00:01:07.740 - 00:01:29.220

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

00:01:29.220 - 00:01:47.000

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

00:01:47.000 - 00:02:03.770

the nineties with your host Rich McGlinchey. Hi everybody welcome to this edition of Sonoma County in the nineties on our program. This time we're gonna be talking about the Sonoma County Regional Parks Department, two or three divisions of it. But we're gonna be talking to two

00:02:03.770 - 00:02:17.490

men who are involved, the new director of the regional parks department and bob black who is the spud point marina supervisor and bob also has a little film. We're going to see a little bit later about how they go about catching crabs. I think you'll find

00:02:17.490 - 00:02:29.340

that pretty interesting before we get into a discussion of the marina. I want to congratulate you. Jim thank you. This gentleman on this side is Jim Angelo is the new director of regional parks. You're taking over from joe. How do you feel about all that? Well

00:02:29.350 - 00:02:44.240

excited. I think it's gonna be a very challenging and rewarding experience. Looking forward to it. Yeah, you've been over there quite a while now to about six years. Jim told bob jim already. And where were you before you came here? I was in Inyo County as

00:02:44.240 - 00:02:59.650

a director of parks and Recreation there for eight years. Right, okay. What what is your background in your county for six years? But what is your background did you major do you study? How did that get in the parks? Well actually I started out as a

00:02:59.650 - 00:03:16.600

computer programmer and operator and decided that I didn't want to work indoors. I want to work outside and went back to college and got a degree in recreation administration. And basically I've been working with park since then. It's about since 1970 for well this is what

00:03:16.600 - 00:03:37.200

you do study though, is recreation management, that sort of thing. Okay. Uh you came with the department 1984 1984. I remember when you came took a picture of it. I can't believe. Hi buddy, bob black over on this side. Well, that's the same question. Would you,

00:03:37.210 - 00:03:53.860

First of all, how long have I got hired at the same time? Jim did six years ago. And prior to that I was with the san mateo County Harvard district. I was assistant harbormaster there for nine years and I started out there running a rescue boat

00:03:54.200 - 00:04:10.200

as a marine attendant. They have no, they don't have any Coast Guard in Half Moon Bay. So we ended up going out there. We had about 100 and 25 ocean toes a year from there I went into the management end of it became the assistant harbormaster

00:04:10.200 - 00:04:26.130

and I stayed there for nine years. Uh, that's your background basically. That has been pretty much an operating marine. Just half of the day is all commercial fishing, just like spud point marina. Okay, let's, let's talk a little bit about spud point jim. We're going to

00:04:26.130 - 00:04:39.680

talk to you about. Some of the other part is I want to talk about this a little bit and we see our film, um, what's available at spud Point and by that, I mean, what type of facilities and what type of uses there. Uh, First of

00:04:39.680 - 00:04:56.270

all, there's a 70 ton marine travel lift for hauling out boats. We can haul out boats up to 70 tons, 30 ft to 80 ft. And most of those are the larger boats of the drag boats, the smaller ones in the salmon trollers. We have a

00:04:56.900 - 00:05:12.690

a 44 ton ice maker which stores 44 tons, will make a ton and a half of ice every hour and we'll put a ton of ice on a boat every four minutes. We have a commercial fuel dock. We fuel large drag boats up to 80 ft.

00:05:12.690 - 00:05:35.150

It's not uncommon for them to take 4000 gallons of fuel at a time. We can put 40 gallons of fuel on their boats per minute. There's 250 slips at the Marina. Right. You can, we can put boats again up from 80 to 30 ft or smaller,

00:05:35.150 - 00:05:58.530

depending. And each slip has its own water, its own electrical. They all have doc boxes. There's showers available for the fishermen. There's each slip has this service available like electricity for whoever's in that slot. Right. The larger boats, the 80 footers have 208 volt power supply

00:05:58.540 - 00:06:17.320

or 30. They both have that. The small ones have 30 m. We like I said, there's a laundromat there for the fishermen to do their laundry. There's showers, there's a complete facilities there for anything for the operation of commercial fishing port. That's all. I can't think

