Requiem For The Land

by Jude Kreissman

We began to understand that right here in our own back yard was a treasure	It is a summer night in the early 1980's. I am at a hearing for the proposed Laguna Plan at the Sebastopol Community Center, attending one of the first of countless meetings I would go to after moving to the beautiful, sleepy little town of Sebastopol. Newly arrived from Mendocino county with family and pets, and completely smitten with Sonoma County's golden hills, apple orchards and green riverways, I have decided to take a stand. This, I know, is home; for better or for worse I will get involved. Rows of chairs are filled with people, a tense and attentive Council facing them. Speaker after speaker stands to testify and talk about the Laguna, its animals, plants, endangered species and importance as a flood plain. People talk about 'fill': the pad of earth required to lay foundations before building can take place. 'No net fill' becomes a battle cry heard again and again as it becomes clearer that fill, which causes flooding, water pollution, destruction of habitat, and countless woes for those living downstream, must not be allowed. The Laguna is recalled by some old timers as a place of pristine beauty. Old photographs show women in white, in proper hats and parasols, lazily canoeing down a beautiful waterway, swimmers and fisherfolk nearby. Since then, and until the awareness of the Laguna caught on, the Laguna was used as a dump site, with apple waste and cement refuse poisoning the water and wrecking portions of the embankment. Regarded by some as "junk land," some people thought it would be a good place to build things. But places like the Laguna were beginning to be looked at differently. Lands once known as "swamp," with all the problematic images the word evokes, were becoming known by the nobler, more ecologically urgent term "wetland". A new word, "wetland" gave a name to the growing body of information and the environmental movement that grew as a result of that information. People began to understand the importance of all the pieces of different ecosystems, how their interaction was vital to their survival. One of these pieces was 'uplands', a crucial part of the wetland environment for wildlife, plants and water flow. We began to understand that right here in our own back yard was a treasure, a resource to be restored, guarded and cared for: this place was special. Public sentiment was changing and with it the response to development along the Laguna. It became a fight people took up with determination and courage, never dreaming it would go on for more than a decade.
Many a family dinner, Little League game, and quiet evening was given up to oppose these projects	The land we know now as "Palm Terrace," behind Palm Drive Hospital and adjacent to the Laguna, has always been speculated upon. Originally an Indian village, it later was owned by the Walker family until 1898, when a myriad of family deeds indicates numerous changes. In 1988 the property was purchased from S.H.P. investments (a partnership of Palm Terrace doctors and local realtors) and Hawaiian Masons' Pension Fund for a mere $221,372.90 for the major parcel. The new owners were Mrs. Ghilotti, who owned 65% of the property, Mr. and Mrs. Cheli at 17.5%, and Mr. and Mrs. George Young who also owned 17.5%. George Young has been most closely associated with the project in the public's eye, and the focus of a great deal of community protest and anger. Literally dozens of City Council, Planning Commission and Design Review meetings have taken place to look at the numerous projects proposed, the first of which called for more than 80 homes and an office building. At every one of these meetings, people stood up to testify about the wrongness of building homes, offices, roads and other structures in this place. Many a family dinner, Little League game, and quiet evening was given up so that the opposition to these projects would not go unspoken. Many of the warriors in this fight have moved to other places. I think both the owner/developers and local environmentalists have grown weary : the latest proposal is considerably scaled down. People know that this place is special. Once it is built, it is gone. Early in the 1980s, discussions among those concerned about the environment and quality of life centered largely around saving open space in general. Sonoma County at that time was still a bucolic retreat, and any resident with their eyes open knew how lucky she or he was to live here. Newspaper articles and editorials, as well as Sebastopol Tomorrow newsletters, reflect a public charged up about growth and its impacts, and seeing very clearly the danger on the horizon. The acquisition of open space, the Farmlands Initiative, and other discussions led to Measure A, the Open Space Initiative and its funding mechanism, Measure C. Looking back, we can be even more grateful that Sonoma County residents had the vision and backbone to create, fund and approve these mechanisms. In the current political climate, one wonders what their fate today would be.
There were midnight phone calls to rally speakers	This, then, is a picture not from the scientific EIR point of view of impacts and mitigations, or a planner's view of zoning and usage. At this point there are several feet of paper documenting the trail of legal meetings, hearings and testimony, people's books and notebooks, newsletters and news articles about this land. The records kept by those who have fought to save it are incomplete, kept in boxes under a bed, an old notebook on the night stand. Even though this isn't a scholarly chronology of all that this project has provoked, the evidence of community action is monumental. There were midnight phone calls to friends, talking to neighbors to rally the numerous speakers who articulately voiced their dismay and anger at every meeting; walkers in the neighborhoods at close to midnight arranging photos for a local newspaper; letters to the editors of newspapers, council members and other officials; gathering of signatures for several petitions; papers of opposition and articles lambasting project and developers.
Feeling the Land's Power	Standing on the long slope, the sun and clouds of a huge sky are brilliant blue and white. The long grass covers my ankles and sweeps green down to the wire fence making the perforated line of division between properties. In front of me the sweep continues to pools, oaks, the winding ribbon of Laguna water, beyond to more green and on and on to the purple/blue hills across the Santa Rosa plain. I see the wire "cages" around the little oaks planted by school children. Working with the Laguna Foundation and other wonderful volunteers, in 1992 , a grant was secured from the Sonoma County Community Foundation to replant portions of the Laguna that have suffered from modern agricultural practices and encroaching development. I have worked with the school children who planted the young oaks, wild rose, and willows, and helped them spray paint the wonderful blue fish who declare: "Don't Dump here flows to Laguna." I have talked with those same children about the underground water that flows beneath our feet, beneath the pavement, the secret streams that flow through Sebastopol, converge and empty through Ives Park and tumble on to the Laguna. I stand here, now, as an observer, as a lover of the vanishing openness of our country, as a person who has decided to take a stand in this community. I feel the land's power and beauty and understand that this tremendous force is the connection that people speak of when they talk of the connection to the earth. It used to exist, there beneath the pavement of shopping centers and housing tracts, skyscrapers and freeways. But it is not retrievable. Here on this land, we still have a chance.
How have we arrived at such a place of wrongness that there is even the power to do this?	I decided to write this article when my family and I were lucky enough to attend a remarkable meeting in March. At this meeting, many Indian leaders and citizens who know this land, not as Palm Terrace, but as the Walker Ranch, met to discuss what could be done. To many of the people there, the land is a last remaining remnant of ancient homeland. The extraordinary picture painted of life on the ranch and before left many in the room deeply moved. That story is another volume in itself. As a long time activist fighting development of this property, one of my reactions was "The only reason this land is not completely developed right now is because of all the hard work of people over the last ten years. The history of citizen action on this land is something that needs to be recorded." With the "introduction" of Indian homeland issues to those of us who fought to preserve this land because of environmental, social, aesthetic and a other reasons, the importance of the place becomes even more compelling, more urgent, more focused. How can we, with what we know now, say no to these people wanting their homeland back? How have we arrived at such a place of wrongness that there is even the power to do this? I confess to having lost hope of saving this beautiful place, but as long as the grasses grow instead of concrete, my hope will never entirely vanish. Let us never forget the energy and commitment we gave. We did the right thing.

Jude Kreissman lives with her family in Sebastopol. She currently is the coordinator for home studies in the Sebastopol Union School District.

This article first appeared in EIR.

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