The Basket: Good Times, Sad News and Hot Sand

What we have to share

Old Times and New Times

Join us Sunday, Oct. 30 at 12 pm at the West County History Museum, 261 S. Main St., Sebastopol. Dale and Laura will be at the Museum for the closing of its exhibit on The Sebastopol Times in all its incarnations for over 100 years.

This new Sebastopol Times got started inApril and now we’ve grown to 529 subscribers, of whom 157 are paid. We are grateful for your support for hometown news.

Letter to the Editor

The slate of three. McLewis, Dick, Colthurst.

What are they hiding? They were invited by the local newspaper to be interviewed. They did not respond. They were contacted several times and did not have the respect to even respond and say no. This is the local paper where Sebastopol folks have kept in touch with local events and politics for many years. Maurer and Zollman responded and were interviewed.

To quote from Oliver Dick’s web page “ I don’t want to be bound by anything I said I would do if I am elected.” When he was asked by my friend how he felt about protecting the Laguna his answer was “The Laguna is in the County, the City doesn’t have anything to say about that.” However, as many  Sebastopol people know who care about the Laguna, a large part of the Laguna is in the City Limits.

The three have been evasive, who knows what they are about. Makes one ask how do they expect to communicate with the people of Sebastopol if elected when they will not communicate with them now. Why vote for someone when I can’t tell what they believe in?

Brenda Nichols
Sebastopol

We welcome Letters to the Editor. You can find contact information for us as well as some information on our Commenting policy on the About page.

Sad News

Nick Vannuci

Sebastopol has lost one of those people who make our community work. Nick Vannucci, a longtime Sebastopol Area Senior Center staff member, died this week.

With his shock of red hair and big smile, Vannucci was the manager of the The Legacy resale shop, operating manager for the Senior Center’s Harvest Café, as well as the maestro behind the Senior Center’s annual Christmas pop-up store. He brought over 30 years of retail and culinary operations experience to his jobs at the center and had worked there since 2013.

A Facebook post from the Senior Center said, “Nick held The Legacy and the Harvest Café to the highest levels of service and value. He was a mentor to staff and volunteers alike, creating amazing work teams with allegiance to the Senior Center’s mission and vision. Nick valued his staff and volunteers incredibly, knowing it was through them that service to the community happened. We will miss Nick tremendously. But we will carry on.”

They are planning a public event to honor Nick’s contribution and will be releasing information on that soon. 

Nicole Ours

Farewell to a dear friend, wonderful artist and leader. It is with great sadness to share with you that the very talented Nicole Ours, co-chair of the Sonoma County Art Trails steering committee, passed away unexpectedly. With a smile and a kind word, she was unconditionally dedicated to the Art Trails open studio program.

Here is a link to a portfolio of her work. Nicole writes on her About page:

An artist, to me, is one who learns, practices, strives until the necessary techniques are so well integrated into how one does one’s art, it moves into another realm. It becomes possible to focus, explore and make unique solutions and creations.

Ragle Beach

Ragle Ranch Regional Park has two new beach volleyball courts full of sand, bringing to four the total number of courts. Ragle Beach is the new name for this area, given by Ragle Beach Volleyball Inc. Two Smith brothers, Coach Mike and Coach Eric, are co-founders of the organization along with Kathleen Wilbanks, their grandmother. The website promises that Ragle Park will “become the hotbed of beach volleyball for the Wine Country.”

We’ve reached out to talk to them but they’ve been too busy playing to respond.

Have you noticed the many improvements at Ragle Ranch including the fencing around the majestic oak tree in front of these courts?