Roundup: A Gusher!
Happy about Harris; Helton running for high school board, which is considering bond measure for November election
Last Tuesday, a motorist knocked over a fire hydrant and created a gusher on Petaluma Ave, near Palm Drive. The police and fire departments as well as the City’s Public Works were summoned to the scene of a 25-foot tall plume of water. Daniel Osmer of Science Cafe was on the spot and shared his photos and a video with us.
Bradley Worden of Public Works “donned his rain gear and hardhat to shut the hydrant valve off,” according to Dante Del Prete of the Public Works. Worden needed some time to find the valve and shut it off, all the while water poured down on top of him and welled up at his feet. Eventually, the persistent Worden brought the gusher down to ground level.
Daniel Osmer thought that “a large water fountain shooting up in the air 50 to 70 feet would be a great feature for Sebastopol — set to go off at designated times!”
Happy about Kamala Harris
Katherine Fugere took to Main Street to show her support of Kamala Harris on Wednesday and Thursday with a two-sided sign.
Laura asked Katherine for a comment and she shared her thoughts by email: “I support Kamala for president because she has and will continue to center women & children in her work.” Then she added:
When Trump won the presidency by losing the popular vote, it scared me. I was honored to vote for Hillary. I truly had no idea tens of millions voting Americans would vote for an abusive man. It was a difficult time for me. I should have known because my family are Trump supporters. I grew up hearing my vote didn’t matter. I grew up with women who were too scared to watch the news, vote, post or sign petitions. The women in my family were too scared of the men in my family to be political. Their marriages and quality of life depended on them not engaging in politics. That’s what voter suppression looked like in my family. I want to de-stigmatize supporting women.
I’m an AmeriCAN and what that means is I’m gonna have a great breakfast, do my morning chores, and then I get to dress cute and stand on the corner to support Kamala Harris for President!!!
Helton runs for WSCUHSD board
Linda Tighe Helton has filed papers to run for the 2nd Area representative on the West Sonoma County High School District. She is a former science teacher at Hillcrest Elementary where she also served as union president. Asked why she was running, she replied: “People have to step up and serve.” Her family has a long history at Analy High School with her grandmother, mother, herself and two children all graduating.
Linda was also a football statistician for 46 years, writing down what was going on on the field from the sidelines. She started keeping stats at football games when she was 15 years old. “I loved sports,” she explained. “Back then, we didn’t have girls sports and it was a way for me to be involved.”
Area 2 and Area 4 are open seats in this year’s school board election in November. (Candidates from the other three areas were selected in 2022.) Since December 2021, voters select a candidate from the area where they live; candidates must run for the seat in the area where they reside. Area 2 covers all of Sebastopol out to Mill Station Road to Ragle Road and out to the town of Bodega. Area 4 runs from Occidental Road through Forestville up to River Road.
Debbie Ramirez was elected to finish the remaining term for at At-Large seat, which goes away this year. Because Ramirez lives in Area 2, she will have to run for that seat and run against Helton. Ramirez did not respond to an email asking if she intended to run.
Board President Julie Aiello is retiring from the board after 4 years so her Area 4 seat is open. No candidates have filed to run.
Aside: Linda told me that her great-grandfather, Frank McDonald, owned the Analy Standard in the 1900’s, a partisan Republican newspaper that competed with the Sebastopol Times. He sold it in 1906. McDonald also published the Analy yearbook back then.
High School board to vote on putting $98M bond before voters
A special meeting of the West Sonoma County Union High School District will be held on Wednesday, July 31 to consider authorizing a general obligation bond that would go before West County voters in the November election. The bond measure, which would require approval of 55% of the voters to pass, seeks to issue and sell bonds to raise $98 million dollars. Proceeds of the bond sales will be targeted “specifically the construction, reconstruction, rehabilitation, or replacement of school facilities…and not for any other purpose, including teacher and administrative salaries or other operating expenses.”
Measure I, passed in 2010, raised $23.8 million. Measure A, passed in 2018, raised $98 million. Those funds have been allocated to completed or upcoming construction projects.
The Board hired Isom Advisors to survey voters and the results were presented at a June 12 meeting. The following summary slide shows that the vote would be close..
Here is the full text of the resolution that the trustees will be asked to approve:
The Week of July 21-26
We are happy to see more comments on our articles. Seeing subscribers share their reactions and insights makes Sebastopol Times even better. (Commenting is a feature only for paid subscribers, however.) We end the week with 832 paid subscribers. Will you help us reach 850?
Useful story about vote suppression within families, and video for the temporary fountain 🤓