Roseland Review by Duane Dewitt - January 2019
Happy New Year and Prospero Nuevo Ano for 2019 to everyone living in Roseland. Begin by doing something new and refreshing for you and your family. Taking on new approaches and doing new things can be an uplifting experience for to carry you into the New Year. Here is an example of a positive change occurring in Roseland.
St. Joseph Health, the operators of Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital has pumped millions of dollars into Community initiatives in Roseland for over 20 years now. Beginning in the 1990s the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, the Catholic religious order backing the Memorial Hospital efforts, have worked to empower the Hispanic and Latino residents in Roseland. Helping people to lead more healthy lives in Roseland is a primary concern for St. Joseph Health. It has been an excellent way for local Latinos to meet and talk of concerns for our Roseland Community. Now in 2019 the needs of the community will be a major concern as the Roseland Community Library will be either relocated, or closed, due to the beginning of construction at the Roseland Village Shopping Center. In late 2018 Ben Wickham, an employee of Sonoma County Community Development Commission, stated at a public meeting the site may have cleared the environmental permitting process by “mid 2019”. This would allow for construction to begin on a new housing project by Mid-Peninsula Housing Development Corporation on the seven acre site owned by taxpayers. He mentioned the county hopes the project may have some housing available for occupancy by mid-2020.
The Roseland Teen Center at the Library Branch will also be moving. There is a hope the Central Sonoma County Boys and Girls Club which now operates the Teen Center will be able to build a new site. At this time there is a building boom going on in Roseland with hundreds of new housing units under construction. With many thousands of new people moving into Roseland there will definitely be a need for more facilities for the youth of the community. New roads will also need to be built to accommodate all of the traffic now jamming up local roads such as Dutton Ave., Sebastopol Rd., and West Ave. Development impact fees once slated to help Roseland have been directed to be used city wide now that Roseland is a part of Santa Rosa.
On Thursday Dec. 13, 2018 at Roseland Community Library the Roseland Community Building Initiative group funded by Community Action Partnership hosted a short presentation by Lana Adlawn a Division Manager for Sonoma County Library. She spoke on the many issues facing the effort to have a permanent Roseland Library Branch in Roseland. There are outside groups also working to try and find funding for a permanent branch site. Many in the community understand having a library branch in Roseland will help many local residents, young and old. The same day she spoke there was a Santa Rosa city road crew out fixing pot holes on McMinn Ave. and Sunset Ave. in central Roseland south of Sebastopol Rd. If there is a wet winter, fixing potholes as soon as possible is very important to avoid serious road damage. Also avoiding stormwater pollution from potholes is very important for the health of Roseland Creek. Back when St. Joseph community organizers first came to Roseland in the 1990s the issue, we locals successfully worked on was addressing stormwater pollution by Wrecking yards in Roseland.
Another event from December was the Pearl Harbor memorial event held Friday morning Dec. 7. It was to commemorate those men and women serving in the US Military in Hawaii on Dec. 7, 1941 when Japanese military forces attacked Pearl Harbor Naval Base. Of the over 2,000 Americans killed that morning one was a young man from Roseland named George Maybee. He had lived on Davis St. near where Highway 101 was constructed cutting Roseland off from Santa Rosa. He died on the USS Arizona. As we near the eighty year anniversary of the “Day of Infamy” there are some Roseland residents now looking into how to honor this veteran and the other veterans from Roseland who have served our country. Roseland Review will let you know.