00:06:17.320 - 00:06:37.710

of anything that's missing right there that the fishermen would need other than the fish that uh that marina has been a real and jim both has been a real success. And it's a, It's a beautiful spots on the, on the Westside, Westside, Westside and 250 slips,

00:06:37.710 - 00:06:54.240

you say it's dredged to 12 ft. So we can get some pretty good sized boats. Really can talk about the fishing seasons. And then we'll see our first of all bob discussed the types of fishing seasons and a different kind of activities for each of these

00:06:54.240 - 00:07:12.190

seasons. Okay, bodega bay primarily is a salmon pork has always been traditionally a salmon ports. We've been going through some, well actually this year has been a bad year. But like any business, we hope it will recover next year. There's probably 80% of the boats in

00:07:12.190 - 00:07:30.140

the marina fish, salmon and then that starts may 1st for the commercial season. Then it ends Traditionally, I think around August 30. But when the water's warm up, the fish are gone and they go up the rivers. They have, we have next line will be the

00:07:30.140 - 00:07:46.220

Dungeness crab fishery, which we have a film on that. That this has been an unusual year that all the fisheries have been poor. Normally, that's traditionally, it doesn't run that way. One fishery will pull you out of the next one. But this year, for some reason

00:07:46.610 - 00:08:00.510

the cycles are all there and it's just not a good year. The Dungeness crab, most of guys have pulled their pots. It's not worth it to leave your pots out during the winter storm. So you'll lose, you can lose up to 25% of the pots and

00:08:00.560 - 00:08:22.990

$100. $100 a pot. That adds up pretty quick. The third fishery, which is relatively new fishery to bodega bay is the sea urchin fishery. And that's taken with smaller boats. The divers, they go out and normally vessels under 36 ft and they go out and they

00:08:22.990 - 00:08:40.490

die for these Sears into the Carolinas to uh up north. It's a real lucrative business or it has been, it's, it's uh also showing a decline this this time this year. Um They get about 40 cents a pound average. They crack them open and they ship

00:08:40.490 - 00:08:52.270

them to Japan. They process them locally. And we saw them doing that. We were at war from dinner and they were just coming in with a lower diversion like that. And they said they shipped those two, right? They put, they put them in bins and they

00:08:52.270 - 00:09:07.810

have to be processed within 36 to 48 hours. They go to auction auction in Japan and then they bit him on the grades. We got a little film in here. So let's take a look at that. And when the film is running, why don't you just

00:09:07.820 - 00:09:27.730

tell us what we're seeing is the back of the friendship. I'm sure Bill Whiteside's giving the film. So I know that those are the crates that they put the, the live crabs and they can only take the males. They're heading out here. I assume that this

00:09:27.730 - 00:09:41.920

is the beginning of tape they're heading for point race. Those are the buoys. That's how they find their pots. That's how they mark their pots. Each fisherman has its own color and they have the fish and game and they run them in strings, different strings. And

00:09:41.920 - 00:10:03.760

these people just run up that there's the hydraulic boom coming up with the crab pot. They fish between 30 and 240 ft. Normally they can fish depending on where the crabs are. Look like those pots I guess are too full. That's not, that's not, no, that's

00:10:04.520 - 00:10:18.440

this year. That would probably be good. But each pot is different. Each place you set your pot is different. Sometimes that's not, you can't really tell what's in there because a lot of them maybe females, you can only keep the males six and a quarter inches.

00:10:18.740 - 00:10:37.960

They put him in that sorting box there. You see the hydraulic and the other person is getting ready to grab the next show that we didn't see the buoy in the background. And some Sometimes they put two buoys on them because the current sometimes there's so

00:10:37.960 - 00:10:51.040

much current running downhill or uphill depending on which platform would have dragged the first buoy down and then the trailer and you only get one shot at them. And right now they're running up a string of crab pots there maybe 15, 20 pots in the string

00:10:51.040 - 00:11:15.070

there. They're hoping to fill those four crab cakes, watering them down. Right? Keeping the water running made of stainless steel and rebar wrapped with rubber. He's throwing over. The females are the obvious short ones. And the other person is those plastic jars are filled with squid.

