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Sonoma County, a diverse county of over one million acres is famed for its agriculture industry and recreation boasting a booming economy and a unique lifestyle for its citizens described by the famed Luther Burbank as the chosen spot of all the earth. Sonoma County is the place

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to live, work and play as we move into the 21st century. Led by the forward looking philosophy of its governing bodies. Sonoma County's 340,000 residents are a harmonious, successful blend of ethnic and economic backgrounds. We invite you to take a closer look at Sonoma County in

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the nineties with your host Rich McGlinchey, how you doing everybody? Welcome to this edition of Sonoma County in the nineties on this addiction of our program, we're gonna be talking about bridges, historic bridges in Sonoma County and what's been happening to them. We're gonna be talking

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to two members of a new group called Save our Bridges. On the left of the T. V. Screen is Dana D'Errico, a building inspector for the Sonoma County building inspection department and on the right is Dennis Harris and Dennis is a professor of history at Sonoma

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State University and in just a minute we'll talk to both of you about bridges and I know you have a lot of interesting things to impart to the public Before we do that. I want to call your attention to the artwork on the walls of the

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set. The two photographs are by Ted Castle. He's a world famous photographer. This first one is the first tee at ST andrews golf course in Scotland, beautiful picture by Ted Ted incident lives in Sonoma County. The second picture is a view of the mouth of the

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Russian river from the balcony of River's end restaurant where we were on location about a year ago and Ted snapped that picture and these two are beautiful where Ted incidentally is going to be a guest with us soon and we'll see more of his great artwork.

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But thanks Ted for letting us have these two pieces of photography that we think are so beautiful. Now, gang, we'll get back to bridges. Okay, um, I have something to stay here. I have a statement. Sonoma County is filled with a lot of beautiful things, aesthetic

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things, lovely things, especially things from the past. We're losing them. We're losing lots of them. Certainly. Trust bridges are one of the things that have been picturesque, part of the aesthetic value of Sonoma County and they're disappearing. And I know you people are vitally concerned with

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that. That's why your group is in existence. So ladies and gentlemen, both dana and Dennis will be telling us not only what's happened to these bridges, they're going to tell us something about them what they look like, why they're important, but let's just go right on

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into our question and answers and see um dana. Let's start out with this question. How did the interest in the bridges of the county. Come about. Well, I'll give you a little background. I come from a very old family in this county. My grandparents came here

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before the turn of the century and I was at a family dinner and my mother said that it was in the Hills berg newspaper, they were back at wanting to tear down the Memorial Beach bridge and she was very upset about it and I said, well

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if you're so upset about it, why don't we do something about it? And she said, well, I just think I will. So from there we contacted the Hillsborough tribune. She contacted the or I contacted the Hillsboro tribune and then in turn I was put in connection

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with Dennis Harris and from there it evolved a lot of the community is tired, there's a whole group that's out there, that's tired of everything being torn down the hills. Berg plaza was torn down, our city hall, our county buildings, downtown santa rosa are gone. They

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were beautiful buildings and that's how the interest arose. I've grown up in this county and I think that the bridges are really very beautiful and very pretty. Anybody who's driven over Waller bridge, I don't see how you could not stop and have it, catch your attention

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for that moment that you're going over memorial bridge or have a very great fondness for that bridge. I I drove off that bridge at times exactly right now. But anyway, I feel that we're losing so many things and that these are really beautiful and there's something

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that adds to our community. It brings tourists in. People don't want to come and see a little concrete modern thing that they put up. I just think that they have significance. So that's how it evolved. That's how it started. You don't know anything about how it

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evolved. Yeah. I might explain why the tribune told dana to call me. Um, it's not that they picked the name out the phonebook. I have been involved a couple of years ago in the battle to save Granville Bridge working with mary and frank Robertson and the

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Granville Bridge club. And that battle was a much harder battle to fight because we were fighting Caltrans and it ended up going to court with a precedent setting decision on our side. But now Granville bridge is one of two bridges that are actually designated as historic

