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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 same 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. Hello everyone. Welcome to this edition of Sonoma County in the nineties. We're gonna be talking about a subject that is really very, very important to all of us. And I mean all of us will be talking about the Sonoma

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County agricultural preservation and open space district and ain't that amount for. We're talking to two people that good friends, I'm glad to say who have a great deal to do with this. David Hanson is the general manager of the district and Maria. J. Cipriani is the

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open space planner. And what's the J stand for? You won't? That's it really. Absolutely. Never heard that. I didn't want to embarrass. I mean that. No, but we talked recently. Well recently, I mean a year ago with David Hanson. Uh Maria couldn't be with us that

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time. We talked about agricultural preservation in open space district and he brought us up to date as to what they have done thus far in acquiring open space for all of us to use in the years ahead. I think that this kind of leads us into

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this first question perfectly. And that would be what properties and Anchorage has the district acquired since we talked last year? Well, rich. It's nice to be here. Yes. Since the last time we chatted it, we've acquired approximately 13 properties. Uh, and we've added about 2000 acres

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of, of land to the district's inventory since that time. And I brought a map today that shows essentially where they are. You wanna, you wanna discuss this a little bit? Well, I think the key elements are that we have continued to focus in the uh, community

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separator. Uh, Highway one oh one corridor in Sonoma like um, highway 12 corridor areas so that you can see that with the acquisitions, which we have 11 today, uh, with the 6000 acres of really focused in that area. That was of great concern to the, The

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public of the county and preserving. Look at the acreage there. You know, that's a lot of acres involved. 3000, is that right? Well, that was one of the first purchases. That was the fairly controversial McCord. Remember that we talked about last time. Go on. One of

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the others. I see you have a 368 acre parcel in South County. Yes, that was Cloudy Bend, which is a property on Lakeville Highway, a sheep ranch and hey ranch, we've acquired a number of properties in the community separators, both north of santa rosa and south

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of santa rosa between santa rosa and Rohnert Park. Uh We have one also that we acquired the first purchase which is on there, the 223 acre site which was the marty property again in a community separator. Uh the vineyard of ST Francis uh near kenwood again

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uh right on the separator boundary and then some of the others are a little further out there, more agricultural uses, a uh burns dairy at south and west of Petaluma. But a number of them beautiful properties and they will be protected in perpetuity as open space.

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That's a nice sound when you say that you know will be protected in perpetuity namely you think of something being set aside for a while but it's going to disappear but these properties will be there for a long, long time. Right, alright. What I guess you'd

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call them exciting projects are currently coming up that we can discuss. Well I think the just to let you know, we're dealing with about 57 projects at the current time coming up and uh we have one exciting project which is a donation as well, a 5000

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acre 4000 acre rather donation uh near Cloverdale. It's uh it's on scag Springs Road. But uh we're just getting started on that and we do have a couple of other potential donations as well in some of the further out areas, we have about 25 projects in

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the community separators. Again, focusing on either side of santa rosa and near the town of Healdsburg, Fitch Mountain. The mountain in Healdsburg is one exciting project that we're looking at. That may be both a conservation easement under the district but could also become a low key

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preserved type park that could be managed by regional parks and that's a, that's an exciting prospect. We have been working with a number of other entities as well on, on projects, but those are some of the key ones that we're looking at. Looks like an interesting

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year here. It's a busy week, a busy year ahead. Certainly Maria, You're here with your space planner. What's the focus of the acquisitions the district is working on at the present. Presently, as part of our acquisition plan that the board of directors of the district adopted

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in December of 1992, we have what is called an annual action plan and what that does is establishes the priorities for how the district will focus its acquisition activity in the coming year. And at this point, as David mentioned, we still are focusing primarily on the

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community separator properties. Those areas between the city to provide visual relief. When you say community separators, you mean the areas lying between right, for instance, the area between Rohnert Park and santa rosa between santa rosa. The lark field area Windsor and Healdsburg and also along the

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highway 12 corridor. No problem. However, we do have the ability and are negotiating on several properties throughout the county that are not necessarily community separators, but for instance, Timberlands resource areas, areas where their critical habitat present as well as large agricultural properties that are in close

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proximity to the cities as well as in in the surrounding scenic lands. The district adopted the acquisition plan I think in December of 92. Uh And you also mentioned about annual planning type of program. But when is the plan you adopted 92 expected to review the