00:11:15.530 - 00:11:36.180

And the idea is to get the pot emptied and get invented before. Uh There's a shot here. They're real obviously have different shapes to them and their obvious to you'll be able to see these, most of the boats. That fish I'd say an average of 150

00:11:36.180 - 00:11:51.520

pots. Some of the larger ones. 300. This is probably, this is not a crab, but this is probably someone returning from a rock cod trip, right? They don't, they just keep these pots in the water and they just keep what they call running and running a

00:11:51.520 - 00:12:13.130

string and they just keep running on weather permitting. It's the toughest fishery because you're fishing in the dead of winter and They're emptying the pot there and then they'll just rebate. It takes a crew of three pots cost about 70 to $100. There's They, there's a

00:12:13.130 - 00:12:30.150

good possibility you can lose 10-25% of your pots trying from steamers or freighters and tugboats or just whatever. There is a possibility that you can lose up to 25% of your pots. If by chance you set in a point raised there. If you set in the

00:12:30.150 - 00:12:47.200

shipping lane or tug comes through or there's just a lot of different things that can happen right? Each one they have to measure, there's a female right there in the corner with on his back. Um, all the crab pots, they have escaped devices. They have a

00:12:47.200 - 00:13:07.955

nylon, excuse me, cotton twine pat. So for some reason that buoys got cut off the pots could no longer keep fishing. The crowds would have a way to escape without, without that escape device. And then they put the males and the ones, all the males, there's

00:13:07.955 - 00:13:23.980

six and a quarter, obviously six and quarter they're putting in into those boxes, which they'll take in every night or if they're staying out overnight, they'll hang them over the side to keep that looks like a point raised there. This is Bill Whiteside's and will, I

00:13:24.020 - 00:13:44.270

don't recognize the other crewmen. They're, they're the owners of the boat, the Friendship and they did give us this form. It's good looking shot. How much do they have to, you have to get to make this a profitable. It doesn't look like that's going to be

00:13:44.330 - 00:14:10.370

as many as they can. And yeah, I don't think, I don't think this was filmed this year. There's profitable. It depends on the price of crabs. It's the most you have to be a little bit greedy to be out there and continue to get, I guess

00:14:10.610 - 00:14:38.345

I guess they're heading home now. You see what the results of today's trip. Pretty tired. Yeah, they're coming home and they'll be, they unload them there. Either several commercial buyers. They're either Lucas war for the tides war harbor fisheries. There was a lot of, there was

00:14:38.345 - 00:14:52.725

a lot of film there and we were able to just cut out a small amount of it. Who this film for you. Bill Whiteside's on the fishing boat. Okay. Friendship. I want to thank him for letting us use that over here on this. Let's see a

00:14:52.725 - 00:15:13.170

couple other things I want to ask you, Did you indicate to us a while ago. What size of boat, 80 ft on the end primarily. That's the third the drag drag boat fishery. They, they take a line, they take steel doors and set them out on

00:15:13.170 - 00:15:25.180

these 80 ft and they drag the bottom. They get the Patrol e, the dover, the wrecks, all the flat fishes and then they bring them in. They can bring in up to 40 £50,000 of load and then that's what a lot of that fish, which you

00:15:25.180 - 00:15:39.780

see the restaurants, the trolley, that type of fish. Okay, We're gonna pause right here for a moment and let the station bring the audience public service announcement. We're gonna come back then and talk to you about the regional park department. Aside from a Black Point marina.

