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Roseland Review by Duane Dewitt - September 2018

The Roseland Village Teen Center has reopened for the rest of the year at Roseland Library in Roseland Village Shopping Center. Run by Sonoma County Boys and Girls Club the Teen Center is for young people in grades 7 to 12. The center is open from 3 pm until 7 pm Monday through Friday, with an earlier beginning on Wednesdays from 1:30 pm until 7 pm. The Roseland Library has been given confirmation they will be able to stay in the building at 770 Sebastopol Rd. until at least February 2019. This is good news for many Roseland patrons of the library who have come to rely upon many services offered there. Workers there are unsung heroes in helping Roseland residents to overcome many adversities and disadvantages faced growing up and living in Roseland.

There are other unsung heroes doing their part to help make Roseland a better place in spite of the careless and reckless transients rolling through the area all the time now. Recently a nice woman named Patty and her man friend were out on Burbank Ave. near Southwest Community Park picking up trash along the roadway as they walked along. They live up on Sunset Ave. so it was heartening to see them “taking care” of the neighborhood far from their home. Another unsung hero is a woman who lives in Bellevue Ranch neighborhood immediately south of Roseland, and next to Southwest Community Park, who picks up trash from a vacant lot on Burbank Ave. and Hearn Ave just north of the park. Another woman on West Ave. and South Ave. was cleaning the gutters out near the West Ave. Apartments because the city still has not had the “street sweeper” do it yet. Big Thanks to these nice people. Perhaps in the future the city will start to have the gutters cleaned well and the streets fully swept in Roseland.

On Saturday, October 27 at 10 am there will be a “Make a Difference Day” effort to clean up Roseland Creek, Roseland Neighbor Wood, and surrounding neighborhood areas in the center of Roseland. This is an event with support of the Hughes Ave. Neighborhood Association and the Burbank Ave. Neighborhood Association nearest the Roseland Neighbor Wood. There will also be folks working with the Community Action Partnership along with Roseland Action and other groups. Please come out that day to help keep Roseland as nice and as clean as we can. This is really important now because the city is pushing homeless people back into the neighborhoods with the continuing sweeps of their camps elsewhere. Like a tube of toothpaste, those poor unfortunate folks are being squeezed back to where they have been before.

Alistair Bleifuss of the Santa Rosa City Creek Stewardship Program recently told the city Waterways Advisory Committee of how homeless people live in the creek beds and city storm drain systems until the first rains come. They leave belongings which then get washed into the creeks creating all kinds of problems. The rains may return early so Roseland needs to be ready. Please do your best to keep trash and litter out of our Roseland Creek watershed area.

Recently the city took possession of property on Burbank Ave. which has two homes there. As the city was putting up boarding on the houses some expensive windows went missing. Some city staff now tellRoseland Review they believe a full set of top line Andersen Double Pane windows from two buildings may be missing. This will lead to some further research. It is hard to find accountability in regards to taxpayer-owned property which goes missing.Roseland Review has tried to find out what happened to the Bowling equipment which was bought by the taxpayers when the Rose Bowl was purchased in 2011. No one seems to know, but we are still on the case.

While on that topic the Sonoma County Department of Community Development, which now holds title to the land in the name of the taxpayers, is in discussions to get the Roseland Village site into construction. Where the Rose Bowl was, now has been an eyesore for years. A blight on our community. The project has been delayed due to “permits” not being received regarding whether the site is considered “cleaned” of possible pollution at the site. The county is also working with a consultant group, Stantec, on administering the US EPA grant for Brownfields revitalization received in the past for other areas of Roseland. Unfortunately, some of the same nefarious characters involved in the Rose Bowl fiasco seem to be lurking in the current efforts going on. Roseland Review will keep you posted. We ask for “news tips” about Roseland.

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