Hanna Winery and Sonoma County Recorder Bernice Peterson of the Recorder's Office and Historical Records Commission

Sonoma County. A diverse county of over one million acres. It's famed for its agriculture, industry and recreation, boasting a booming economy and unique lifestyle for its citizens. Described by the same Luther Burbank as the chosen spot of all the Earth, Sonoma County is the place to

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

nineties with your host, Rich McGlinchy. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Sonoma County in the nineties, on location at the beautiful Hannah One re on Occidental Road west of Santa Rosa. Beautiful places you've already seen and will see more of it. We're going to meet

our hostess, the lovely lady who invited us to come out here and do our filmy Kristanna is also the general manager wanted. Hi, Chris. I like just a beautiful spot. But you tell me it wasn't always that way. No, it looks a little different. It was

quite at overgrown In fact, when we all showed up the first day when my father brought us up here, all of us city kids with eyes aghast, uh, Billy go chickens. We didn't know what to do with 12 had to steer. So way started stomping the

grapes and making some home wide. So that made it fun. That was what, 19 to me. Yeah, that was early in early and mid seventies. And then in 85 we hired a real winemaker and started the business very, very successful to hand. Is that a real

good fortune? Tell us about this. Uh, that cabernet sauvignon went a gold medal of the harvest fair last year. Sure did. And what a fun event that ISS for anybody who's been. I just love it. Tastings of cinema, county foods and lines. And it's just in

exciting event. Have other winners. I see, too. The chardonnay went a gold medal at the L. A County fair for students, certainly, and our brand new entry merlot has just been flying out of the winery. That's a great wine, and consumers really seem to like merlot

as a sort of softer believe, read one of my favorite would want to know. It's great. Well, you also told us that you were going to take us on another tour. I want to do it. Absolutely. OK. All right, then we're gonna go with Chris Hannah,

and we're going to see the interior of Hannah Winery. I am Chris Hammond, General manager, piano wandering. We're gonna start our tour today in a cellar. Quite a bit cooler in here than it is outside. It's about 60 degrees. Here seems to be the optimum temperature

for storing line. We're looking at French oak barrels. Waste our chardonnay, You know? No. Are merlot and cabernet in these barrels, but today they're all empty. We're anticipating harvest and all the wine has been bottled from last year. And we're waiting for a new juice to

go in these barrels to age in back of us. We see stainless steel tanks or seven year block their seven of them, and they're empty too, and scrubbed and waiting for new juice. Next, we're gonna go out to the question for standing out here on the

crush pad during harvest. When the grapes come in, they first go through a machine called a piece Temer takes stems right off the grapes when they get put into this pressure. Here, pressure is about a small fist. A small like fist gives you a sense of

the kind of pressure needed. Teoh, squeeze the grapes. Then juice goes into these tanks. Here, Teoh are left are white tanks and their, uh, funny stuff around this tanks there is insulation. Keeps those wine school and the reds, including the skins and the seeds go into

these tanks here, up on top eyes a pneumatic device called punch down device. And our winemaker gets up on top of those tanks and he punches the cap down so that the skins in the seeds mix in with the juice and in part, that red color

in some nice tannins. We're in the bottling room on modelling days. We usually have about a dozen bottlers in here to man. This is bottom line one starting this conveyor belt here. I think this wheel where they get stared where the bottles get sterilized, the bottom

line This machine here puts corks bear about where bottler puts the caps of capture. I don't to the top of the line white bottle. This machine shrinks that cat onto the bottle travels along through, and this contraption here is that the label er and front label

and the Mackley will get a fixed to the ball. That point travels on to the rest of the conveyor belt, where a bottler packs into pack those bottles into 12 bottle cases. On a good day, we do about 1200 cases a day. You gotta move pretty

fast if you're bottler here. Yeah, that it's usually pretty loud racket. Sometimes it's hard to hear anything, and so we have everybody. Where airports. We're standing in the middle of one of our four ranches here at the Home Ranch. We grow chardonnay and a little bit

of Pino Nor, and we're looking at chardonnay right here. In a couple weeks, these little Berries will turn to a golden color and will be ready to harvest, probably about mid September. If you taste him now, they'll be pretty sour, so I don't recommend it. Now

that we've seen how the lines are made, we'll talk a little bit about the finished product. Make four lines versus Soniya Blanc, probably best known for this wine, especially in and around Loma County, all made from snow accounting grapes. It's a nice light, dry white wine

chardonnays. Next, we were standing in the middle of our short name, and you know, this is where most of the, uh, grapes come from. For the shard names barrel for a minute. Merlot from the Alexander Valley. This is an extremely popular one. Just released our first

Monroe in October, and we've flown through flowing through the vintage. And finally, Cabernet, also made from the Alexander Valley, have been making cabernet since 1985. Our tasting rooms open from 10 to 4 every day come by for tasting sales and tours. We're happy to have you.