00:15:39.780 - 00:15:56.480

And I know there's a lot of it. And tell us what your plans are for the future. Ladies and gentlemen, jim bob and I will be back just a moment. Three popular myths about old age getting old means getting sick. Hogwash. Today. The majority of older

00:15:56.480 - 00:16:15.235

americans are helping most old people live in nursing homes. No, no, no. Only 5% do old people shouldn't exert them Wrong. Some exercise is good for you, no matter what your age. Just because you're 65, you don't have to retire from life for your continuing good

00:16:15.235 - 00:16:31.470

health from the American Medical Association, Kareem, we'll never see eye to eye on anything. Don't be so shortsighted. We can both see that space research benefits everyone. I'd like to scratch proof lens developed for the Apollo space camera. That same technology led to scratch proof eyeglasses,

00:16:31.470 - 00:16:49.170

sunglasses and even goggles. You wouldn't need those if your horse was always in front. That's a tall order. What we're learning up there is helping us all down here. Space technology. This is what's in it for you. How you doing everybody? I'm glad to have you

00:16:49.170 - 00:17:02.040

with us on this edition of Sonoma County in the nineties were talking to two members of the Sonoma County Regional Parks department. We've just been talking with bob black who is the marina supervisors for spud Point marina. Saw a little film on how they fish for

00:17:02.040 - 00:17:14.440

crab, which I hope you did too. Now I'm going to talk to the boss of the department over here is named Jim Angelo. We introduced him early in the program, but Jim you are the new director and maybe the thing we ought to ask here, We've

00:17:14.440 - 00:17:30.200

talked about spud Point what type of facilities or the other facilities if you will are managed by the regional parks department. We have both indoor and outdoor facilities. The department also operates and maintains the veterans memorial buildings that are located throughout the county. And there are

00:17:30.200 - 00:17:47.290

a total of eight of them. We also have a community center and occidental that we operate and maintain and we have roughly about 6000 acres of open space. Uh, parks that we operate and maintain. Uh, some parks are more developed than others ranging from neighborhood parks

00:17:47.300 - 00:18:02.540

all the way to Hood Mountain that basically is a 1500 acre hiking type open space facility. It's actually a wilderness type facility. That's correct, yeah. And if you haven't been up there, it's a nice place to go get away from people because it takes a good

00:18:02.540 - 00:18:14.800

outdoorsman. You know, if you get up on that top hill up there that you can see all the way to the bay Area on a clear day, you can see the golden gate opened. It officially went through the top and I was amazed at that, but

00:18:14.820 - 00:18:30.720

it's a magnificent park for hiking. It is, it'll remind you of being in the Sierras. It's actually a wilderness experience. Right? Not even 10 miles from santa rosa jim as the new director of regional parks. How do you foresee or no, not foresee. How do you

00:18:30.720 - 00:18:52.150

see a future park expansion? Well, I think that it's going to continue since about 1985. We've been on an accelerated pace of developing new parks and also continuing to construct and renovate existing parks. And I see that continuing the area is growing. The county is growing

00:18:52.150 - 00:19:07.620

subs essentially as far as more people coming into the area and I think that it's going to continue. We'll see um, added parks, we'll see all different kinds of parks from smaller community parks to larger parks being dedicated to the county for parks purposes and we're

00:19:07.620 - 00:19:21.890

gonna be moving in those directions. I think it's a very exciting time because this isn't a county that's standing still as far as parks and recreation and outdoor recreation areas for the public will be moving into a lot of facilities and I think it's a real

00:19:21.890 - 00:19:37.730

challenging time. You were park director in Indio County. What type of park did you have down there? I mean that's pretty much of a desert like area. That's correct. Yeah. Actually it was, it was open space. We ran parks and campgrounds. Our emphasis was in campgrounds

00:19:37.740 - 00:19:54.860

because it was a large tourist area. So we ran a lot of campgrounds for the tourists, but we also had smaller parks hidden away in various communities and stuff like that that were considered locals type parks. So we had a combination of campgrounds, um, community parks,

00:19:54.870 - 00:20:08.380

we had some lakes that we offered and we had a very large park on the tip of Death Valley, that actually was one of our busiest and it was a place where the senior citizens primarily would go during the winter time to get to follow the

00:20:08.380 - 00:20:21.500

sun and that, that park was one of our busiest. Did they actually have a rattlesnake Derby down there? Well, I haven't heard of one, but I wouldn't doubt it. Somebody said they asked him if they really had, they probably have. I'm sure they've had a number

00:20:21.500 - 00:20:38.990

of things down there. Listen, funding for parks is, well, very definitely a crucial item. It has been for a while, what's available to the county for the development of new parks? Well, there's a number of sources really, um, each year or every two years, the state

00:20:38.990 - 00:20:56.270

usually passes the bond act and has been able to meet with voter approval for parks and recreation purposes. So we've seen a lot of money come from state bond acts that have been passed specifically for park acquisition of land and also development of park land themselves.

