Healdsburg's Top Stories for 2010: The View from City Hall

Every year about this time – especially since 2001 – a lot of us have the same reaction: Thank God that year's over. Hopefully the next one will be better. "Happy New Year" seems less a cliché and more a sincere appeal, a earnest hope against unlikely odds.

Maybe that's why year-end round ups like this one can be reassuring, even encouraging. Looking at the comments submitted by Patch readers in , and following up with some phone calls to we can find good news to look back on in 2010, and reasons to anticipate a happy 2011.

Clearly, one of the biggest stories of 2010 was the Aug. 14 Downtown Post Office Fire. The Saturday afternoon conflagration did extensive damage to the building  while sparing its neighbors, and resulted in very little loss of mail, aside from that already placed in customers' boxes. Two firemen were injured in fighting the blaze, but it took the BATF less than a day to determine that the cause was "undetermined." Although the property owners were open to building a new branch, the USPS moved quickly to demolish the building and relocate all services to the .

Some downtown businesses remain unhappy about the loss of the "anchor tenant," and the Foss Creek location remains ill-suited to the kind of traffic that the downtown branch received. In fact, one of the New Year's first orders of business at the meeting on Monday, Jan. 3, is to hear post office officials discuss their that found most Healdsburg residents were neutral or in favor of the Foss Creek annex.

Right up there with the Post Office is the , the 1921 steel span across the Russian River at Memorial Beach. The fate of the landmark bridge has been up in the air since 1979, when a state engineering survey gave it a failing grade. Over the years there have been numerous proposals to tear it down, replace it, rehabilitate or, most recently, to build a parallel structure for traffic while retaining the bridge for historic reason.

But at the Sept. 6 city council meeting, a unanimous decision was reached to "rehabilitate" the structure, and environmental studies are now underway with that as a goal. (, who initially questioned Caltrans estimates of the bridge's dangers, and his website at http://www.healdsburgmemorialbridge.com/.)

"The significant thing is they made a decision," said city manager Marjie Pettus in an interview this week. "It was a difficult decision for the council to make, and speaking for staff, we were glad to have a decision – because now, we have direction."

Likewise, the Saggio Hills development north of town has been an ongoing issue for years. And once again, while a final go/no go switch has yet to be thrown,  "in 2010 we made a lot of progress," said Pettus. "We completed the revised environmental impact review (EIR), and that's what went to the planning commission last week… We think the revised EIR is pretty comprehensive and thorough." For more about the Saggio Hills decision .

Another big story in city news was a cascade of change in City Council make-up. resigned his position in July, following his winning battle with Windsor council member Debra Fudge for election to the County Board of Supervisors. His resignation forced the temporary appointment to the council of Lisa Schaffner, herself a former council member and mayor.

The permanent seat that McGuire had held was added to the November election ballot; retired fire captain Stephen Babb narrowly won it, while Jim Wood was re-elected to a full 2nd term, and retired police chief Susan Jones earned her first full term. Which meant, of course, that the city had to find and hire both a new fire captain and police chief as well.

I asked Pettus if thehad any negative repercussions.

"No, not at all," she responded. "We're really lucky we have a council that works very hard to talk through any differences of opinion they might have.

"They strive for compromise, they're pretty cohesive, and they work very well together," Pettus added. "It's been that way since I've been here [2007], and it's a pleasure to see."

Another advancement in city business this year indicative of the council's flexibility and cooperation was the decision on the also known as the Purity building ( is now on Grove St.). The former fruit packing warehouse, built next to the railroad on West North St. when Healdsburg was known as "The Buckle of the Prune Belt," was slated for demolition to make room for parking when citizens protested the loss of the historic building.

"There's been a lot of concern that we preserve the character of that building," said councilman Jim Wood, "and it's important to our agricultural roots that we don't just tear everything down and put up something new." The plans are currently to preserve the signature façade, put on a new roof, and make the area available for overflow parking when necessary, community meetings, and the Farmer's Market.

"So the idea would be unlike anything anybody knows about," continued Wood. "There's a similar structure in Davis, but it was built from the ground up. This is a really cool potential project for us."

Again, although and the Council is not expected to take up the issue until January, it stands as an accomplishment of citizen action and city cooperation that Healdsburg residents can be proud of.

For his own choices for biggest Healdsburg story of the year, out-going mayor Wood opted for a big-picture response.

"We did a lot to 'set the table,' that's the phrase I use, for future economic opportunities in the community," Wood said. "We set the table for the rehabilitation of Memorial Bridge. We set the table for ways to deal with our highly treated reclaimed water, and we set the table for future budgets that are easier to attain."

Many of these projects – Memorial Bridge, Saggio Hills, water reclamation policy, the Central Healdsburg Avenue Special Study Area Committee (CHASSAC, about which we'll be hearing much more in the future), and budget stability – are ongoing issues, which will be on the city's docket for the coming years. While they may not have been settled in 2010, Wood's metaphor of "setting the table" seems apt for what has been a productive year.

"It's more about moving things forward," Wood said. "Eventually a lot of these things will be done and you'll be able to say, 'Wow, we accomplished that." 

It was a general moving ahead in 2010 that will ultimately result in achievement down the road, Wood added.

"But there's a lot of work that goes into any of these sorts of projects," he said. "So while it's hard to put your finger on something as the greatest accomplishment, I'd say it's really getting started on a whole lot of projects that are going to have a huge impact on our community in the next five years."