Roundup: Feast and Fast
Crab feed as fundraiser, Elderberry Commons remains vacant, digital fasting and finding the next poet laureate
Anatomy of a Crab Feed
The Sebastopol Rotary’s Crab Feed took place at Holy Ghost Hall on February 10. The sold-out event was a remarkable effort that had volunteers setting up the hall, cleaning, cooking and cracking the crab, tending bar, delivering food to the table and more. Students from Analy’s Interact Club helped serve the dinner.
Rotarian Thomas Boag helped organize photos from Harvey Henningsen and David Schreibman. Cindy Carter took photos of the crab drawings that were submitted by students from local schools to the art contest in memory of Sally Briggs. Here’s a one-minute presentation of those photos.
Boag said that 535 tickets were sold at $80 each, split across two seatings. “Pretty cool earnings even after we pay for crab, hall, and misc,” he said. “Quite a sum to pour directly into Mark Sell Teacher Mini Grants and over two decades, it adds up.”
The Sebastopol Rotary’s Mark Sell Teacher Mini-Grant Program supports West County teachers who need help financing innovative classroom materials that enhance students’ learning experience. The grants, which can be up to $500, have helped teachers purchase supplemental materials, instruments, operate a literary magazine and diverse other projects. Over the past two decades, the program has disbursed over $371,000 dollars in over 500 separate grants to teachers at virtually every school in West Country. Thousands of students have benefited from their teachers’ creativity and Rotary’s financial support. Not too crabby.
31 vacant rooms at Elderberry Commons
There’s no sign of work going on to convert Elderberry Commons, the former Sebastopol Inn, to a Permanent Supportive Housing facility. When the facility closed last April, construction was supposed to begin in the summer, making it available for new residents in the Fall of 2023. When it was apparent that that deadline would be missed, we reported on a revised timeline last August.
Design and permitting complete: 09/30/2023
Construction complete: 03/01/2024
Occupancy begins: 03/15/2024
Given that there’s no outward sign of progress, I followed the same line of questioning, starting with Tim Miller of West County Community Services, the organization that will eventually oversee the operations of Elderberry Commons. He referred me to Rich Wallach, Senior Director of Housing Finance and Business Development at Burbank Housing, the organization that will take ownership of the property and manage the renovation. Wallach replied: “Renovations have not begun, as we still need the transfer of the property to go through from the County. We hope to be able to commence the rehab in the spring.”
To find out what was keeping the County from transferring ownership of the property, I wrote to Supervisor Lynda Hopkins and she responded promptly. “Elderberry Commons should be on our next Board of Supervisors agenda — we don’t meet next week, so the next meeting is Feb 27.” She provided the following timeline.
Current Tentative Schedule-
Project building permit issued 12/28/2023. Project is shovel ready.
Transfer to Burbank anticipated to be completed by March 30, 2024
Construction commences April 1, 2024
Construction substantially complete July 31, 2024
Occupancy begins August 1, 2024
Final occupancy projected mid-October 2024
Several hours laters, Tracy Lyons, Chief of Staff for Lynda Hopkins provided an update: “our office just learned that the planned February 27th Board Item has been moved to March 12th.” Both Hopkins and Lyons recommended that I talk to Michelle Whitman at the Community Development Commission, saying that she could provide more information regarding the overall timeline for the project. This time I got a little further than previous attempts because CDC’s Whitman responded by email and confirmed the new timeline.
“There are many unknowns at the outset of a project, meaning there will be plenty of problems to solve along the way. Although Elderberry Commons has been a series of problem-solving exercises, current estimates indicate upgrades will be under construction in spring, and Elderberry will fully occupied this fall.” She acknowledged that given the housing crisis, “it is frustrating when projects face slower than expected progress.”
She explained that the CDC is “currently finalizing a Disposition and Development Agreement (DDA) for Board of Supervisors approval. … Approval of the DDA is one of the last steps before construction can begin on conversion to Permanent Supportive Housing. The CDC’s goal is a final DDA for a fully funded project with a balanced construction budget.”
She also explained that there are delays due to rising costs and problems securing grant funding.
In its early stages, a housing project progresses through the planning process based on preliminary cost estimates, and in the second half of 2023, it appeared Elderberry was fully funded. However, as we move beyond design and entitlement phases and get ready for construction, we have the benefit of more reliable cost estimates, both capital and operational, which are proving to be higher than preliminary numbers.
Added to the reality of increased project costs, very recently the CDC’s development partner, Burbank Housing, learned that a critical funding piece (a grant) they were depending on to complete the capital stack for Elderberry had fallen through. This news means that the project once again faces a developer math problem that CDC and Burbank are working to solve in order to bring the DDA to the Board of Supervisors.
The former 31-room hotel was purchased for $6.3M with state funds as part of Governor Newson’s Project Homekey in December 2020 to provide housing to the most vulnerable of the homeless during Covid. Its residents were moved out in March and April 2023, as reported in Sebastopol Times.
Digital Fasting
Last Wednesday was the beginning of the season of Lent, which usually follows a feast on Tuesday, known as Fat Tuesday in New Orleans. During Lent, it is common for adults to abstain from meat and/or alcohol, and for kids, sweets. Here’s a new twist on Lent from the “School of the Unconformed,” a Substack by Ruth Gaskovski and Peco. They called for a communal digital fast from February 14th to March 31st, giving up or reducing the amount of time we spend on computers and phones, encouraging “Fasting from the Virtual, Feasting on the Real.” They advised people to set their own limits.
People sometimes may have a preconception that fasting means abstaining from “everything”. This does not necessarily have to be the case. For example, several readers have commented that they will follow a “modified” version of the fast, as they need to be on the screen for work, writing tasks, or their university studies. Please feel free to create a version of the “game plan” that will work for your personal situation. This may include setting boundaries around your tech use after work hours, during down-time, or on weekends.
The next local Poet Laureate
Nominations are open for Sonoma County's 13th Poet Laureate. The Poet Laureate is a Sonoma County resident who has demonstrated a commitment to the literary arts in the County. The Poet Laureate, who serves for two years, often participates in official ceremonies and readings and receives an annual stipend of $1,000. (Proof that poetry does not pay well.)
Elizabeth Herron of Graton has been Sonoma County’s Poet Laureate for the 2022-24 term. In a Sebastopol Times article, Herron said: “Being poet laureate for me is an act of service; it’s a way of giving back, and it’s a way of expanding the role of poetry in our lives,”
The deadline for nominations is April 29, 2024. To nominate a local poet, go to the Sebastopol Center for the Arts website here.
A panel representing each of the Sonoma County supervisory districts as well as Sonoma State, Santa Rosa Junior College and Sonoma County Library will review nominations, select finalists and then choose the next Poet Laureate. The winner will be announced on July 1, 2024.
The Week of February 10 - 17
Monday February 19 is Presidents’ Day. Schools are off. The City offices and the Library are also closed.
