"Let's Talk Tourism" in Sonoma County

Charlotte Williams of Wine & Water Watch (www.winewaterwatch.org) just sent out the following information. I plan to go to the July 21 presentation in Sebastopol. Please join us at one or more of these events, as it becomes increasingly difficult for locals to stay here and to find affordable housing. I went to the website mentioned below, which provided lots of information.

I am also glad to hear that there will be an open WWW meeting in September, with details to follow. We are loosing our sweet county to winery event centers and rampant tourism. It is important to keep speaking up. Tourism serves only a few, including many who do not live and work here, but extract the natural resources of the Redwood Empire.

Dear Wine & Water Watch,
It's been several months since I've sent anything to you, so I hope you are all well and still paying attention.

Below are some upcoming meetings hosted by Sonoma County Tourism you might like to attend. These may be good opportunities to let the industry know what your experiences and concerns are whether in Sonoma County or elsewhere, and perhaps to offer alternatives to business as usual.

WWW will be hosting an open-to-the-public meeting in September. I'll send the details on that before long. In the meantime, do check out our website. https://winewaterwatch.org/

ANNOUNCEMENT: "Let's talk TOURISM"
A series of conversations to discuss Sonoma County's hospitality Industry.
We invite our residents and tourism businesses to join Sonoma County Tourism in this discussion at locations around the county.

July 18: Cloverdale: 8:30 - 10am. Grange Hall

July 21: Sebastopol 8:30 - 10:00 am. Sebastopol Center for the Arts

July 26: Petaluma: 8:30 - 10am. Community Center

August 10: Healdsburg 8:30 - 10:00 am. Villa Chanticleer (Thursday morning)

Sept 1: Rohnert Park: 8:30 - 10am: (Petaluma location listed)

sonomacounty.com/partners.
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Charlotte Williams[email protected]707-889-1788 cell

Thank you Shepherd for posting this and keeping our community informed on how WE THE PEOPLE who live in this county can make our voices heard.

Tourism is industrializing our quiet neighborhoods, causing many local servicing businesses to go under from expensive rents for stores that cater to tourists. recover. Our neighborhoods are becoming an investment and not a home while events and tasting rooms fragment our communities. People can't afford to live with unaffordable housing costs brought by out of town buyers with deep pockets. Our children move out because they can't buy a home or envision a future here. Our roads are in terrible shape and traffic congestion on the weekends (right turn only season) are getting worse and worse so locals use back roads to navigate causing safety issues. It has been reported that over half the police calls are now from tourists and the taxpayers are picking up that tab also.

In Europe tourism has been handled by keeping events out of neighborhoods and in town centers where the infrastructure can handle the influx of out-of- towners. The tourism industry works hand in hand with the wine industry. Neither will ever be "sustainable" (this word means NOTHING now, corporate word for "you don't need to see my papers") and no we don't believe you are anything but a profit enterprise for the elite until we see some big changes.

Time to speak up. If you don't show up, the tourism board thinks you don't care.

We are loosing our small towns to these outside investors, often from outside the U.S.. These are important meetings to attend and speak out against our once ag. county turning into an alcoholic county, with all the dangers that presents. Please join us there. For more information, you can go to www.winewaterwatch.org, as well as to the PRSC website.

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According to U.S. News & World Report travel rankings revealed June 20, Sonoma County was named second only to Italy’s Tuscany region as the “Best Wine Vacation” destination. (Napa came in third.)

Sonoma Co. tops Napa Valley as ‘Best Wine Vacation’

You know what that means -- more tourists, more traffic, more impacts and more pressure from developers to cash in on the grape-rush!

The County Tourism Board is holding public meetings this month to hear from residents -- please consider attending a meeting in your town to voice your opinions and share your thoughts! Resident input and perspective is critical as we expect many businesses who benefit from tourism will be well represented. Please click on the link at the end of each date and city to register to attend.

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Let's Talk Tourism: Sonoma County Tourism invites you to talk tourism and explore the road ahead

Let’s Talk Tourism is a series of conversations to discuss Sonoma County's tourism industry. We invite our residents and tourism businesses in Sebastopol to join Sonoma County Tourism in this discussion.