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With prenatal care from programs like Healthy Start, find out what you could do. Why? Because this is America. Welcome back to this tradition is to Noma County in the nineties on Location and Hannah Winery in a moment we're gonna be talking to a woman who holds

an important position in this gnome account of government. She's two or three things, one on which is an old friend of mine. But I should say that your young friend of mine, all my old friends, are dead. But she is a lovely woman and she has

done a splendid job. He is Bernice Peterson, and she's just a normal kind of recorder. And it started nice to have you back. We talked about this for the last year, but we haven't been able to get together. You have been recorder, um, for what? Since

1977 20 by the Board of Professors. Long time. A lot of a lot of water under the bridge. That's true. Okay, The Cannery Corner's office has a very, very important office. I think you'll find that out as a result of our program here. But I also

know that many people out there do not know what the recorder's office is or does. So that's what we're gonna start with Bernice, uh, tell us about recorder's office and then tell us, What do you do there? Well, the recorder's office is primarily in records management.

We handle all the land records for Cinema County. Although the deeds and the mortgages and the lanes and so forth. And in addition to that, we have all of the maps for the county. And we have the vital statistics, which are the birth, death and marriage

certificates. So you have all of the land records? Yes. You know, I digress From a few years ago. A few months ago, Years ago, Time escapes me. You had a bunch of those great big old books. They keep records, and quite a number of them were

true. Completely obsolete. Gone. But you gave those to the public a lot of people too, to request them and water them. Uh, they were really fascinating. They had all the records in handwriting. Didn't know those were not the hand written records. Those were the earlier typed

records. They had everyone. Well, that is a duplicate. The other Thea, other ones we keep in the archives. But all of the others, we have microfilmed everything in the office now. So many people were so pleased and proud to get those and fascinated by what they

read in there. Um, whom among our viewers uses the recorder's office well on everyone. Can we have people coming in doing research on their home? We have kids coming in to get a birth certificate for their little league or for driver's license, someone coming in to

get a death certificate for Social Security purposes. We also have the real estate industry, the title companies, mortgage brokers, credit bureaus and, um, developers and attorneys and land surveyors coming in to so anyone can use our office were open to the public. You really, really are

a storehouse of treasured records over there. Bernie's do the county recorder and you're you are elected. I know one of your responsibilities well, primarily to preserve those records and protect them. And we do so by keeping a complete, inaccurate copy of the records and then to

index them in order to locate them. So of and we put that on microfilm, Um, two things I want to ask, but 11 is not election official. But before that, um, you keep all kinds of records, and you now have condensed them all to microfilm or

microfiche. Are most of them, haven't you? Yes, everyone of all of them so that buildings, for the record now fit in a Cabinet or something. Absolutely after Major. Yeah, that's one thing that this woman has done since he's been in office. You are an elected official,

though. And why is the recorder's office an elected official? Well, I believe it's primarily for public protection. It has to do. We're one of the original elected positions that the state had formed back in 18 50 for each county. And it's part of the fiscal team,

so to speak with the assessor and the tax collector Treasure and the Auditor. And we're in the fiscal building. And we all are in the property land property continuum there. Um, in addition doing to doing work for the county, we do work for the individual cities

and for special districts and are responsible to them also. And, um, also, of course, to the public. Um, when we last talked, which was a year or so ago, uh, the recorder's office was being remodeled. Now, where are you with that now? Well, um, we're pretty

much done with it now. We have our equipment in place. The only additional work yet to be done is to redo the ceiling and the heating and air conditioning units in that building. But other than that, we're pretty much done. And we have some of the

older maps on the walls now available to the public, and they're all restored. And we have the Declan and Blueprints hanging up. Also. What was the A side again? What was the purpose and remodeling to where was it getting clumsy or you're out of? Well, it's

time. We needed more room and equipment for three actual viewing of the microfilm and rooms for the computers and the electricity involved, the additional the energy that that takes everything so computerized. Yes, absolutely. All right, um, work. Are your long term plans for the office? Well,

one of the things we're looking at right now is to, um, consider going into the imaging, which is optical disc system. And that's where you would scan the document in and it would become digitized and put on the computer. And then it would be available to

the public right immediately for record. And then it would also be available off site. If you had a computer and a modem, how would this help in the way of service to the public. Well, they could have access to the records 24 hours a day, seven

days a week. If they have a computer and a modem, and then they could, they wouldn't have to drive into the county offices and find parking or anything. It would be available for them at any time. One idea, because anything you do to remove traffic from

the right and driving down and pull over Dale or coming from Sonoma, it's quite a trip, and that would save them that time. It would save on a lot of time. It certainly would, pretties. Besides being a kind of recorder, which you have been now for

almost 16 years, you've been very active in the State association of Recorders and and also the national organization, which I can't think of the name of but uh brings up to date on that well in the state association. I have right at the present time on

the Form Standardization committee chair and were quite active because we've just gotten new legislation passed, which will take effect next year, and then, um, I'm have been past president of that association and then on the national level. I am presently. I've gone through the chairs and