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registered properties in Sonoma County. Yes, well, it's, it's, it's both the county landmark and a federal landmark. If you will. Uh, Dennis, what kind of research was done and then what specific information was learned while you were doing the research for all this? To be honest,

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I piggybacked Caltrans had done a survey back in the early eighties of the truss bridges of the state of California. In fact, this book is a product of that survey. It's called historic highway bridges of California and interesting enough. One of the bridges featured in that

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is the other historic bridge that's been recognized in, in Sonoma County. I can show you a photograph of that. It's a gorgeous bridge. It's 1/19 century bridge. It's an iron bridge rather than a steel bridge and it's on Hop Creek. And it is in fact part

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of, well actually it is a railroad bridge, It was up in smith River, It was dismantled in the late 18 eighties. It was brought down here. Part of it is Hop Creek. Part of it is on old State highway up the Mendocino Sonoma border and the

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other one is helping out. Thank you. Big sulfur Creek. This was the most exciting part of this whole project that I found myself so suddenly enmeshed in was that there were these three sister bridges and the state didn't even realize that there were three. They thought

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there were only the two Hop Creek, which is in this book and a little sulfur creek at the geysers. Actually it's big sulfur creek up at the geysers. And when I spoke to the bridge engineers at the county, they, he told me that there's another one

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that they have heard about that. They've never seen it. And it was taken up and put on the old state highway. You have to go up to Mendocino County and come back in. But it's actually in Sonoma County. Mendocino County appears to be maintaining it. So

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obviously there were holes in the bridge survey, the state did. That was exciting. But even with that weakness. Uh, it recognized that certain bridges in the county were really important and designated those as eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. One of those bridges interesting

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enough is the Healdsburg Bridge. So the federal government and this Caltrans has already said this is a very important bridge. What they did. They looked at the engineering uh, features of the bridges and uh, they looked at, I think it was something like 500 bridges in

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the state. And out of those, they came down with a list of those that they felt were National Register eligible and they got the federal government to agree, Healdsburg bridge was one of those Granville bridge was not, that's one of the reasons why the battle bill

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was so hard Jenner bridge was deemed to be eligible. General bridge is no longer there even though it was deemed eligible. So one of the things that people have to recognize is that historic designation by itself doesn't save a bridge. Well, this is why save our

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bridges and your community is so important to the history of the county is that you're taking this action now in hopes that more of these bridges. Well let me digress, I understand that we're about 25 of these bridges a few years ago and there's now like

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15 or something of that nature. There were, there were 25. Now there now there are 18 plus we've added three because we've gone after the only would trust bridge in Sonoma County that still stands, the only brick bridge in Sonoma County that still stands and a

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bridge in alexander valley on the calabasas creek because the alexander homeowners association wanted to back this organization only if we would include that bridge for them. So what we've done, we've gone to the county landmarks commission and we've asked them of the 434 bridges standing in

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Sonoma County, please designate these 21 As historic bridges as landmarks. That's 5% of the standing bridges in Sonoma County. I want to mention here. We missed one topic and that was the reason we ended up with 19 bridges is for some reason I had decided why

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do we want to go after each bridge 1x1. We had the battle in Greenville and everybody is familiar and read about that. Now we're going after the Hillsborough bridge. That was this is the one that's in eminent danger at the moment. And I said Dennis, let's

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do a historical thematic district. Let's get all the ones that we want to save and put them in there. Now we we mentioned the fact that these things are disappearing. So your your job and your group is desires to protect them. What roadblocks have you encountered

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and working on this project? I think the the if I ask a question to you and you have something you want to add to it by all means just jump in. I think the biggest roadblock and what was really encouraging about Dana's phone call is lack

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of public interest. These bridges go because nobody cares or nobody is perceived as caring, uh, because nobody is perceived as caring. They can tear them down without any public controversy because nobody knows. That's right. That's right. It's hard. I mean, one of the reasons I knew

