Healdsburg Tribune August 3 2023

MISSED APPROVAL

DATE COULD

SCUTTLE LATEST DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT

By Christian Kallen

As Piazza Hospitality’s H4 project at 400 Healdsburg Ave. nears its next Planning Commission hearing sometime in August, questions have surfaced about the validity of their application to build the residential hotel they envision—16 rooms, 37 beds, minikitchens in most rooms and an on-site restaurant, at the downtown corner of North Street and Healdsburg Avenue.

The questions relate to the approval of Piazza’s application for the process, which was signed off on by city staff on Jan. 16, 2019—an approval that deemed complete Piazza’s application. According to current senior planner Ellen McDonald, who is handling Piazza’s current application process, “Completeness review is a simple administrative determination by staff that all the necessary materials have been submitted in order to review and act upon an application.”

The application was submitted to the city on Jan. 14, 2019, and two days later Scott Duiven, then acting as a senior planner tasked with shepherding Piazza’s application through city directors, sent Piazza’s principals and architect a letter of confirmation. It read:

“Pursuant to the Permit Streamlining Act (Government Code Chapter 4.5 of Title 7), your application has been deemed complete by the Planning Department. This application will be processed in accordance with the zoning provisions of the Healdsburg Municipal Code in effect on January 16, 2019.”

July Ends With North Village Fire

QUICK RESPONSE BY MULTIPLE AGENCIES PREVENTS WIDER DAMAGE

By Christian Kallen

On Monday afternoon, the last day of July, multiple fire agencies responded to a vegetation fire that spread from the North Village development north of town. North Village, which includes housing and shopping areas, is expected to open in the autumn but is still under construction.

The fire is believed to have started during vegetation management activity on the property, but it quickly grew into nearby oak grasslands in the

jurisdiction of the Northern Sonoma County Fire district.

It was first reported at about 2:30pm. As the fire began, a billowing tower of brown and white smoke rose north of Healdsburg, attracting the attention of residents and leading to heavy traffic on Healdsburg Avenue past the North Village entrance, which was closed to traffic for the duration of the event.

Due to the time of day and windy conditions, the footprint of the fire grew and jumped Highway 101, at one time burning on both sides of the freeway, according to Cal Fire Battalion Chief Marshall Turbeville. However, a quick response by fire control

agencies corralled the fire and brought it under control by 3:45pm.

“In that area, both sides of the freeway have burned quite often, it seems like every couple years,” said Turbeville. “So we know how to get on the west side of the freeway through the Healdsburg Cal Fire station. That's where the ’dozer line was already pre-existing,

which stopped the fast spread of the fire.” He was referring to firebreaks created by bulldozers in the rural, roadless area.

On the east side of the freeway, where the fire began, a road leads directly to the presumed point of origin and a hydrant was available. On the west side of 101, CalFire has a station with a small reservoir, Lytton Lake.

19-0 START TO SEASON ENDS WITH ROUGH FINAL TWO WEEKS

By Christian Kallen

The Healdsburg Prune Packers once again ended the 2023 season in first place in the California Collegiate League’s northern division, but they had to rely on another wine country team to get them there.

As the season’s final home game played out at Rec Park on a toasty Sunday afternoon against the San Francisco Seals, the team’s fate was being decided across Sonoma County at Arnold Field,

“So there was essentially unlimited water, which is helpful,” said Turbeville, who served as the battalion chief or incident coordinator in the fire response.

The land crews were assisted by four Cal Fire aircraft, including two helicopters. “We had two tankers from Sonoma air

where the Sonoma Stompers were playing the Walnut Creek Crawdads. The Crawdads were only half a game behind the Packers in league standings, and had swept the Healdsburg team in the crucial July 25-27 series.

That series followed a July 22 game between the Packers and the Solano Mudcats, which saw the Packers triumph 30-2.

That’s the kind of score that raises eyebrows, and the question: Did the Healdsburg team violate one of the key unwritten rules of baseball by running up the score?

“Everyone’s cognizant when the games get out of hand, you know?” said

➝ North Village Fire, 6 ➝ Piazza’s New Hotel, 5

Photo by Tenaya Fleckenstein Photography

AIR RESPONSE A Sikorsky air attack helicopter drops water on the vegetation fire that erupted north of Healdsburg on Monday, July 31. Approximately

12 acres

were burned on both sides of Highway 101; the fire was quickly contained.

Photo by Christian Kallen

SAFE AT SECOND Alex Leopard slides into second on a

steal during the Prune Packers-SF Seals game on July 30, the last of the season. Healdsburg won, 13-4.

Our biggest risk for a fire is in the afternoon. And that's what yesterday demonstrated.