I have been past president of the National Association of County Recorders and Clerks and Election Officials, and that represented about a little over 3000 counties. And now I'm representing the national association on their group from which they were affiliated, the National Association of Counties. And I'm

on the border directors this year for that. With those accolades and those officers having been held and passed through, I don't think there should be any doubt about the pride we should all take in our county recorder. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you very much. I knew

you had gotten involved, but I didn't realize you had been president of even the national organization. There's been a large volume of increase of work in your office, and it's seems like it's just in the last year. What's the reason for that? Thean Trist rates primarily

what that effects are almost significant, like that's right, because everybody right at the present time is has either refinanced or is considering refinancing and does. Some people have done it more than once, and so consequently are volume of work just within this last year has gone

up 33% because of the riff ice in the last year, you had her third more people? Uh, no, we didn't hire anyone. I mean, you really went up the word. 33% just absorbed it with all the folks. Well, yes, it's it's rough, but it says a

lot about the It certainly says a lot about the quality of people you have working. Oh, yes. Once again, I commend them for for, you know, just digging in and and doing it. I'm very, really help such such wonderful. You have a great staff. I know

most of your folks over there. Very help. What was the workload before this in your office will third. But, I mean, what was no, actually, as an example when I first came to work at the recorder's office, that was about 1974 going on 75. We recorded

approximately 59,000 documents then and this last year we recorded over 182,000 documents, and, uh, so that represents better than three times the amount of volume. But of course, the staffing has only gone up by two people since that time. That's an amazing job of, uh, of

utilizing your help and then being willing to take on additional duty. Absolutely. And there's a great deal more duties and new legislation that they have to. And I would say this to our audience in general before and a conversation sometime in the future. You might think

the county worker doesn't work as hard as a some other worker. Take a look at this is a group of people who have absorbed 1/3 more work with no extra help and done it willingly and done it cheerful because I go in and out of that

office. I know what I'm talking about. Um, in these very, very tough times for the county government, one of the cost for all this increased workload. You said you had no more people. But if you had to spend a little more money, Well, um, I think

our new computer system has helped significantly. And if we do go to an imaging system, I think that will help again, um, with the workload, because it is faster, more mechanized operation. But as far as dollars goes, we are one of the few county offices that

bring in money to the county. We do not over expended in any general funds we collect. Um, well, we expend about a $1,000,000 in our operation, but we we, uh, collect about a 1,000,000 1/2 of the one, and then about another 1,000,000 1/2 on the other.

Been Well, that's good. We're gonna part right here. So the station bring you a public service announcement after which Bernice Peterson I will come back from talk more about the very important county recorder's office. She'll be all right. The windows were rolled down. It will only

be gone a few minutes. They'll be fine in the wild. Cats know how to fend for themselves. Every day in Sonoma County, precious life becomes the target of neglect, abuse or accident. Fortunately, there are people working to stop the silent suffering of animals. But they can't

do it alone. They need your help. Find out what you can dio call the Humane Society of Sonoma County. Welcome back to this edition of Sonoma County in the nineties, on location at Hannah Winery on Occidental Road. Beautiful settings as you've already seen, and will see

more of. We're talking with the A county official and also a very good personal friend. The name is Bernice Peterson, and cheese are Sonoma County recorder. I've worked with her and had the pleasure of working with her over a number of years. We were talking about

the department of the fact that you're doing 1/3 more work with no more help and that you take in $3 million spend one. All of these things, I think, ladies and gentlemen, in the audience, taxpayers, if you will, should make you very happy. It certainly does

me. Your department does actually pay for itself, and then some doesn't. Oh, yes, absolutely. You said it's about a 1,000,000. Just been for everything. And that includes all the micro filming and the the computerization. And it takes in about three minutes. Most businesses would love to

be some success for Believe me today you've been working another thing that I think is very, very important. And I certainly set in a couple of meetings and found what you have to say. And what they all have is extremely interesting. But you've been working on