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about the Healdsburg memorial bridge threat is that I read the back section of the paper where these little Public announcements appear. Okay. And back there, there's this little announcement that they're going to to spend $3.2 million Memorial Bridge and put in a 60-foot wide concrete bridge

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over over the river. Well, I looked at that and I thought that doesn't make sense. The bridge from an engineering standpoint seems to be structurally sound from the reports that we have, the traffic flow, from the reports that we have seems to be adequate for the

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bridge. So why are we doing this particularly when it's going to cost 2.6 million of federal money and over half a million of of city funds when you could paint the thing resurface it And spend between 140,640,000 apartment, 460,000 and have a very safe earthquake resistant

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bridge, which is still saving the 1921 bridge. This bridge has been there for what, 53 years now. One of the joys of living up here. I've said this in earlier, I'll repeat it again Is the fact that we do have a lot of history. We have

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the end of the mission line from, from Mexico, we have the geysers, we put all these things up here. That makes Sonoma County unique. The construction of the trust bridge is made the county unique. It seems sad that these things would disappear. I'm glad you people

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are not only will the bridge in Healdsburg disappear, but also what was really irritating to my father was that the palm trees planted to commemorate the World War One veterans will be cut down and the part of the memorial beach, which was a living, a living

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memorial that the they wanted to put together will be taken away to put in this new bridge. And I feel that's an insult to our veterans that I just feel it's very insulting And I want to maintain those, pardon me. Albert Albert is he reads the

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back page like Dennis in the newspaper. Listen, both of you, how will this project aid enhance or insist assist the communities involved? I, I think the major way will do so is to, to tell the the city fathers in the city of Healdsburg that the community

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cares about saving its traditional character even with the growth that's going to come at the north end of Healdsburg. That, that's, that's a given, but we've already lost the west side of the plaza. As dana mentioned, her mom was upset about uh, there's no reason to

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lose these palm trees, no reason to lose this bridge. No reason to lose that portion of the historic character. As long as we can determine one that the bridge deserves recognition And to that, uh, it's financially feasible to do so. And what we're saying to the

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city of Healdsburg is don't spend three plus million dollars when you can spend 250,000 and accomplish better goals. Will the bridge is one thing that probably the county agencies public might be involved would be wondering is, will the bridges be safe? They can be made safe.

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I wanted to mention here, they are not a main artery. None of these bridges seem to be the main artery that I can think of. Maybe the Hacienda Bridge going out highway 1 16, they're back roads there, Woolard there, lambert bridge there, Memorial Beach Bridge, Hillsborough

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Bridge, that is, you have the 101 freeway coming in. They are not main arteries and they can be taken care of and kept up to standards. But there is a cost involved. And I believe that there is some misunderstanding and some um, well there's some things

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with public works and with the county because there is a cost uh, the Memorial Beach Bridge of course is in the city of Hillsborough. But all of these other county bridges, they have reservations for fear that it may interfere with their maintenance and other things. Yes,

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but what's either they replace it or they maintain it? The money comes from somewhere maybe from two different kitties, but it's all public rich. The analogy I've used in public presentations that Dana and I have made on this is if you build a house in 1921

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and you never painted that and you never did any repairs to that house 73 years years later, that house would be in pretty terrible shape. Healdsburg Memorial bridge has never been painted since it was constructed. Most of them have not. Now. The contrast is to drive

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in the Mendocino County and just before you get to Hofland, there's this gorgeous, gorgeous steel bridge going over the Russian river. It's got a brand new green paint job with white for the, for the walkway on it. Mendocino County does routine maintenance on our, on their

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bridges. We don't want to and therefore better shape. Well, they may be in better, But we have a wonderful county. I love Sonoma County. It's a wonderful county. It is a wonderful and really all I'm all but it can be done, it can be done and

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in fact it's cheaper than neglecting the bridge and letting it fall down because then you're going to have to spend that 3.2 million. We're gonna pause right here and have a station bring the audience a public service announcement after we returned Dana and Dennis and I