CHIEF MARSHALL TURBEVILLE

A CALENDAR OF UPCOMING HIGHLIGHT EVENTS IN HEALDSBURG

Shakespeare in the Park

This year’s Theater in the Park presentation, The Comedy of Errors, continues Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at 7:30 at West Plaza Park. The Shakespeare farce is updated to modern-day New Orleans. Dress for cooler evenings; bring a blanket or chairs; picnics and bevvies welcome. Free.

Healdsburg Museum

The new exhibit at the Healdsburg Museum, “We Are Not Strangers Here: African-American Histories in California and Healdsburg,” continues Wednesdays through Sundays, from 11am to 4pm. The museum is located at 221 Matheson St.

Farmers’ Market

Zucchini Festival at this week’s Healdsburg Certified Farmers’ Market on Saturday, Aug. 5. Zucchini races and growers’ competition. Market begins at 8:30am, registration till 9:30, races at 10:30, market open till noon at West Plaza Park. More information at healdsburgfarmersmarket.org/zucchini-festival-2023-aug-5.

Music on the Piazza

Bacchus Landing again hosts their monthly Music on the Piazza,

HEALDSBURG HAPPENINGS

Saturday Aug. 5, from noon to 4pm. Wine will be available from the seven wineries at Bacchus Landing, and wood-fired pizza will be available from The Market. 14210 Bacchus Landing Way, off Westside Road.

Coyote Vibes Pazifico, a Santa Rosa reggae band that digs into rock, funk, hip-hop and more, brings their good vibes back to Coyote Sonoma, 144 Mill St., on Saturday, Aug. 5. No cover, 8pm.

Latin Rock

MomotomboSF, a 10-piece Bay Area band with deep roots in the Santana-Malo musical network, brings their pop salsa sound to the Raven Theater, Saturday Aug. 5, 7:30pm. The Raven is at 115 North St.; tickets $25 at raventheater.org.

Sunday in the Plaza

Listen to the Latin jazz of the David Correa Trio from the Gazebo stage while spending a relaxed afternoon on the Healdsburg Plaza, on Sunday, Aug. 6, 1-3pm.

City Council

The Healdsburg City Council will meet for the first time since June on Monday, Aug. 7, at 6pm. City Hall Council Chambers are located at 401 Grove St.

Tuesday at the Plaza

Certified Farmers’ Market from 9am to 12:30pm, Tuesday, Aug. 8, at Healdsburg Plaza. Later, the park is taken over by the city’s

Prune Packers

coach Joey Gomes when asked about the lopsided score before Sunday’s season finale. “But you’re watching how it’s playing out, and you can’t ask your individual guy to get himself out. But then, you can’t help the other team if they can’t catch the out.”

Gomes is the team’s general manager as well as coach, and was a professional player himself for 10 years. He is well aware of the power and pitfalls of the game’s unwritten rules.

“I checked in periodically in the game with the other coach, and he was like, ‘You are not doing anything outside of playing the game of baseball,’” he said. “In fact, it would’ve been weird and maybe insulting to the other collegiate team that plays on this level, if we would’ve

done some gross thing to stop.”

So maybe it was karma that the Packers lost their next four games (one of them to the same Mudcats team the next day, who hammered out a 6-5 win in Solano). It’s also possible the Prune Packers eased up on the gas at exactly the wrong time of year.

When they returned to Healdsburg on July 28, after the disastrous fourgame losing streak, Gomes had a chat with the team before that night’s game.

“I felt like the team needed some positive reinforcement instead of an aggressive approach to coaching,” Gomes said. “So I got the guys together, and I reminded them that they’re the best team west of Texas. I reminded them that they have the best record on all the West

Tuesday in the Plaza music program. This week, it’s Americana rock from Danny Click & The Hell Yeahs, 6-8pm.

Planning Commission

The city’s Planning Commission will also hold its first meeting in more than a month on Tuesday, Aug. 8, at 6pm. Council Chambers are located at 401 Grove St.

Parks and Rec

The Parks and Recreation Commission will resume its regular meetings on Wednesday, Aug. 9, at

707–431–7693

SURFACEARTCOUNTERTOPS.COM

6pm. Council Chambers are located at 401 Grove St.

First Day of School

Healdsburg Unified School District begins its 2023-24 school year with a minimum day of classes on Thursday, Aug 10.

Dad Country

Songwriter-guitarist Dan Imhoff plays on Thursday, Aug. 10, upstairs at Little Saint’s Second Story. Doors open at 6, showtime at 7pm. 25 North St. Celtic Rock Something different from the Young Dubliners,

playing Friday Night Live in Cloverdale on Aug. 11. Street fair 6pm, live music

7-9:30.

Psychedelic Country

Electric Tumbleweed rolls into town on Friday, Aug.