Historical records Commission for many years are. What's the purpose, shall we say of that commission overall? Well, huh? Several things. Number one is to bring the awareness of the public of the importance of the older historical records. And unfortunately, there was an anonymous quote that says

history repeats itself because no one listens. And I think part of our responsibility in the Historical Records Commission is to develop that awareness and also to be aware and to help with the preservation of Sonoma County historical records. Um, we service the public, and we also

review all of the county retention schedules for each department to make sure that anything of great value will be saved and will not be thrown out and will be kept forever. That's that's really important because, uh, you said your Jacqueline's plans for the house will find

something. It was They were discovered just a few years ago by you in your office, and, um, there was a fascinating fine in your own display. Now, yes, we have them. We've restored, though, had them restored. Yes, we've restored the records and we have them on

display, and we also have them available to make copies of those records tune so anyone can take. That's great because there may be scholars and students. Absolutely. Researchers use our records very often quite often. Um, what do you take that historical record group a little further.

What are you doing at present? Well, one of the things that we have done just recently and was to publish and prepare and print a booklet. It's called Researching the History of Sonoma County Building. And that is four individuals who want to come in and look

up the history of their home, for example, or for any building in Sonoma County. It shows you how to go about doing that. Where toe look where some of the references on that and it's available for purchase there were, could be it can be obtained in

our office. The cost for the booklet is a dollar 50 and it gives you a good start, which won't even cover the pricking. Well, that's true, but I think it just covers the printing barely, and the research and everything was all done by volunteer work. And,

uh, we have resource is lists of resource is in it. That can be very useful for somebody wanting to search their the history of their home. Uh, you have some very interesting old and older is getting burnt. Says records in your office. How far back to

your records go? Will our land records go back to 18. 34. Now? That was before Sonoma County became a county, and in fact, the state became state. So those records are in of archaic Spanish and we have those. And we have things such as cattle brands.

We have early death certificates. Are our death certificates go back to the 18 hundreds, as do our birth certificates and our marriage licenses. Go back to 18. 45 to the present day. We keep all of these records forever. Then my past life, I was 40 Niners.

So my mother interesting will be in their wanted. Hopefully, yes. If I got married, I'm not sure. Uh, today some things were really blowing around. Here Are how do you keep these records without them getting too old and too fragile for uses that the microfilm? Yes,

We microfilm everything in order to keep it for safekeeping and have the original off site in a storage vault, which is temperature and humidity controlled, and that keeps the microfilm. Hopefully, it will be for a minimum of 100 years. We examine it periodically and straight Copies

of that also good for 100 years. Yes, at least 100 trick on. Okay, that is definitely That's fine. So everything is microfilm. In addition to that, we also have an ongoing program of preservation, conservation and restoration of the documents themselves. Division? Yes. Keeping your story. That's

right. Exactly. Preserving them. And then conservation, which is is part of that whole continuum. Yes. And then restoration of the documents that may have been in bad shape before. When? Years ago. When I took over. Oh, yes. We had some maps that were in in very

bad shape before continuous use. And we have since microfilm does and also provided restoration of those maps. So they're in good shape now is really what and where you guys could fix that crack in the Liberty bill. You probably could, um, where is your office located?

And what hours is the county recorder's office open? Well, our office is located in the fiscal building in the Sonoma County complex of buildings right by the freeway. And we are room 103 f of the fiscal building 5 85 fiscal drive Santa Rosa were open from

8 to 5. Monday through Friday. Mets open to the public. Yeah, people have front range, Ellie and all those folks that I work out. I didn't know Marine, uh, people just so courteous and so nice to people. Ladies and gentlemen, if you need, uh, copies of

records of any kind, like she says, marriages, birth certificates, any of these things that you need that you will find there. I certainly advised to go to Canada Corner's office because it would give you a new view of local government personnel. People in there are extremely

helpful. They're very knowledgeable, and they get your records and get you out of there just in time, so to speak. You know, we're about 30 seconds. Anything else you'd like to say? Don't just take a way. Do have a wonderful staff and we try to service

the public as quickly as possible and to get copies for them and things like that. So yes, please. Everybody is welcome to come in and you are always welcome to come back whenever you feel like we should chat about the recorder's office. Ladies and gentlemen, been

my pleasure today to interview Peterson here on account in the nineties on location and Hannah Winery. This is a beautiful place, by the way. And if you haven't visited Hannah wondering, I certainly suggested to do so. It's out 53 53 Occidental Road. A lovely place they're

setting around us in every direction is just gorgeous. So make it a point to come out here. I'm rich. McGlinchey. The programs and the county in the nineties. Back with you next week with Remember, the county government family are related agency until then. So long, good

left and good help each and every one of you.