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revised. We are hoping in the next month or thereabouts we will be taking it to the board of directors for revision for review. We will circulate the plan again to the cities to solicit their input. We also do have the uh the advisory, the Citizens Advisory

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Committee as well as the open space authority which will review that and make. And asians on any revisions that we feel are appropriate at this time and in about four years from now we will do a more comprehensive update of the plan to determine how our

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categories and priority areas may shift at that time. Kind of examining where our acquisitions have been and what changes need to are appropriate to proceed with the program. You mentioned the advisory committee pinpoint exactly how many people are on that and it's a diverse group. I

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know right. Yes, that's correct. How many people are involved. It's a 17 member citizens advisory committee. And as you pointed out, it, it's very diverse. It includes representatives from the agricultural community, the business community, The environmental community as well as representatives from the city's. How often

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they meet. They meet once a month regularly. The 3rd Thursday last time we talked about joint projects with the district and the city's remember quite a few of them. I think quite a few for the beginning and and someone with other agencies also. But tell us

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about the project the district is currently considering for this matching funding. I mean, I think maybe you first, you first whoever. Okay. There's uh, we've had our first round uh completed for, for the past year we have four projects, one with the city of Sebastopol and

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two with the city of Petaluma and one with the town of Windsor. The one with the town of Windsor is an interesting one in that. It's a uh an oak forest in the town center and will become part of the town center for Windsor preserved as

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a natural forest. The two and Petaluma are riverside Petaluma river side projects and we are working on our next round coming up fairly soon. Maria has been the principal force behind this for the district and getting this program going. And uh that's, that's what the district

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is working on. The matching program with the cities. We do have other projects with other entities such as with regional parks. We've recently been working on the railroad right of way between Sebastopol and Forrest Ville to preserve that area with regional parks. They will own and

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maintain the property. We will help acquire the land from the railroad and that will become a trail corridor through agricultural and natural resource lands. We're working with potentially with the water agency on a couple of projects. Uh, state parks on a potential project and a number

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of other entities including the Coastal Conservancy as well. Oh, I just wanted to point out that the four projects that the district is involved with with the city's, the competitive matching grant program. Projects will incorporate public access component so that there will be an opportunity to,

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to for the public to, to see how the district has coordinated with other agencies to to have passive recreation on these properties. How much money money we always got to talk about money, how much money is currently coming into the district from the sales tax and

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another part to this. And how much of that funding goes to the acquisition of rights of runaways and land land in general through the quarter percent or quarter cent sales tax. We get something over $9 million now. Um And that of that 95% is slated to

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go towards the acquisition of lands. Uh, so we are focusing our program on the acquisition of these rights and we do see the opportunity with increased sales in the county that that will increase. And actually this year we've had about $19 million dollars to spend. And

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We have certainly in the 57 projects I mentioned, we could spend all of that money if we really wanted to. And we are, we're pushing ahead with with these projects to spend that money, you know, social aside for a moment, sociologically speaking, it seems to me

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that you people are involved really in an extremely important function. We're not for this particular agency and your efforts, this land would not be acquired, so to speak for everyone's use. And so the people in the county would be poorer recreation wise certainly or as far

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as visiting attractive and and wonderful parts of our own county. So I on behalf of the rest of the county come in ju and everybody over there for for all your efforts in finding these places and through the use of the tax, everything getting these money

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out there and buying this land that we can all use. I think probably most. Everyone echoes my thought to you and your staff. You're to be congratulated on what you've done so far. Thank you. Rich. Yeah, I want to ask you another thing about your staff.

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What about what is your current staffing? Uh, well, two things. How many people work with you and where do you, where are you located right now? We have a small staff uh six people full time at the current time. And one of them is a contract

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person. We do have a position or actually two positions open. One is a planner, assistant planner for Maria to help with the dedications. We get through the planning process and with stewardship of of district lands and we do the contract position will also become a full

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time open space acquisition specialist as well. So we'll have a maximum by the end of uh this june of 94 of seven full time people working for us. The district offices are located at 4 15 Russell Avenue just to the south of Kaiser Hospital near the

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county complex. And we have a we'll be there for a while. We've been bounced around a little bit from office to office, but this will be our home for at least three years that we know that's great. Three years people are being bounced around every six

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months over there from these places. One of the questions we get to before we, you know, break recently we've been hearing about the district providing funds for ball fields, which I'm all for. All right, let's play baseball. Um but can you clarify this issue and whether