11, at 8pm. $10 cover at The Elephant in the Room, 77 Healdsburg Ave.

Chicago Tribute

Rescheduled from an earlier date, Chicago: The Tribute plays the Raven Theater on Saturday, Aug. 12. “Powerful horns, rich vocals, and a rockin’ rhythm section” have been said to charac -

terize the Chicago sound. 7:30pm, $25.

Perfect Pairing AVFilm introduces a new program: two classic films with wine or cocktails at The Madrona. On Monday, Aug. 14, it’s Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane and Velvet Goldmine from Todd Haynes. $40 tickets, 1001 Westside Rd., 5pm. Post events on the Tribune’s online calendar at healdsburgtribune.com/ calendar, and send special announcements to christian@weeklys.com.

Coast. I reminded them that we had the most draft picks. I just basically wanted to remind these guys that they still got it.

“And sometimes it’s not so much what we’re doing. That’s how baseball works. And that’s why the ones that know it love it so much; you can’t master it. You never know how that ball’s gonna bounce, man.”

Packers vs. Seals

On Sunday, the ball bounced Healdsburg’s way again, and often. Though they didn’t run up a 20-point lead, the 13-4 final score over the San Francisco Seals made for a satisfying end to the regular season. It was nearly a sold-out house at Art McCaffrey Field (or would have been, except tickets were free).

Two four-run innings, home runs by Ivan Brethowr and Black McDonald,

and four stolen bases gave the crowd something to cheer about all day long.

To be fair, the Seals were competing without several of their roster regulars as the season nears an end and some players need to return to college. It showed: They gave up four runs in the third inning on only one hit, with six walks keeping the baserunners moving across the plate.

Meanwhile, the Walnut Creek Crawdads put their season on the line against the Sonoma Stompers. They were only half a game behind the Prune Packers when the day began, and had a chance to end the day the No. 1 seed.

But the Sonoma team dug deep and defeated the Crawdads 8-5 before a satisfied Arnold Field crowd. The Stompers have had a rough season, finishing fourth in the league with a 16-19 record, but the way

they ended the summer gives them reason to hope for a better year in 2024.

The Playoffs

The Crawdads’ loss meant the Packers finished the season as league leaders and the No. 1 seed in the Northern Division, so they could skip the first playoff game that pitted the Crawdads against the thirdplace Lincoln Potters. That game resulted in a 7-1 victory for Walnut Creek.

As we go to press, the Packers are playing the Crawdads at Rec Park to settle the winner of the Northern Division. Should the Healdsburg team win, they head south to meet the winners of the Southern Division playoff for a three-game series to determine the overall winner of the 2023 California Collegiate League. The chances of a threepeat remain alive.

DOWNHILL RACERS At left, Chris Herrod keeps an eye on zucchini racers Paul Willard and Ron Gervais at the 2022 Farmers’ Market while Kip Miller calls the competition. This year's event is Aug. 5 at West Plaza Park.

Photo by Pat Carlson

BIG SWING Ivan Brethowr uncorks another home run during the July 30 game at Rec Park. The late-season addition to the Prune Packers lineup has hit 7 homers since joining the team on July 14.

Photo by Christian Kallen

QUARTZ

Founded in 1923, the Healdsburg Kiwanis Club is one of the oldest service clubs in California, boasting an active membership of 45 men and women from all segments of the Healdsburg community. We are winemakers, stockbrokers, grape growers, educators, lawyers, accountants, contractors, autodealers, caterers, retirees, bankers, small business owners, and many others who gather weekly as volunteers to our community.

Our club has a long tradition of service to our community but we are very young in spirit and energy. Healdsburg Kiwanis is part of an international service organization appealing to those who have the desire and commitment to become personally involved in making their communities better places in which to live by improving the lives of children one project at a time.

Kiwanis serves the community through numerous events and social activities which foster enduring friendships created through the Kiwanis spirit of fellowship that comes from mutual effort devoted to great and useful deeds. Healdsburg Kiwanis meetings may lend themselves

to the public forum, but never to political circles. Meeting programs and guest speakers frequently provide platforms for the balanced and impartial presentation of public issues of interest to the members and local community. Every club meeting is full of good fellowship and fun. A Kiwanis meeting is a great place to enjoy the full experience of being a part of the Healdsburg community.