00:20:56.280 - 00:21:11.170

On top of that. One of the other things that's just happened within the county is that the park mitigation fees that are collected from developers, land developers. Those funds are also put into a pot of money and depending upon where the moneys were collected, it goes

00:21:11.180 - 00:21:26.940

into developing parklands in those areas. And I see that as long as the county continues to grow, that fund will also continue to grow and there will be funds to develop new park facilities in the future as long as that, that increased growth continues and whatnot.

00:21:26.950 - 00:21:43.530

Well, I know, uh, for years when the, your predecessor joe Rigaudeau was directing part here and when you were done in you, um, there was some federal money and some state money available or fairly continuing basis. It seemed like at those times has that all dried

00:21:43.530 - 00:21:59.590

up, except for the bond money. Well, the federal monies are getting tighter to a lot harder to get, has been since, since the Reagan administration, the Federal Land and Water Conservation Fund has slowly dried up. It's not as lucrative as it once was. But what has

00:21:59.590 - 00:22:17.720

happened, like I say is the state bond monies are almost, you can almost bank on them and the county's mitigation fees are something I think of a real source for us here. That's, that's a way for the future. Uh, Now, after after development, there's, there's the

00:22:17.730 - 00:22:37.470

ongoing park operation and maintenance cost. Um, Well, unfortunately, we compete with everybody else for the general tax dollar and that's, that's always a push right at budget time, we have to go in and tell the board that developing a park is one thing. The ongoing operation

00:22:37.470 - 00:22:51.630

and maintenance costs are the, are the costs that will come back and bite you if you don't operate, maintain those facilities properly. So unfortunately while there's enough money to develop parks, it seems like, or there's a lot of money to develop parks, we have to go

00:22:51.630 - 00:23:06.830

back and compete with other departments for general tax dollars to properly operate and maintain those facilities. Well, you know, something that does come to mind here. Jim, and I just thought, I'm sure the supervisors think periodically the public in general think that, you know, in terms

00:23:06.830 - 00:23:18.450

of paying property taxes, paying whatever taxes are necessary in the community and they like to be able to go to the parks and use them now. Most parts have fees now. Have you had to instigate fees in order to take care of maintenance, that sort of

00:23:18.450 - 00:23:31.180

thing. And I think the public basically, I would like to see more money going into the park because they really like to go, they are spring Lake Park as an example, that place is always full. You know, people love to go there. They don't like to

00:23:31.180 - 00:23:45.850

pay the fee, but they love to go to the park. So so more money maybe should go into park. So how do we get that across? Well, it's basically becomes a demand of the public. You know, they want safe places to recreate and they want more

00:23:45.850 - 00:24:01.110

of them. The type of parks that we're developing now seems to be the type that are turfed areas. They have athletic fields, they have play lots for kids and they have organized recreation areas unlike 10 years ago when the department was working with open space wilderness

00:24:01.110 - 00:24:16.950

type parks were now moving into more urbanized park settings and consequently those parks take a lot more money to operate and maintain because you have more intense use than you do in, say, a good mountain park versus anise pastilles park or perhaps the Roseland Park. We've

00:24:16.950 - 00:24:29.650

got some beautiful parks and wide diversity of parks. The neighborhood parks, regular ranch parks, the Maxwell house, I mean the beautiful parks, bigger parks and we've got a lot of small ones and for areas that they just seem to fit in beautifully. I want to talk

00:24:29.650 - 00:24:46.490

to him a couple more things about split point that I want to talk to you about your volunteers, the marina over there, bob black point marina supervisor Was designed for commercial fishermen. Now don't you have to have a certain ratio of commercial fisher boats to recreational

00:24:46.720 - 00:25:06.250

boats rather? And how does that work over there for you? By law was passed that Marina had to be 80% commercial and 20% recreational. What's happened traditionally in the past in the last 2030 years was the marinas down south would get money saying that they were

