‘North Sonoma’ residents weigh options following Grand Jury responses

“This may well go to court,” said Donald Street resident Paul Rockett this week, upon reviewing the county’s response to the Grand Jury Report on his neighborhood’s struggle for a voice in the Springs Specific Plan.

That report, subtitled “A Public Disclosure Misfire,” was released in April of this year, though the entire report, of which it was one chapter of six, was not officially published until Aug. 2 - along with responses from Permit Sonoma, following review this week by the Board of Supervisors.

But Rockett’s frustrated response was a result of what he views as the impotence of a Grand Jury report to effect change in the government it watches over.

At the Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 20, County Counsel Robert Pittman underscored the limits of grand jury authority. “If there is some concern over anything that was identified by the grand jury, they could investigate further, but for the most part their report and your response concludes the process.”

Rockett said he looked into the code on the issue, and found “it says there is an investigation that they conduct, they make recommendations,” said Rockett. “But the government organization can come back and say, ‘We disagree.’ And that’s it.”

Which is his take on what happened with Permit Sonoma’s response to the report, signed by department director Tennis Wick and accepted by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. Wick disagreed “wholly or partially” with seven of the nine findings of the 19-member Sonoma County Civil Grand Jury 2019-2020.

Wick said two of the report’s four recommendations have already been implemented, but two would not be “because they are not warranted or are not reasonable.”

Permit Sonoma’s primary defense against the findings is, “The Springs Specific Plan remains under development, and is therefore only a proposed plan.” That status provides an escape from many of Friends of North Sonoma’s complaints, which include that their neighborhood was unfairly and illogically added to the geographical region known as “the Springs”; that rezoning efforts were underway to add over 500 housing units to a residential area that now has 114 homes; that such a development effort would put the inhabitants at risk in case of an evacuation emergency; and that the residents were uninformed about their inclusion in an ongoing specific plan study that was designed for a region they did not belong to -- the Springs.

Rockett serves as spokesperson for Friends of North Sonoma (FNS), a loose but dedicated group of residents and friends of the community just north of Verano Avenue, bound on the west by the Agua Caliente Creek and on the east by the Montini Preserve, and wholly outside of Sonoma city limits.

Another FNS member, Ricci Wheatley, made a request to the Board at its Tuesday meeting to remove Permit Sonoma’s grand jury response on the Springs Specific Plan from the consent calendar, to allow for more review. “The information given by Tennis Wick had proven inaccuracies that need to be clarified before a response to the grand jury is given,” she said in her brief statement.

However Board Chair Susan Gorin, whose 1st District includes the Springs and Donald neighborhoods, instead commented on the issue directly from the chair. “Tennis Wick and Permit Sonoma did the job they needed to do to provide factual information to the county counsel.”

Gorin did recognize the high level of interest in the issue, but qualified the status of the Springs Specific Plan, echoing Wick’s argument that it was a plan in development. “But this is not the end of the plan. It’s really just the midpoint of the plan,” said Gorin. “They’re moving forward with crafting those alternatives and doing the EIR alternatives, and moving it forward through the review process.”

The Springs Specific Plan has been under development since 2012, throughout consultation and review with the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC). The two agencies awarded Permit Sonoma $450,000 to conduct planning and execute the SSP in 2012, according to the Grand Jury report.

The arguments that the Friends of North Sonoma presented were many, but not all about their perceived exclusion from public review process. Residents allege they weren’t informed of the Donald Street neighborhood’s inclusion in the plan until an accidental discovery by a resident, Ricci Wheatley, that her property was included in the specific plan. That was in early 2019, and the neighborhood began to go public with their complaints, including a contentious March hearing that year at the Sonoma Public Library and at a presentation to the county Planning Commission laying out their case.

The Friends contacted the Grand Jury through a citizen complaint in April, 2019, leading to the investigation. Their complaint and a petition to the Board of Supervisors “requests a restart of the SSP process, in order to ensure the full inclusion of the Donald Street residents in all community discussions and committees,” according to the report.

It does not appear to the Friends of North Sonoma that, from Permit Sonoma’s response, that any such restart is planned. That does not sit well with many of the 263 residents of the Donald Street neighborhood. Rockett would not go into detail on the legal advice he might be receiving about next steps in their complaint process, but did seem open to a long-shot end run around the Springs Specific Plan: incorporation of the neighborhood into the City of Sonoma.

As the grand jury report notes, “Donald Street is outside the City of Sonoma Urban Growth Boundary, which means that Donald Street is part of Permit Sonoma’s planning authority.” Rockett said to this point the city has not been receptive to the idea of incorporation, but said, “That may change after December,” when a new city council is seated and the current city manager, Cathy Capriola, retires.“

Email Christian Kallen at christian.kallen@sonomanews.com.