Over the last five years, the Healdsburg Kiwanis Club has distributed over $250,000 in direct contributions and grants to numerous local recipients including:

• American Legion Fireworks

• Healdsburg Animal Shelter

• Healdsburg Schools K-12, over $50,000

• HHS Scholarship Program, over $75,000

• Healdsburg Boys and Girls Club

• Boy Scout Troop 21

• Healdsburg Food Pantry and Shared Ministries

• FFA Fair and Parade

• Habitat for Humanity

• Healdsburg Regional Library

• Salvation Army at Lytton Springs

• Healdsburg Senior Center

These important and critical gifts and donations are made possible each year through the following special events and fundraisers that are staffed, managed and organized by Healdsburg Kiwanis Club and other local agencies:

• Palm Sunday Pancake Breakfast

• Future Farmers Fair Food Booth

• Fitch Mountain Foot Race

• Merry Healdsburg on the Plaza

In addition to the major fund-raising projects listed above, the Healdsburg Kiwanis Club supports itself through other social events and yearly activities such as:

• Brandt’s Beach BBQ and Live Auction

• Steelhead Festival at Warm Springs Dam

• Hosted Gourmet Dinners and Wine Tastings

COME AND CELEBRATE UPCOMING CLUB EVENTS!!

AUGUST 8 Join Healdsburg Kiwanis Club on the Plaza for the weekly summer concert series as they sponsor DANNY CLICK AND THE HELL YEAHS

6:00-8:00 pm and rock with us! Grab a chair and your dancing shoes and raise a glass of wine at our pop-up tent!

AUGUST 26 Join Healdsburg Kiwanis for their annual BRANDT’S

BEACH BBQ & LIVE AUCTION

Starting at 5:00 pm! Cost of $35/pp covers appetizers, full steak dinner and unlimited wine. Pre-dinner activities include corn-hole contest, wine bottle ring toss and much more. RSVP to Denny Stead, 707-4336503 and bring your checkbooks!

THE WORD FROM THE STREETS TO THE INBOX

‘Healdsburg Is

Changing’

I run AVFilm (formerly known as the Alexander Valley Film Society), the nonprofit behind the new movie theater coming to town. We want you to know that we tried for two years to get a deal done with the landlord of the Raven (Film Center). We were priced out—big time. The price went up while we were negotiating, and no movie theater, nonprofit or otherwise, could afford the terms they wanted.

As you know, Healdsburg is changing, and you have to have a lot of money to take a space, start a business or buy a home. We were so lucky

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

to find a landlord who was excited to work with us and bring a movie theater back to town.

And the space will be so nice! It will be much better suited for a contemporary movie theater, with soda and popcorn, a great wine list, super comfy seats and an intimate setting that will feel more full than the Raven could.

AVFilm’s mission is to bring the transformative power of cinema to Northern California. Our programs support artists, engage audiences and educate students of all ages to foster a community where everyone belongs. We are planning Spanish language programming, paywhat-you-can nights and locals-pricing. We will thread the

needle of catering to locals while leveraging the well-heeled visitor base that comes to town. We see a future of filmmaking that impacts our local economy and brings cool, diverse artists to Northern Sonoma County year-round.

To get this done, we need your help. Come to a tour, tell your friends, donate! We're raising money to build a center that will last for generations to come.

KATHRYN HECHT Executive director, AVFilm avfilmpresents.org

‘You Can’t Say It’s Boring’

Oh, how our town has changed in the past 25 years my wife and I have lived here. The town square is overrun with tourists now. Billionaires

and millionaires buy up the old homes, and they become mansions, many of which are second homes. But some of us oldtimers hold on in our old bungalows. We drive our old cars. We maintain as

best we can.

The new roundabout is nice. The restoration of that 1921 truss bridge is hilarious! Millions were spent on a bridge too narrow for buses. Well, Mel Amato is laughing somewhere in Heaven or Hell.

The hotels pay for the big Christmas tree and the Fourth of July celebration. They run this town now, and the City Council loves the TOT, tax on tourists’ money. Perhaps the name of the town should be changed to “Parkletsburg” or maybe “Taxton.” What happens when the tourists quit coming and the housing market collapses?

I love Healdsburg. You can't say it is boring.

TIM M C GRAW Fitch Street

‘The Healdsburg Tribune’ accepts cogent, civil Letters to the Editor at editor @healdsburgtribune.com. Letters may be edited for length and appropriate content. 200 words recommended.

Fireside Camping in America

IT ALL BEGAN WITH VAGABONDING

By Pierre Ratte

The joys of camping are many. Open space. Fresh air. Preparing food outdoors. Sitting around a campfire. Falling asleep to peaceful sounds of birds and wildlife, feeling a gentle breeze at night, gazing up at the heavens’ stars on full display.

If lucky, light pollution is low and the unnatural world of beeps, buzzes, text messages, emails and phone calls is precluded.

Whether it’s RV, tent camping or glamping, summertime beckons families and friends to enjoy living outdoors. In and around Sonoma

County, there are many opportunities to confer with nature.

