Election, transportation top Petaluma stories of 2016

Petaluma hospital transition, cannabis, drought-busting rains also made big headlines this year.|

National and global events, dominated by the U.S. presidential election, combined to make 2016 a monumental year. In Petaluma, the local election had less of an impact, but certainly became one of the top stories of the year.

The severe drought that captured headlines for four years finally ended in 2016 as significant rainfall soaked the region. Even more significantly, Petaluma’s flood wall project, finally completed at the beginning of the year, did its job and no major flooding was reported.

Operations at Petaluma Valley Hospital, the city’s lone acute care facility, went through a rocky 2016, leaving the future uncertain in the new year. Longtime hospital operator St. Joseph Health abruptly pulled out of talks to continue running the facility, as local health care officials scrambled to find a successor.

Major transportation projects advanced, were delayed or were scrapped entirely. As funding was discovered to continue widening Highway 101 south of Petaluma, the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit system pushed its start date into next year. Meanwhile, a local sales tax measure to finally pave Petaluma’s crumbling streets was tabled due to lack of support.

Local attitudes toward cannabis saw a major shift in 2016 as California voters passed a proposition to legalize recreational marijuana. Petaluma leaders continued to craft the city’s policy toward the drug, a process that is expected to last into next year.

Tragedy also marked 2016. A car crash on Petaluma Boulevard North claimed the lives of two young girls, while a fire along the freeway tore through an east side neighborhood and destroyed several properties.

Businesses and restaurants in Petaluma opened, closed or expanded. G&G Market, a beloved local grocer, sold to Safeway. Brewsters Beer Garden made its debut in 2016, further cementing Petaluma as a hotbed for craft beer.

Local election

The Petaluma City Council election seemed tame compared with the divisive presidential race that raged through the fall. The local election was nearly canceled due to lack of a challenger, until Bill Wolpert stepped up at the last minute to run against incumbents Mike Healy, Kathy Miller and Gabe Kearney.

A planning commissioner and architect, Wolpert ran on a platform of walkable development and environmentalism and drew strong support from Petaluma’s self-identified progressives. The race drew only a fraction of the campaign donations of past elections, and the rancor was kept at a minimum.

Mayor David Glass, a Wolpert supporter, advocated for casting only one of the alloted three votes for Wolpert. The strategy nearly paid off as Wolpert, seeking his first elected office, came 275 votes short of unseating one of the three seasoned politicians. Healy, the top vote getter, won his sixth term on the council. Miller came in second winning her second term, and Kearney finished in third in his second election.

Voters in the Petaluma City Schools District elected two newcomers to the school board. Frank Lynch, a longtime principal and school administrator, was the top vote getter, while Ellen Webster, a high school teacher, claimed the second spot. Mary Johnson, an appointed incumbent, came in third.

In the Old Adobe School District, newcomers Jon Lenz and Heather Burton won seats on the board ahead of Marilyn Cohoe.

Shifting attitudes on pot

Also on the 2016 ballot, California voters approved Prop. 64, which legalized recreational marijuana. It was one of several cannabis ballot initiatives approved across the country, representing a loosening of attitudes around the drug that remains illegal federally.

Locally, city and county leaders worked to craft policy and position their municipalities for the eventual sale of recreational marijuana, with brick-and-mortar businesses expected to operate by 2018.

Petaluma officials, while preserving a prohibition on medical marijuana dispensaries in the city, have taken a wait-and-see approach to recreational sales. Meanwhile, Sonoma County supervisors passed sweeping rules on the cultivation and sale of medical marijuana, which is expected to lay the framework for the recreational industry, and called a March 2017 election to impose a county marijuana tax.

Progress, delay in transportation

The local ballot was also marked by what was not included. Petaluma officials worked for much of the year to craft a ballot measure that would have imposed a citywide sales tax specifically to fix Petaluma’s crumbing streets.

The effort came two years after voters turned down Measure Q, which leaders billed as a sales tax for street repair, but was written as a general purpose tax. This year, city council members pushed for a specific tax for streets, which requires a higher two-thirds threshold to pass.

In the end, city officials decided to leave the measure off the ballot as polling showed it did not have the support.

At the county level, leaders began discussing an extension of Measure M, the countywide sales tax that has been used to widen Highway 101 and repair local roads. Officials have targeted 2018 as the soonest possible election to extend the measure. The revenue would likely go toward completing the freeway widening project in Petaluma, with a larger share to local roads.

The Highway 101 project in southern Sonoma County received a huge boost this year, as transportation officials secured a $15 million earmark to complete the work between the Petaluma River bridge and the Marin County line. That project would open five miles of new carpool lanes at a key bottleneck south of Petaluma.

The funding set off a small turf war between regional transportation agencies as the SMART commuter rail agency also lobbied for the money. In the end, Supervisor David Rabbitt brought the parties together to agree on a way to divvy up the funds.

Unrelated to the funding battle, SMART announced that its highly anticipated December launch of service would be postponed until at least spring 2017. The agency cited troubles with the diesel engines on its trains for the delay.

