important concern for some businesses. However, we believe that there's adequate parking available throughout the downtown Sebastopol area, as shown by the parking map [below].”

Her presentation also included studies showing how farmers markets boost the surrounding economy:

Hom gave short shrift to local businesses who say that the boost suggested by these studies hasn’t matched their experience. Some business owners, who don’t want to be named, have told me that, in part because of the parking challenge, their business dwindles to almost nothing on Sundays. Not all business owners share that opinion, however. Hom included in her application a petition signed by 18 downtown business owners, who supported the market’s attempt to expand in 2024.

“We are beloved by the community and part of the growth of the downtown area for over two generations,” Hom said. “We’ve been here longer than most of the businesses that are currently on Main Street. Over the past three decades, we have become an integral part of the Sebastopol community.”

The planning commissioners agreed, which means, absent any appeals, if you love the Sebastopol Farmers Market, soon there’ll be more of it to love.

Sonoma County has taken that a step further, suggesting that people not in the designated evacuation zones shelter in place.

The County issued the following health advisory late Thursday afternoon:

Sonoma County issues health advisory due to poor air quality

The Sonoma County Health Officer today issued the following health advisory:

Areas of Sonoma County may experience “unhealthy” or “very unhealthy” air quality caused by the wildfire event along the coast near Timber Cove and Salt Point State Park. People may experience adverse health effects from the smoke over Sonoma County and across the region. Below are some things you can do when the air quality is poor.

Keep yourself and others safe

• Check on friends, family and neighbors. Older adults, pregnant individuals, children and people with heart disease or respiratory illness are susceptible to elevated air pollution levels and should take precautions to avoid exposure.

• Smoke can irritate the eyes and airways, causing cough, a dry scratchy throat, runny nose, trouble breathing and irritated sinuses. Stay hydrated by drinking water during heavy smoke events.

• High temperatures can worsen effects of high Air Quality Index (AQI) events.

• Avoid adding additional air pollution by minimizing activities such as wood burning, lawn mowing, leaf blowing, driving, barbecuing, smoking or other dust-producing activities. Avoid using hairspray and painting indoors. If possible, use a stove fan when cooking.

Avoid poor air quality

• Shelter in place if you are not in an evacuation zone. Staying indoors where the air quality is better, with windows and doors closed, is the best way to protect your health. During high heat and heavy smoke events, keep indoor air cool.

• Set air conditioning units and car vent systems to recirculate to keep outside air from moving inside.

• Run your home or car air conditioner on recycle or recirculate. Keep the fresh air intake closed and the filter clean to prevent bringing additional smoke inside.

Check these air quality monitoring (AQI) resources to learn what the air quality is in the parts of the county in which you live and work:

• Purple Air: https://map.purpleair.com

• NSCAPCD: https://nosocoair.org/

• BAAQMD: https://www.baaqmd.gov/

• EPA: https://www.airnow.gov/

CAL/OSHA provides and regulates guidelines to protect workers from wildfire smoke. For more information, go here.

When checking the AQI, please note that federal-certified monitors at EPA’s AirNow Fires site are most accurate, but have an update lag of two to three hours.

Note that Sonoma County is a large county and the air quality will fluctuate in different parts of it due to a number of factors. It’s important to keep track of the air quality in your region and to take steps if it diminishes.

UPDATE: As of 8 am on July 31, the Woodside Fire was 143 acres and 30% contained.

UPDATE: By 7:10 pm, according to Watch Duty, containment was 20%.

The smoke shrouding Sebastopol this evening is coming from the Woodside Fire at Salt Point on the coast between Fort Ross and Sea Ranch. The fire is located north of Fort Ross and has closed Highway 1 in the area.

An immediate evacuation order is in place for SON – 1D1. This area includes:

• Salt Point State Park

• Steelwater Cove Regional Park

• Ocean Cove Private Camp

• Timber Cove Subdivision

An evacuation warning is in place for SON – 1D2 (the mountainous forestland to the east, which stretches almost to Cazadero).

Laguna High School (on the former El Molino Campus) in Forestville is being used as a temporary evacuation shelter.

There were initial reports that the fire had leapt from 50 acres to 100, but a recent measure on Watch Duty has it at 74.4 acres. It is currently showing zero containment.

At 5 pm, the Sebastopol Times stopped by the Sebastopol Fire Station.

Gold Ridge had already sent engines, but at that point Sebastopol engines were still in town, though the firehouse was buzzing with activity.

“There’s a lot of resources on it,” Pattie Murphy, senior administrative assistant at the firehouse, said of the Woodside Fire.

The Sheriff’s Office is being deluged with calls about smoke, particularly from areas along the Russian River — and requests that callers desist and keep the lines clear.

On July 8, the EPA announced that Pacific Reclaimed Lumber & Supply won a $400,000 award through Phase II of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. Pacific Reclaimed Lumber & Supply, headquartered in Sebastopol, was one of nine small businesses chosen to receive funding for their solution to a complex environmental challenge.

What is Pacific Reclaimed Lumber & Supply?

Pacific Reclaimed Lumber & Supply (or PRLS, pronounced “pearls”) is an online marketplace that specializes in reclaimed lumber and other building materials. Guided by the mission to support the reuse industry, PRLS connects architects, builders, artists and woodworkers with reuse material sellers.

Nicole Tai, who is the current CEO of PRLS, explained she didn’t choose to go into the reuse industry, but that it came to her.

She attended UC Berkeley for Conservation and Resource studies and got a degree from UC Davis in Community Development. “This was back when the only jobs for people with those degrees were city planner, forester, or park ranger,” she said. But Tai didn’t want any of those jobs, so after school, she worked with organizations that did community gardening, recycling, composting and material reuse. Each summer she worked at a commercial tenant improvements business that her grandparents owned in the Bay Area.

Eventually, she moved to New York and, with a grant from Mayor Bloomberg, started a building materials reuse center.

When it was time, Tai took over her grandparents’ business. Since her background was in building reuse, the company’s focus shifted to deconstruction and material reclamation. The company, Green Lynx, now based in Santa Rosa, also operates a reuse store and lumber yard where they sell these reclaimed materials.

In 2017, Tai connected with two other colleagues from the Bay Area reuse community—Carrie Bachelder and Jim Steinmetz—to figure out how to grow their industry. They wanted to make it easier for reclaimers like Green Lynx to find buyers, and for buyers of reclaimed materials to connect with reputable sellers.

In 2024, PRLS went live. It’s essentially “eBay for reclaimed lumber,” Tai said.

“For folks who are seeking to procure reclaimed materials, it makes it much easier because we’ve already done the curation of our listers.”

The PRLS team spends time in the field with reuse industry professionals before they partner with them as sellers. “We’ve met them, we know what they do, we know that they are true reclaimed lumber or building material specialists, that they understand how to document where they get materials.”

She said companies like Home Depot often falsely market items as reclaimed or vintage.

“There’s no organic label. There’s no industry standard…We hope that in lieu of certification, you can go to the site and be guaranteed that these materials are reclaimed from various sources, whether its old wine tanks, or houses, or old buildings, farms, barns, you name it, an old dock, a boat, you never know where the material might come from.”

The PRLS platform sells all kinds of reclaimed items: lumber, paneling, pipes, doors, lighting, as well as items that are made from reclaimed materials. “We even have some folks that are making earrings and bracelets out of reclaimed copper piping.”

“If it comes out of a building, we allow it to be listed,” Tai said with a laugh.

Funds to grow

While PRLS has already built a strong network of buyers and sellers, their goal is a lofty one.

“Our mission is to promote and grow the reclaimed sector to reduce solid waste and climate emissions.”

Tai added, “Unfortunately, that mission isn’t necessarily aligned with making money, so it’s a little difficult to start out with such a lofty mission with investment money.”

She explained that the PRLS incorporated as a California Benefit Corporation, “so that we are beholden to our mission and not just our shareholders.”

Rather than focus on profits for PRLS owners and shareholders, PRLS is primarily concerned with profits for sellers on the website.

“The EPA award allows us to experiment and work with our community to determine what we can build without having investors over our shoulders.”

While the award was for $400,000, SBIR will match up to $100,000 in additional funds if PRLS secures a third-party investment.

The timing for this particular EPA award is convenient, since the International Code Council passed a new provision in the 2027 International Building Code, which will allow up to 90% of buildings to be built using salvaged lumber.

“This is pretty much a game changer for our industry because it provides architects and builders with the legal tools they need to use reclaimed lumber on new job sites,” Tai said.

“Currently most builders and architects are only comfortable using reclaimed wood for finishing materials like trim or paneling, things that are aesthetic, not structural. But this new code will pave the way for enabling reclaimed lumber to be used for framing houses.”

With the EPA award, PRLS plans to grow their team, as well as invest in software that includes “standardized terminology, quarterly or even annual sales data tracking, and a system for calculating environmental benefits.”

This new digital infrastructure will help them scale their online marketplace to reach all over the country and also allow the PRLS team to spend more time procuring reclaimed materials sellers, meeting them and ensuring that they do quality work.

Reclaiming wood

The process of reclaiming building materials is slow and hard work.

For example, Nicole Tai is currently working on a project that involves reclaiming wood from decommissioned wine tanks.

“We believe that we have the largest haul of old-growth redwood from a large winery—it was kind of an ’80s box wine winery—a huge facility near Hollister that is decommissioning all of their redwood wine tanks. It’s probably the largest inventory since about 1999 when they stopped cutting old-growth redwoods. Right now I think we have about 450,000 board feet of it. It’s about an acre to two acres of wood, 15 feet high.”