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the district can use its funding now and in the future for this purpose? Yes, there's there's certainly been some articles and editorials in the press democrat regarding our the interest in having the district involved in helping to to buy and build ball field areas we've been

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working with on a policy of recreation uses within measure C which was the funding mechanism for the district. There was uh there is the ability to acquire fee lands for some recreational uses provided that they adhere to the uh expenditure plan of of the authority. And

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we've recently been meeting with the santa rosa ball field youth ball field trust entity and that's been their great interest in in working on some ball field areas. There are some areas of of some mutual support that we can work with them in helping to acquire

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some properties, but it would have to adhere to this policy that we're also developing on recreational uses and the acquisition of lands for recreation. So we are looking at this as being a potential issue that that will provide some opportunity. We have to be careful though,

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because the district's focus really is has been and was voted in, I think principally for the preservation of open space in the natural sense of open space, not irrigated ball fields and also the protection of agricultural lands in this county, our principal focus is still continuing

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to be conservation easements and not feed purchased as the ballot measures stated Well, when we talked earlier about acquiring land for open space for in perpetuity for everyone. Um Most of the project now we're talking here a little bit about recreation areas, but most of the

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projects not specifically for recreation. Um, how would you define the reason for acquiring those? Well, I think a lot of it goes back to the focus of the, the county general plan, the open space element of the county general plan. Much of that focus was visual

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what people see from the highway, the scenic corridors. Um, and the separators between the cities, there certainly is a component of public use and recreational use. And we're looking at a number of projects as I've mentioned and Maria's mentioned for public use and public opportunities to

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get on the land. But our primary focus was that visual character of the county and and protecting what we see and enjoy around us in the county. That's what I wanted you to, to, to enunciate. There is, is the specific reason that we acquire these things

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and uh, the aesthetic value of, of acquiring this land and for every wanting to view is marvelous. We're gonna pause right here and let the station bring the audience the public service announcement. We'll be back in just a few moments. David Hanson Marie Cipriani and I

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will talk more about the open space projects in this county. We'll be talking about the Sonoma County agricultural preservation and open space district in just minutes. She is one of America's toughest drug enforcement agents last year. She helped convict 90 drug dealers see several tons of

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crack in marijuana and closed down 10 major drug operations. She is a 68 year old grandmother named Irma. She set up a community drug watch that is not only changing her neighborhood but its future. There are many ways to help in your community call the points

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of light foundation do something good, feel something real. Remember how good it felt the first time you gave five. Well now there's another way to give five set a goal to give more Five hours a week and 5% of your income to the causes you care

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about. It'll make you feel like a winner every day of your life. So give more, give five Call 1 805 5, Give five. How you doing Everybody Welcome back to this edition of Sonoma County in the nineties, a very important edition of our program because we're

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talking about open space, something I think is very dear to almost all of us. If not everyone in this county, we're talking with David Hanson, the general manager of the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and open space district and Maria Cipriani open space planner for that same

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organization. I'm not gonna say it again, it's too long. These are very lovely people. Not only are they successful, but they're nice people to visit with how much of the district land is open for public use. And secondly to that, what plans are there to actually

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acquire recreation areas such as David touched on a moment ago. Well presently most of our acquisitions have been conservation easements. We do have one project that we jointly worked on with the city of Sebastopol along the Laguna where there is public access. However, about another fourth

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of the current negotiations that we are presently involved with do involve some access component, passive recreation trails, um, that corridors in those areas and as David mentioned earlier, we do have the ability to acquire lands in fee for public recreation where there's a significant open space,

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natural resource or agricultural component. So we likely will be dealing with projects in the future that do have some aspect of, of public recreation so long as the open space or egg component isn't compromised. That would be very popular with the, with the public in general

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any time, you know, I think they like the idea of requiring the open space. Very definitely. I mean, they voted for that and that's why we're doing it. But secondarily, I think they also like that maybe occasionally see something acquired that they can actually use for

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recreational purposes. David, another recent district. Uh, issue that was in the press has been the proposed shift. Let me read this to shift staff and the acquisition program from the district to the open space Authority. Now explain what we're talking about the status of this and

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the reasons for, if any. Well, of course the district, there's some strong reasons the district is operated. Its board of directors is the board of supervisors of course. And uh we work for them. There there is an open space authority that was appointed in the beginnings

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of the district to actually finance the district. And there is a an agreement between those two entities. Much of what we do is is duplicated between those two bodies in terms of approvals for for purchases and so forth. The authority uh does have the power much

