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Sonoma County. The chosen spot of all the earth as far as nature is concerned, according to the famed plant wizard Luther Burbank Dover's County, with 1,010,000 acres of land on 1574 miles of scenic roadways, the county is rightfully famed for its agriculture did a culture, industry

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and recreation, as well as for the amazingly successful ethnic and economic mixture of its more than 340,000 residents on for the forward looking philosophy of its local governing bodies. Now we invite you to take a closer look at Sonoma County in the eighties with your host,

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Rich McGlinchy. This is sort of a special edition. Every once in a while, I am able Teoh, shall we say last you a couple of our county supervisors and get him over and asked him some of the questions that you want to ask about what's happening

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to Sonoma County and certainly in their district guests on this program. On the right of your screen is Helen Rudy. She is the dean of the border supervisors. She is the third district supervisor covering as you know, Sad arose in the central county on the left.

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Your screen is Nicolas Pastilles and Nick represents the fourth District, and the fourth District covers the northern part of Stan. Roseanne goes throughout up to the ministry. No county border. Now we're gonna talk to them in just a moment. We're going to talk about transportation in

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the hospital and proper cemetery and all kinds of things. But before we get into the question and answering like call attention to the artwork on our set today on the right of your screen is the famous man of war, considered to be the greatest thoroughbred in

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the history of American racing. A beautiful painting and over to the right of your screen is Big Red, which was the nickname for Man of War and Ghosts. He's racing against horses of the past, I guess. Beautiful I work. It's by Joe Hoffman of Occidental, who

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I believe to be the finest equine artist in the Western United States. And we certainly appreciate it, Joe letting us bring these paintings using what are set today. Thanks, Joe. Well, how you doing? Very well. Thank you. We'll be here. Rich your name again. I'm not

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going to tell you. I know you think you would. All right. Third district supervisor for District supervisor Helen. One of the real problems I know you have is traffic, Houston on the 101 current or action committee. What is happening right now, Helen, To solve the congestion

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on this problem. Well, I'm sure that people would say this morning, nothing is happening. But in reality, we do have a one. A 1/4 action committee that has been at work on this issue for several years. First are the first phase of the study was to

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see what the 23 counties really Sonoma, Marin and San Francisco wanted to do what they saw as the problem and what they saw as a resolution of the problem. Ah, we did that. The problem was, when you're working with his many elected officials as we were,

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that is a representative at each of the cities in Sonoma and Marin, the Board of Supervisors, Caltrans, Golden Gate Bridge District and San Francisco. You have a lot of people there with different ideas. We all of us wanted to resolve the problem. And I suppose what

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we thought was the best way for our situations and counties. We put together what we call the preferred alternative to the resolution, and I won't say all what all those things were because when we finally put it together and asked another consultant to look at it

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to see what it was feasible, he came in and told us it was the most expensive resolution of the traffic congestion that that there was of any. We've had to put that aside a little bit and re review do this to to find something that's feasible.

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That means something that will work. And that's something that we think we can afford on a great deal of Time has been spent on that Resolving this issue is very expensive, and the money at the state level on the federal level is running out. As you

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know, all of us here is, you know, the local communities air having to pick up the costs of trying to resolve their problems. To do that, uh, it would mean Sonoma Moran San Francisco would have to come up with extra money that they don't have at

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the present time to resolve the issue. We now at the point where we have taken a poll. We've studied it. We think we have a resolution which will be of no sir. No surprise. I'm sure, to many of the people there and we're looking at how

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can we pay for that? In Sonoma County, most of the people felt that our resolution should be righ way of the highway and the present highway. That means simply adding two more lanes to the to the freeway, which would mean six lanes. Three going south, three

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coming north. In Marin County, the people of Marin do not want extra lanes added to their freeways. You know, they just recently have had some added and the traffic is flowing along Well. Now, remember, we're trying to resolve the problem for it least 25 years ahead.

