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Our County by Lynda Hopkins, 5th District Supervisor - April 2017

First, an update on

Over the years, the District has studied alternatives that range from working with Camp Meeker on a small regional system to upgrading its plant and piping the water to farmers for irrigation. None of the approximately 15 options considered have been feasible – due to either costs, environmental concerns or community opposition. But time is running short: The District is under orders by the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board to stop the current practice of discharging recycled water into a pond at the headwaters of Dutch Bill Creek by January 2018.

With the clock ticking, the District determined that trucking Occidental’s wastewater to another sanitation district is the most cost effective solution. A recent environmental document analyzed trucking the wastewater to the Russian River County Sanitation District’s main lift station on Riverside Drive, with a back-up option of trucking to the Airport-Larkfield-Wikiup plant. At a public hearing held in Monte Rio in February, the Riverside Drive neighbors made clear their opposition to the project, with more than 20 people speaking out.

I am happy to announce that the Sonoma County Water Agency staff (working on behalf of the District), is pursuing other options and will be releasing a new environmental document in the summer. I look forward to working with the Occidental community on a solution that is acceptable to them – and to their neighbors!

Next, an update on homelessness in the lower River: Two months into my first stint as an elected official, I’ve faced down four floods, a half-dozen major road failures, dozens of mudslides, thousands of evacuation advisories, Occidental’s wastewater, and a creek overtaking Green Valley Road – all in District 5. Now I find myself embroiled in an emotional controversy surrounding a contentious land use issue smack dab in the middle of a town that helped me win the election.

The town I’m referring to is Guerneville, where rural homelessness has been a thorn in the side of the community for decades. Over the past two weeks, a solution proposed by community members and currently under consideration by the County has brought that thorn into sharp relief. Suddenly, the topic of homelessness is endemic, surfacing everywhere in the lower River, from coffee house chatter to the marquis of the Rio Theater.

The proposal which will be considered by the community and ultimately the Board of Supervisors involves creating shelter, a service center, and supportive housing on a ten-acre rural horse property located less than half a mile from Guerneville Elementary School. The property is one of the few in Guerneville that could support a small, village-like development to provide housing for the homeless – and also one of the few properties that is not either in the flood plain, or filled with buildings falling apart from decades of neglect. Real estate opportunities in the River are few and far between. The proposed property is, in fact, beautiful: a barn and ranch-style home that backs up to a redwood-filled canyon.

On a recent Friday morning, an orange, spray-painted sign was splashed across the property’s fence. “LYNDA LISTEN,” it read, addressed, in all caps, to me.“NOT IN OUR TOWN.”

The phrase “Not In Our Town” rubbed me the wrong way. After all, “Not In Our Town” is what white Southerners told Black people after the Civil War, and continued to tell them through the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. “Not In Our Town” is what straight people told gay people during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. “Not In Our Town” is what happened in Billings, Montana, in the early 1990s, when someone lobbed a cinderblock into the bedroom window of a young Jewish boy, kickstarting a spiraling series of hate crimes.

I wonder if the author of the sign did much thinking about what is happening in our town. If they did, the sign might have read:

In our town, homeless children attend Guerneville Elementary School.

In our town, a young girl celebrated her 9th birthday in a tent -- her only home – by the Russian River.

In our town, homeless residents die at a rate of one human being per month.

In our town, families are afraid to walk down the street at night, and residents step over drunks and drug addicts as they make their way to the ATM.

In our town, something needs to change.

Is a horse property on Armstrong Woods Road the solution to all of Guerneville’s ills? Will we save everyone, house all the homeless, and forever rid the streets of ne’er-do-wells?

Of course not. But something needs to change, and change starts with a community conversation about possible solutions. I’m not saying the current proposal is perfect. I’ll be the first to admit that there are valid community concerns which need to be discussed and addressed. I’ll be the first to admit that there may be better solutions out there. But we won’t get to better solutions without admitting that there’s a problem, and that we need to be the ones to come together to solve it. That’s why I convened a town hall meeting on the subject, and why I am always happy to receive suggestions, concerns, or solutions – especially solutions! – via email (lynda.Hopkins@sonoma-county.org).

In Billings, Montana, by the way, “Not In Our Town” meant something else entirely. In the 1990s, after anti-Semitic hate crimes and the rise of the KKK garnered national attention, homes and businesses began putting menorahs in their windows. Someone took it upon themselves to create a billboard. “Not in Our Town! No Hate, No Violence. Peace on Earth,” it read.

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