In the reclaimed lumber industry, this is a gold mine. Old-growth redwood is rare, and to encounter this much of it is even rarer.

It took her team—which included five employees who had just been laid off from the winery—six months to complete the deconstruction.

The time and expertise that go into reclamation is an investment in the quality of future infrastructure.

Tai said that over 37,000,000 tons of lumber and wood-based building materials are discarded in the US every year.

In addition to rescuing some of the waste created by demolition and renovation work, a regenerative marketplace also offsets the demand for virgin lumber, leaving trees to grow in forests for longer.

This not only allows for increased carbon sequestration, but older trees produce better quality lumber. “They’re stronger, more durable, more dense, and then there’s a lot less waste in the actual process of making lumber,” Tai explained.

In other words, creating a circular economy for lumber and building materials not only reduces solid waste, but in the long term, creates higher quality materials for builders and architects.

“Our culture is a throw-away culture at this point in time. Our vision is to build a platform that will help shift the global economic model towards regenerative reuse and toward making resource conservation and natural conservation a shared reality.”

With this new money from the EPA, this vision is more achievable.

Visit the PRLS website here.

The council faced a packed agenda at its July 21 meeting. Sebastopol Police Chief Sean McDonagh presented the annual Police Audit update and gave a second report on local crime statistics. The council unanimously endorsed giving a 50% rebate on the TOT tax for ten years to the Barlow Hotel. It also voted unanimously to cancel its request for the repayment of a loan to the city’s Wastewater Fund. This decision was made in light of a Grand Jury Report in June that found that the city’s General Fund owed roughly $5.5 million to its Water and Wastewater Funds, after years of overcharging those funds for city services. In a related move, city staff presented a draft of its response to the Grand Jury regarding the above claims, and the council approved it unanimously.

Consent Calendar

The consent calendar consists of items that are routine in nature or don’t require additional discussion, often because they’ve been discussed extensively at a previous council meeting.

In addition to the approval of meeting minutes, the council unanimously approved the following:

● Approved the adoption of an ordinance to increase City Councilmember compensation from $300 a month to $950 a month, raising the cost for compensation for the council as a whole from $18,000 annually to $57,000, taking effect in January 2027.

● Approved the completion of work on the Burbank Farm ADA path and public restroom facility.

● Approved the updated City’s IPS (Investment Policy Statement). (See explanation here.)

● Approved the contract award, not to exceed $321,369, for the Morris Street Sewer Pump Station Wet Well Repairs Project to the Valentine Corporation, and passed an amendment to the budget for this project, which increased from $300,000 to $400,000.

The final item on the consent calendar involved a request for approval of several consultant salaries. Some members of the council were unhappy with the level of detail in the staff report on this item and so moved it to the regular agenda for discussion.

Councilmember Hinton expressed frustration that the council hadn’t been apprised of these contracts earlier, and Councilmember Zollman said he’d like to see the reasoning behind these choices—including a list of competitors and pros and cons for why that particular company was chosen for the contract. Hinton said that although the budget committee had given this list the nod, she felt contracts of this size deserved to come before the full council. In the end, however, the council voted 3 to 2 to approve payment for these contracts, Hinton and Zollman dissenting.

Information Presentations

Update on the implementation of the Jerry Threet Sebastopol Police Department Audit

In 2021, the city received the Independent Civilian Review of the Sebastopol Police Department prepared by Jerry Threet, a former director of IOLERO, the Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach, which was created to provide citizen oversight over the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office. Threet evaluated the Sebastopol Police Department's policies, practices, training, leadership, organizational culture, accountability systems, and community engagement, and made 146 recommendations for improvement.

Between 2021 and 2024, successive police chiefs provided periodic updates to the City Council about the implementation of these recommendations. In December 2024, Police Chief Ron Nelson advised the council that 95% of the recommendations had been implemented, and that the remaining seven recommendations were either not feasible or counterproductive. (See our coverage on his report in a city council recap from that period.) He also said he felt further updates were unnecessary, but council requested a review of this document in light of the recent Callaghan verdict, regarding police misconduct in 2024.

Police Chief Sean McDonagh had prepared a kind of qualitative description of what he’d been doing in the department—recruitment, staff development, stable leadership— but Councilmember Stephen Zollman said he had hoped for an item-by-item update on the full list of recommendations.

McDonagh said he was currently almost finished with a review of all Sebastopol Police policies, and Zollman asked that that be agendized for a council meeting in September.

Sebastopol Crime Statistics

After saying, I’ll try not to bore you with statistics, but unfortunately, that’s what this particular item is,” Chief McDonagh gave his second presentation of the evening. “Like I said, there were 19,000+ calls for service. We did nearly 7,000 business security checks, 830 criminal case investigations, 318 arrests, over 1,000 traffic stops, nearly 1,200 citations, and nearly 650 parking citations were issued.

Property crimes were the largest reported category, making up almost half of all arrests: “Theft, fraud, stolen property represented 144 of the 318 cases that we had,” McDonagh said.

Here is a breakdown of crimes by category:

McDonagh said that reported crimes remained relatively stable over the last year. “Our violent crimes were infrequent, which was good…but property-related offenses—stealing—is huge. We really are working hard on that because I feel like that reflects a large number of the calls that we respond to and cases that we have.”

He also expressed some frustration with the catch-and-release policy at the county level. Sebastopol doesn’t have a jail, so anyone arrested in Sebastopol is transported to the County Sheriff for processing. “They are transported to the sheriff’s office and booked—the city of Sebastopol is billed for that booking—and then within the day or the next day, they’re back out here again, and I arrest them again for something else. It’s concerning to me,” he said.

He also commented on the rate of homeless-related crime, something Mayor Jill McLewis picked up on in her questioning. “You mentioned that transient-related calls are 25% of the workload. That’s like less than 1% of our population utilizing 25% of our police time. Is that right?”

McDonagh said that was probably an understatement.

On the other hand, he mentioned that the number of calls from Elderberry Commons, a permanent supportive housing complex for the previously homeless, had decreased over time. “I feel like we’ve had a reduction in police responses to that location…they moved a few groups out of that facility that were real problem children, so to speak…It’s not to say we don’t have issues there, but it’s remarkably less than it was.”

The chief and several people in public comment gave a shout-out to Julian Sanchez, a homeless outreach worker from the County’s HEART program.

Lee Mathias also expressed his appreciation for McDonagh, “I don’t know if anybody’s been following the conversation on Nextdoor, but he [the chief] is apparently quite visible to the public. Folks on Nextdoor have commented on him making traffic stops. I see him walking the downtown area. He’s been actively involved in issues like vandalism on the back of the Safeway, and a lot of these issues are getting resolved. I don’t think we’ve ever had a police chief before do night shifts on patrol.”

Perhaps irked by the emphasis on crimes of the homeless, Kyle Falbo said, “What doesn’t get reported enough or given enough of our attention is the kinds of crimes that may be happening within city government,” he said. “So, is there misallocation of money in ways that would be considered theft?” he asked, referring to the long-term overcharging of the water and sewer funds by city government. “Is there a reporting mechanism that, when these things are identified…that somebody can take action to make sure that those funds that were maybe stolen potentially are investigated, and then, if deemed that those funds were in fact stolen, that those funds would be returned to their rightful owners. I’m not sure that we have a mechanism in place. Maybe it’s something that we can prioritize for our police, rather than many of the types of crimes that are associated with social ills.”

See the full crime stats report here.

Regular Agenda

Sebastopol City Council agrees to rebate 50% of the Barlow Hotel’s TOT taxes

The council unanimously agreed to rebate 50% of the planned Barlow Hotel’s TOT taxes during its first 10 years of operation. (The TOT, or Transient Occupancy Tax, is a tax charged by local governments to hotel guests.) Vice Mayor Sandra Maurer, Councilmember Phill Carter, Councilmember Neysa Hinton and Councilmember Stephen Zollman voted to approve this amendment to the hotel’s development agreement with the city.

Mayor Jill McLewis recused herself and left the council chambers during these discussions because she owns a small business across from the Barlow Hotel site.

Read our full coverage of this story from last week.

Council votes to forgive $1.1 million loan to sewer fund

The council made quick work of this proposal to forgive the $1.1 million loan that the General Fund made to the city’s Wastewater Fund on August 6, 2024. The council voted unanimously to forgive the loan, which was only necessary in the first place because a faulty rate study and years of overcharging for city services had drained so much capital from the Wastewater Fund that it was unable to meet its obligations.

There was literally no council discussion of this item, but several folks in Public Comment supported the loan forgiveness.

Kate Haug, a member of the Enterprise Funds Oversight Committee, noted that the $1.1 million loan forgiveness was one of that committee’s recommendations. She was one of several public commenters to speak in support of forgiveness.

“We believe that the loan was forced onto the enterprise funds due to historical misallocation of ratepayer funds, which is a Prop 218 violation,” she said. “So I fully support this. I also agree that it does not fully remedy the main issues of the Grand Jury report.” (See our earlier article about the Grand Jury report.)

City responds to the Grand Jury Report on Sebastopol’s handling of its water and sewer funds

Released on May 30, the Grand Jury’s 22-page report offered damning evidence that the city of Sebastopol had overcharged its enterprise funds (i.e., water and sewer) for city services for many years, in violation of Proposition 218. The city is required to respond to this report within 90 days.

The Grand Jury Report had four findings and three recommendations, and the city responded to each:

FINDINGS:

Finding # 1: The City’s failure to update its Cost Allocation Plan for more than 20 years resulted in the City over-allocating approximately $5.5 million of indirect costs to the Enterprise Funds. This was non-compliant with Proposition 218 and left the Enterprise Funds without sufficient money for maintenance and capital improvements.