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Uh, majority. The people's there seem to not want any more additions to the freeway, and they are proposing that we put a rail system of some kind on the railway going south from highway 37. That would end that locks per ferry. And then, of course, there

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would have to be transfers to something. You know, the Americans love affair with their car once they get in, they don't want to get out, and we still are discussing whether or not people will use that system and whether our two lanes added to the freeway

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will take care of the congestion up for the next 25 years. And so we have before us now the discussion of these two plans and the cost. I must admit, when we talk about costs, it's in billions of dollars, not billions. And it looks as if

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one of the resolutions might be some kind of added tax. Gasoline tax may not do it, so people are considering 1/2 cent sales tax. And in the next month or two, we really are trying to pinpoint on what it is that we will be presenting to

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the people in the form of asking for funds to to resolve this issue. It is very complicated because of the most people want to think of going directly to San Francisco. That means crossing water that is difficult. It's not like going from San Jose to San

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Francisco, which seems to have a rail and buses and roads crossing the water as the geography of San Francisco presents to us creates problems of its own and so the complexity of that the cost can either the county support those costs. Uh And then, of course,

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the divided people. Those who want the monorail, those who want the railroad, those who want the freeway and then there many of us who want buses. But when you turn around and ask people, will you ride in the buses, everybody thinks, know their schedules air too

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busy to important time, too time consuming. So we haven't come to the answer of all that. It's getting difficult. You, this affect you too. How about how about the this miss on the on the freeway, going on up in before you know it is, It's moving

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up into my district. And obviously I think just this past week, I think kind of opened our eyes. To some extent, I think it's time that we may be reassessed some of the issues that have been discussed through the different committees. And look at this car

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pooling because I think we always felt that if we could reduce that by 10 or 15% we could gain a lot of ground on on 101 I'm not sure that the buses are the real answer, maybe in the future, because we're not geared for transportation of

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that. That type. I've always kind of felt that those fairies, the blood, should have been pulled on them so that they just think and go away. But that's my personal opinion. They're very costly. And again, when you ask people to transfer and do all these kind

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of things, we're kind of spoiled. And in the past we like to jump in their car and go direct. But I think that, uh, after this particular week with the strike and all, I think that, uh, now we should reassess the whole picture and take a

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very good look at it because maybe we're doing something that is not needed. And we're subsidizing a service that maybe could be put to better use. Well, you know, let me know. He throw one thing at him with regard to this a ruse. Er is targeted,

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I think is the area that's supposed to grow most don't count in the next decade. That's going to just add more headaches to your district on this deal is, well, sure it is but rich. When we did the plan and Windsor and and this is a

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plan that, uh has taken place because of some bad planning practices over the years, especially in the 19 sixties, when they put in water and sewer. When that happened, that really escalated the growth factor, growth factor. And of course, today we've had to come up with

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a plan looking way into the future. And of course, one of my real concerns was when we came forward with that plan that we had a good balance between residential, commercial and industrial because we can't continue to build housing and not provide jobs locally. He's That's

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my my feeling on this. We've got to keep these people from going toe Marin County in San Francisco, to work that will help somewhat. I want you to do that just like you're doing the board. When one says something with the other to answer, it raises

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a good point that I didn't touch on and that is we need to look at this again because of the changes we've seen. We've always known that when people are put under this duress of a strike and they can't go, they will find other means of

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getting to their job, and they have this week. Um, I think the figure is now that if every car carried if you want to look at this, um, two people and we can shave that down, I think it's really one and 7/10 person. You want to

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cut somebody up into pieces? We would have no congestion on the freeways if every car Now you can fashion that out. So there'll be one car with one and another car with three or somebody. If every car carry two people, we would have no congestion on

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the freeway. Uh, there we have it. The other thing is, and I visited with a very knowledgeable person yesterday and we nt he was complaining about the traffic in the congestion. And and, uh, he's why, you know, why don't we get more? Bess is on the

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road and said that I said, Do you know what the subsidy to the buses Ah is no. And I said, Can you believe that every person that takes the bus from Santa Rosa to San Francisco is subsidized to the tune of $6 per trip? Not round

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trip, $6 per trip. But the taxpayer pays for the subsidy from Sebastopol to San Francisco, it's $9 per trip. The actual if averaging out subsidy is, I think Mr hits his $900 per person on the bus trips. But you see, some bus trips are very short,

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but that's a subsidy of almost $7000 per person. If you consider that they were 200 days or, you know at least 48 weeks a year, so it is expensive. And and I think Sonoma County's thrust through its general plan is on the right track for us.