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will talk more about save our bridges committee and we'll also talk about the historic bridges. Uh, I've got a comment I want to make about them and then we'll have them talk about their favorite ones and other things. First this important message. Each year, two million

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dogs and cats are stolen from the families that love them and thrown into a nightmare. Our innocent pets become subjects of brutal experiments. Live bait for dog fighting rings, breeders for puppy mills. I'm Rue Mcclanahan. Please protect your pets. Call in defense of animals at 1

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800 stolen pet to find out how please help stop this nightmare. We have the stress test, make sure the machine is operating. How do you feel about traffic jams? Uh, Root canal. I love that sound the I. R. S. Oh dear. Maybe he didn't understand the

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question. Look in your tax instruction booklet from money saving tips from the I. R. S. It's just one way we're making tax preparation a lot less taxing. Welcome back to this edition of Sonoma County in the nineties. An important edition of our program will be, we're

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talking about saving some of Sonoma County's history. We're talking about trust bridges. They've been disappearing to some degree and they really are a beautiful part of our history. The group we're talking to here today is Dana to rico on the left screen building inspector for the

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Sonoma County building Inspector department, Dennis Harris, a professor of history from Sonoma State University. Uh, a few minutes left to us and several questions I want to throw at you quickly. What can the general public do to help this important project along? The most important thing

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they can do is to be a dana to call their paper to call their city councilman, call their supervisor to write letters to the editor of their local paper and say I care I want this bridge saved or I want this building saved. Uh, number two,

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they can, if they belong to a group urged the group to join us. We already have the alexander Valley Association, the Dry Creek Valley Association, Russian River Association, the Hilbert Historical Society. As supporters join the Sonoma County Historical Society, which has done major work in trying

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to save history in Sonoma County. Uh, they can get out there and and and sign the petition. We have the next thing that that's threatened. They can organize a petition drive of their own. In other words, they have to be active, they have to be really

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proactive to go after these things before somebody says, we've already done all the governmental work. This thing is going down to one question for both of you, which are your particular favorites among these historic bridges. You want to start. Well, let me tell you a little

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bit about the bridges. There are basically two types of through truss and the pony truss in the county and of those bridges. Most of the bridges that we're trying to savor of that type and I have to say my favorite of course are the phoenix iron

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compass. Any bridges from Phoenixville pennsylvania that were built in the 18 nineties. That's the hopped creek bridge, the big Sulfur Creek bridge and the old state highway bridge. Those are just really beautiful. They're very ornate. But I have this one bridges just for some reason it's

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very favorite to me and I love this little bridge. It's a, it's kind of a tall pony trust and it is the bridge on Crocker road. The Crocker um, Crocker bridge and it's in Cloverdale and I just like that bridge. The Waller bridge I really like

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because it is so narrow and so long. These were predominantly built. The design was created to accommodate railroad crossings, railroads, Most of the bridges are on the Russian River and uh, the Lambert bridge is a cute little bridge. I really liked that one. Apparently, that one

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from all the information I could gather is in rather poor state, but there's something lovely about all of them. Everybody should go out and look at. My, my favorites are Granville because my, my soul went into saving it Healdsburg because I go across it twice a

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day. Um, a cute bowtie pony truss over in Sonoma called the wat ma bridge and the most recent of all the bridges were trying to to save which is the gym town bridge that stretches across the river at the campgrounds, alexander valley campgrounds, going into Jim

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town and in the alexander valley. Um those are my favorites and I say this stepping out of my professional role because I do evaluate buildings and bridges professionally. Uh and when you do that you have to get rid of your taste, you know what you like

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and what you don't like. But now answering your question, these are things I just like, you know, I like the bow tie when you mentioned bridge elementary school about 3000 years ago it's near the walmart district. Alright. Uh it's been said that these bridges represent another

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simpler time in Sonoma County's history. When american values were, this is my phrase better actually. They were one of the basic foundations of our time. Do you agree that these bridges tend to represent? I I certainly wouldn't agree that the values were better than they were