The city “partially agreed” with this finding, and noted that it had already taken several actions to fix this problem. In addition to the current cost allocation plan, they’ve scheduled an update for 2027/28 and are investigating time tracking and direct billing, which they have already instituted for legal services. The city did not confirm the figure of $5.5 million.

Finding #2. When the City updated its Cost Allocation Plan in 2024, reduced allocation of indirect costs left approximately $714,000 in the Enterprise Funds to be used for systems maintenance and capital improvements.

The city agreed with this finding as well, with the exception that the $714,000 in savings to Water and Sewer hasn’t been slated for anything in particular at this point.

Finding #3. Because the rate study conducted by the City in 2019 underestimated a reduction in consumption due to conservation measures, the rate adjustment for 2019-2023 was insufficient to keep pace with escalating costs. This resulted in the need for a 37% increase on July 1, 2024, which has been difficult for many ratepayers to accept.

The city “partially agreed” with this analysis but argued that absent such a rate increase, the water and sewer funds would have required steeper increases in the future, noting that “Years of insufficient rate adjustments combined with the prior allocation methodology contributed to underfunding of the Enterprise Funds…”

Finding #4. In November 2025, the City Council reinstituted an Enterprise Fund Oversight Committee. This promises to provide the City Council with insights and expertise regarding decisions concerning oversight of these critical systems.

The city basically agreed with this finding, noting only that the Oversight Committee had been created by the current council, not “reinstituted.”

RECOMMENDATIONS

Despite building a strong case against the city for mishandling its water and sewer funds, the Grand Jury praised the city for its recent efforts to right the ship. It had just three recommendations:

Recommendation #1. By October 1, 2026, commit to fully comply with Proposition 218 by conducting cost allocation and rate studies at least within 3-5 years intervals and adjusting its cost allocation and ratepayer fees accordingly.

The city responded that it had already implemented these changes. “The City adopted the ClearSource activity-based Cost Allocation Plan in 2024 (FY 2024-25). Additionally, the Raftelis Rate Study was completed and implemented following Proposition 218 procedures in June 2024. The City Council recently directed staff to retain consultants to prepare a new cost allocation plan and rate study to be implemented no later than FY 27-28, 3 years after the current cost allocation plan and rate study were approved. The City Council included money for these studies when adopting the FY 26/27 Budget.”

It’s important to note, however, the city’s Enterprise Funds Oversight Committee has criticized the current cost allocation plan—something not mentioned in the city’s response.

Recommendation #2. By October 1, 2026, reach an agreement on the dollar value of mis-allocated indirect costs and commit to a repayment schedule to restore funds transferred from the Enterprise Funds to the general fund by overallocation of indirect costs. This money can be used to implement critical improvements identified in the Master Plan.

In response to this recommendation, the city balked or at least stalled, arguing, “The recommendation requires further study and analysis. While the City acknowledges the likelihood that an outdated cost allocation plan may have resulted in overallocation of General Fund costs, the City has not yet determined a specific dollar amount.” The City mentioned its forgiveness of the wastewater loan, but didn’t outline a plan for determining the specific amount of money required to reimburse its enterprise funds.

According to the Grand Jury report, it has until October to do so.

Recommendation #3. By October 1, 2026, consider adding a Certified Public Accountant to the Enterprise Fund Oversight Committee to assist the City Council and City Manager with fiscal compliance, analysis, and transparency.

The city agreed with this recommendation but noted that no CPAs had responded during the recruitment process for the Oversight Committee. The city said they would attempt to reach out to accounting professionals directly next time.

COUNCIL RESPONSE & PUBLIC COMMENT

There was relatively little council discussion of the draft response, other than a brief quibble over the peculiar phrasing, “This city partially agrees with this finding.”

Mayor Jill McLewis said she wanted to see an acknowledgement that “we haven’t done everything correctly.” She suggested the following language and her fellow councilmembers agreed to add it:

“The city acknowledges that in the past we fell short in our communications and clear, transparent reporting regarding the water and wastewater enterprise funds. We sincerely apologize for the shortcoming and are committed to significantly improving transparency moving forward, including through the work of the Enterprise Fund Oversight Committee and more open, regular reporting to the community.”

The response in public comment was less restrained. First up was Kate Haug, a member of the city’s Enterprise Funds Oversight Committee (EFOC), and, arguably, the person who brought this whole debacle to light, long before the Grand Jury delivered its judgment.

“The Grand Jury report is an accounting document,” Haug said. “The city’s reply has zero accounting in it. Where did all the money go? We don’t know because the city has not identified it. The Grand Jury report is also asking for documentation. The city has provided zero documentation. The EFOC, on the other hand, has rigorous analysis, using city budgets that show where misappropriated funds are. The city’s response does not address the main concerns of the Grand Jury report, which is failing infrastructure. The city needs to reply with accounting from their budgets.”

Haug then went on to discuss the “Pleasant Hill Loop,” a piece of the city’s water system infrastructure, highlighted in the Grand Jury report—though not included in its recommendations. Arguing that its failure would be catastrophic, Haug asked why it hadn’t been budgeted, funded and completed. (This $2+ million project is listed as the top priority in the city’s new Water Master Plan.)

This complaint was echoed by Mary Meilhaus, another member of EFOC, who also noted that “I think more time needs to be given with the city council members to reflect on what is being drafted.”

Both Meilhaus and Lee Mathias complained about the council’s recent decision to freeze water rates. The EFOC had actually recommended this freeze but only in combination with other revenue solutions.

Kyle Falbo said, “So what I want to just emphasize here is about trying to work forward in good faith. The draft does not hit that mark. The mayor’s suggestion about trying to kind of take responsibility for lack of reporting doesn’t hit that mark. There is misallocation of funds. Name that. Part of the problem and frustration that I’ve experienced with this whole thing has been the deliberate delaying of getting to where we’re at today,” he argued. “Don’t commit to exploring taking action because you have committed to exploring for years, and this, tonight, is the result of your pushing things out into the future.”

In response to Haug’s mention of infrastructure issues, Councilmember Phill Carter, who is also a member of the EFOC, said the city would be completing each project as it could afford to.

During council comment, Vice Mayor Maurer repeatedly asked the council if it was committed to having the city do, as the draft response promised, the “further study and analysis…to reach an agreement on the dollar value of misallocated indirect costs and commit to a repayment schedule.”

Mayor Jill McLewis supported this—“I think the people are going to expect that,” she said — but other members of the council seemed squishier on this point.

Regardless, the council voted unanimously to accept the draft response, with the addition of Mayor McLewis’s preamble about transparency. After council approval, the City’s response was sent to the Grand Jury.

Read the city’s response to the Grand Jury report here.

You can watch the full July 21 city council meeting here.

On Monday, Aug. 10, part of the Sebastopol Library will reopen to patrons as a part of what Sonoma County Library is calling ‘Sebastopol Library To-Go.’ The new service will operate from the Sebastopol Library’s Community Room—that little conference room on the other side of the lobby—while the main section of the library remains temporarily closed.

A press release this morning from the Sonoma County Library said, “The Community Room has been independently tested and cleared for use by a third-party environmental safety expert.”

The space will offer a convenient way for patrons to pick up holds, browse a curated collection of new and high-demand materials, return items, and access library staff for assistance.

“While the library building remains closed, our priority is ensuring the Sebastopol community continues to have reliable access to the library services they depend on,” said Erika Thibault, Library Director for Sonoma County Library.

Sebastopol Library To-Go Services

Beginning August 10, the following services will be available in the community room:

• Holds pickup

• BiblioBox holds service

• A browsing collection of new and “Lucky Day” materials

• Self-checkout station

• Exterior book return

• Staff assistance at the service desk

• Wi-Fi access outside the library building

The library community room will be open Mondays from 2 pm to 6 pm; Tuesdays from 2 pm to 6 pm; Wednesdays from 10 am to 2 pm; Thursdays from 2 pm to 6 pm; Fridays from 10 am to 2 pm; Saturdays from 10 am to 2 pm; Sunday: closed.

Continued Library Programs

While the main part of the building remains closed, Sonoma County Library will continue serving the Sebastopol community through off-site programming at Ives Park and Sebastopol Center for the Arts.

• Babytime happens on Mondays from 10:30 am to 11 am at Ives.

• Baby Village—community circles supporting infant feeding and the postpartum journey—happens on Tuesdays, 11 am to 12:30 pm at Ives.

• Family Story Time, Wednesdays in August, 10:30 am to 11 am, on the Sebastopol Center for the Arts Patio.

• Starting in August, “15 Minutes for Moms” follows Family Storytime at SebArts with tools that address the health and well-being of mothers and caregivers.

Sonoma County Library is also continuing discussions with the Sebastopol Community Cultural Center regarding the potential use of space for additional programming as those arrangements are finalized.

The BiblioBus at the Sebastopol Community Center is scheduled to make just three more visits to Sebastopol—Wednesday, July 29, from 2 pm to 4 pm; Monday, August 3, from 10 am to noon; and Wednesday, August 5, from 2 pm to 4 pm.

Transition from Forestville

Since June, Sebastopol patrons have been picking up holds at Forestville Community Library during expanded operating hours. Those extended hours will conclude on Sunday, August 9.

Beginning at 2 p.m. on Monday, August 10, all Sebastopol holds will once again be available for pickup in the Community Room at Sebastopol Regional Library. Additionally, a new BiblioBox has been budgeted for Forestville Community Library during the 2026–2027 fiscal year, expanding convenient holds service for Forestville patrons.

