Editorial: City Council tips toward leveling the community/tourism playing field

Is Sonoma unbalanced?|

The “balance” between Sonoma’s hometown community character and its reliance on tourism dollars – a balance that became a focal point of the recent four-candidate campaign for two city council seats – will have its first weigh-in upon the scales of the soon-to-be seated 2017 City Council this Monday.

Newly elected Councilmember Amy Harrington will join the Council at its Dec. 12 session in the Community Meeting Room just as two issues that encapsulate the town vs. tourism friction come before the dais.

First is the tourist-driven Napa to Sonoma Wine Country Half Marathon, which fights for its life after its fortunes took a left turn last month, as the council in a 3-2 vote Nov. 21 denied the necessary street closures to allow the race to wind through city streets and culminate in a post-race party on the Plaza.

The road-closure denial clearly surprised Destination Races – the local-based company that stages multiple “wine country” marathons across the U.S. – though, anyone paying attention to city councilmembers’ reservations about the race from earlier in the autumn saw a glimpse of what was to come. Councilmember qualms about Destination’s handling of the closure and reopening of the streets at this past July’s event took a backseat to the Council’s more dubious view of the race’s overall benefit to the community. According to a city report, the race is expected to bring in about 8,000 attendees to the July 16 event, the vast majority of whom are from out of town, if not out of state.

As Councilmember David Cook, who joined councilmembers Gary Edwards and Rachel Hundley in voting against the street closures, put it, “the balance has tipped (toward tourism).”

Destination Races is expected to return Monday with alternate routes to the Plaza and, perhaps, a more generous donation amount to local charities, as required by for-profit events, according to city code.

Whether it’s enough to ameliorate council concerns about “community benefit” will remain to be seen. Destination Races sure hopes so – despite a firm “no” from three members of the Council, event officials went ahead with the Dec. 1 race registration anyway.

The second item at Monday’s meeting to joggle the town/tourism equilibrium will be consideration of an extension to the Valley of the Moon Certified Farmers Market’s agreement to manage the Tuesday Night Farmers Market in the Plaza.

The Council has cast a wary eye at the market since early in 2016, when Edwards appealed an SCEC decision to give VOMCFM a sweet deal on Plaza use fees, while a minor storm brewed over Valley food trucks being denied a place at the market in favor of non-local vendors.

Perhaps sensing they’re on the hot seat, VOM market officials have asked to work with the City to re-envision the direction of the weekly event, which some say has long-abandoned its mission to support Valley farmers and provide a healthful food market to Sonomans in favor of being, as Edwards calls it, a “weekly party on the Plaza” attended heavily by out of towners.

The Council may be willing to play ball - or not. Among the various staff-recommended directions the city could take is the option to revise the market’s vision without the input of VOMCFM and put out a whole new “request for proposal” to potential market managers.

The fact that there seems to be a reigning in of these two long-held events isn’t by accident. As of Monday, the City Council will have four different faces from what it had just two years ago, while a new city manager begins in January. As they say, change begets change.

If it’s true the “balance” of the city’s character has tipped toward tourism - and that’s a big “if,” given the strong local identity of Sonoma, and the fact that tourism has always had its presence - then it will be especially interesting to see who the council members vote to succeed Laurie Gallian as Mayor.

The status quo would favor the tradition of shuffling the “mayor pro tem” - currently Madolyn Agrimonti – into the mayoral seat.

But status quo doesn’t seem to be de rigueur these days for the council - a council which is increasingly showing that tourism isn’t the only place where a “balance” has tipped.

Email Jason at jason.walsh@sonomanews.com.

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