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like a planning commission to approve projects and being in conformity with the general plan and then also with their expenditure plan. What we're looking at is a shift of the program over to the authority where staff would be working for the authority and the program would

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be wholly covered under the authority itself principally for efficiency sake, but also for uh some legal strengthening of the district and to make life simpler for for the public who deal with the district and for us as well as staff. So we do see this occurring

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fairly soon. There has been a subcommittee set up with the authority and the district board to work this out. Another one of your tests, I'm sure is to get information out about these things to some degree. How are you informing the public war? Uh let's say

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interested landowners about the district's programs. Well, of course, all of our meetings, the advisory committee, the authority and the board meetings are all open to the public. So we do encourage their held well, the board hearings of course are held at the supervisor's chambers. But both

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the authority and the advisory committee meetings are held at the district offices. We also do encourage the public to to contact the district if they are interested in in district activities or if they are interested in having their land protected through the district's program. We also

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will be preparing a landowner's handbook to kind of um inform landowners about the potential benefits of placing a conservation easement on their land in perpetuity and and you know how they might structure that. We also will be coming out with the newsletter that was basically kind

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of a status of the district explaining what our acquisitions have been to date and you know future projects that we will be working on. Okay that's a good idea that last thing I'll have to come by and see what you're doing with that. I mean you

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know everyone for the county for years, how can a landowner and Marie again, how can land over find out if he or she can work with the district on protecting their property. Again, like I said, we encourage the landowners to to either come to the public

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meetings that we have or to contact the district directly. And typically we have a process that is set up whereby they tell us where the property is and what their interests are in the future for future uses on that property. And then we evaluate that, Do

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some some preliminary planning research, evaluate that at a staff level and then determine whether it's appropriate at this time to proceed with that particular property and take it through our subcommittee and the acquisition subcommittee and then the citizens advisory committee and we can, you know, get

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involved with the appraisal process and then it goes from there. We have about 34 minutes left to to us. First of all, how about the number of people can reach you? The number of the district offices. 5247360 and uh 5247360 owners or interested public can reach

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us at that number. Yeah. Okay. Um Maria we've got 34 minutes. I want a couple more things going to get to you. How are you managing the easements of properties that the district acquires? Well. Every property that the district require acquires requires that we prepare what

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is called the baseline document and what that does is it's a little report that establishes the present condition of the property includes photographs and maps and a narrative. And so the district has the ability to go out but on the property once a year to make

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sure that the provisions of the easement are not being violated. We also are in the process of preparing a stewardship program where we would have volunteers that would be trained to go out onto the properties to monitor to to again make sure that the open space

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and agricultural properties are not being um, you know, diminished. I have two questions here and maybe not time for both of them. I was going to ask you about the long range plans. The district has no, that was not the was the appraisal process. Um, And

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other district sets of values. And the other one was what agricultural projects have you been focused on the last year? Which one would you like to answer? Well, I could tell you on the agricultural focus. We about 95% of the land were required is agricultural land

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even that within the separator. So there has been a major focus on the acquisitions that I mentioned at the first part of the program has been agricultural. Okay. Um, how can volunteers get involved and assist in whatever way possible with the district's programs in the future

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now and in the future? Well, we've had a number of volunteers in the past work for us. In fact, our entire mapping program was originally from the, from the volunteer effort, but they can call the district number that I mentioned earlier and they can get involved

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in stewardship. I think Maria mentioned that we are looking at a volunteer cadre of people who we are going to be training with Regional Parks Help and also with the Land Trust help. Who do a similar thing to have a pool of volunteers to help manage

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our easements. We're also looking at a Friends of Open space organization potentially that that will also be able to help in the publicity of the district and getting the word out about what we're all about and and how we're spending the public's money that will be

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called friends. I gotta remember. We have just a few seconds left. I want to thank you both for taking the time. David, you again, Maria, nice to have you finally come over and join us here. We've been talking ladies and gentlemen to David Hanson, General manager

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and Maria Cipriani, the open space planner for the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open space District. An organization, a district that's vitally important to all of us because they are acquiring lands that will be held in perpetually for all of us to enjoy to see even

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some that we'll use for recreation. Thank you once again for being here. Ladies and gentlemen, I'll be back next week program. General account In the nineties. I'll have another member of the county government, family or related agency with me till then. Good night. Good luck. Good

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help to each and every one of you. Mhm