How Sebastopol Tomorrow made the town you live in today
A handful of local activists liberalized Sebastopol's politics and shaped its city councils for 40 years
Sebastopol Tomorrow is an object lesson in how a small, committed group of local activists can have an outsized effect on local politics. Formed in 1984 in response to a proposal to build a McDonalds at Hurlbut and Hwy. 116 in north Sebastopol, the group’s numbers have always been modest, but what they lacked in quantity, they made up for in commitment and strategic hutzpah.
Longtime Sebastopol Tomorrow member Richard Nichols remembers another early member Sean Webb—an avid union guy—putting it this way, “Let’s take over the city!”
And that’s basically what they did.
The group that coalesced around the McDonald’s protest and ultimately turned into Sebastopol Tomorrow were for the most part newcomers to west county, with decidedly more green and liberal politics than the conservative coalition of agricultural and business interests that had ruled Sebastopol since its inception.
“The city itself was coming to the end of its conservative farm era,” said Nichols, who’s been involved with the group on and off for over 40 years. “People didn’t want McDonalds. And I stood up and said ‘You know, folks, we’ve got to get together on this and not just let the City Council decide everything, so let’s start an organization.’”
Juliana Doms, an environmentalist and former city councilperson, who’d been sidelined and regularly outvoted by her conservative fellow council members, was one of the first members on Sebastopol Tomorrow’s steering committee. She was joined by Webb and others, including Nichols and his wife Brenda. Over time, they were joined by SSU Professor John Kramer; Una Glass (who ultimately became a Sebastopol City Council member); the late Helen Shane (who led the fight against CVS); Mark Tansil (now a Sonoma County Superior Court judge); Lynn Deedler (currently on Sebastopol’s Design Review Board); Kathy Oetinger (currently on the Sebastopol City Planning Commission) and Rebecca and Kevin Dwan. Over the years, many other thoughtful Sebastopudlians, like Marsha Sue Lustig and Richard Retecki, cycled through their ranks.
Sebastopol Tomorrow never became an official membership-based nonprofit or political action committee. Rather, over the years, it’s been organized as a steering committee, made up of a shifting coalition of folks with environmentalist political instincts and an interest in controlling what they saw as runaway growth in their small town.
“The schools were growing at 10% a year, and people were worried,” Oetinger said.
Speaking of the members of Sebastopol Tomorrow, Una Glass said, “The reason most of these people had moved to Sebastopol was because it was a small town, not a cookie-cutter, corporate suburbanite model that looked more like Rohnert Park—someplace with no core and few local businesses. Groups like Sebastopol Tomorrow we’re trying to prevent Sebastopol’s core from going away and preserve the sense of small town community.”
Sebastopol’s population more than doubled between 1960 and 1980 (going from 3,465 to 7,854), but thanks in part to the efforts of Sebastopol Tomorrow—with their support for an urban growth boundary and a growth management ordinance—the town’s population screeched to a halt in the mid-eighties, holding steady in the mid-7000s over the next 40 years.
Based on the concerns discussed in their erudite newsletters over the years, Sebastopol Tomorrow worried about things like the adequacy of the city’s water and sewer infrastructure to support increased growth. They also worried about traffic—though that clearly got away from them thanks to growth in west county beyond the city’s borders. While the group opposed suburban sprawl and fought annexations, it also supported an aggressive approach to affordable housing, according to Oetinger.
For a while, Sebastopol Tomorrow fought various development projects one by one—including a bypass through the laguna and several housing developments—but then they changed their strategy.
“We realized that if you’re going to change things,” Oetinger said, “you need to elect the right council people who share your understanding of what the issues are.”
“So we started working on getting people elected that we thought were more environmentally aware,” Nichols said.
The group gave endorsements and worked to elect a long list of Sebastopol councilmembers, starting with Anne Magnie, in the late ’80s. Others who earned their endorsement—and this is an incomplete list—included Larry Robinson (1998-2010), Craig Litwin (2000-2008), Sarah Gurney (2004-2022), Guy Wilson (2008-2016), Michael Kyes (2010-2014), Patrick Slayter (2010-2022), John Eder (2012-2016), Una Glass (2014-2022), and Diana Rich (2020-2024), as well as Neysa Hinton (2016-now).
In the 2022 city council election, Sebastopol Tomorrow endorsed and walked for Stephen Zollman and Sandra Maurer, both of whom got elected. It was a close election, and Sebastopol Tomorrow’s involvement may have once again made the difference.
Sebastopol Tomorrow’s candidates didn’t always win, of course, and sometimes they picked a real dog, like Robert Jacob, Sebastopol’s first gay Latino councilmember (2012-2016), who, it was discovered long after he left office, was a pedophile. One of the biggest commercial developments they opposed—the opening of CVS on the corner of Highways 12 and 116—happened in spite of their and the city council’s opposition.
Sebastopol Tomorrow has always been circumspect about its political and legal involvements. It didn’t involve itself in lawsuits. Its members donated to campaigns as individuals and were careful to keep amounts under the legal limit. Their main contribution to the people they supported for city council over the years were lawn signs, flyers, and shoe leather—going door-to-door with leaflets about their chosen candidates and explaining why people should vote for them. They did this for free.
Glass still has the precinct map they used for their door-to-door campaigns. “We could knock on every door in town in two days,” she said. “Or even in one very long day.”
This isn’t simply ancient history. Sebastopol Tomorrow will be interviewing (and perhaps endorsing) candidates in this year’s city council election in November.
Looking back, Oetinger and Nichols reflected on what they felt were the most important achievements of Sebastopol Tomorrow. Oetinger, by far the wonkier of the two, mentioned the city’s growth management ordinance, the creation of annual level of service reports, and regular general plan updates. Nichols mentioned “Laguna preservation, the urban growth boundary and getting progressives and environmentalists elected.”
Former Sebastopol City Councilmember Sarah Gurney, who was one of the group’s early supporters and someone they endorsed for council, put it this way:
“The group has consistently encouraged citizen activism, transparency and accountability in governance, sustainable smart growth, and environmental health,” Gurney said. “It has protected our community’s authenticity, with its mantra, ‘small town character.’ I’m grateful for these volunteers.”
These days, Sebastopol Tomorrow keeps a low profile. In part that’s because they trust the current city council, which they helped to elect, to do what’s right—but it’s also because they’re all getting older. The members of Sebastopol Tomorrow who revolutionized Sebastopol’s politics are now in their 70s or 80s.
When asked how long they can keep going, Oetinger said with a smile, “As long as we’re still breathing.”
Sebastopol Tomorrow is not a closed organization. Different people have moved on and off the steering committee over the years. They’re open to new members, particularly younger members. You can contact them here.
Looks like their old email address is no longer working. Instead use rnichols@sonic.net.
Articles like this are Important, thank you