Mold remediation continues in the main part of the library

The Sebastopol Regional Library has been closed since June 4, while remediation work continues.

According to a recent city of Sebastopol newsletter, the City spent $47,687.55 on the initial emergency response in June (the library reimbursed half of this). On Tuesday, July 7, the Sebastopol City Council authorized up to $175,000 for continued mold remediation and investigative demolition at the library. The City’s total share for these combined efforts is estimated at approximately $198,000.

The Sebastopol Times reached Sebastopol City Manager Mary Gourley this morning to find out how the remediation is going.

“The library has moved their books, shelves and equipment away from the walls and ServePro will proceed this week to set up containment,” Gourley said.

Gourley said once ServePro secures and protects items in the library, they’ll open more walls to assess the extent of the mold contamination.

While it’s true there are many fewer apple orchards these days in west Sonoma County and surrounding Sebastopol, it’s also true there are still many reasons to pause each harvest season and celebrate the tasty, versatile Gravenstein apple and all the families that still grow them to make pies, ciders and juice for the rest of us.

Sonoma County Farm Trails’ 53rd annual Gravenstein Apple Fair is all set to take place August 8 and 9 at Sebastopol’s Ragle Ranch Regional Park. The Saturday-Sunday open-air affair once again will surround its apple displays with live music, farm-style games, crafts, foods and two reserved areas dedicated to the artisan products and tastes from Farm Trails members and other purveyors of Sonoma County’s beauty and bounty.

Started in 1973 as a modest one-tent benefit for the fledgling Farm Trails marketing co-op, the mid-August Gravenstein Fair has grown into a Bay Area favorite summertime attraction for families, tourists and everyone looking for a more genuine, “unplugged” source of entertainment and enrichment. The theme for this year’s Fair is “Where Joy Takes Root” and features a main visual of blooming yellow sunflowers. The Gravenstein Fair is still the Farm Trails’ main annual fundraising source.

“We are gathering once again to celebrate summer and to experience the best of what’s handmade and home-grown in our local community, and we want everyone who attends to feel welcome and uplifted,” said Farm Trails executive director Carmen Snyder, who leads a team of hundreds of volunteers.

What’s happening at the fair?

The musical entertainment lineup includes all genres of music from folk and bluegrass to hip hop, gypsy jazz, Sebastopol’s Love Choir and some upbeat rock, blues and originals. Headliners include Royal Jelly Jive, John Courage, SoloRio, Audio Angel and the raucous Hubbub Band. All music performances are free with general admission. (See the music schedule.)

Along with two days of live music from two stages, there will be featured talks about local agriculture, farming and cooking demonstrations and a Life on the Farm arena with live farm animals and many hands-on experiences for children.

On Sunday at 1:30 pm, there will be a special panel to honor this year’s United Nations theme of worldwide women farmers. Local ag women on the panel will include Fifth District County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins; Caiti Hachmyer, of Celebrating Womxn’s Leadership in Food; and local farmers Jennifer Bice of Redwood Hill Farm, Sarah Keiser of Wild Oat Hollow Farm, and Yael Bernier of Bernier Farm. The panel is being sponsored by the Sonoma County Farm Bureau and will be moderated by “food champion” Clark Wolf.

The popular pie eating, apple juggling and caramel apple eating contests will take place at the stage areas both days in between musical performances with both adult and children divisions. Walk-up entries are always accepted.

A family tradition

Among the army of volunteers are several local farming families represented by multiple generations, still led by a few elder founders from the first Fair over 50 years ago.

One local family, the Duttons, will have three current generations operating their apple booth with fresh-picked Gravensteins and other apples for sale. The Duttons farm more than 1,400 acres of apples and grapes in western Sonoma County.

“We’ve been farming apples since 1964,” said third-generation member Steve Dutton, now leading his family’s multiple ag enterprises with his brother Joe and their mother Gail. Although the Dutton name is now prominently placed on many labels of premium wines, growing apples “is just something we’ve always done,” added Steve. “It’s great to be diversified, and it (apples) helps keep us working several crops a year so we can keep all our people that work with us busy.”

Commenting about some major changes and challenges now facing Sonoma County’s winegrowing industry, Dutton says apples remain a stable marketing crop and “are doing very well.” All of the Dutton apples are grown organically, including several orchards of heritage Gravensteins from their Green Valley ranch.

The fair is still all about apples

“The Gravenstein is always the star of the show and will be featured prominently on Apple Alley, where folks can buy bulk apples, fritters, pies, caramel apples, apple caramels, apple butter, apple leather, apple juice, apple sauce and more,” said Snyder.

During the Fair, there also will be cooking demonstrations and an apple pie baking contest with “celebrity” judges. The Gravenstein Apple Pie Baking Contest is free to enter by anyone and includes adult and youth (17 and under) categories. If you want to enter a pie in the pie baking contest, you’ll have to pre-register by July 31. (See directions at the end of this article.) Judges include Betsy Fischer, Clark Wolf, Donna del Rey, Emily Lamb, Sebastopol Mayor Jill McLewis, Ozzy Jimenez, Sean McGaughey, and Stephanie Klassen. Contest rules and an entry form can be downloaded here.

There is also an apple pie bake-off featuring local professional chefs.

At the Fair’s Cider Tent, there will be 17 different local ciders for pouring and tasting, offered in selections of “driest,” “drier,” “sweeter” and “sweetest.” Cider producers included will be Dutton, Tilted Shed, Horse & Plow, Old World, Ambix, Hobo, Golden State, Mad Marvlus, Eye Cider, Ethic Cider, Humboldt Cider, Belden Barns, Reichwage, Onirique and North American Press. Some of the ciders are non-alcoholic.

And, just to be reminded, where there were once hundreds more acres of orchards, local growers have now planted vineyards, and their premium wines also will be available for tasting at the Fair along with local microbrews.

During the weekend, there also will be various ag-related demonstrations including sheep shearing, backyard apple tree care, goat milking, fiber talk and using natural dyes, beekeeping and musical sing-alongs full of farm themes.

“As Farm Trails’ primary annual fundraiser, the Fair has deep agricultural roots and showcases dozens of our members: at Life on the Farm Arena’s compelling presentations and demonstrations, in the enchanting Artisan Tasting Grove (where guests can meet the producers and enjoy bites and sips), and as food, farm and beverage vendors,” said Snyder.

This fair is a zero-waste hero

The Farm Trails’ Gravenstein Fair strives to be a Zero Waste event and has established a track record of being 95 percent zero waste since 2018. The Fair’s Zero Waste Team is led by Shelley Brown and Alan Siegle, former owner of Sonoma Compost and this year’s Farm Trails’ board president.

“Last year, for 16,000 attendees, we sent only 2 cubic yards of trash to the landfill (1/2 the size of the back of a small pickup truck),” said Snyder.

Ticket prices, parking and more

Buy your tickets now to save 30% off the day-of entry prices of $30 General Admission and $15 for children (ages 6-12).

GENERAL ADMISSION TICKETS

• Adult (13+): $23 ($30 after August 7th)

• Child (6-12): $10 ($15 after August 7th)

• Kids 5 and Under: FREE (No ticket required)

• Family Pass (2 adults, 2 children): $55 (Online only, until August 7th)

Get tickets online.

LOCALS DISCOUNT TICKETS AT THESE STORES

Locals can buy even lower-priced pre-sale discounted tickets at Copperfield’s Books, Exchange Bank, Fircrest Market, Harmony Farm Supply & Nursery, Oliver’s Market, Pacific Market and Sebastopol Hardware. (Some require cash so call ahead.)

• Adult (13+): $20

• Child (6-12): $10

• Seniors (65+), Veterans, Active Military, & First Responders: $18

PREMIUM EXPERIENCE PACKAGES

Introduced a few years ago, the Farm Trails VIP Lounge Package and the separate Artisan Tasting Grove have become annual favorites with special admission tickets selling out for some days in the past.

Artisan Tasting Grove Package

General Admission included. Available online only. These will sell out!

• Adult (13+): $75

• Child (6-12): $40

• Kids 5 and under: FREE

Visit our Artisan Tasting Grove page for more details.

VIP Lounge Package

General Admission included. Available online only. These will sell out!

• Adult (13+): $175

• Child (6-12): $75

• Kids 5 and under: FREE

• Group Rate (10 adults): $1,500

The VIP Lounge ($175 per adult) features exclusive luxury concert seating, free beverages and food tastings and a reserved shaded outdoor lounge with private restrooms. VIP tickets also include entrance to the Artisan Grove Tastings.

Get tickets online

The fair runs from 10 am to 6 pm. There is limited onsite paid parking and nearby free satellite parking and shuttle services.

Visit https://gravensteinapplefair.com for more information.

Try your hand at the Apple Pie Baking Contest

CONTEST RULES

1. Pre-registration is required; click here to register. Deadline to register: 12 pm on Friday, July 31, 2026.

2. Only Sonoma County-grown Gravenstein apples may be used. We kindly ask that all-natural, readily available ingredients are used.

3. All pies must be submitted to the Info Booth on Sunday, August 9, by 11 am. Fair admission ticket required to submit pies; no exceptions.

4. All contestants must submit a contest entry form and recipe. For contestants under 18, a parent or guardian must grant permission to enter.

5. Pies must be submitted with contestant’s name and phone number on the tin, and covered.

6. Only one pie per contestant permitted.

7. The Gravenstein Apple Fair is not responsible for unclaimed pie tins.

8. Farm Trails staff are ineligible to enter.

TWO CATEGORIES

• Adult (ages 18+)

• Youth (17 and under)

WINNERS TO BE ANNOUNCED: Sunday, August 9, 1:15 pm.