July 21, 2017 - SEBASTOPOL
8:30am - 10:00am
Sebastopol Center for the Arts
282 S High St, Sebastopol
Register here

July 26 - PETALUMA
8:30am - 10:00am
Petaluma Community Center
320 N McDowell Blvd, Petaluma
Register here

September 1 - ROHNERT PARK
8:30am - 10:00am
City of Rohnert Park - City Hall
130 Avran Ave. , Rohnert Park
Register here

Click the link below for the PD's piece on these important public meetings:

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‘Let’s Talk Tourism’ may be coming soon to a town near you

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Posted in reply to the post by Shepherd:

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July 21, 2017 - SEBASTOPOL
8:30am - 10:00am
Sebastopol Center for the Arts
282 S High St, Sebastopol
Register here

July 26 - PETALUMA
8:30am - 10:00am
Petaluma Community Center
320 N McDowell Blvd, Petaluma
Register here

September 1 - ROHNERT PARK
8:30am - 10:00am
City of Rohnert Park - City Hall
130 Avran Ave. , Rohnert Park
Register here

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Some of us from Wine and Water Watch (www.winewaterwatch.org) and Preserve Rural Sonoma County went to the tourism meeting today. It was instructive. We spoke up. I hope that others of you will attend these other important meetings and speak up. There are many issues to talk about. Rampant tourism threatens our county. A moderate amount of tourism can be helpful, but enough is enough, especially when it involves the bloated wine industry, which displaces food farming. The number one user of that killer Roundup, which causes cancer, in Sonoma County, is the wine industry.

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Posted in reply to the post by Barry:

Click the link below for the PD's piece on these important public meetings:

https://www.waccobb.net/forums/wacco...4_15-56-29.png
‘Let’s Talk Tourism’ may be coming soon to a town near you

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Thank you Shepherd for posting this important meeting. I attended their PR briefing today in Sebastopol and wonder what other communities must be saying or not saying. The tourism board seemed surprised at our comments about all the negatives and hardly spoke about the solutions that were given. Made me feel like it was just an exercise and PR push, calm down the natives. We'll see if anything comes out of it.

Residents brought out the fact that tourism/wine industry is pricing all of us long time residents and our kids out of the housing market, causing terrible pollution from traffic issues, all surface roads are impacted now as people who live here find alternative routes to avoid the congestion during "right turn only season".

Fragmenting of our neighborhoods by tourism, high rates of police calls from tourists, roads crumbling, low wage industries paying $14-16 an hour hardly support the workers, loss of stores catering to residents disappearing for tourist based businesses....and the list goes on. The tourist occupancy tax (TOT) can't cover all the costs to us taxpayers. A very good business model did come out by a woman who is running food tours by vans which takes traffic off the roads and supports true local business. What a great idea to get tourism impacts under control and the residents benefit big time.

Food security was another issue brought up, lack of affordable food farms, 96% of our food brought in, the economic impacts of a tourism based economy (first to crash and last to return). Suggestions for city centric tourism like European models that work were also mentioned. Let's see what they come up with. Please other communities' let them know what you think and try to give them other solutions. We are at peak tourism levels and our infrastructure and quality of life are not sacrifice zones for profit, they are our neighborhoods/homes, and not investments.

The event was mainly a talk by the Tourism board about themselves, and how much they can help any of us with businesses that attract or need tourists. There was hardly any time, we had to push for it, for the community to give feedback on the effects of tourism here and to problem solve. It was truly disappointing for many of us who thought it would be a forum for the community to give input on tourism.

Someone from Preserve Rural Sonoma County who was there felt that the intention of the meetings is to serve as "focus groups," so that they can decide how to be better cheerleaders for expanding tourism. No Sebastopol City Council members were present.

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Posted in reply to the post by sealwatcher:

Sonds like the fix is in. Very disappointing but somehow not surprising. Where's the city council on this issue? :wink2:

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Yeah, I guess we all thought they were going to listen to help the community but in reality looks more and more like a fact finding mission for the wine/tourism industry and PR push on how great they are. The little old lady who called them out on the PR push instead of what they advertised as a listening to community get together was correct when she pushed them. Since the tourism bureau works directly withy the wine industry, more than likely they wanted the info to give to them so they can push their agenda, not the residents.

I won't be surprised when the wine industry uses all this info to twist somehow and try to deflect all of our concerns. The wine industry fudges "facts" like their pull out in the PD claiming 25% of our wineries are organic or biodynamic when actual acreage was 2%. They are slick and have alot of money to fool us all.

