An orchid show fills the main pavilion at the Santa Rosa Veterans Memorial Hall, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2012 in Santa Rosa. (Kent Porter / Press Democrat)

By BRETT WILKISON
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Gene Marcinkowski’s post is a solitary one these days.

He is the volunteer caretaker of the Cloverdale Veterans Memorial Hall, one of seven aging Sonoma County-owned veterans buildings with a future now in flux.

The 51-year-old Cloverdale hall has been closed to all but veterans’ gatherings for months. Volunteers do any cleanup and the county is called only in emergencies, such as the leak that opened up in a rain storm last month.

“The building is slowly decaying,” said Marcinkowski, 70, an Air Force veteran who lives a block away. “I want to keep it up.”

American Legion Post No. 293 Commader Gene Marcinkowski at times single-handedly oversees Cloverdale's Veterans Hall, Friday, Feb. 3 2012 in Cloverdale. (Kent Porter / Press Democrat)

County officials say they share the same goal, but the challenge for the budget-strapped government is monumental. The buildings have a combined $19 million maintenance backlog and operational losses have reached as high as $1.7 million in recent years.

The county’s main solution, set in motion last year, is to outsource management of most of the buildings.

Those plans, now evolving in closed-door talks, focus on five of the halls — Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Petaluma, Cotati and Guerneville — said Regional Parks Director Caryl Hart, whose department oversees the buildings.

At least three of those halls — Santa Rosa, Petaluma and Cotati — could be turned over to a Petaluma-based nonprofit that operates camps and retreats throughout Northern California.

Some veterans have voiced support for the effort, which they hope will improve marketing, use and upkeep of the halls.

The buildings are used by hundreds of community groups for 4,100 regular meetings, classes or special events each year. But aging infrastructure, rate hikes passed last year and cuts in upkeep and staffing have whittled away at those numbers.

“I’m anticipating some good things from this,” said Pete Peterka, a veterans’ representative for the Santa Rosa building.

But other veterans and building users are worried about how the halls might be managed by private outfits. They were built in the three decades after World War II to serve and honor veterans, who enjoy priority access. They also function as community gathering spots.

“No one is telling us who is taking over, what the costs might be,” said Steve Kemmerle, organizer of Petaluma’s annual Veteran’s Day parade and veterans’ representative for Petaluma hall.

“We’re not getting a lot of information out of the county,” said Robert Safreno, chairman of the county-appointed Veterans Memorial Building Advisory Committee.

Veterans groups will have a chance to review the proposals before the Board of Supervisors acts on the deals, a step that could come as soon as next month, Hart said.

Authority to set rental rates, generally only charged to non-veteran groups, will remain with the Board of Supervisors, she said.

The Cloverdale building is not part of the discussions because the county is exploring other options for it, including a possible sale, Hart said.

The City of Cloverdale is the interested buyer, sources with knowledge of the talks said.

“We have an ongoing interest” in the building, Cloverdale Councilwoman Carol Russell said. She declined to elaborate on the city’s plans.

Hart and other county officials did not give further details on the closed-door process.

However, members of the veterans building committee and other county sources last week shared what they know about the negotiations so far.

The lead contender to take over three of the buildings — Santa Rosa, Petaluma and Cotati — is United Camps, Conferences and Retreats, or UCCR, a Petaluma-based nonprofit that runs nine private recreational sites in Northern California and a state campground near Santa Cruz, sources said.

Michael Carr, the nonprofit’s chief executive officer, confirmed on Friday the group’s interest in the three buildings.

“We would continue to operate them as community gathering places,” he said, stressing that operations would be tailored as much as possible to accommodate veterans. “That’s very important to us.”

The organization has an annual budget of about $4 million and a summer workforce of 150. Most operations would likely be handled out of the Santa Rosa hall, with reservations made at United Camps’ Petaluma office and staff would be sent to other buildings for guest services and maintenance as needed, Carr said.

The group has agreed to honor the county’s current rental rates, most of which were hiked last year by 30 to 70 percent, and in some cases more.