Richard was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1943. His mother, Agatina Caltabiano, and father, Paul Emanuel Caruso, had immigrated from Sicily, Italy, and fell in love at a masquerade ball in New York. At age eight, he moved across the country to live with his sister Gloria in Beverly Hills, California, where he discovered a love for tennis and beautiful women at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club.

Richard went on to become a psychologist with his own private practice, and spent many happy years in Sebastopol, California.

He loved to dance (aka boogie), listen to and play music, play tennis, appreciate art, meditate, and ultimately connect with people wherever he went — whether dancing at the farmer’s market or striking up a conversation in the grocery store line. Women always put a pep in his step, and he especially loved telling the story of his first girlfriend being on the cover of a magazine or dancing in a movie with Elvis Presley.

He is survived by his four daughters: Selene, Maren, Justine, and Whitney; his eight grandchildren, Noel, Aaron, Brown, Wolf, Zane, Beck, Emilio, and Siena; his sister Connie Caruso Hutchinson; and his niece Bianca Hutchinson. We will always remember his dancing, his playful and competitive spirit, and the good vibes he shared with the world.

Film: Hadestown: The Musical
Monday through Thursday, July 27-30, at 1 pm, 5 pm and 7:45 pm, at Rialto Cinemas, 6868 McKinley St., Sebastopol. $16.

This genre-defying musical blends modern American folk music with New Orleans-inspired jazz to reimagine two sweeping ancient love stories — Orpheus and Eurydice, and King Hades and Persephone. Hadestown invites audiences on a hell-raising journey to the underworld and back. Get tickets.

Film: Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World
Monday through Thursday, July 27-30, at 3:50 pm and 5:45 pm, at Rialto Cinemas, 6868 McKinley St., Sebastopol. $16.

If poetry had a pop icon, Mary Oliver would be it. Celebrated bestseller, Pulitzer Prize winner, lover of dogs and long walks in the woods, openly queer but intensely private, Oliver was America’s unlikely contemporary mystic, stalking the ponds and forests of Cape Cod for nearly 50 years in order to open herself — and her readers — to the known and unknowable world. Get tickets.

Science Buzz Café: What’s Your Story
Monday July 27, 6 pm, at HopMonk (in The Abbey), 230 Petaluma Ave., Sebastopol. $10.

The last “What’s Your Story” event proved so popular, they’re doing it again. Everyone has a story — got 10-15 minutes? You are invited to tell your story. But first, live on-stage stories from life: The Impossible from Dr. Harry Simms; Adventuresome Stories with Dr. Allan Bernstein; Musical Stories with Jim Corbett.

The Crying Hearts at Crooked Goat Brewing
Monday, July 27, 6 pm to 8 pm, at Crooked Goat Brewing in the Barlow. Free, but donations welcome.

Come see The Crying Hearts on their debut tour! The final stop is at Crooked Goat Brewing in Sebastopol. The Crying Hearts are an old-time, Americana and folk music duo from the Central Coast of California.

Preserve the Season: Stone Fruit
Tuesday, July 28, 10 am to 1 pm, at Gather, 122 N. Main St., Sebastopol. $150

Stone fruit season is one of the highlights of summer. Peaches, nectarines, plums, and apricots offer a fleeting window of abundance—and preserving them is one of the best ways to enjoy their flavor long after the harvest has passed. Guided by Christina Connelly of Apple Blossom Acres, you’ll learn the fundamentals of home preservation while working with the freshest stone fruit available that week. Reserve your spot.

Design Review and Tree Board Meeting
Tuesday, July 28, 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm, Sebastopol Youth Annex, 425 Morris St., Sebastopol. Free.

The board will consider local design and signage matters, including continued review of the Bonnie Bagels sign, a Kindred sign permit and proposed amendments to the city’s sign code. The public may attend in person or participate remotely. See agenda and documentation.

Produce Exchange
Tuesday, July 28, 5 pm to 5:45 pm, at Sebastopol Grange, 6000 Sebastopol Ave., Sebastopol. Free.

Bring your extra produce to the Grange to share and take home some of others’ surplus. Anything leftover will be donated. Master Food Preservers will be on hand to answer food preservation questions. Held on second and fourth Tuesdays.

Sebastopol Grange General Meeting and Potluck
Tuesday, July 28, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., Sebastopol Grange, 6000 Sebastopol Ave., Sebastopol. $10.

The Sebastopol Grange holds its monthly community meeting and potluck. Attendees may bring food to share and learn about current Grange activities and community projects. The guest presenter this month will be David Gill, of the Sebastopol Area Time Bank (SATB), explaining how you can get the help you need — and provide the help you can — with no money changing hands. At SATB, the currency is HOURS, not dollars, and with your free membership you’ll find how easy and fulfilling it is for neighbors to help neighbors, as this group has been doing for nearly 10 years.

Planning Commission Meeting
Tuesday, July 28, 6 pm to 9 pm, at the Sebastopol Youth Annex, 425 Morris St., Sebastopol. Free.

The Planning Commission’s agenda includes consideration of a use permit connected with expansion of the Sebastopol Farmers Market. The public may attend in person, watch the livestream or participate by Zoom. See agenda and documentation here.

Poetry Lives! Workshop and Open Mic
Tuesday, July 28, 6 pm to 8:30 pm, at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, 282 S. High St., Sebastopol. Workshop admission is on a $5–$20 sliding scale; the open mic is free with a suggested $5 donation.

The evening begins with a spoken-word workshop from 6 to 7 pm, followed by a public poetry open mic from 7:15 to 8:30 p.m. Writers of all experience levels may take part, and participation in the open mic is voluntary. Learn more.

Luther Burbank Experiment Farm Work Day
Wednesday, July 29, 9 am to noon, Luther Burbank Experiment Farm, 7777 Bodega Ave., Sebastopol. Free.

Volunteers help preserve and maintain the historic farm through gardening, visitor assistance, tours and work in the cottage and gift shop. All skill and ability levels are welcome. Learn more.

Family Story Time
Wednesday, July 29, 10:30 am to 11 am, at the stage in Ives Park.

The Sebastopol Library may be temporarily closed, but the library’s family story time continues in Ives Park. Join your local librarian in singing, reading, and playing together to build early literacy skills and a joy of reading. Bring a blanket and meet on the main stage at Ives Park.

Peacetown: Fleetwood Macramé and Gas Money
Wednesday, July 29, 5 to 8 p.m., at Ives Park, 7800 Willow St., Sebastopol. Free.

Here’s Jim Corbett’s description for this week’s Peacetown: “Peacetown folks should come early and set up their chairs for what could be the biggest show of the season. Fleetwood Macramé will be bringing the classic songs of Fleetwood Mac to the Peacetown stage from 6:30 to 8 pm at Ives Park. This group always lights up the crowd and gets them singing and dancing the whole night through. Opening the show will be Gas Money, absolutely the Best Young Band in the county. Formed by four teenagers, Gas Money has quickly become a local favorite, captivating audiences with their unique blend of alternative rock and infectious energy. Showing that rock and roll isn’t dead, they play all your favorite tunes, ranging from Stevie Wonder to Metallica, ensuring a musical journey you won’t forget.”

Peacetown at HopMonk: The Occasionals
Wednesday, July 29, 6:30 pm to 9 pm at HopMonk (in the Beer Garden), 230 Petaluma Ave., Sebastopol. Free.

The Occasionals, under the direction of Kevin Russell, will play Americana, rockabilly, pop and rock music dipped in the blues. Johnny Cash and Carole King get into a car with Willie Dixon and Big Mama Thornton, crank up the radio and rock it all the way home.

Ceramics class: Intro to Wheel Throwing with Naomi and Jack
Thursdays, July 30 to August 27, 2 pm to 5 pm, Sebastopol Center for the Arts, 282 S. High St., Sebastopol. $245.

This five-week ceramics course introduces wheel throwing through demonstrations and individual instruction. This course is designed for students who are new to the potter’s wheel and eager to discover the fundamentals of wheel throwing. With an emphasis on core technique, each session builds a solid foundation in the essential skills of centering, opening, pulling up walls, trimming and glazing — the building blocks that every potter returns to again and again. Reserve your spot.

Talk with Your Mouth Full: Gender and Identity 101
Thursday, July 30, dinner at 5 pm and program at 5:45 pm, at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, 500 Robinson Road, Sebastopol. Free.

Presenters from Positive Images will discuss gender identity, sexual orientation, pronouns and inclusive language, with an emphasis on helping adults support LGBTQIA+ young people. The published RSVP deadline was July 23, so prospective attendees should check whether space remains: 707-823-3281. Dinner and childcare provided.

Potluck Community Picnic Dinner with Slow Food Russian River
Friday, July 31, 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm, at Ragle Ranch Park, Lions Grove Picnic Area, 500 Ragle Road, Sebastopol. Free (parking $7 within the park, or park outside and walk in).

Join Slow Food Russian River for a fun community potluck dinner at Ragle Ranch Park. Bring your favorite dish to share, plus your own plate, utensils, and reusable beverage cup. Drinking water will be provided. A shaded venue, good food, and good company — all are welcome. Please cancel if your plans change to make room for others. Register here.

Introduction to Letterpress
Saturday, August 1, 10 am to 3 pm, at North Bay Letterpress Arts, 925 Gravenstein Hwy S, Sebastopol. $165.

Get hands-on with the art of letterpress in this beginner-friendly workshop. We’ll explore the basics of printing on a press, from setting up a design to inking and pulling your very first prints. Along the way, you’ll learn about the history of letterpress, the different kinds of presses, and the tools and materials that bring this centuries-old craft to life. Reserve your spot.

