On June 15, the SDC Coalition will host the Eldridge Vision Workshop, where the public is invited to learn more about the forthcoming specific land use planning process and provide feedback on a draft vision statement and guiding principles for redevelopment of the Eldridge property (formerly the Sonoma Developmental Center). The vision statement and guiding principles, provided in advance for your consideration, were distilled from input gathered over the past five years and are intended to help guide Sonoma County and California officials throughout transition and into the future. Your comments and feedback are welcomed and important!
Please join the conversation on June 15, from 9 a.m. to noon, at Hanna Boys Center (17000 Arnold Dr., Sonoma, CA 95476).
Read the draft vision statement.
The Transform SDC Blog site was launched in 2014 to provide the Sonoma Valley community — and those interested in the future of the Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC) — a forum and information source for news related to the closure of SDC. For more information, please post a response on the blog site, or email John McCaull at johnm@sonomalandtrust.org.
Transform SDC 
I worked at SDC for 15yrs, before taking a medical retirement in 1993. I had also, along with my mother and mother-in-law, been a member of HEROES, the SDC charitable support organization, since its inception.
Though I now live in Humboldt Co., I am still very concerned about the planned future use of the SDC structures and grounds.
I especially hope that NONE of it is destined for commercial use or future sale!!
I have not yet read the proposals that are up for consideration. I also can not attend the June 15th meeting. Since I just learned of it, there is not enough time, left, for me to organize and arrange attending ( I hope, in the future, that I will receive notice farther in advance!).
I look forward to reading about what transpires on the 15, and sincerely hope it will be posted on the Blog.
Sincerely,
Irene (Renie) Falor
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Proposed Eldridge Vision Statement
Eldridge is a place where
1. diversity of backgrounds and interests is valued ;
2. natural resources are conserved and enhanced,
3. concepts of sustainability and resiliency are put into practice,
4. cultural legacies are honored, and
5. compatibility with surrounding communities is preserved.
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Let’s Not Miss the Forest for the Trees!
We read with interest the recent SDC vision statement and attended part of the SDC meeting last Saturday and believe that the vision statement is missing a pivotal tenet, that is, addressing our community’s collective safety and survival, without which all other proposed visions are put asunder. Specifically, we have the following suggestions to the SDC Vision Statement. Our additions are marked with quotation marks.
Proposed Eldridge Vision Statement
Eldridge is a place where people of diverse backgrounds and interests live and work together, where natural resources are conserved and enhanced, concepts of sustainability and resiliency are put into practice, cultural legacies are honored, compatibility with surrounding communities is preserved, “and where a Wildfire Prevention and Recovery Center (WPRC) is created to address the greatest existential threat to our collective safety and survival that our community faces now and will for decades to come – wildfires.”
Proposed Guiding Principles for the Eldridge Specific Plan (we believe the first principle should be safety and survival).
Drawing on the expertise and talent in the region, a community-led, public-private partnership will plan the future of Eldridge through the County’s specific plan process to address local challenges and create a higher quality of life in the Sonoma Valley. These principles provide the necessary level of detail to guide a specific planning process.
Principle 1. ” Develop a Wildfire Prevention and Recovery Center (WPRC).
To protect and support our individual and communal safety and survival from the ever-present wildfires’ existential threat, a center for education, prevention, and recovery from wildfires will be established and housed in Eldridge. In addition to creating an educational and resource facility, the center will construct a minimum of 300 small (1 to 4 people) housing structures (i.e., Recovery Cabins) for use by residents and businesses that are displaced by the next wildfires that destroy our properties.
The WPRC will be community-led by the Citizens Advisory Committee and will be funded by demonstration and sustainability grants from County, State and Federal agencies.”
“If we don’t have a safe place to live and survive, all of our other visions will vanish in the smoke”.
Submitted by:
John Stalcup & Julia McCarthy
12140 Vintage Lane
Glen Ellen, California
(22-year residents of Glen Ellen)
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Love it!!
But it will not survive without a wter system.
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