“We don’t foresee increasing the rates. That would drive away traditional users. We want to provide a similar if not the same rate,” he said.

United Camps also bid on the Sebastopol and Sonoma buildings. But the Sebastopol Center for the Arts is one of two local groups first in line for the Sebastopol building, sources said.

Linda Galletta, the Sebastopol center’s executive director, confirmed the organization is exploring a lease agreement with the county but would not say if the center is planning on relocating from its current location off Depot Street.

“We’re looking at lots of things at the moment,” she said.

As of mid-January, the Sebastopol Community Cultural Center was the other local group involved in the talks, Board of Supervisors’ documents show.

Two West County organizations are partners in a bid to take over management of the Guerneville building, the smallest and most infrequently used of the seven halls.

“When this opportunity came up we jumped on it,” said Amber Twitchell, board chairwoman of River to Coast Children’s Services. The Guerneville group would handle fiscal management while a coalition of care providers, Russian River Area Resources and Advocates, would handle operations, Twitchell said.

The Sonoma building was taken off the list after community members voiced strong opposition to “someone coming from outside to run the facility,” said Supervisor Valerie Brown, who represents the area.

The move came despite operating bids submitted for the Sonoma hall by United Camps and a group backed by Kenwood Investments, the company headed by Sonoma-based developer, political strategist and lobbyist Darius Anderson.

The organization retracted its bid during the process, sources said.

All of the halls

Three kinds of deals are being discussed for the halls, according to sources:

• Property management agreements that would have the county pay a fee to an operator that reinvests net income back into the building.

• Lease agreements where the operator pays rent to occupy the building while also managing it.

• License agreements that would turn over operations but would not result in a fee charged to county or rent charges for the operator.

The operators’ share of maintenance costs is a key point in the talks, Hart said. By outsourcing daily management and chores, the county may be able to divert savings to work on the long-term backlog, she said.

The access arrangement with veterans is another significant issue. It has sparked worries among some veterans’ leaders.

“Are they going to make us make arrangements two years in advance or six weeks in advance? That would be my concern,” said Warren Hopkins, a Cotati representative to the veterans building committee and a former Rohnert Park mayor and councilman.

Other building users said they’re anxious to hear the terms of any new deals as soon as they are made public.

For decades Stephen Nordquist has taught dance classes to teenagers at the Santa Rosa hall. He has seen rents for the 62-year-old building continue to rise, but there are no other locations that fit his large groups.

“My fear last year was that they were going to close the building,” he said.

He put contracts on hold until after March this year because of uncertainty about the building’s turnover.

“Now the rates could go up again, and maybe I’ll start crying,” he said. “We love that building.”

You can reach Staff Writer Brett Wilkison at 521-5295 or brett.wilkison@pressdemocrat.com

Dick Borsch of Agua Caliente practices his swing on the Oakmont Golf Club driving range Friday. Under a city proposal, a pond will be built in the middle of the driving range. (JOHN BURGESS / PD)

By KEVIN McCALLUM
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Soon there will be no shame in hitting a golf ball into the water at the Oakmont Golf Club.

In fact, that’ll be part of the fun.

The golf club at the heart of the eastern Santa Rosa retirement community is planning to construct a new 2.5-acre lake in the middle of its driving range as part of a major water conservation project.

The new 9-foot-deep lake, modern irrigation system and installation of drought-tolerant turf are expected to reduce the water demand of the semiprivate club’s two 18-hole courses by a third — 40 million gallons per year.

But it will be the city’s ratepayers, not the golfers, who will be picking up the $2.8 million tab for the project.

Under an agreement approved by the Board of Public Utilities on Thursday, the city would fund the conservation measures in exchange for the right to suspend operations of the aging Oakmont treatment plant, which has provided the course with a steady flow of recycled water for summer irrigation for more than 50 years.

City and golf course officials praised the deal as a responsible, collaborative solution to a complex problem with a long history.

“We’re all exceptionally proud of this outcome because we solved the problem in an environmentally responsible way as stewards of the land,” said Barbara Spangler, former president of the Oakmont Golf Club.