Fun facts: Camping for recreation is a relatively new phenomenon. In Britain, it’s traced back to Thomas Holding, a traveling tailor, who, recalling his youth traveling across America’s prairies, popularized the concept by writing a book in 1901 called Cycle and Camp in Connemara

Camping in North America gained popularity around the turn of the century from a group called The Vagabonds. They were hardly vagabonds, in the sense of wanderers without a home or a job, as the term usually implies.

The Vagabonds were: Harvey Firestone, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and naturalist John Burroughs. They traveled in summer together, driving to different states, camping on farms, buying food along the way, fending for themselves like ordinary Americans.

Well, not exactly. They had an entourage of chefs and butlers. Nonetheless, they summered this way for 10 years, until the popularity of their excursions reported by newspapers made it impossible to continue.

In effect, The Vagabonds started America’s devotion to road-tripping, driving cross-country and summertime camping.

Photo by Pierre Ratte

WAITING FOR THE FIRE This colorful campfire circle is the beginning of Healdsburg Community Church’s camping weekend, when families and children convene for a couple of days of fun and games.

Photo by Christian Kallen

Oh, how our town has changed in the past 25 years my wife and I have lived here. The town square is overrun with tourists now. Billionaires and millionaires buy up the old homes, and they become mansions, many of which are second homes.

TIM MCGRAW

SHUTTERED CINEMA The Raven Film Center, closed since 2022, has been leased by Vertice Hospitality, managers of SingleThread Restaurant.

Piazza’s New Hotel

That date, Jan. 16, is significant because it is the date that the city’s new hotel rules, Ordinance No. 1181, took effect. That ordinance was passed by the City Council on Dec 3, 2018, after significant debate; it was again passed on Dec. 17 on its second reading, with the usual caveat that it would take effect 30 days later.

Thirty days after Dec. 17, 2018 was Jan. 16, 2019, since December has 31 days. If, as Duiven’s letter stated, the application was approved on that date, and it would be processed “in accordance with the zoning provisions of the Healdsburg Municipal Code in effect on January 16, 2019,” then the hotel is subject to the limitations of the new ordinance, not the previous one.

In other words, for Piazza to continue building the hotel they proposed may be a non-permitted use, prohibited by the city in Ordinance No. 1181, effective Jan. 16, 2019.

The Hotel Ordinance

The Healdsburg City Council debated a new hotel ordinance through much of 2018 in response to public concern about rapid overdevelopment in the downtown area. A city-run community survey in March, 2018 revealed that residents were evenly split over whether there were “too many” or “about right/too few” hotel rooms in town, at 47%. But 71% said that hotel development had been growing “too fast” in town, compared to 21% who said “about right.”

After months of discussion and debate, the staff presented the City Council with a hotel ordinance on Dec. 3, 2018 that proposed limiting the number

of rooms in a new hotel at five rooms on any block face and requiring that retail be on the ground floor, “in order to avoid an over-concentration of hotel uses within the downtown.”

As the final vote neared, the Planning Department told the Council that there was a project in the works that might exceed the proposed limits—the Duchamp Hotel, located on Foss Street in the Downtown Commercial District. This small, hard-to-find hotel is behind the Little Saint building on a dead-end street in back of several Healdsburg Avenue businesses, including Costeaux Bakery.

The Duchamp had an application filed with the city for an expansion of their hotel from 6 to 18 units, an increase greater than the five rooms the new ordinance would permit.

So with open discussion of this in council meetings, the council agreed to include a caveat excluding any project that has been “deemed complete” by the time the ordinance goes into effect.

Mark Luziachof’s expansion of Duchamp had been applied for in October of 2018, before the council’s first vote on the new hotel ordinance. It was deemed complete on Dec. 13, well ahead of the end of the 30-day period before the new ordinance taking effect, ahead even of the City Council’s final vote.

Being able to have a hotel project accepted as complete by the city prior to the effective date of the new hotel ordinance became known unofficially as “the Duchamp exception.” It was thought to apply only to that one project; however, the day after the council’s approval of the ordinance on Dec. 3, by a 4-1 vote, another hotel developer opened

discussion with the city about moving forward with their own hotel, at variance with the new ordinance.

Application Process

But timelines and correspondence from the city’s public records on the application, DR 2019-02, demonstrate that Piazza’s application was not filed until Jan 14, 2019, and failed to become fully accepted by the city—“deemed complete”—prior to the Jan. 16 date when the new ordinance took effect.

According to Circe Sher, one of the principals of Piazza Hospitality, the company first sat down with David Mickaelian, then Healdsburg’s city manager, and Maya De Rosa, then the planning director, on Aug. 9, 2017, to introduce “the concept of a hotel on that site. We moved forward with designing, but then paused to focus on opening Harmon Guest House. The next meeting we have on record with the city is the 12/6/18 meeting.”