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Posted in reply to the post by Dustyg:

The event was mainly a talk by the Tourism board about themselves, and how much they can help any of us with businesses that attract or need tourists. ...

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This is SO like what happened with the Courthouse Square boondoggle - Public meetings 'to seek input' only after it was a closed-door done (horribly) deal. So many folks spoke against it, to no avail. The result is a sterile, ugly parking lot.

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Posted in reply to the post by O.W.:

Yeah, I guess we all thought they were going to listen to help the community but in reality looks more and more like a fact finding mission for the wine/tourism industry and PR push on how great they are. ...

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Welcome to the Napafication of Sonoma County. Having colonized the smaller Napa County, the wine industry now takes on Sonoma County, with its rampant, destructive tourism. Napa vintners, such as Paul Hobbs and Joe Wagner, have moved some of their touristic operations to Sonoma County.

Following is what Napa Vision 2050 has written about the multiple dangers of tourism. We are currently loosing our county to foreign interests, especially in Asia, as well as Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Now is the time to speak up. Or else, welcome to Disneyland, Sonoma County, once known as the natural "Redwood Empire," now claimed by the commercial "Wine Country;" language is important. They will cut our forests, plant along our coastline, and take their wealth outside our beloved county. Is this what you want? If not, please speak up, or forever hold your peace.

Below are the notes from the Napa Economic Forum.

5 Stages: “Tourism’s Faustian Deal” – George Caloyannidis: NAPA Vision 2050

• Stage 1: Tourism is purely supplemental and supportive to an existing economic base.
  
• Stage 2: The local economy increases its reliance on tourist dollars and is perceived by local governments and businesses as essential.
  
• Stage 3: The dislocation of the local population begins, a gradual tearing of the social fabric, the proliferation of low paying jobs with the associated concentration of outsider investor wealth at the top.
  
  • Examples: Neighbors move out and part-timers or vacation rentals proliferate: neighbors do not know or talk to each other.
    - Low paying jobs proliferate – the income gap widens – only the wealthy are “thriving”
  • – Housing is not available – workers have to commute in creating more traffic congestion.

• Stage 4: By this stage, the process is irreversible. The deficit economy of tourism becomes evident as the wear and tear of the infrastructure requires ever increasing funds for maintenance and further destructive expansion. (Taxes, use and mitigation fees)
• • Examples: Tourism becomes “unwelcome” by local residents.
    - Traffic and road safety problems proliferate. Local governments propose additional taxes on residents to pay for fixing roads, etc. Are reluctant to impose “mitigation fees” on the businesses benefiting from the tourism.
  • - Authentic character is lost – feels like living in or visiting Disneyland.

• Stage 5: The Faustian deal is complete: Local government has negotiated itself into the corner of no alternative than the vicious cycle of even more and more tourism to pay the bills. It never catches up … the infrastructure erodes … once thriving communities are in tatters both in terms of infrastructure and social capital.

Tourism then moves to other destinations – and the cycle starts again – devouring once thriving communities and locations with authentic character.

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Posted in reply to the post by Shepherd:

...5 Stages: “Tourism’s Faustian Deal” – George Caloyannidis: NAPA Vision 2050...

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I'd say we are at stage 3. While I still support the hotel, I'd say it's time for "Shields Up!".

Some amount of tourism is a good thing. Each community needs some type of industry the brings in dollars from the outside. Tourism is a lot better than a steel mill! But it needs to remain in balance and I'd say we have reached the edge of that balance.

I really like how the concept of Napafication has been analyzed and put into progressive stages leading to a complete takeover of the county's economic system. This may enable us to mount a resistance to keep it from getting beyond Stage 3. Part of the solution may be a competing economic force to diminish its economic and political strength. In my song, I proclaim, "It's NOT Wine Country, let's be clear. It's Redwood Country, go have that beer."

7/25 There is an article in today's Washington Post advertising the Russian River Resort Area. I live in Forestville and have given up going out on the weekends. The traffic is awful and a good deal of it goes right thru Sebastopol. Once the quiet peaceful town now the money interests won't be happy until they own everything and have pushed all the lower income people to leave. I wish we could reverse or slow it down but profit for the few is winning once more.

