Porchfest Sebastopol seeks new venue as some High Street neighbors object to the event
The homemade music festival may move to SebArts and Ives Park—or to another neighborhood in town
Many property owners on High Street were excited about their neighborhood hosting Porchfest Sebastopol, the neighborhood music festival, again this September. But a handful of households—five in a blocks-long stretch of High Street—objected. As a result, the organization decided to pull their request for a special event permit and had it removed from last night’s city council agenda.
“Our goal has always been community building, and in those efforts, I have some important announcements to make,” said Sebastopol music impresario Greg “Ceni” Ceniceroz, the creator of Porchfest Sebastopol. “Disheartening as it may be, our plan is to host Porchfest in SebArts and not on High Street, and with the city’s assistance in Ives Park. We will not hope to push Porchfest on High Street, due to our desire to gain consensus and build community, not to divide the community.”
He said an alternative plan was to move Porchfest, which is scheduled for September 13, to another Sebastopol neighborhood where Porchfest’s block-party approach to a neighborhood music festival might be welcome.
More than a dozen supporters of the homemade music festival came to last night’s council meeting to support Ceni and express their disappointment at the change of venue during public comment.
None of those who objected to Porchfest being held on High Street were in attendance at the council meeting—or if they were, they didn’t make their presence known. Several High Street neighbors however wrote the city expressing their opposition to Porchfest, and some of their letters can be found at the end of the staff report. Councilmember Sandra Maurer said there were also several letters in opposition that didn’t make it into the council packet and therefore didn’t get posted.
Porchfest Sebastopol board member Eric Lofchie, spoke in support of Sebastopol Porchfest and also reached out to the neighbors who opposed the event.
“I joined the board of the organization as a way to create a vehicle for Porchfest, not just on High Street, but throughout our town,” he said. “A lot of us believe very wholeheartedly that Sebastopol Porchfest can be a very vibrant part of what Sebastopol offers. It fills a unique niche that is not filled in other areas. Having neighbors working together to create an event that supports local musicians is powerful, and it creates and builds community. Unfortunately, today we decided to change our plans, because we have not done the engagement and community work that we needed to do in order to create a positive experience. And I really want to reach out to our neighbors who are concerned about this event to talk with us, to participate in it with us, to join with us so that we can facilitate the discussions here.”
Rick Rozet, a chef who lives on the corner of Maple and High Street, planned to host one of the Porchfest stages on his property, as he did last year.
“I want to strongly speak in support of Porchfest and the energy and dynamism that it brings to our community. It's a locally produced organic event put together by local people in a vibrant neighborhood in Sebastopol. It’s one of the types of events that defines our community and makes it the special place that it really is.”
Rozet said the organization had done a lot of work reaching out to neighbors. “The organizers have assembled a large crew of volunteers from all over to address many of the issues which help keep the event safe and respectful,” he said. “They have reached out extensively throughout the neighborhood to solicit opinions and to improve every aspect of the event.”
“I understand that there are those who feel that hosting this event in the neighborhood is inappropriate or invasive, and while many of these concerns are valid to some degree, the overall benefit to the town, its community and many of the neighbors, weighs heavily in the positive,” Rozet said. “The organizers have bent over backwards to mitigate all these concerns, including offers to post volunteers at sites, reduce noise levels, and block off whole intersections.”
“This event is exactly the kind of event that you want to define our town,” he said in conclusion. “It’s local in nearly every way and run with integrity and joy.”
High Street neighbor Dave Tabor said he had recently moved to Sebastopol after attending Porchfest in 2024. “Part of the reason that we moved here was because of Porchfest last year, which we attended, and I planned to volunteer this year. I cannot stress enough that a vibrant local culture is part of what makes us tick, and we need to be supportive of that.”
The Sebastopol Chamber of Commerce’s Myriah Volk also spoke in favor of the event. “An event like this draws people to town to really understand the culture of Sebastopol, which is very much about art and music. If we could support the musicians, the artists, give something for our community to do and draw people to town, I think it’s just a triple win.”
High Street resident Karen Demarest said she was “disappointed that there’s a pattern that we have as humans to go toward the oppositional voice instead of the one that is filled with joy.”
“I don't know another event that brought so much joy to my neighborhood,” she said, referring to last year’s event on High Street. “It was filled with people: children, young people, old people, celebrating community together. The fact that we can't prioritize, that we can't say ‘This is who we want to be as a community, this is who we stand for,’ instead of giving into opposition, makes me sad. I hope that we can find a way to bring this back together as a community because we deserve that—we deserve that joy.”
Two Porchfest board members, Elizabeth Beaty and Ann Hamilton, and local residents Howard Barsky and Darina Rapkin also spoke in favor of the event.
Why Porchfest Sebastopol decided to change the venue
After public comment, a group of Porchfest supporters assembled on the porch outside the council chambers. Several expressed their frustration that the Porchfest board had given in to the naysayers and withdrawn its request for a special event permit, despite the fact that, due to the popularity of the event, the council seemed likely to grant its permission.
Board member Lofchie explained the board’s reasoning. “So the real problem is they [the city] were making us do a $3,000 traffic study, $2,000 in additional police overtime, plus the permitting fees, the encroachment permits. That’s $6,000 before we purchased a single porta-potty.”
Lofchie said none of those expenses applied last year, but that this year, the level of opposition triggered a higher level of review from the city.
When a few people grumbled about the neighbors who were opposed to the event, Lofchie repeated his commitment to reaching out to them.