That Dec. 6 meeting was corroborated by a timeline that Duiven generated for Mickaelian, itemizing key dates in the approval process. The City Council passed the new ordinance on Dec. 3 by a 4-1

vote. The next day, Piazza requested a meeting with staff to discuss the project at 400 Healdsburg Ave. and “requirements for submitting prior to the effective date of the new ordinance in order to develop under the prior hotel regulations.” That meeting took place on Dec. 6, as Sher stated.

Almost four weeks later, on Jan. 2, 2019, Piazza submitted a preliminary application, seeking “initial feedback on completeness requirements,” according to Duiven’s timeline. City staff provided that feedback on Jan. 7, and Piazza then submitted a final application that is signed and dated by Paolo Petrone, the other Piazza principal, on Jan. 11. Late Filing However, Healdsburg City offices were closed on Friday, Jan. 11. The application was therefore officially received and date-stamped on Monday, Jan. 14. On that date, Duiven circulated a memo to the city staff who would be required to review the application for completeness and sign off on it. Those departments included public works, the building division, fire, police, electric and community services.

Duiven’s memo included the “Please Return Response

by” date of Jan. 15, the next day. An accompanying email he sent read, “This submittal needs to be reviewed for completeness prior to the effective date of the recently adopted hotel ordinance which is January 16th. I need your response by 3pm tomorrow, January 15th My apologies for the short turnaround.”

The bold emphasis is in his email, as is his statement that the effective date of the new ordinance will be Jan. 16.

For the rest of Jan. 14 and Jan 15, a series of emails in city files show that Duiven drove a concerted process to have city staff review the application for completeness. Most of the department supervisors asked to review the application had no objection or comment, though several concerns were raised by then-Fire Marshall Linda Collister, including an error in the project boundaries as filed, and a question about the possible contamination of the primary lot at the corner of Healdsburg Avenue and North Street, which until the mid-1990s had been a gas station.

Regardless, she signed off on the application at about 9:30am on Jan. 16, a day after the deadline Duiven had proposed.

Curt Bates, still with the city’s public works

department as principal engineer, also signed off on the project on Jan. 16, at 12:30pm, following some offline discussions with Duiven referred to in his email.

Duiven’s “Completeness Letter” to Piazza was emailed at 2:56pm on Jan. 16. Just minutes later, at 3:05pm, Mickaelian emailed the City Council, city attorney Suzanne Zutler and then-planning and building director Maya DeRosa that the project had been deemed complete.

At 3:43pm, DeRosa forwarded her copy of Duiven’s completeness letter to the Planning Commission, saying that the 16-room hotel application “has been deemed complete prior to the new hotel ordinance becoming effective.” Her comment is inaccurate. Consistent communications from the city underscore that the new ordinance became effective on Jan. 16, and not a day later, and the completion of the application was on that date, not a day sooner.

It should be stressed that city staff acted reasonably throughout the process, including Scott Duiven, then a senior planner and now the planning and building director. The only error was on De Rosa’s part, as she made the incorrect assumption that the former ordinance applied to the hotel application.

But for the past three years, that assumption has allowed Piazza to continue developing their four-story residential hotel, and city staff has continued to accept it as having slipped through under “the Duchamp exception.”

Several lawyers, as well as many of the individuals named in this article, have been consulted for comment; their responses will be covered in next week’s ‘Tribune.’

DOWNTOWN STREET Piazza’s proposed H4 Residence Hotel, as envisioned looking south down Healdsburg Avenue toward North Street.

Image courtesy of David Baker Architects

‘Sideways’ Author to Speak, Sip Pinot

REX PICKETT PAIRS WITH PAPAPIETRO PERRY TO CELEBRATE ‘THIN-SKINNED, TEMPERAMENTAL’ GRAPE VARIETAL

Staff Report

Not too many works of art have changed the course of wine appreciation, but Sideways is on the short list.

The 2004 movie, with its scenes extolling the virtues of pinot noir and the dismissive line, “I am not drinking f—g merlot!” changed not only public appreciation for the two varietals but led to agricultural adjustment, as merlot prices plummeted through the rest of the decade and pinot noir became the trendy wine of choice for many consumers Sideways , directed by Alexander Payne, was based on a book by Rex Pickett which, though later a best-seller, was unpublished when the director picked it up. Even after the manuscript was optioned for Payne’s production company, it still could not find a publisher.

It was only when the movie went into production in 2003 that Pickett was able to land a publisher for the book,

receiving a modest advance of only $5,000.