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And that is, we must bring in more jobs for the housing. We must not continue to build housing for Marin and San Francisco, not because we don't want to, and not because we don't like people in Sonoma County. Not at all. But a house does not

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pay its own way through the tax system to take care of its needs. That's it. Ah, house here does not support itself for all the things that they need. All the mental health services, all the roads, all the police services in court, house and so on.

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Consequently, we keep building housing for people who are not working here in bringing in that added cost. We diminish the county's coffers while we're subsidizing them at the same time to work somewhere else. So that is the added complexity of trying to resolve the issue. And

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I'm very pleased with Cinema County. And in in their general plan, one is, you know, way we'll look, be looking for density so people can use buses better and carpool. But also, we must then balance this with jobs for for the people who live here so

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that we don't, in a sense, force them to go out of county toe these air. This is just the first problem that we've we have that you fellas or ladies were experiencing on the Board of Supervisors. Right now. Couple of things here have one. I want

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you in a minute. Name it about geothermal. What happened? You've been working on some of the problems that I know of. Santa Rosa Avenue. How do you get along with you open ditches? Lack of water in the building? Well, after 11 years of tender loving care

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to Sanders and can you believe that I plan to have an item on the agenda the first week of February, asking asking for an assessment district down there that will bring water down Santa Rosa Avenue and improve the roads. Although we've improved the roads somewhat, we

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will be improving this and I'm hoping that this will be the culmination of a long years of hard work between the Public Works Department and my office. And the city of Santa Rosa is Public Works department to bring a really upgrading and improvement to Santa Rosa

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Avenue. We, I think, have the votes now of the people who are down there, you know you need over 60%. I think that we have that clear. We're getting more people to sign up for the assessment district every day. And I think that bringing water down

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and improving the roads, closing the ditches under grounding the lighting, bringing fire hydrants, men and, you know, urbanizing that street will bring about a great improvement that is before us. We'll have that to the board. Then there's a 30 day waiting period to see what the

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public has to say. I'm home future. You're good. Well, not so much the near future. I would like to say the end of 1988 before I go but that everything works out, the weight should. But you know it never does That way there will be some

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glitches, as they say, but we say December 88 February of 89. We should be able to hook up the water and see the rest of the improvements. Uhm finished group have my fingers crossed on that? But I hope so. That has been I know that has

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been with you for long. A couple of minutes before we take a break here. What happened to the geothermal development? Up in, up in your area That used to be one of the major attacks sources for the county. It's your West rich. Uh, up until the

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last couple of years, you know, there was a shortage of power and electricity generated throughout the country. And in the last couple of years, that's kind of turned around. And of course, with the taxing, uh, issue. And of course, you know, geothermal was approximately 18 20%

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of our tax base here and the formula for assessing the value at the Geiser XYZ based on fossil fuels. And we all know what's happened to the price of oil in the last couple three years. So consequently, that has dropped us down to about 9% of

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our total tax dollars and that that drop has been, ah riel concern to us. And of course, the last couple of years, between the loss of, uh, federal revenue sharing and geothermal, we've we've had to cut back about $7 million each year compounded. So that has

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really made a difference on our direction. And one of our biggest problems through the budget process and trying to provide the services to the people of Cinema County is the fact that our criminal justice system has just gone wild. And there's an area of being alive.