The agreement must still be approved by the City Council, but few see trouble ahead for a deal being praised as smart for golfers, Oakmont residents and ratepayers.

In essence, the city is buying its way out of a 1963 agreement it made with Fairfield Homes, the original developer of Oakmont. The contract called for the developer to build a treatment plant and turn it over to the city, which agreed to operate it.

In exchange, the city agreed to provide millions of gallons of free treated wastewater for summer irrigation. The courses are owned by members but are also open to the public.

Over time, the costs of operating the aging treatment plant — including salaries, electricity and chemicals — have soared. It costs the city $7.25 to treat a thousand gallons of wastewater at the Oakmont plant, six times the cost to treat water at the massive Laguna treatment plant, where Oakmont’s wastewater is piped during the winter.

In addition, the plant will need about $1 million in upgrades over the next decade, a cost the city is under significant pressure to avoid.

But simply abandoning the plant wasn’t an option, said David Guhin, deputy director of utility operations. The contract is ambiguous on the issue of the city’s long-term water supply obligations to Oakmont, he said.

“There is not a termination date in the contract. That’s the issue,” Guhin said.

Aware it needed a new deal, the city opened discussions in 2010 with representatives of the club and Oakmont Village Association, which represents the more than 4,500 residents in the over-55 community.

Both took the position that the city was obligated to find a solution that was “cost neutral” to the course and homeowners, who worried about what a brown golf course would do to property values.

“There is an argument that says the city is on the hook for it,” Spangler said.

But all sides committed not to let the process get adversarial or devolve into “legal wrangling,” instead staying focused on a solution, she said.

Over the course of 28 meetings, the negotiating team discussed a range of options, including running the plant more efficiently, building more storage and drilling irrigation wells. But it became clear that the best solution was to help the golf course need less water.

The courses were built in the ’60s and ’70s, and were designed to soak up as much recycled water as possible, meaning there is irrigated turf even in out-of-bounds areas, Guhin said.

“We realized that if we could eliminate that water need, and find a way to operate the golf course more efficiently, we would solve the problem in a much more environmentally friendly way,” Guhin told the board.

Overall, 32.5 acres of the nearly 180 acres of irrigated turf would be removed and replanted with drought-resistant varieties. New irrigation lines will be installed, as will more efficient sprinkler heads and control equipment.

The lake would take up a large portion of the existing driving range. The location was chosen mostly because of environmental concern about expanding existing ponds and the impacts that might have on resident species, included red-legged frogs, bats and raptors, Spangler said.

Golfers will hit balls designed to float and they will flow into a catch basin for retrieval and reuse, she said.

“We think it’s going to be a beautiful water feature,” she said.

The agreement is for three years. The city gives the club the $2.8 million now, plus a hookup allowing the course to use drinking water during the transition. The city can temporarily mothball the treatment plant beginning in May.

“By the end of the third year we shut the valve and they are totally cut off,” Guhin said.

The newly self-sufficient course will use less water and should be able to survive on water it gets from existing wells and natural drainage. The city will avoid more than $450,000 in costs per year, allowing the city to break even on its investment within six years, Guhin said.

What happens to the mothballed plant after three years is unclear. A clause in the 1963 contract calls for the six-acre site to revert to the developer if operations at the plant are discontinued. That’s why the city is calling the suspension of operations temporary.

This point generated the only criticism at Thursday’s meeting. Board member Michael Carney was the only one to vote against the settlement because he said the 1963 agreement was a “bad contract” for not more clearly outlining “what would happen in the end.”

He said he couldn’t support the deal because it didn’t have any information about the plans or costs involved for the plant after the three years.

But the city wanted to move forward with the water conservation plan now, separate from the closure issue, simply to allow it to save money sooner.

“Our number-one goal in all of this has been to save the city money,” Guhin said.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com.

The Petaluma community will have input in the selection process of the next police chief.

Lt. Danny Fish has been serving as interim chief for three years, saving the city about $600,000 in salary and benefits during that time, City Manager John Brown said.

Danny Fish, left, and Dave Sears.