These and other tales will be shared by Pickett later this month when he comes to the Papapietro Perry tasting room on Dry Creek Road, on Aug. 27. Since the success of Sideways , he has written several other books, including Vertical (2011) and Sideways 3 Chile (2015). The next Sideways book, set in New Zealand, will be published later this year.

Pickett will be joined by executive winemaker Ben Papapietro to showcase the winery’s 2020 Peters Vineyard Pinot Noir. The release won the Pinot Cup this year at Pigs & Pinot, the popular food-and-wine event at Charlie Palmer’s Dry Creek Kitchen, located at Hotel Healdsburg. This is the third time that the Peters Vineyard wine has placed in the competition, making Papapietro Perry the only winery to win twice and place second once. The 2016 Peters Vineyard Pinot Noir was the Pinot Cup Runner-Up in 2019, and the 2005 release took home the Pinot Cup in 2009.

The release received 97 points and Double Gold awards at the North Coast Wine Challenge earlier this year.

Taste Pure Joy!

The winery was formed in 1998 by garagiste winemakers Ben Papapietro and Bruce Perry. Their success led them to open their Dry Creek tasting room in 2005, located at the complex of tasting rooms at 4918 Dry Creek Rd. Perry died in 2022.

At the Aug. 27 event, tasting room manager Nancy Juarez will moderate the discussion to inform more about the “passion for pinot” that led the winemakers and the author down their respective paths.

Participants in the event will receive a signed hardcover copy of the book Sideways , and a bottle of the 2020 Peters Vineyard pinot. Pickett is holding similar themed events on his current tour. He appears at Sonoma’s Sebastiani Theatre on Aug. 19 at a screening of the movie Sideways , along with a tasting of wines from premiere area pinot noir producers.

‘Pinot Noir & Sideways with Rex Pickett’ will start at 5pm on Sunday, Aug. 17. Both on-location and virtual guests are welcome. Tickets are $85 club members, $105 others, available at papapietro-perry.com.

North Village Fire

attack base and two choppers; one was from Boggs Mountain Helitack Base and the other was a Sikorsky air attack crane that came out of Sonoma Air Attack Base,” said Healdsburg Fire Chief Jason Boaz. Boggs Mountain is near Middletown in Lake County. The Sonoma Air Attack base is located near the Sonoma County Airport.The fixed-wing aircraft spread retardant on the fire’s margins, while the helicopters dropped loads of water sourced from the nearby Lytton Lake. Among the agencies responding were the Healdsburg Fire Department, Northern Sonoma

County Fire, Cloverdale

Fire Protection District, Dry Creek Rancheria and Cal Fire, which sent multiple aircraft and land crews from as far away as Hood Mountain.

During the fire response, Highway 101 was closed to both north and southbound traffic between Dry Creek Avenue and Lytton Springs, and traffic diverted along north Healdsburg Avenue directly past the North Village development where crews were working to control the fire.

Given the concern that residents have about summer fires, the rapid and thorough response of fire agencies was to be expected. “Fire season”

was once thought to be contained to the late summer months, but recent warming climate trends and a long-lasting drought have made fire risk practically year-round.

“Our biggest risk for a fire is in the afternoon. And that’s what yesterday demonstrated,” said Turbeville. “We had our winds from the south; where the fire started was on a south aspect. So you had wind blowing on a hillside, and everything aligned.”

Turbeville cautioned residents to be attentive to the seasonal risk of fire, saying, “We just need people to be extra safe during the summer afternoons not to start a fire. People really need to pay most attention in the afternoons of every day, because that’s our greatest potential for a fire.”

EVENT SCHWAG A hardcover copy of ‘Sideways’ signed by author Rex Pickett will be available to attendees of the Aug. 27 event at Papapietro Perry Winery.

Photo courtesy of Papapietro Perry Winery

Momotombo Erupts on the Music Scene

CHICANO ROCKERS WITH ROOTS IN ’70S BANDS SANTANA, MALO LAY CLAIM TO THEIR LEGACY

By Christian Kallen

Taking the stage this weekend at the Raven Theater, between concerts by a Minnesota guitarist (Joe Fahey) and a big-ticket tribune band (Chicago), comes Momotombo SF, an oddly named combo with little name recognition but a growing following.

The 10-piece band, which proudly advertises its lineage in two Chicano rock bands of the 1970s, Santana and Malo, will play in Healdsburg on Saturday, Aug. 5.

The band has only had a handful of appearances in the North Bay, but then again they only formed in 2018, and stopped playing altogether during two years of the pandemic. Now they’re slowly building up their schedule, and their fan base is expanding with every concert.

Momotombo played last week for the summer’s final “Fridays at the Hood” show (formerly known as Funky Fridays), and if the open-air venue off Pythian Road near Oakmont had

a roof, they would have blown it off.