“I don't see this as an us versus them. I really want us to look at this as a “we.” This is an indication that we didn't do enough outreach and engagement, and that, if we're going to say we're committed to listening to your concerns, this might be the right thing to do. Plus it avoids about $4,000 or $5,000 worth of fees as well.”
Why did some residents of High Street oppose the return of Porchfest?
Porchfest Sebastopol drew around a thousand participants last year, and there were estimates that that number might double this year.
Volunteer firefighter Ian Hoff, who lives on High Street, summarized his concerns this way in his letter to the council:
Unsafe. This event occurs in a spread out and large area with thousands of people. Unlike concerts in parks at central venues, this creates an issue to respond to emergency calls. Just imagine the worst case of someone needing CPR occurring in some ADU in someone's backyard in the middle of Porchfest. How quickly can all the necessary responding units get there? I've responded to medical aids at Peacetown; that's easy. This seems problematic.
More safety issues. As you know, the fire department puts together special IAPs [incident action plans] for parades and the July 3rd fireworks. Why? Because these events have thousands of people from out of town spread out over large areas. This sounds like Porchfest. It doesn’t sound like a neighborhood block party.
Not the actual neighbors. Of the event organizers, four don’t live in the neighborhood where they’re putting the event on, let alone in the city limits. Under their website FAQ, the "Who is putting this on?" responds proudly with “Your neighbors!" That's not true. Does the city allow any outsider to host an event in front of any citizen’s house?
A block party does not have corporate sponsors. (Their website has multiple pages soliciting money including Home, Donate, Get involved, and Be A Sponsor. Go to their site and the very first thing you'll see is they ask for money. Perhaps this is a moot point, but I feel it's safe to say this is never even a discussion for a group of neighbors having a block party.
Crowds of strangers. I saw people peeing in my neighbor's driveway, sitting on neighbors’ cars, trash and alcohol containers not cleaned up (despite promises by the planners), people smoking pot in the street, and so much drinking…These are not my neighbors. I don’t think it's wise for the city to allow people to drink in public in front of other people’s homes like this. You can’t leave Ives with a beer in hand from Peacetown. So why change that precedent?
Residents are stuck. We can’t leave or arrive by car for the duration of the event. Things can happen where that is necessary. We felt trapped last year by the crowds and had to remain vigilant to watch out for the aforementioned things people do.
For some, the concerns were more about quality-of-life issues. Chelle Cardenas McDonell wrote to the city council: “Another thing I particularly value about our neighborhood is having a peaceful space that is walking distance to town. So it’s disappointing that someone wants to use it for a festival. It is not an appropriate space for a large-scale event that is being widely promoted far beyond our neighborhood.”
Councilmember Maurer met with some of the opponents of Porchfest the day before the council meeting. She summarized their objections:
“The lack of emergency access was really big. There was one resident who had someone living in their house who was disabled and to them, it felt threatening—like they couldn't leave their home in an emergency,” Maurer said. “So emergency access was a big concern. Then there’s people drinking alcohol, people getting drunk…liability issues. Then there’s the noise. The sound was so loud, it was rattling their windows.”
“It was such a dark contrast—the neighbors who wanted this event saw it as just this wonderful family, friendly event,” Maurer said. “Well for these neighbors, it wasn't family-friendly at all. People were smoking cigarettes. People were smoking pot on the street.”
“I also talked with one of the organizers after I met with these residents,” Maurer said. “They didn’t realize the extent of the opposition. They thought it was just two neighbors.”
But Maurer said the city got “at least eight, maybe nine letters from neighbors who were opposed to the event.”
Maurer praised the event planners for changing the venue. She feels they turned a divisive situation into a win-win: they still get to have their festival, and their neighbors on High Street don’t have to deal with a thousand or more people in front of their homes.
“I think that the move to Ives Park and away from High Street is really going to help heal the rift that has occurred with these neighbors. I think it’ll go a long way to heal that division.”
“The bottom line is that the organizers of the event really stepped up to truly community-build here,” Maurer said. “It was really a Sebastopol-friendly move that they withdrew their permit application.”
She noted that in his request to remove the item from that night’s agenda, Ceniceroz wrote to the council, “Having Porchfest on High Street is too divisive to the neighborhood and runs counter to our stated mission of community building.”
Now what?
As the supporters of Porchfest stood outside the council chamber last night, they began to strategize how to make an event at Ives and SebArts have that same neighborhood-feel they liked so much from the previous year on High Street.
“It’s 300 meters away from the nearest porch,” someone opined.
“Is it even a Porchfest?” someone else asked.
“We can build our own porches,” said a can-do soul.
The Porchfest Sebastopol team is now strategizing about what their next steps will be.
So disappointing that they aren't doing it on high street, my family was really excited about this event in our community. I would be interested in hearing an expert opinion on the substance of the safety concerns. And for the neighbors who don't enjoy having a music festival on their street, I would hope they would see the joy it brings their community, and accommodate their neighbors for a day.
It's very disappointing it won't be held this year. It was wonderful last year but I took a look and said "they will never do this again." There will be ton of excuses why it doesn't happen, too late, too much money, can't sign bands, can't find a date at Ives, bla bla bla. It comes down to money - no money into the big pockets in town. And why are the police and fire dept telling us the citizens what to do? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Let us evaluate the risks and go or not. Is it really more dangerous than the events at the Barlow where the streets are all closed?