Community Wellness Fair hosted by Community Market
Saturday, August 1, 10 am to 5 pm, at Sebastopol Center for the Arts, 282 S. High St., Sebastopol. Advance tickets are $10 through July 27. Tickets will be $15 at the door.

This year’s fair brings together local practitioners, educators, makers, and wellness-focused businesses for a day centered around care, discovery, and well-being. Guests will have the opportunity to explore a wide range of offerings, including one-on-one wellness services, educational speakers, local vendors, a curated wellness boutique, food, drinks, and more. The Community Wellness Fair is a chance to connect with local wellness providers, learn about different approaches to health and well-being, discover new resources, and spend time in community. Whether you are looking for support, inspiration, education, or simply a meaningful way to spend the day, the fair offers something for anyone interested in wellness and self-care. Learn more.

Fusion Teen Center opening
Saturday, August 1, 5 pm to 6 pm, Sebastopol Christian Church, 7433 Bodega Ave., Sebastopol.

The creators of this new teen center are having an open house event at their soon-to-open Teen Center in Sebastopol. Even though it is hosted by Sebastopol Christian Church, the teen center is not religious. Everyone is welcome to attend. For more info about the Teen Center, check out their website.

Free Movie Night: “Toy Story”
Saturday, August 1, film begins at 7:30 p.m., Polly Field at Ives Park, Sebastopol. Free.

The Sebastopol Area Chamber of Commerce presents an outdoor screening of “Toy Story.” Food, popcorn, candy, beer, wine and nonalcoholic drinks will be available for purchase, including a vegan hot-dog option.

Jerry’s Birthday Bash
Sunday, August 2, 6 pm to 9 pm, at Sebastopol Center for the Arts, 282 S. High St., Sebastopol.

Celebrate Jerry Garcia’s Birthday at Sebastopol Center for the Arts with a night of Grateful Dead Music. Learn more.

Want us to feature your event in “What’s happening this week in Sebastopol?” Submit your events to the Sebastopol Community Calendar. This is one of the many resources we use to put this column together. Submitting your event to the community calendar doesn’t guarantee that your event will make it into “What’s Happening this Week,” but it means that we will see it and consider it.

By Kavya Krishnamurthy

Dena Allen has always known the value of growing one’s own food. “I remember having a garden as a kid with my parents, and as a grown-up, every house we lived in that had a yard, the garden just kept getting bigger and bigger.”

Her current home in Sebastopol, where she lives with her husband, has 14 garden beds, pollinators in front of the house, and a bundle of fruit trees they inherited when they bought the property.

“So my husband, Tor, he’s the potato farmer…The joke is kind of that he grows the potatoes, and I grow everything else. He likes the thrill of digging them up out of the soil. It’s like a treasure hunt.”

She grows rhubarb, tomatoes, winter squash and most toweringly, sunflowers. “I had them last year, and they just kind of seeded themselves!”

Allen’s home garden is large and prolific, producing far more than she and her husband can eat. So she came up with a way to make use of the surplus.

The Produce Exchange

Eight summers ago, Allen and her friend Carol Henderson approached the Grange to ask about trading extra food from home gardens.

“We said, ‘Hey, can we have a produce exchange? You know, there’s a lot of people like us that grow extra things, and sure, we give them away to family and friends and donate them and stuff, but I don’t grow peppers, and maybe somebody else does.’”

The idea was just a seed until the pandemic came. “People were really hungry for socializing, and more people gardened in the summers of 2020 and 2021.” From there, the produce exchange established itself as an institution.

There is a set pattern every year. In February, there is a citrus exchange, where people can bring citrus, greens, winter squash and seeds. The April spring exchange is for plant starts, produce, seeds and herbs. May through October is the regular season for produce exchange.

Allen explained, “We just set up tables in the shade at the Grange, and people trade. Usually there’s something left over, so we can bring it to the Senior Center or the Sebastopol food pantry.”

Upcoming dates for the produce exchange are July 28, August 11 and August 25 from 5 pm to 5:45 pm.

The Virtual Farm

Another project Allen has been working on is called a “virtual farm.” The farm is “virtual” because it’s decentralized—made up of the large gardens of several Grangers that, in theory, could add up to a small farm.

“So far it’s just been mostly social,” Allen said. “We did a couple things where we had a potluck and talked about gardening. Whoever’s house it was, we showed the garden off and talked about what we can do as gardeners to promote more gardening and things like that. We also have taken our own harvest and made a community meal for the Grange a couple times.”

Allen said that the virtual farm could use some more participation, but largely speaking, “It’s just kind of a social concept place to share ideas and whatever else we have.”

Gleaning survey

In the spirit of sharing, some of the virtual farmers came up with an idea for a home garden survey during a conversation at one of the potlucks. Allen explained, “If you look at the county Ag report, the information you get of what’s grown in the county is all commercial stuff. What shows up at the top is everything that makes the most money, which goes like wine, dairy, something like that.”

She was curious about how much produce home gardeners were growing, and because she couldn’t find any data, she and others at the Grange made a Google form to begin collecting information.

“The first couple years, my friend and I took it so seriously. We were weighing everything all summer that we were bringing in from the garden. In just my garden alone, it was over 4,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables.”

The second year of the survey, Laurel Chambers from the County took notice of the project. She offered her support and brought in statisticians who helped optimize the survey questions for analysis of responses.

The 2025 report is available here. It mostly collects data from West County, but for 2026, they are trying to get even more zip codes to participate in the 2026 survey.

In addition to tracking the amount of produce grown in home gardens, the survey also asks for qualitative information on what resources people need to support their home gardening. Based on these answers, the Grange was able to start a list of community resources that includes where to find free seeds, compost and learning opportunities.

The intention isn’t simply to support home gardeners, but to strengthen food resilience for Sebastopol and surrounding communities: “Part of local food security has to do with the food you can grow and eat and share and sell right in your own community that is not disrupted by supply chains or climate change,” Allen said.

“The central thing is food security, community, feeling good.”

Correction: Seriously, just call 911

After our story on e-bikes and eMotos this week, we heard from Evonne Stevens, the executive director of REDCOM Fire & Medical Dispatch, who was concerned that we had published REDCOM’s business number as an alternative to calling 911. She explained that the business number we originally printed isn’t always staffed and has no location capability.

“We want our message to the community to be simple and clear: If it is an emergency — call 911,” Stevens said.

In the highly unlikely situation that 911 is busy or no one picks up, she said you can call the REDCOM emergency number at 707-576-1365, but she begs you, “Always try 911 first.”

Run for the Sebastopol City Council

The city sent out an email yesterday, July 25, encouraging folks to run for city council. There will be three open seats on the Sebastopol City Council in the November election. Those seats are currently held by Councilmembers Sandra Maurer, Jill McLewis and Stephen Zollman. Thus far, Maurer is the only one to have pulled papers and declared her intention to run again. Zollman wrote the Sebastopol Times on Friday, and said he is bowing out: “Jim and I decided that I will not be running again.” We haven’t heard back from Mayor Jill McLewis about her plans.

Act now, don’t wait

November may seem like a long way off, but the deadline for filing as a candidate closes next week on Friday, Aug. 7, at 5 pm. (If one of the incumbents does not file by the deadline, the filing period will be extended to August 12 for non-incumbent candidates only.)

The email from the city urged people to apply ASAP.

Candidates are required to make an appointment to receive nomination papers. An appointment to file nomination papers is also required.

The City highly recommends filing as early as possible to ensure that documents are complete and all signatures are valid and sufficient in number. Waiting until the end of the filing period could result in the inability to secure the required number of valid signatures for nomination, which would preclude the applicant from running for office.

Former City Council Member Sarah Gurney, who served on the council for more than 16 years, notes that “There is a lot to do before the Aug. 7 deadline: an appointment at City Hall, candidate statement, gather [nomination] signatures to qualify for no fee, then campaign materials if there’s an election.”

You don’t need to be an expert, just a smart and thoughtful person willing to put in the work

According to yesterday’s email from the city, “City Councilmembers help establish City priorities, adopt the budget, make policy decisions and represent Sebastopol on regional issues. You do not need to be a government expert to consider serving. Councilmembers bring many different professional, volunteer and life experiences to the role.”

Eligibility Requirements: Candidates must 1) be at least 18 years of age; 2) be a registered voter in the City of Sebastopol at the time nomination papers are issued and remain a registered voter in the City of Sebastopol throughout your term if elected; and 3) not be disqualified from holding office under the California Constitution or laws.

City Clerk’s office hours are Monday through Thursday from 7 am to 5:30 pm. City offices are closed on Fridays. The only exception will be the deadline day—Friday, Aug. 7—when the office will be open for filing appointments only.

More information about eligibility, filing requirements and required appointments can be found on the Elections and Voting page of the City’s website.

Run for your local school board

The filing deadline for candidates for local school board elections is August 7. Serving on a school board can be challenging, some say thankless, but it is a very important role to fill. Here are some of the openings in local districts:

West Sonoma County Union High School District (WSCUHSD)

Covering about 320 sq. miles, this high school district serves about 1,500 students—and includes Analy High School and Laguna High and the Academy of Innovative Arts at the El Molino campus. Its board members are elected by area, and three of those seats will be up for election this fall.

• Area 1 (light red). Shawn Chernila, who has served one term on the board, will not be running again.

• Area 3 (gold). Longtime board member Jeanne Fernandes is undecided about running again for this seat.

• Area 5 (purple). Lewis Buchner is running again.

