Apples for grapes; Hotel drama; and mind-blowing jazz
The Walker family, farming in Graton for over 100 years, will be honored as the Sonoma County Farm Bureau’s Farm Family of the Year. Lee Walker, 86, is a sixth generation apple farmer. He manages the farm alongside his son Lee Walker III, with a lot more family members helping out — when not at their day jobs. Over the years, the land around his farm was planted with grapes, but Walker said he was raised growing apples and didn’t know anything else. “It’s really sad,” said Walker, “we have the product and it’s in high demand. Farming is fun, but it has been taken away from the small farmer. I may be wrong though, maybe the small farmer can survive, but you have to be really small where you have an outside job and farm on the weekend.” Regulations are burdensome for a small farm, he says, and it’s hard to find labor to help the family bring in the harvest. In fact, this year, the pruning went unfinished. Yet the legacy lives on. “We like apples,” said the patriarch. “I don’t want to leave. We’ve made a lot of friends in the industry through the years, and that sort of thing is hard to walk away from. We still don’t do as well as the grape people, but we do this because we love it.”
Sonoma County has seen a steady increase in average occupancy, the number-crunchers report. The rate in 2016 was 77.6 percent, the highest ever. There are more rooms than ever, too, with even more on the drawing board, like the Sonoma Hotel Project (downtown on West Napa Street). That drama continues, as the City Council was set to hear this week an appeal by folks (Larry Barnett, private citizen, included) disputing the Environmental Impact Report certified by the Planning Commission. (That vote doesn’t mean absolute approval of the project, but is a necessary step). The appeal argues, hey, not so fast – why didn’t the EIR acknowledge the city’s own rule that this commercially-zoned parcel requires that 50 percent of the built structures be housing, unless a waiver is granted? The developer might be wondering that, too. Kenwood Investments, attorney Les Perry told the City, now prefers “to request the EIR consultant to undertake preparation of a supplemental EIR to add alternatives to the study and consolidate changes to the traffic study.”… Is that lawyer-speak for ‘back to the drawing board’?
With the passage of Measure L, which boosted the room tax by three percent in the unincorporated areas of the County, the Board of Supervisors will have about $5 million more to spend. With this additional revenue, says Supervisor Susan Gorin, “we intend to provide additional funding to focus on those impacts from our tourism-based economy — affordable housing, roads, emergency services and regional parks.” Recommendations to a Board sub-committee include a reduction of support for the County’s tourism bureau. Gorin says the funding formula may change for the Sonoma Visitors Bureau, and Chamber of Commerce, as well. Additionally, the Board has “approved changes to simply the grant process for organizations seeking funding, and I will have additional TOT funding each year to fund our amazing nonprofit organizations in District 1 seeking funding to defray some of their advertising expenses.”
Jazz trumpeter Eddie Henderson is coming town for two gigs, one free show and one club concert. As accomplished as he is in the jazz world, he’s also trained pyschiatrist. Just in case the music blows your mind.
–Val Robichaud
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