Hi Gene and others,
I went to the website for today's Washington Post but I could not find the Russian River Resort Area article mentioned below. Would you, or someone, please send us the link, and even parts of the article that might be of interest to us. I feel that we can at least slow this tourism binge here down and preserve some of the things we locals love about Sonoma County.

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Posted in reply to the post by Gene:

7/25 There is an article in today's Washington Post advertising the Russian River Resort Area. ...

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Hi Sheppard and others, I tried to find the article with no luck. I went over all the other news pages I might have visited today but turned up nothing. Embarrassing. I will continue to search. It had a map attached and some travel brochure type pics. I wish I would have emailed a link to myself. Sorry I can't confirm, Gene

This article is amazing. It looks to me like we're at the end of stage 3, and soon to enter stage 4. After we are decimated and no longer to live in our home town, who's next? Can't this be stopped?

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Posted in reply to the post by Shepherd:

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5 Stages: “Tourism’s Faustian Deal” – George Caloyannidis: NAPA Vision 2050

• Stage 1: Tourism is purely supplemental and supportive to an existing economic base.
  
• Stage 2: The local economy increases its reliance on tourist dollars and is perceived by local governments and businesses as essential.
  
• Stage 3: The dislocation of the local population begins, a gradual tearing of the social fabric, the proliferation of low paying jobs with the associated concentration of outsider investor wealth at the top.
  
  • Examples: Neighbors move out and part-timers or vacation rentals proliferate: neighbors do not know or talk to each other.
    - Low paying jobs proliferate – the income gap widens – only the wealthy are “thriving”
  • – Housing is not available – workers have to commute in creating more traffic congestion.

• Stage 4: By this stage, the process is irreversible. The deficit economy of tourism becomes evident as the wear and tear of the infrastructure requires ever increasing funds for maintenance and further destructive expansion. (Taxes, use and mitigation fees)
• 
  
  • Examples: Tourism becomes “unwelcome” by local residents.
    - Traffic and road safety problems proliferate. Local governments propose additional taxes on residents to pay for fixing roads, etc. Are reluctant to impose “mitigation fees” on the businesses benefiting from the tourism.
  • - Authentic character is lost – feels like living in or visiting Disneyland.

• Stage 5: The Faustian deal is complete: ...

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Posted in reply to the post by Dustyg:

This article is amazing. It looks to me like we're at the end of stage 3, and soon to enter stage 4. After we are decimated and no longer to live in our home town, who's next? Can't this be stopped?

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Did anyone else hear or read the news story that Sonoma County is the preferred tourist destination second only to the Tuscan region of Italy, worldwide. Brace yourselves. As to hammering roads, (infrastructure) even tourists will have to go a LONG way to beat the abuse our roads take from Forestville's two gravel pits. PITS!

And hold on, the same folks are drooling over the coast so they can wine/tourist/trash there as well. Right now the County is reviewing the winery event rules and they want to add "food pairings" to tasting rooms. GoLocal said 96% of all our food in imported now. That will impact so many restaurants. Why aren't the owners of local restaurants not making noise about this? When does this insanity get under control? It's an arms race for more tasting rooms, more vineyards, more event centers. The little guys can't compete! This is all about industrial viticulture, not protecting the small grape growers.

Incremental changes like this for the special interests running our county make huge changes for everyone. This is how Napa has become such a huge traffic jam on weekends ( I know people who have given up going there due to traffic jams continually on weekends, too much stress) ......Napa allowed the viticulture industry sneak in tweaks to definitions by allowing marketing at wineries and adding events. Are we next?

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Posted in reply to the post by Dorothy Friberg:

Did anyone else hear or read the news story that Sonoma County is the preferred tourist destination second only to the Tuscan region of Italy, worldwide. Brace yourselves. As to hammering roads, (infrastructure) even tourists will have to go a LONG way to beat the abuse our roads take from Forestville's two gravel pits. PITS!

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i am having a nostalgic moment-but it's only going to last a moment because soon i'm going to get slapped in the face with a glass of wine.
How does one stop the all- consuming greed that’s been creeping it’s way into the county for years now? It started with a little vineyard, here and there...everyone thought it was
Cute. And a poshy restaurant too here and there. We thought that was cute too.
Don’t know who remembers 40 years ago, the quaint town of Sonoma? You can hardly drive through this town anymore, on a regular weekday...back to back traffic.
I lived there for almost a decade. Easy living, the quaint is not so quaint any longer.
so
Moved to the West County. Wow, I thought the Russian river was pretty nice. Places to fish, swim, the river was so full, clean. I thought I’d found a little paradise.
The River is now pretty funky. Arromatic -not the good kind. Places that have been lying close to river for many years,
Cabins, now have their waste going into the river because the septics are finally failing.


