The possibility of a new wastewater discharge pipeline to the county's popular Steelhead Beach in Forestville (above)  has apparently been killed by cost considerations.

 The pipeline to the proposedSteelhead Beach discharge site would have run through the quiet corridor of Osprey trail (below). Photos courtesy West County Gazette.

Brenda Adelman of theRussian River Watershed Protection Committee contends that Santa Rosa could and should reduce the amount of water flowing into the treatment plant by moving more aggressively to repair leaking sewer pipes that allow rainwater to get in.

Job skills, high school diplomas, personal responsibility and building low income housing-they're all wrapped up together in YouthBuild Santa Rosa.

 

YouthBuild has been active in Sonoma County for the past 13 years, but the overall program has a much longer history.

 

A new cohort of YouthBuild students is forming now, with required interviews on Dec. 15. Casey McChesney outlines the application process.

 

 

  The 2001 YouthBuild class were joined by then Santa Rosa Mayor Mike Martini (front, second from left), Congresswoman Lynne Woolsey, and County Supervisor Mike Reilly at the grand opening of their new office seven years ago. The program is now preparing to move into new, larger quarters in early 2009.

From the Basque region of Spain comes a flourishing new business model that emphasizes cooperation as a key to innovation.

Georgia Kelly(left) is the founder of the Sonoma-based Praxis Peace Institute. The Praxis website has details about the seminar they hosted at Mondragon in September, as well as a schedule of upcoming events, including their annual lunch, Dec. 6 with featured guests Swami Beyondanada and actress/activist Mimi Kennedy.

Cooperative governance also leads to unorthodox responses to typical business problems. In the audio clip below, Kelly describes how the leadership and workforce at one of the Mondragon companies dealt with a unanticipated slowdown.

The workforce at the Mondragon Cooperative's technology center.

Filipino-Americans are a growing presence in Sonoma County, with an interesting local history they are eager to share.

 The first Filipinos to travel to North America came aboard the Manila Galleons such as this, Spanish trading ships that traversed the Pacific ocean during the 1700s and 1800s. 

Most of the young Filipino men who came to California in the first half of the 20^th century intended to eventually return home, but many of them never did.

 

 

 

 Remembering Our Manongs- Sonoma County's Filipino History   is a historical documentary film covering the first Filipino immigrants who traveled to the US and settled in Sonoma County during the First half of the 20^th Century. 

 

Partial funding for the film came from  California Council for the Humanities through their California Stories grant with additional support from the Filipino American National Historical Society.  The Society's Sonoma County chapter is one of 30 across the country. Chapter president Delia  Lanosa Rapolla explains the organization's purpos in 5the audio clip below.

 

Two public screenings of  Remembering Our Manongs- Sonoma County's Filipino History  are currently scheduled. The first, from 1-4 pm on  Saturday, November 8th at the Sonoma County Office of Education (5430 Skylane Blvd., Santa Rosa), will be followed by a panel discussion on "Sharing the Filipino American Experience in K-12 Curriculum."  And on  Saturday, November 15th, also 1-4 pm, the film will be shown at the Finley Center (2060 W.College Ave.) in Santa Rosa,  followed by a panel discussion on "Preserving the Filipino American Experience--Storytelling and Intergenerational Dialog."

For more information about these events call (707) 294-3784.

 

The antidote to urban sprawl, says Greenbelt Alliance, is taller buildings and higher population densities within established urban core areas.

Greenbelt Alliance's recently published Smart Infill: A practical guide to creating vibrant places throughout the Bay Area  was written to inform decision makers about the benefits of these policies, and cite examples where they have been successfully employed. One of them, says Daisy Pistey-Lyhne, is the Town of Windsor.

 

Sonoma County has been a leader in adopting community separators or Urban Growth Boundaries for its cities. Those are a key first step in redirecting growth away from sprawl patterns back into urban infill.

 

 

For more information about the Sonoma County branch of Greenbelt Alliance, click here .

Greenbelt Alliance also regularly hosts hikes throughout the BayArea. You'll find a list of upcoming events here.