Argus-Courier editorial: Bill Kortum’s huge legacy

Remembering the life of a Petaluma icon.|

Bill Kortum has already been honored with a trail in his name along the Sonoma Coast, and countless plaques and proclamations are sure come in the months following his death last month at 87. But his true legacy is that he helped bring environmental stewardship into the mainstream, forever changing how we view this remarkable place where we live.

At a time when the national political debate is rife with conflict, when even local politics can be intensely fractious, Kortum was known for his integrity, persistence and a quiet insistence on facts. He was a tenacious and formidable advocate for environmental causes, but never stooped to name-calling and hyperbole. Even his opponents – and there were many at first – say that he was a principled and soft-spoken leader.

Kortum grew up on a chicken ranch off of Ely Road in a community that had one-tenth the population it has now. A child of the Depression, he later saw the land he loved begin to change at a time when building development was largely unregulated in the 1950s and 1960s. For several decades, Kortum took time off from his busy veterinary practice to work tirelessly at preventing Sonoma County from going the way of Santa Clara County, a place where urban sprawl eventually swallowed up thousands of acres of productive farmland.

A key player in several groundbreaking environmental and land-use battles that set important legal precedents, Kortum and his brother, Karl, played important roles in the successful battle to stop PG&E from building a nuclear power plant at Bodega Head in the early 1960s. With growing concern over nuclear accidents, and armed with an unfavorable seismic report pointing to the dangers of building such a plant atop the San Andreas fault, Kortum and his allies were eventually able to stop construction of the ill-advised project.

Kortum was also instrumental in protecting the 1,100 mile California coastline. He helped form Citizens to Acquire Access to State Tidelands (COAAST) to battle a 5,200-unit housing project called Sea Ranch, which would have blocked all public access to the coast for miles. After unsuccessful attempts to stop the project through a local ballot measure and a State Assembly bill, coastal protection advocates rallied to pass a statewide ballot measure in 1972 that established the California Coastal Commission and brought projects like Sea Ranch to a halt until local coastal protection and public access measures were negotiated.

Kortum fought the construction of Warm Springs Dam, predicting correctly that it would supply water for growth in central Sonoma County and northern Marin. In 1974, he challenged South County Supervisor Phil Joerger, a supporter of the dam, and was elected with fellow environmentalist Chuck Hinkle. Both were recalled two years later, but the shift in county politics was under way and the county board later saw its first environmental-leaning majority elected in 1977.

In 1991, Kortum co-founded Sonoma County Conservation Action (SCCA), a local canvassing organization for environmental causes, and worked with the Greenbelt Alliance and local groups to pass Urban Growth Boundaries in several Sonoma County cities, including Petaluma. He also worked to win voter approval of the county’s Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District, as well as the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit.

Locally, Kortum was a major player in the city’s decades-long effort to open up the city-owned Lafferty Ranch on Sonoma Mountain for public use, a cause that continues to be championed by local officials and environmental leaders.

Kortum didn’t reflexively battle development. As president of the Cotati Chamber of Commerce in the early 1960s, he led Cotati’s efforts to be incorporated as a city and worked on the campaign to secure land for a small college that would later become Sonoma State University.

Bill Kortum will be remembered as a tireless advocate for strong land-use planning policies, managed growth, open space protection and environmental stewardship, all of which have resulted in defining the landscape of Sonoma County today and into the future.

It’s an impressive legacy.

Those interested in remembering Bill Kortum are invited to attend a public memorial at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 24, at the Sonoma Mountain Village Event Center in Rohnert Park.

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