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Well, with the growth involved in all the problems associated with growth and the services required, uh, you take Cinema County with, uh, generally, the tax roll is about 100 and $57 million out of that. The majority of it, of course, goes to the state, and we

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end up with about $52 million. Our total grim criminal justice system is about $45 million of our own tax dollars. Uh, which is 90% of our taxes now. That's not the total budget for the criminal justice. It's about 56 million. So it's more than our share

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of property taxes in the county. So when you look at the overall picture and you figure that G we don't have too much and discretionary funds to fund all the services and programs in Sonoma County, uh, we have to rely on our sales tax and motor

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vehicle taxes other than your state and federal mandates that are funded. So it it has created a problem. And I hope that the growth of the geothermal area is is is to writer in the future. Believe me, do things I want to mention right here. It

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is that primarily the reason that you see your going, uh, sometimes that's why I've lost a little more here. And the other thing was mentioned 1.7 people 7/10 and I know more 7/10 people. Listen, we've got a pause for just a moment. Ladies and gentlemen, Knickers

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Pastilles Fourth District Supervisor Helen Rudy on third District supervisor and I will return right after this important message. I'm Eric Dickerson, and I'm going to show you something that could save your life. Now say these footballs or your lungs. Every time you smoke, you can damage

00:19:43.230 - 00:19:59.740

your lungs with every puff. Day after day, year after year, your loans could get more and more damaged until finally, they may not breathe at all. Your loss could end up useless, so don't smoke. Keep your lungs for clean, fresh air. Take care of your lungs.

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They're only human. The American Lung Association. The Christmas seal people. I'm Lisa Hartman. You know what's really incredible to me. I can't believe some people still think you can get AIDS from a handshake or a drinking glass or by picking up a telephone. It's just not

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true. The fact is, it's difficult to get AIDS, and there's no reason to be afraid of people with AIDS. They need us to help and most of all, to care. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to this edition of Sonoma County in the eighties in which we

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have the good fortune of featuring two of our county supervisors on the right of the screen and telling be Rudy, the third district supervisor now in her 12th and she tells us her final year as a county supervisor and the Kiss Pastilles on the left, your

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screen in his tent and heaven only knows whether that's his third from last or not. Your supervisor. They both done a splendid job there, often opponents, and they're often in support of each other's positions. But they certainly are always honest and open. And they they represent

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their districts, I think excellently Helen the Popper Cemetery we've heard a lot about that's in the third District. What was there was its resolution. Well, it isn't the final resolution yet, but I think we're about ready to do that. I'm glad you asked, because it did

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create a certain amount of public interest we discovered when we wanted to do a parking lot up there that we had this cemetery that over the years had been lost in the shuffle. People changed, come and go and it was lost and it was discovered there,

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and our architect has done a really an excellent job of looking at all of the area and having it studied and putting it together and cleaning up all the the brush and poison oak and whatnot. And we're at the point where I think we will consider

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it coming to the board and asking for a little fencing around that I'm disgusted with him. The cemetery does not have to be disturbed at all for our parking lot. He's elongated the parking lot. He's going to set it aside and put a little fence around

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it and just one little short path that leads into it. Some monument toe. Identify it so that will not get lost again over the years. A fence around the outside that we're protected from animals and vandalism and so on, not vandalism is determined, but the usual

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kind of walking through and it will be off to the side, and I don't believe it will be lost again. And I think it will be just There is a quiet, peaceful little place is really very pretty up there, that tall trees and quiet and there's

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a little hell and you can look down over the veil. And I think that that will resolve the problem and I want to command our architect for doing that. He spent it not a great deal of time, but it was very constructive, and I think we

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will be taken care of and set aside a little gate in a little place and a little path leading into it. And then it should be there. Really glad to hear that, Helen, because I was thinking, reserving a plot there. I don't think this room for

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you rich, so you'll have to. You better do something. Don't take up much room. Nick. You're this Sonoma County government representative on the Executive Board of Seats Act. That's County Supervisors Association of California. Now what is that body doing to help Saddam a county or counties

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in general? In the present? Well, this last couple, three years rich, what we're really trying to do is we're trying to look for a stable source of funding for the counties. Uh, in the last few years, there's been a lot of state and federal mandates, as

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I alluded to earlier, and one of the problems with the state mandates about 90% or better have not been funded, So that's put a lot of pressure on local government. So what we're trying to do is is establish uh, some stable source of funding so that

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we know where we're at in the future and we don't have to rely on state and federal suspensions or whatever may be coming in this direction. Uh, one issue that we were successful with this last year was to get some help in the trial court area.

