RoundUp: It's not black or white
Something for birders, a restroom for farm visitors, fruit trees for sale, a new Director of Public Works for the city and the high school board meeting for February
A place to go
The City of Sebastopol has begun construction on a new ADA-compliant restroom at the Luther Burbank Experimental Farm off Bodega Avenue. The project is expected to be completed by the end of March 2026. “We are thrilled and thankful to the city and the county for this big improvement,” said an Instagram post from the West County Historical Society.
Rare Fruit Grower’s Scion Exchange on Feb. 21st
David Ulmer, whom we wrote about in 2023, a member of the Redwood Empire Redwood Empire Chapter of the California Rare Fruit Growers (CRFG), tells us that the group will hold its annual scion exchange on February 21, 2026, from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm at the Santa Rosa Veterans’ Building located at 1351 Maple Avenue in Santa Rosa.
More about the Scion Exchange
What is a scion? It is a cutting from a plant that can be used to graft onto an existing tree or rootstock. In some cases the cutting may be rooted to make a new plant. This year, we will have hundreds of varieties of fruit scions sourced from various rare fruit collections in Northern California.
Scions to graft will include almond, apple, pear, plum, peach, apricot, cherry, aprium, pluot, pawpaw, and persimmon. Fig, grape, mulberry, pomegranate, and kiwi cuttings will also be available for rooting. In addition to the joy of propagating a rare fruit variety, this is a very economical way to add fruiting plants to your garden.
Vendors will have various things to sell, including native plants, citrus fruit, trees, and rooted cuttings.
Our chapter will have rootstocks for sale for grafting apple, pear, peach, nectarine, plum, apricot, cherry, and other Prunus varieties such as almond, plumcot, pluot, and aprium. We have a group of experienced grafters who will graft your rootstock and scion for a small fee.
A landscape professional will give a class on pruning, and there will be a basic grafting class. Grafting demonstrations will be ongoing throughout the day.
The entrance fee is $5.00. Please bring cash. We cannot accept credit cards. The CRFG is a non-profit group. Proceeds from this event are used for agricultural-related scholarships, school projects, and donations to various fruit-related and agriculture-related groups.
BTW, the Luther Burbank Experimental Farm has its own sale of rare fruit trees and a directory of where you can find those trees on the Farm.
City hires Oriana Hart as Director of Public Works
The council filled one out of three top administrative positions last week, when it appointed Oriana Hart as Sebastopol’s Director of Public Works. That still leaves two open positions at the top of the city: director of planning and city manager, which is currently being filled masterfully by Interim City Manager/City Clerk Mary Gourley.
Hart comes to the City after two years working with the City of Petaluma as its Water Resource and Conservation Manager. Before that she worked for the City of Sonoma for two years as a Public Works Project Manager and Administrator and for six years for the County of Sonoma, first as an Engineering Technician then the Storm Water Coordinator for the County. Prior to that she worked for over 10 years in private construction, managing storm water and Storm Water Pollution Prevention Programs. She also has experience working with the City of Sonoma while managing the EPA Grant Clean Streams of Southern Sonoma County.
She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Earth Science/Geophysics from UC Santa Cruz and a Master’s of Engineering degree from CalState Fullerton in Environmental Engineering Technology.
WSCUHSD February Board Meeting
A rather uneventful board meeting for West Sonoma County Union High School District (WSCUHSD) took place last Wednesday in the Analy library. This reporter was the only member of the public in attendance. All board members were present with Jeanne Fernandes, Board President, leading the meeting.
Student representative Jonah Caron reported that the Prom theme had been selected: Midnight Masquerade and the prom will be held at the Great American Musical Hall in SF. He also said that senior hoodies had arrived. What he didn’t say is that seniors are counting the days.
Consultant Greg Isam gave an initial review of the District’s prospects for a new bond measure, possibly in November of this year. Both Isam and Superintendent Chris Meredith said that the District was “exploring” a bond measure. The District did so last year before Meredith decided that 2025 was not a good time to bring it for a vote. The board gave approval to fund a 400-person survey of District voters to see whether there’s an openness to a bond measure. Trustee Shawn Chernila asked Isam if he thought voters would pass a new tax, given that two new taxes were passed last year (a countywide fire tax and a Sebastopol sales tax), residents were continuing to pay the Palm Drive parcel tax and parts of West County remain bitter about the closure of El Molino High School in 2021. Isam said he didn’t know the answer but that’s what he expects the survey to tell everyone.
With cuts expected to come in March for the next school year, the District announced a one-time early retirement benefit of $15,000 (twice what it was) for teachers and other certified personnel and a first-time retirement benefit of $7500 for classified workers.
Director of facilities, Jennie Bruneman, asked the board to approve $500K of Measure A funds for the repair of the District’s solar panels. The entire system is showing its age, and some inverters need replacing. When an inverter goes down, the District sees an immediate spike in its electrical bill. Keeping the system working significantly reduces what the district pays for utilities on both Analy and El Molino campuses.
To be seen
This week, we were proud to publish Steve Einstein’s “Faces of West County: Anita,” the story of an undocumented Sonoma County resident who fled violence in her native Mexico to find work and a safe place to live in California. As of now, 26 of our readers “liked” this fascinating story.
Before publishing it, Laura wondered whether we should post the photo of Anita for the obvious reason that our government is hunting down people that look like her. Steve had taken a photo of Anita from behind as one option for the article. Anita gave her approval for the photo of her looking into the camera and so we ran it, hoping for the best. Steve’s photo helps Anita to be seen by us as a person of warmth and dignity, a member of our community.
Eva Neubrun wrote in the comments section: “Steve, you have wonderful rapport with people who probably rarely meet people outside of their immediate community. It's a treat for us to meet them through your dialogue.”
Steve thanked Eva in the comments and replied: “It’s funny. I’m still looking, but I haven’t found an uninteresting person yet.”
I agree completely with your choice of "masterfully" when describing Mary Gourley's track record. Let's make her permanent!
Thank you for sharing a bit of your editorial decision making, this time related to Anita's story. It's a great reminder that anything we see in public is part designed, part happenstance. There are no virgin births of stories. They all have a lineage, a fact both overlooked AND overworked at City meetings (the sausage factories).