Back 30 years ago, 80% of the cabins were unoccupied most of the year, summers were fun, folks came up from the Bay Area to hang out in their cabins that were in their family for years, now those cabins are occupied the majority of the year, and rentals are practically non-existent. Everyone fights for a little place to live.
County doesn’t give a damn.
Oh, I know there are river keepers, and I used to sit on the beach with my kids, they were naked little babes on mother’s beach- called mother’s beach because all the local moms would bring their kids down on summer days, we all knew one another and back then, we would leave our canoes on the beach overnight, untied, and didn’t worry someone would steal it...and the river keepers were back even then, watching to make sure our river was ok.
It’s not ok anymore.


We try to ignore that now mother’s beach is not local anymore. Overflowing with people from as far away as the bay area. And we ignore that the babies are playing in sludge..who knows what it is but it looks weird and Aromatic , not the good kind :(
The river is lower each year that boats, rafts coming down, people have to get out and walk a lot of the way by mothers.


I spend a lot of time way up north, where the tourists come but not a deluge like Sonoma County
But, be assured the vultures are coming, they are wooing the elected officials and promising them business for their economy and they promise they will pick up their waste if they make any. They are liars.
Crystal Geyser is trying to steal the water, everywhere they go they get thrown out, but
One day, they are going to succeed like the wine industry has done in Sonoma County.
They started with a cute vineyard here and there, and now they are drunk on their profits from taking over some of the most precious land Sonoma County had to offer.


But, our elected officials, slowly, but surely sold us out.
And driving from one end of the county to the other is ridiculous, and the dance goes on and on.
Growth, and more growth, business, wine poshy posh boutiques, Barlow everywhere, just too cute huh.
And the Price for it all is our grandchildren’s future. They won’t know what quaint means ever again so throw that word out of their vocabulary

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Posted in reply to the post by Dustyg:

This article is amazing. It looks to me like we're at the end of stage 3, and soon to enter stage 4. After we are decimated and no longer to live in our home town, who's next? Can't this be stopped?

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Great post Beshiva, with so many points on our current state of affairs here in the county. We are all living in a sacrifice zone for rich corporations who only care about profits. The supervisors will probably push through the approval for "food pairings" at wineries. More low paying jobs, people having 2 tot 3 jobs to hang on. Who will pay their generous benefits/pensions? They have skin in the game too but only see immediate revenue. We need better paying jobs and our government is busy picking the low hanging fruit.

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Posted in reply to the post by beshiva:

i am having a nostalgic moment-but it's only going to last a moment because soon i'm going to get slapped in the face with a glass of wine.
How does one stop the all- consuming greed that’s been creeping it’s way into the county for years now?...

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Food for thought:

Yao Ming retired Chinese NBA basketball star owns a winery, you too can have a piece of the action:

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Yao Ming Turns to Crowdfunding to Raise Profile of Napa Winery

"Charm offensive" is how one person described the tourism cheerleaders. I must admit that I found most of the tourism team charming.

I also find others in the hospitality industry, including vintners, to be charming. We need to point this out to people that these boosters can be charming.

Guess the tourism promoting folks got an ear full in Sebastopol. Thank you community for doing your citizens job! :heart:
The tourism bureau has cancelled their next pro-tourism push in Healdsburg due to "scheduling conflicts". They had this set for some time so it appears that they were not prepared for the push back by residents who gave them the problems and some solutions as well which they were not prepared to deal with.

The tourism folks let us know they are pushing for even more tourists mid week and shoulder seasons and more events at wineries. We need continual traffic jams like a hole in the head. Some of the solutions that were given were van tours to get cars and GHG gases down, centering events where infrastructure can handle the water, roads and sewage produced.