Perhaps that’s appropriate. The band is named for a volcano in Nicaragua, which in an explosive eruption in 1606 buried the city of Leon. The mountain is still smoldering on the shores of Lago de Managua, along with a half dozen other active volcanoes in the Central American country.

It’s also the title of the lead song on the group Malo’s second album— titled appropriately “Malo Dos”—co-written by one of the band members, Pablo Tellaz, who came from Nicaragua.

“It's a pretty powerful name,” said Leo Rosales, the timbales player and vocalist who provides the focal point for the band in concert. “So we're trying to live up to the name.”

Other band members have similar roots in the wider Spanish-speaking world: Cuba, Puerto Rico, and of course Mexico. Notably, that includes the Santana family, which came to the Bay Area from Jalisco, Mexico.

The band Santana had their introduction to the public in the film Woodstock, which brought their signature blend of psychedelic Latin blues to the

world’s attention, making a star of Carlos Santana.

It also showed the wide range of music coming out of San Francisco—not just the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, but a more multicultural scene as well. With the band Santana’s success, Carlos’ younger brother, Jorge Santana, was motivated to form his own band, with a big difference: horns.

Leo Rosales, who guides the band Mototombo from the stage and in their bookings, recalled the origin of Mala. “When Carlos’ brother, Jorge, started the group Malo, he started a different aspect of Latin Rock music. Instead of just having percussion and keyboard and guitar and bass and a drummer, he brought in the horn section.”

Horns were getting big back then—with Michael Bloomfield’s American Flag, Blood Sweat and Tears and eventually Chicago. The horns in Chicano rock got there organically, from popular Afro-Cuban bands like Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri, Mongo Santamaria and the like. The trumpet is basic, perhaps two; the trombone is common, the saxophone occasional.

When combined with the polyrhythmic patterns laid down by multiple percussion instruments—timbales, congas, maracas, claves, güiros and even cowbells—the music is made to dance to. Other bands emulated the sound, and what became called Chicano rock was soon a viable genre, populated by Azteca (which included Coke Escovedo and his brother, Pete Escovedo) and War (led by Lonnie Jordan), as well as Malo.

Their first album came out in 1971, and contained a hit: “Suavecito,” an infectious number written by members of the band.

“Suavecito” percolated its way up the charts into the Top 20, its mid tempo rhythm decorated by bells, silver guitar, golden horns and the languid lyric, “Never—I never met a girl like you in my life...”

The song was sung on the album by co-writer Richard Bean.

But when the band appeared on American Bandstand, it was 18-yearold timbales player Leo Rosales who became identified with the song.

“If truth be told, I lipsynced it,” said Rosales. “Back in those days on American Bandstand , everything was overdubbed

or lip-synched; nobody played live music on that program. It’s still that way to some extent with some programs, but it was my face on the show that was viewed by millions and millions of people.”

He really did sing it on other programs, as he did last week at Hood Mountain from the Levi Lloyd stage. Mototombo played it as the sun was setting and the dance area was filled with swaying couples, whispering “Suavecito!” to each other.

Rosales introduced it that night as “the unofficial Mexican national anthem,” though he later explained, “People that are of Mexican descent have really loved that song for so many years. Being that it came out of San Francisco, a lot of people here, whether of Mexican descent or from Nicaragua, Cuba, South America, Central America, they love that song. For some reason, Chicanos and Mexican culture have really embraced that tune.”

Rosales added, “And I know that a lot of lowriders name their cars Suavecito.”

A durable iteration of Malo played until fairly recently under vocalist Arcelio Garcia and guitarist Jorge Santana, but

in 2020 both men died within months of each other. Though Jorge Santana was never officially a member of Mototombo, Rosales said he played with them frequently.

“Jorge was very, very proud to play with us,” said Rosales. “And I think he felt like he was part of the band. And I told him always that he was.”

But Mototombo is not Malo, or Santana, or a cover band. Its current 10-man lineup is about equally divided between former members of Malo and Santana, and a few seasoned Chicano rock veterans to round out the performing group.

As Jim Corbett, Sebastopol’s Mr. Music, said when introducing the band for its second set at Hood Mountain last week, “Not only is it taking us back to Malo and Santana days, but it’s right here, right now.”

Mototombo SF will play two sets at the Raven Theater on Saturday, Aug. 5, at 7:30pm. General admission is $25. The theater will remove the stage extension so there will be more room for dancing.

Photos by Christian Kallen

LATIN ROCKERS Momotombo SF, a Bay Area band with members from Santana and Malo, bring the sounds of the era to life at Hood Mountain’s Friday show on July 28.

They’ll play the Raven Theater on Aug. 5.