Health care hiccups

The Petaluma Health Care District, the public agency that owns Petaluma Valley Hospital, spent most of the year seeking an operator for the facility. Talks initially focused on renewing the contract with St. Joseph Health, the Catholic health care provider that has operated the hospital on a 20-year lease that expires in January.

Near the end of the process, St. Joseph abruptly pulled out of negotiations, citing differences in financial terms and services at the hospital’s family birthing unit. Interviews with heath care officials revealed that the main sticking point was a women’s sterilization procedure that St. Joseph was no longer willing to offer.

Late in the year, the health care district relaunched its effort to attract a suitable hospital operator, while St. Joseph agreed to continue to run the hospital until September 2017. The district hopes to identify an operator by in the first half of the new year, and send the selection to voters to ratify on the June ballot.

Drought-busting rain

For the first time in four years, the headlines were not dominated by news of the statewide drought. Several storms throughout the winter and fall in 2016 filled Sonoma County’s reservoirs and recharged the depleted groundwater table.

Despite the rain, Petaluma experienced no major flooding as in years past, largely due to the completion of a long awaited flood wall project. Finished late last year, the final piece of flood wall was dedicated in February this year.

While mandatory water rationing ended, officials urged residents to continue to be mindful of water consumption in case drought conditions return to the region.

Technology, drugs in schools

The Petaluma City School District’s $4 million program to provide all 7,500 students with an iPad to enhance classroom education, came under fire from concerned parents this year. Several parents of young students complained that the internet filters were not properly blocking explicit images, while older students said the filters were too restrictive in searches for controversial yet topical material.

Superintendent Gary Callahan said the district has a robust filtering system in place, which complies with the Children’s Internet Protection Act, a law requiring schools and libraries that receive public funds for technology to block content inappropriate for minors.

As the opioid and prescription drug epidemic continues to impact communities across the country, a Petaluma parents group formed to address drug use in local schools. Petaluma Parents Against Drugs held several meetings to discuss the issue, bringing personal stories of families hit by drug abuse.

A top goal of the group is to lobby for a return of police officers stationed at Petaluma high school campuses, positions that had been cut several years ago due to the recession.

Sampson compound cleanup

A notorious property west of Petaluma that received numerous complaints and calls for service in the past four decades was finally cleaned up in July.

A constellation of Sonoma County government agencies converged for an unprecedented abatement operation at the Sampson family property off Liberty Road, an area that for decades had been a locus of concern for police, policy makers and area residents. Hundreds of tons of debris were removed from the site, ranging from mountains of old tires to caches of human waste.

A Sonoma County Superior Court order was behind the action, giving the county legal clearance to enter the property and conduct the work. Yet county officials and property owner Tony Sampson said the action was a cooperative effort, a detente of sorts for an acrimonious relationship stretching back to at least the 1970s.

Twin tragedies

Petaluma was rocked by a pair of tragedies that bookended September 2016. On the morning of Aug. 31, two young sisters died after the car in which their mother was driving swerved off of Petaluma Boulevard North and into the Petaluma River.

Sayra Gonzalez, 7, and Deliha Gonzalez, 9, were on their way to school in Rohnert Park when the accident happened. Petaluma and Rancho Adobe firefighters attempted to rescue and resuscitate the girls, but they were pronounced dead at Petaluma Valley Hospital.

At the end of September, a fire that started with a tossed cigarette butt on Highway 101 quickly engulfed a strand of eucalyptus trees and spread to several houses on Stuart Drive. Multiple fire agencies responded, including a CalFire helicopter that dropped water from the Lucchesi Park pond.

When the smoke had finally cleared and the ash had settled, 14 homes had burned, four of which were destroyed. The fire did an estimated $1.5 million in damage.

Big food news

Petaluma residents said farewell to a beloved local grocery store in 2016 as G&G Market sold its Petaluma and Santa Rosa stores to Safeway in November. The 53-year-old business that started in Santa Rosa and expanded to Petaluma in 2000 was known for hard-to-find products, great local produce and fresh crab.

The stores closed for most of December and reopened as Safeway Dec. 21.

As one local icon closed, another was created when Brewsters Beer Garden opened in November. The restaurant and local beer purveyor sandwiched between Petaluma Boulevard and Water Street, includes a bocce ball court, children’s area and seating for 350 people.

With many Petaluma beers on tap, it further cements the city that’s home to Lagunitas Brewing Company as a center for craft beer.

Hollywood comes to Petaluma

Petaluma-raised film producer Ali Afshar brought another star-studded production to Petaluma in November when a cast and crew began filming the action drama “Ride” in various locations in the city.

Based on the true story of BMX rider John Buultjens, it featured a cast and crew of more than 100, with stars including hip-hop artist and actor Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Daytime Emmy-award winning actor Bryan Craig and Shane Graham, known for his role in “Boyhood.”

The month-long shoot in and around Petaluma marked the sixth movie Afshar, a Casa Grande High School graduate, has produced in Sonoma County in two years. Past Afshar films made in Petaluma have included Sharon Stone, Jon Voight, Lea Thompson and James Remar.

(Contact Matt Brown at matt.brown@arguscourier.com.)

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