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This again has been an area that not only Sonoma County, but the other 57 counties have suffered greatly because there is an area we don't have any control over, and it just has escalated to the point where we need some help for the criminal justice system.

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Cilento earlier is going to break us. That's what's going to happen. Uh, the other area is, uh, we would like to see and the governor also supports us on that particular issue is to transfer another quarter percent sales taxes to the county, Sonoma or all counties

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involved. Right now, out of the 6% we get one and 1/4 percent. This would give us 1.5% although we would have toe take care of the energy indigency programs within the county of Sonoma, which amount to probably $45 million at this point. But the additional income

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would give us an excess of probably two million. So when you look at the trial court system that maybe three or four million, this program another two million, this really would would help in a starting point. Teoh toe. Look at this stable source of funding in

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kind of shift their responsibilities to where they should be. We provide a lot of services for the state of California along with our own local programs. So I think with a little time and a little more pressure on our legislators and the governor will succeed. But

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it's gonna take time and it's a lot of work. And I kind of look forward to, uh, pursuing that from time to time. I kind of think, Well, maybe it's punishment by our board putting me on their board of directors, uh, to do this work, but

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nevertheless, uh, way we've all taken our turns and, uh, I enjoy that, Uh, you have all both taking their turns that at the easier. Well, I won't say there any easy ones, but the better ones into the tougher one. So you paid your dues for the

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last two budgets. You've been talking about this pretty make visitors center. What do you have in mind? Yes, indeed. I'm glad you asked. Really? Well, actually, in the even. In the beginning, when Spring Lake was developed and that whole area was developed, there was talk then

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of having a visitors center. Most of our parks have a small center that can be used by the officials. Who are they're reviewing getting tell us a little bit about the park. Springlake does not have that as yet. What is unique about Spring Lake Park? Of

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course. It is situated between a city park and a state park. We have three parks in line. Consequently, we are hoping, and there is money and the water agency's budget now to vet to develop a small center there that would be there for our park officials.

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It would be there for programs. It would help with the nature studies type of program for our schools, and it's closely related toe water. I'm very excited about it, and I think that before I leave, we will give it a big push and continue to present

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it to the Board of Supervisors would be a tremendous help to our school system, educational program and a wonderful recreational area for the community. Wait, I want to comment on that. We're seeing a lot up. There is a beautiful thing. That's a yes, but I want

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to talk about Springlake because Hell has been a great supporter on spring in the spring like area and not only for recreation, but for other purposes. And, uh uh, she's gonna be pushing. I'm gonna be supporting, because I think that should be the Helen B. Rudy.

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Visitors on, uh, beautiful thought layers onto the water agency and we're gonna be pushing. I don't know. That's a big surprise to Helen, but I think that, uh, she's deserved. I were down to about a minute and 1/2. You, too. And so I have to get

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us off on time. What final thoughts would you like to make? Well, final thought is that, of course, being on the Board of Supervisors is a challenging position. It doesn't get easier, but it does get to be more challenging. And it's a way that we can

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help this community move ahead in the direction that the people of Sonoma County wanted to. It's a good way I look at us as being passthroughs. People come to us. We tried to make it happen. And I welcome everyone's interest continuing interest in their local local

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government. And, uh, I'll have many chances to do this, but maybe not on television. I want to thank you personally for 11 years of dedicated service and 1/12. Now, I think that your thought is exceptionally well tech. And I sincerely hope you're successful with it. Final

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thought give you 30 seconds. Well, you know, Cinema County is a beautiful place. It's a beautiful place to live. We attract a lot of people rich. And I think that our main concern is to direct that into the proper channel so that long range planning takes

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care of some of the problems and impacts that we've created in the past because maybe short sighted issues that have come before the board. But I think we're all looking long range now, and I think our future is much brighter. Thank you, Mr Supervisor. Thank you,

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Madam Supervisor was a pleasure to have these two with me because they are divo tees of good government and they do a good job and those of you who elect them can can pat yourselves on the back. You did a good job. My name is rich.

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McClatchy. The program is normal county in the eighties. I'll be back with you next week. We'll talk with other members of the county government, family or a related agency to read. There are good luck, good health and good night to you.