With this weeks ruling on the County's Climate Action Plan being insufficient due to lack of real data on cumulative impacts, this will force the county to be realistic and not put their heads in the sand when it comes to the winery/tourism business model practiced in Sonoma County. Here are the points of the recent ruling from the Sonoma Sun:
Commenting on the ruling, Bernhaut said, “The court’s ruling validates River Watch’s contentions that:
1. By failing to account for GHG emissions from global tourist travel and global distribution of wine and other Sonoma County products, the CAP grossly understated the true GHG emissions generated by activities in Sonoma County.

2. By failing to identify clear and enforceable reduction measures, the CAP failed to provide reasonable assurance that it’s program would result in the projected reduction of the County’s GHG emissions to 25% below 1990 levels, as predicted in the CAP, or even to 1990 levels by 2020, consistent with AB32.

3. By refusing to evaluate an alternative involving a moratorium or any form of control of growth in tourist destinations and/or wine production, the CAP failed to consider environmentally superior alternatives which are necessary for any realistic hope of reducing Sonoma County’s contribution to global GHG emissions to levels required to avoid reaching tipping points for irreversible catastrophic global warming.”

Bernhaut added, “It’s time to admit that perpetual growth on a planet with limited resources and carrying capacity is not sustainable.”


Of course it won't be pretty as we all know the impacts, live with them daily. Thank you Jerry and River Watch!

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Posted in reply to the post by beshiva:

How does one stop the all- consuming greed that’s been creeping it’s way into the county for years now? It started with a little vineyard, here and there...everyone thought it was
Cute. And a poshy restaurant too here and there. We thought that was cute too.
Don’t know who remembers 40 years ago, the quaint town of Sonoma? You can hardly drive through this town anymore, on a regular weekday...back to back traffic.

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I was just at Bass Lake, visiting friends who live there. No-one seemed to notice the small invasion from Sonoma Co, mostly because the invasion is mostly made up of people from Fresno and other valley towns. Just be glad they prefer boating & fishing to wine tasting.

I agree it sucks for those of us who've been here for long enough to remember when it was small. There's nothing unique about our area, though. Everywhere I go that's at all worth visiting or living in has this problem. Personally, I think it's unfair to call it all greed, and single out those who seek to benefit from the changes rather than suffer from them. It's too easy for people to travel these days, and weirdly enough there seem to be more people with money to spend (I still don't get how that can be true).

In the good old days, people from S.F. put their families into river-side cabins for the summer. Now people live there full-time and commute out, along with people from much farther than S.F. coming in to visit. Short of returning to the economy, technology, and population of the 30s I don't know what could stop it.

The simplest option, trying to prevent changes and deny access to new people, won't work. The nicest option, that we all start living by more enlightened values, seems unlikely. But fortunately for us or not, it's a problem for people living in Tahiti, New Orleans, Nashville and Sebastopol. With that many people being negatively affected, some creative solutions better show up.

Thanks Barry, for consolidating threads about what happens here. This is like george washington fighting for independence from the dominant impypower. Loving is a loss, winning is possible. Reality is trump, possibility is power. Power determines the future.

Right now i am dealing with the power of Russian river kleptomaniacs about fife creek. They seem to be bought by wine.

Its easy to be negative. I have a long running convo with my mad bro miles about suicide bombers, are you over and out? Sure change might be a true constant(quantum alternative; speed of light), but does that mean hope is not possible? Do citizens have power in making change? I choose my belief, i am willing to die, metaphorically, are you?

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Posted in reply to the post by podfish:

I was just at Bass Lake, visiting friends who live there. ...

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Posted in reply to the post by sealwatcher:

CM had to leave behind their NO MEAT ethic in order to afford that space. I can testify that the meat creep is on. Aside from that, Thursday nights close down the ample easy-access parking so that locals - once again - do their shopping on other days. Tourism is a low form of land use and without an underlying economy Sonoma County was easy pickings. :wink2:...?

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Ever wonder if native americans could of survived without eating meat? There are ethical ways to raise meat to sell at places like community market. You sound like you might be vitamin B12 deficient. Imagine if we could funnel some of those tourism dollars into saving what we have left of the redwood trees. That could be a great way to help protect the largest trees on this planet, which grow no where else but good ol (mostly) Northern California

We are loosing our county to outsiders, particularly corporate marijuana growers, who have lots of cash. I bought my food farm 24 years ago. Only the wealthy can now buy good ag land, which they then plant either marijuana or wine grapes. What about food?