Find information about the WSCUHSD district election.

Sebastopol Area Elementary and Middle Schools

Some of these districts make it easy to find information about how to run for the school board (i.e., they put it on their websites) and others don’t.

• Sebastopol Union. There are three open seats. No one has filed yet, but incumbents Lisa Bauman, Jonna Thomas and Deborah Drehmel are expected to run again. Learn more.

• Twin Hills. The three incumbents—Rebecca Houghton, John Moise, and Jeff Harding—have already filed to run again. Contact for more information.

• Oak Grove. Board seats are elected by area, and there are open seats in areas 1, 3, and 4. Learn more.

• Forestville, Gravenstein and Harmony school districts all have three board seats open, and no one has yet filed. Contact them for more information.

• Guerneville. Three board seats are open, and one incumbent, John Kornfeld, has filed. Contact for more information.

• Monte Rio. Two full-term seats and two short-term seats are open. Contact for more information.

Week of July 20-25

Richard Heinberg, world-renowned author and educator, musician, artist, and husband to Janet, passed away on July 19, 2026, at the age of 75, from pancreatic cancer. He was the award-winning author of 14 books and known the world over as an expert on sustainability issues. A former professor at New College in Santa Rosa, Richard served as Senior Fellow for the international think-tank Post Carbon Institute for nearly 20 years.

Richard was born October 21, 1950, and grew up in Saint Joseph, Missouri. From an early age, Richard was drawn to music, community, and the fate of the natural world. In his early 20s, he played electric guitar and violin in rock bands, and formed the Society of Integrated Living (SOIL) while living in Toronto, Canada. He first became a scholar, writer, and speaker as part of an international spiritual community, through which he met his wife Janet Barocco. In 1992, a short newspaper article on the depletion of oil sent Richard on a path of exploration and communication about the energy and sustainability crisis, a journey that led him to start his own monthly newsletter, The Museletter, which he published for 400 consecutive months.

This journey eventually led Richard to co-develop and teach the pioneering BA program at New College on Culture, Ecology, and Sustainable Community. He authored a dozen books, delivered hundreds of talks around the world, including at the European Parliament, penned thousands of articles, including in places like The Wall Street Journal and Post Carbon Institute’s website resilience.org, and was featured in magazines, television, and film. Richard’s first book on the energy crisis, The Party’s Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies, was lent by former President Bill Clinton to the New Yorker writer David Remnick, “full of underlinings and what looked like the most serious undergraduate’s markings, with lots of exclamation points.” Millions of people around the world have read or viewed Richard’s books, essays, or videos.

Richard was also an accomplished musician, playing violin locally in Santa Rosa in string quartets and occasionally with the Sonoma County Philharmonic. Nerve damage in his fingertips forced him to end a 60-year career as a violinist, but Richard quickly pivoted five years ago to learn piano through intense study and daily practice of ragtime, early Jazz, blues, and stride piano. Richard’s passion for music was eclectic, ranging from classical music to the Grateful Dead to early New Orleans Jazz. He and his wife Janet made an annual pilgrimage to his beloved second city, New Orleans, for the French Quarter Music Fest.

A true polymath constantly engaged in learning and new horizons, Richard had a remarkable way of distilling extremely challenging and complex topics down to their essence. He was adored by those lucky enough to work with or meet him, and known for his quick wit, humility, gentleness, and cheerful truthtelling about the human predicament.

A Celebration of Life is being planned for early October. To share your memories or appreciation of Richard, and to get updated information about memorial plans, please visit https://lnk.to/remember-Richard. To honor his memory, please consider donating to Post Carbon Institute or an environmental nonprofit of your choice.

At Tuesday’s Sebastopol City Council meeting, the council unanimously agreed to rebate 50% of the planned Barlow Hotel’s TOT taxes during its first 10 years of operation. The TOT, or Transient Occupancy Tax, is a tax charged by local governments to hotel guests.

The planning commission gave its thumbs up to this plan last week, with the proviso that a certain percentage of the hotel’s million-dollar marketing budget be used to market the town of Sebastopol itself. (See the full text of the development agreement amendment and the planning commission’s suggested revision at the end of this article.)

Vice Mayor Sandra Maurer, Councilmember Phill Carter, Councilmember Neysa Hinton and Councilmember Stephen Zollman voted to approve the original amendment, without the planning commission’s addition. (Mayor Jill McLewis recused herself and left the council chambers because she owns a small business across from the Barlow Hotel site.)

The presentation

For most of the meeting, Ari Wangerin, director of development for the Barlow Hotel project, stood in for Barney Aldridge, who was sick that evening. Wangerin gave a presentation on the proposed TOT rebate, offering examples of other cities that had made similar deals with hotel developers.

He also affirmed that without this sharing agreement, the Barlow Hotel will halt development, something Barlow owner Barney Aldridge confirmed later in the evening.

Wangerin then gave an analysis of the impact of the rebate, based on the original financial projections created by two different consulting groups. EPS, hired by the City, shows conservative projections, and RRC, hired by the Barlow, offers more optimistic projections. The slide below shows the projected TOT tax over ten years and how much the city would get under the 50% rebate plan:

Wangerin noted that these figures don’t include the other economic benefits to the city of having a new hotel in town, including increased retail spending at local businesses, the resulting sales tax revenue to the city, and employment opportunities. EPS estimated that the hotel would bring 53 permanent hotel-related jobs to the area.

Finally, Wangerin underscored the challenging market conditions for real-estate projects and said, “It’s especially challenging for hospitality, a from-the-ground-up hotel, in wine country, in a currently unproven market…Right now, the project is not feasible without some public-private partnership.”

The developers of the Barlow Hotel would use the promise of higher returns made possible by a rebate-funded marketing budget in order to attract the private equity they need to finance the project.

Stephen Zollman responded, “I don’t really know if that’s the best sales pitch.” Zollman recounted that even Piazza Hospitality, a seasoned hotel developer, has not yet found a way to move forward with its project, the Hotel Sebastopol.

Wangerin admitted, “It’s a hard business. Like you said, that’s a proven developer, and they have a dirt lot surrounded by a fence, and they’re trying to figure out what to do and they can’t. I think sometimes people look at Barney as the bad guy, but he’s here willing to take a chance and put his own money at risk. We’ve been working on it for three years. And so, if the community wants a hotel, and the City Council wants a hotel, then what he’s saying is, ‘I need your help,’ and it’s as simple as that.”

Public comment was evenly split

Former County Supervisor Ernie Carpenter suggested that the council raise the TOT rate (this would require voter approval). He also complained about the language of the amendment to the development agreement with the Barlow. In a long letter to the council, which challenged the legality of the TOT tax rebate, he wrote, “You seem to be giving carte blanche to the developer in the use of this tax money.” Frequent commenter Kyle Falbo shared Carpenter’s concerns about the legality of the rebate.

But the rebate proposal had supporters as well.

Frequent commenter Oliver Dick said, “I feel pretty strongly that if we get some momentum here, there will be a lot of other business momentum in the city that will hang off the back of this, and we don’t really have too much time to waste…overall I’m in favor.”

Commenters Lee Mathias, Kate Haug and Mary Meilhaus all argued for the deal.

“I feel like no rebate, no hotel, no additional TOT tax. If you believe that, you kind of almost have to go with this,” Mathias said.

Kate Haug, “Business is a risk. There’s no guarantee that this will work whatsoever, but if you don’t try it, you won’t have any money coming in…If he is highly successful, so will the city be highly successful. If he fails, the city loses nothing because the city hasn’t had to take out a loan, they haven’t had to construct a building, they haven’t had to hire employees, they haven’t had to take out insurance, and they haven’t had to do basically any work, except to come to an agreement to split the profit off the TOT.”

One commenter, rather late to the game, said, “Why do we need another hotel?...It’s just awful…I just feel like all this building is getting rammed down our throats.”

A conflicted council

Despite the skepticism coming from some public commenters and some of his own colleagues, Councilmember Phil Carter was all in. “We’ve been expecting this hotel on our books for quite a while. We’ve been dependent on it in our projections, and so why are we not just super enthusiastic?” he asked, attempting to reframe the debate.

In response to the last public comment, he explained that Sebastopol can’t survive as a bedroom community. “If you are just houses, you can’t pay the bills. You have to have some other way of making money. We’ve lost a lot of our industry and some other ways to make money, so this is about all we have.”

Councilmembers Hinton and Zollman argued that the Barlow’s rebate proposal should be seen as the starting point of a negotiation, not a take-it-or-leave-it deal.

“Someone with more expertise needs to start the negotiation with this hotel because I’m not willing to give you everything that you want,” Zollman said, suggesting that time be taken to study the agreement and explore options. “I don’t see this as being an urgent thing.”

Hinton also stressed the need for negotiation. “Because we’re talking about big money,” she said. “I just want to make sure that we’re doing the right thing for our citizens for the next 10 years, when maybe none of us will be sitting here.”

From his sick bed on Zoom, Aldridge delivered his ultimatum:

Yeah, it’d be great to sit down and negotiate, but I’d like to just give you a little dose of the reality, which is, debt is super high. Adjustable rates starting at 9%, and if rates go higher, it goes higher. So that’s a really hard thing to overcome.

It’s been very difficult for me to get equity to the table—that’s new equity partners, people writing checks for millions of dollars, and me telling them, ‘It’s going to be fine. Sebastopol is going to be a great market,’ but then you have construction costs, which keep going up and up and up. So the returns that we thought we had a year ago have diminished below what we’ll call a market return for investors.