00:25:06.250 - 00:25:22.260

going to improve the commercial fishing industry. And when that once they got the facilities built, they would, the commercial fishermen were not, were not given any priority over over those slips. So this was written into this law. So that spud point would always remain commercial. Commercial

00:25:22.260 - 00:25:40.730

fishermen will always have a priori point and we just monitored by the fish and game tags. A commercial fishing boat is one of the fish and game tag who actively actively fishes, sailboats and salmon boats, small recreational boats, those are just that just recreational. It's great

00:25:40.730 - 00:25:53.400

to have that because many people love to go, you know, recreational fishing and we do provide that over here now. But you gotta realize that commercial fishing is their livelihood. They want to keep it that way. They don't want all of a sudden bodega bay is

00:25:53.400 - 00:26:08.010

growing and they want to make sure the commercial fisherman always has the first shot at, at the birthing of the facilities because it was built for the commercial fisherman right now. That opened in 85 I believe. And you've been over there and it's been an operation

00:26:08.010 - 00:26:25.810

day and night. Since then, one of the problems with the other marinas up and down the coast, 8 to 5 for fuel and ice or they're 8 to 5 for this. Commercial fishing is, it's, you're in, it's, it's christmas day, it's christmas eve, it's christmas weather

00:26:25.810 - 00:26:38.180

permitting. And when you shut down the whole fleet, if you don't have your, your fuel and ice available 24 hours a day. And it's been one of the successes of spud point is that it has stayed open 24 hours. So we work around the commercial fisherman

00:26:38.180 - 00:26:53.510

schedule as opposed to as opposed to them work around us and they have what they call a turnaround time, the quicker they can get in, get back out, the more fish they can, they can catch and it's cut way down on the turnaround time aside, question

00:26:53.510 - 00:27:06.420

that I have here, but I wanted commercial fishermen who do this for a living. They go out in the boat every day differences. Salmon fishermen, they have to go when the weather is there. If they're doing it for a living, they go in the weather is

00:27:06.420 - 00:27:24.790

their breakdowns, they break down and they have other problems. But anniversary birthday christmas or whatever. I don't think they get away with their anniversary any other, any other time. It's weather permitting. If the markets there, if the dollars and cents and everything's working right there out

00:27:24.790 - 00:27:37.140

there, there, there's no 8 to 5 in commercial fishing, it's day and night. If you got, if you have to work all night to get your gear ready for the opener or, or whatever, they just know it's 24 hours just like the marina and that's what

00:27:37.150 - 00:27:50.870

made the marina successful. Well thanks for your side of the update on the fishing deal. We'll, we'll keep in touch with you and see what happens on that point. One of the things I wanted to mention, jim as we conclude is over the past five years,

00:27:50.870 - 00:28:07.280

regional Park Department has been able to develop a magnificent volunteer program. You want to briefly touch on that. We've got about a minute. Well, it's, it's one of the, one of the really good things that's happened to our department. Uh, we started in 1984 with one

00:28:07.280 - 00:28:21.940

volunteer opening and closing a gate at regular ranch and we have anywhere from 80 to 100 now doing a variety of things And it's, it's something that I'd like to see even grow bigger. We're developing a visitor center at spring lake, we'd like to see that

00:28:21.950 - 00:28:35.900

become a hub for volunteers. I think that we'd like to have outdoor programs for people to when they come to a park. They can enjoy an outdoor program about the environment, about the flora and fauna and so forth. So it's one of the best programs we've

00:28:35.900 - 00:28:56.180

been into recently and people have made it work beautifully to thank you. That number over there is 7075272041. That's correct. That's it. Remember that? I won't even try to remember that one. Thank you bob for coming over and all the good luck in the world. Ladies

00:28:56.180 - 00:29:09.500

and gentlemen, Jim, Angelo bob black and I have been talking about county regional Parks Department and also spread mike Marino. Be back with you next week with other members of the county government, family or related agency. Until then tonight, good luck and good health to each

00:29:09.500 - 00:29:10.430

and every one of you.