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different. Then uh those bridges are there recognized because people wanted progress, They were tearing down wooden bridges to put iron and steel bridges. What always impressed me about the bridges, particularly the steel bridges is this county came together in 1919 passed a bond issue pulled itself

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together and paid for this whole road system with all these wonderful bridges and one of the reasons I want to save these bridges is the county of Sonoma's citizens in 1919 gave us a wonderful gift that we don't need to get rid of. So in that

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respect. Yeah, there's certainly the values are certainly better than that. That Yuppie ism and uh, what narcissism of the 1980s? I have no love for that whatsoever. Without your committee, either two of these and your committee's work or without their interest, what would happen to these

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bridges? One by one? They would go and usually it's the funding, The funding is already there and it's already been settled before anyone even realizes that they're going to go. But eventually, you know, if you don't take care of something that goes, one of the strangest

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arguments in favor of tearing down the Hillsborough bridge is the federal government has this money, we ought to use it and they would, If we're not successful, they will. And, and Bill Clinton's problem and the Democrats and Republicans of Congress problem in dealing with our national

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debt will just get deeper and deeper because unfortunately there are a lot of people out there and say, well, it's other people's money, let's spend it. So what you're saying is if we could spend $400,000 and assure a bridge will remain not only aesthetic looking but

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picturesque and functional. Why spend $6 million dollars making a new concrete mass. It may fall down in the next quake. The other thing is in the north quake or the Northridge earthquake. What we've discovered is the steel bridges of Japan are better than the concrete bridges

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of California. Well here we're proposing to tear down steel bridges. I think we should learn something from Northridge. We need to get these other questions. Are there any groups of organizations supporting your committee? Well the alexander valley Association is the Historical Society, Healdsburg Historical Society, Sonoma

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County Historical Society. Um I was really pleased who came forward and really enforced and are wonderful as the Russian river landowners association. They are really behind us which I have to pat them on the back. I'm really grateful to the different organizations that are and then

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individuals who have signed petitions, There are petitions circulating and there should be a phone number. I think that it's going to be available where you can contact Betty d'Errico to get a a form to fill out a petition to fill out. You mentioned a couple of

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times here in our petition. So you apparently have a petition or partitions plural in Sonoma County that people could sign if they agree with you and want to save these bridges. Right, what do you want to say about that? The petition is really important because it's,

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it's our way of showing that dana and I aren't out in space by ourselves. And it's also crucial because at bottom this is a political decision and politicians will decide whether this bridge comes or goes and they listen to voters so we need we need those

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signatures. One of the things that came to mind a while ago and that was how are these bridges constructed? Is that what you were showing us a while ago when you mentioned your favorite? Well, I didn't want to get into the engineering dynamics of their trusses

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that were manufactured and brought to the site. They were manufactured somewhere else and put together. All right now, what was that phone number again that you want people to call if they're interested in knowing more about the petition. 433131. Excuse me 433453433453453433453. My mother is in

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charge of the petition. Okay, We're just about ready to wrap up here. Time goes fleeting. You both seem to be familiar with historic preservation per se. Not just the bridges. I would like to have the two of you come back maybe in a few months and

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we could talk about historic preservation throughout the county what we're losing and what we could say. Ladies and gentlemen, I've been talking to Dana to rico, a building inspector for Sonoma County building inspection department and Dennis Harris, Professor of history at Sonoma State University. We've been

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talking about save our bridges. There is a move afoot to save the remaining I believe 21 trust bridges that are in our county that are beautiful that are part of our heritage. And I'm sure many of you agree should be saved. Now. If some of our

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opponents wish to cataract what's being said here by all means, contact us and we'll hear your side of us. My name is Rich McGlinchey. The programs in town in the nineties. Be back with you next week with another government with members of the government family or

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someone like Dance Harris. Until then. Good night. Good luck. Good health to each and every one of them.