We’re excited to welcome our new Guerneville columnist, Roger Coryell, to our Saturday West County Towns lineup. Roger is the former editor of the Sonoma County Gazette.
Veterans Day is Wednesday, Nov. 11.
Last month, two of the people staying in Guerneville’s Veterans Memorial Building were veterans. The hall is the town’s homeless shelter. Christy Davila, executive director of West County Community Services, which runs it, asked her new homelessness manager and sent me the count on Oct. 23.
Jerry Knight runs the River Theater on Main Street. The community radio station KGGV, 95.1 FM, broadcasts from a booth at the front. Knight, who calls himself a disabled vet, told me in October that “the purpose of this theater is to help veterans.” He called losing the hall “a shame.”
When he came home from the service, he said he had a tough time finding work. “I understand exactly the principle of having a warm shower, having something to eat,” he said. “God bless the people that are helping everybody, not only the vets.”
Ken Holybee holds Guerneville’s seat on the county’s Veterans Memorial Buildings Advisory Committee. At the May 2025 meeting, the minutes record him saying: “I think I’ve been very patient, but I haven’t heard from anyone about what’s happening at the building. I think I should know what’s going on at the building. I know I’m not supposed to go over there, but I’m about to.”
A county analyst answered that she didn’t think there had been anything to report.
“But it would be nice to receive notice that nothing needs to be done,” Holybee said, according to the minutes.
At every meeting, each town’s veterans representative reports on its hall. In November 2025, February 2026 and May 2026, the minutes give Guerneville’s report the same way: “Nothing to report.”
The other halls had plenty. In May, Cotati reported a St. Patrick’s Day dinner that “had a great turnout.” Petaluma reported a Hall of Heroes induction in February. Six people got tiles in the entry hallway.
On Guerneville, the hall is slowly sinking. It was built on First Street in 1957, over what the county calls “vegetative matter.” In 2019, engineers found the floor had settled across the whole building. The walls cracked. So did the windows. The basement has flooded, and its wood framing has dry rot. The engineers found the foundations inadequate for an earthquake.
The earthquake fix alone was $1.32 million in 2019. With a new roof, new finishes, accessibility work and a repaved parking lot, the job came to $5,534,000.
In 2021, county staff told supervisors that one choice was to tear the hall down and rebuild. They asked for $160,000 to plan a replacement.
On Sept. 1 of this year, supervisors licensed the hall to the homeless shelter for another year, with options for four more. That could run to 2031. The license covers the auditorium, the club room, the conference room, the Ramparts Room, the kitchen, the lobby and the bathrooms. The county’s web page for the hall says it is “currently not available to rent.”
Supervisor Lynda Hopkins told me in August that the county’s building department had decided the hall would eventually be condemned. “The thing needs to be demolished and replaced. That was the conclusion that General Services had come to,” she said.
Hopkins said that the county’s planning study found the best place for a new hall is where the old one stands. “The biggest problem is that this is going to be hugely expensive, and we don’t have a funding source identified for the rebuild of that building.”
The 2021 staff report asked, “whether continued investment in this facility for its current uses is warranted.” It also said closing or replacing the hall “will require compliance with the Military and Veterans Code, which in general requires a substitute facility be provided unless other conditions are met.”
The shelter’s new license says the building “may be considered for demolition, replacement, redevelopment, or another County use.”
I asked the county’s Veterans Service Office in August whether it had been consulted about the condition of the Guerneville building or a possible replacement. Mark Orlando of the office wrote back: “No.” The office holds no outreach events for veterans in West County, he wrote. “If we find that there is a specific need for this population, we would put something together.”
For now, a veteran on the river who needs help with benefits goes to Santa Rosa. The Veterans Service Office there takes walk-ins Monday through Thursday, 8 am to noon and 1 to 3 pm, at 3725 Westwind Blvd. The phone number is 707-565-5960, weekdays 8 am to 5 pm.
“Any way I can help other veterans, send them my way,” Knight said. “I try and get them on the radio station.”