A lot of times, these things, in my experience, there’s a time and a place. And right now is the time for you guys to say you want a hotel and do this. I’m not getting rich off this. I’m taking a ton of risk.

A lot of it has to do with the big giant vacant warehouse that either I need to start filling with storage or do some renovations and start renting that out. Once I do that, the hotel’s off the table. I cannot sit and just let the clock run without a plan for that space. I’m just not big enough to swallow up the cost of that. That thing has a huge mortgage on it, and taxes are ticking away. So that’s many tens of thousands a month to sit there vacant.

So we’re either building a hotel with your help, or we’re going to start dealing with that building. And I hate to say it, the time to negotiate would have been when I first brought this to you…The investors I have at the table, who are all awaiting my phone call in the morning to find out if you guys are on board to do this with us or not, their time horizon is 10 years. And the model is 10 years. And the model barely hits the returns.

That turned the tide.

“I appreciate the risk that he’s putting out for the city,” Councilmember Carter said. “The city has no risk on this whatsoever.”

Councilwoman Hinton gave in. “If he needs a decision tonight, I think I’m going to follow Phil and say OK. Fifty percent for 10 years gets us a hotel, and we have been talking about a hotel for the last 10 years. I don’t want to be here 10 years from now, and we still have no hotel.”

Councilmembers Zollman and Maurer also signed on, but their approval was more grudging.

“I really don’t like it at all,” Zollman said. “I don’t like strong-arming. That aside, it calls for moments of being a grown-up, and I don’t really see a way out of this for the city. I don’t really want the next generation of people who have to sit here…dealing with a city that’s in a perpetual state of financial crisis. I don’t wish that on anyone. So given that my other two council members are in favor, let’s just do it.”

Zollman and Maurer said they expected some blowback from the public.

“You said that there is no risk for the city at all. Well, there is risk in terms of how our public feels about this,” Maurer said.

Referring to the idea of using a percentage of the hotel’s marketing budget to publicize the city of Sebastopol, Zollman warned, “If it seems like [promotion] is all centered on the Barlow and not for our struggling downtown businesses, there will be retribution to be had. I’m quite sure of that.”

A confusing vote

Carter made a motion to approve the amendment to the Barlow Hotel’s development agreement. Hinton seconded the motion. City Manager Mary Gourley read out the motion “to approve the development agreement amendment for the Barlow Hotel to provide a TOT shared agreement arrangement of 50% for 10 years, with the addition of ‘the city may request and payee of tax shall provide, at least annually, documentation.’”

The council, weary of the debate, voted unanimously in favor.

Immediately after the vote, Maurer asked if the amendment they’d just passed included the revision recommended by the Planning Commission, regarding using a percentage of the hotel’s $1 million marketing budget to publicize the city itself.

The answer was no.

Maurer looked shocked. She motioned to reconsider the approval and Zollman seconded it, but Carter and Hinton opposed it, and the motion to reconsider failed. Their original vote stood.

Mayor McLewis, returning to the room from her recusal, asked “Are you all OK with moving on or do you need a stress reliever for a second?”

Maurer, looking rather shell-shocked, joked, “We should go out for a drink later.”

“That was the old days,” quipped someone in the chambers.

Here was the full amendment they approved, as listed in the staff report.

Section 7.5.5. Uniform Transient Occupancy Tax Rebate. In exchange for all of the benefits provided by this Development Agreement and the Project to the City, the City shall rebate a portion of the Uniform Transient Occupancy Tax collected from the Project. The City shall rebate 50% of the 12% tax that is levied through the Uniform Transient Occupancy Tax and provided to the City. In the event that the City increases the Uniform Transient Occupancy Tax, the City shall have no obligation to rebate any amount attributable to the portion of the Uniform Transient Occupancy Tax greater than the 12% tax rate. The rebate will commence upon occupancy of the hotel and continue for a period of 10 years. The Uniform Transient Occupancy Tax will be levied and submitted to the City and the City shall remit 50% of the 12% of the tax to the payee of the tax. The payee of the tax and/or the Developer or its Successor shall use the remitted tax funds for advertisement of tourism in the City of Sebastopol, including the Barlow Hotel as a destination in the City of Sebastopol. The City may request, and payee of tax shall provide, documentation [annually]of how the remitted tax funds were spent for such purposes, but the City shall have no authority to direct such spending.

The planning commission recommendation in red:

Two new music-centric venues are set to change the face of downtown Sebastopol. Located only a half-block from each other on different sides of Sebastopol Avenue, Wax Poetic and Kindred are poised to complete a “music corridor” linking Hopmonk and Laguna Lab.

Wax Poetic opens in the old Main Street Theater

Wax Poetic is already open for business. Located in the Crawford building at 104 N. Main St., it is the brainchild of longtime local music promoter Daniel Spicka and his partner Tashina Lemons — with the help of numerous friends including Sarah Bendinelli.

Described as a Curated Listening Room and a Sound Society on its web page, the venue offers tiered memberships that allow monthly access to members-only events, in conjunction with public, ticketed events. The higher “Selector” level membership tier offers members input into Wax Poetics’ programming, along with the option of hosting their own member’s night events, with the venue’s extensive vinyl collection and sound system at their disposal.

“Our regular programming is coming into focus,” Spicka said during a recent conversation in the venue’s attractive new lounge. “We’re doing that to dovetail with the membership program.”

In a nutshell, Spicka brings the music vision and know-how to the venture, while Lemons brings the dance moves and the life to the party. She spent two months meticulously outfitting the lounge with couches, chairs, tables, artwork, as well as new paint. Then Spicka moved the vinyl collection and the vintage hi-fi system in. The result? The “fishbowl” lounge—as Spicka refers to it, due to its panoramic windows—looks, feels and sounds perfect.

But while the bartop shines, the venue won’t be selling alcohol.

Bendinelli, a good friend of the couple’s, describes herself as an “adviser, supporter and cheerleader” of the endeavor. She said that Wax Poetic centers around music but, importantly, also around the idea of third places.

“People are really looking for a space to go that’s outside of their home, that’s outside of their work and that probably isn’t a bar or isn’t in front of a screen,” Bendinelli said. “The concept of Wax Poetic is that it’s a room that’s built around the thing that people really miss, which is paying attention, being together, doing it intentionally, listening to music.”

The venue isn’t a typical 9-5 business—its hours will remain limited and varied, often relegated to the evenings. Recent events included a Sneak Peek and a Grand Opening, while future events include a Sunday midday, family-oriented funk music dance party called Family Funk; Sunday evening Sound Soaks; weekly intentional listening get-togethers where people listen to curated albums; and Friday night Open Decks with guest DJs. But the sky’s the limit, so to speak, on what can be done with the space. Wax Poetic has the on-site theater at its disposal — for in-house or private events.

When mention of a possible movie night was made, Spicka replied, “A monthly movie night could happen.” He also mentioned growing interest in a regular post-Peacetown follow-on. Gazing out the window at the intersection of Main Street and Sebastopol Avenue, he summed up a common sentiment among locals: “Here’s to revitalizing downtown!”

To learn more, make inquiries, buy tickets or become a member, visit: waxpoetichifi.com.

Kindred: A new concept for Jasper’s

Just half a block down the street in the Jasper O’Farrell building at 6957 Sebastopol Ave., the Kindred remodel is busily underway. When the Sebastopol Times last wrote about Kindred in May (“Spinning Vinyls and Rotating Chefs,” by Rollie Atkinson), the music-centric drinks-and-food venture being built in the former Jasper O’Farrell’s space was due to open in July. But with extensive upgrading still in progress, the opening date has now been moved forward to September.

Owner Kevin Farnham is a strategic design entrepreneur who has lived internationally, DJ’d, and knows music well. On his first visit to Sebastopol to look at real estate, he passed Jasper O’Farrell’s, noticed the “For Rent” sign on its front window, and got to thinking. In short order, he bought a local farm and decided to open a multi-faceted, music-centric business in the unoccupied venue.

Kindred will include three interior lounges and three communal tables, with two wood-fired ovens and more tables on the back patio. It will be open Tuesday-Sunday. The all-vinyl sound bar remains the central concept, with the cafe open in the morning, then Happy Hour running as late as allowable on weekdays and till midnight on weekends, with counter service for drinks and local farm-to-table food—Farnham’s own farm being one of the suppliers.

All the while, the retail side of the business will be running strong: 3,000 vinyl records in bins on opening day; plus bottles from the drinks program—wine, cider, beer and vermouth—and packaged coffee and tea to go; books about music; audio gear including cartridges, headphones and accessories; plus a few pre-configured home stereo systems, T-shirts and other Kindred goods. Everything in the store will ship from the website, too.

When Kindred opens in September, it will feature significant upgrades and renovations, including a new kitchen, a new electrical system, a re-envisioned back patio and a high-end sound system.

The sound system is, in fact, Farnham’s favorite aspect of the endeavor.

“Our speakers are being built by hand in Berlin from redwood milled here in Sebastopol,” he said during a recent interview. “The wood leaves home, becomes something new and comes back to play records for the town it grew in.”

His hopes for Kindred?

“I hope it becomes a gathering place,” he said. “We’re all-ages by design, and open morning through night. Coffee early, records all day, food and wine in the evening. Downtown needs more reasons to linger, and we want to be one of them.”

He added, “The support from this town has been the best part of the process. Our planning approval was unanimous, and neighbors stop by the site every week to ask questions and offer help. It feels like a barn raising. That’s the spirit we want in the room when we open.”

Farnham invites comments, suggestions and inquiries from the community, and can be reached directly at kevin@kindred-sound.com. Visit Instagram at kindred_sebastopol for updates.