When Fish was appointed in April 2009 to replace Steve Hood, who retired to work with a military counter-terrorism unit, he was expected to fill in for about a year before a permanent replacement was hired.

In the meantime, the city’s budget tanked along with the overall economy and the annual savings remained attractive as the city slogged through the recession.

“But it’s certainly high time to get the question answered,” Brown said.

Fish led the department through the tightest budgets in memory, cutting supplies, keeping positions vacant, reassigning specialty units and making do with aging equipment.

In an effort to save about $35,000 from last year’s budget, Fish recommended the elimination of the captain’s position held by Dave Sears, Fish’s second-in-command and his only competition in 2009 for the temporary chief’s position. The City Council approved the request and Sears dropped back to a lieutenant’s slot, with a lower salary.

The move sparked a groundswell of support for Sears and resurrected gossip about Fish’s personal life.

Questions about Fish’s personal life have surfaced intermittently over the years, mostly as anonymous online postings. They center on a 2009 affair Fish acknowledges he had with a police department employee while married to his ex-wife. He later married the woman, who no longer works in the police department.

Although the hiring of the chief is solely the city manager’s decision, Brown said a more extensive and open selection process was warranted this time for the position, which pays between $150,000 and $180,000 annually.

“We’re hoping an open and objective process is the best way to resolve the questions the best we can,” Brown said.

Both Fish and Sears said they will apply for the chief’s job — and both maintain they have an advantage over the other. Brown said he hopes by July to have a new chief to lead a department of 62 sworn officers and about 30 support staffers.

A national recruiting firm will be hired to conduct the first screenings, Brown said, and possibly the first interviews. The top candidates will go through interviews with Brown, community peers and a “limited public review.”

The exact nature of the public review hasn’t been determined, nor has the basic qualifying criteria. The search will include in-house and external candidates.

“We owe it to all sides to get the best chief available,” Brown said.

He acknowledged that Fish’s long tenure as interim chief may give the perception that he has an advantage.

“But I don’t think he does,” he said. “I would hope that this process would take that out of the mix.”

Fish, who has sole custody of his teenage daughter but is still involved in legal disputes with his ex-wife, declined to discuss the issue in detail, saying his personal life is irrelevant.

Others have privately complained that the issue is one of ethics.

Brown said he was contacted in 2009 by someone complaining about Fish’s relationship with a department employee. He then interviewed Fish and others involved.

Fish said he informed Brown of the relationship in accordance with city policy.

Brown said he couldn’t speak specifically about the allegations because it was a personnel matter, but said he found no proof that Fish was dishonest about the relationship.

Fish will be vetted as will any candidate, Brown said.

Fish, 45, welcomed a public review, saying his 23 years with the department and especially the past three years will show he’s the best choice.

“An independent body will give validity to the process. And it should in the end, especially if I’m selected, put all that to rest,” he said. “It’d be silly to say I don’t have an advantage. I hope my performance for the last three years will speak for itself.”

Sears, 46, also endorsed the broader recruitment process: “It’s good to give a lot of diverse groups access to the process; it adds a bit of ownership. I’m always interested in a fair and impartial process.”

Sears came to Petaluma as a lieutenant in 1999 and served as captain for seven years before that job was eliminated last year and he returned to his previous rank.

“It will be an opportunity for the community to give their input on what they want, since we actually work for them,” he said. “And it’s an opportunity for me to demonstrate my education, my professional experience and my community involvement, which I think gives me a leg up.”

You can reach Staff Writer Lori A. Carter at 762-7297 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com.

Officials in Sonoma County’s 40 school districts are sorting through the latest budget wrinkle to come their way — a reversal of a cut to transportation funding but a offsetting decrease in per pupil spending by the state.

The shift — which represents a wash for the state as a whole — was pushed by lawmakers who said Gov. Jerry Brown’s $248 million cut to school transportation for the current school year was wildly unfair to districts with high busing costs.

The state still will cut school funding by $248 million this year, but SB81 reinstates the money for transportation and then reduces per pupil spending by $42 for all districts.

“Transportation doesn’t affect all districts equally,” said Denise Calvert, deputy superintendent of the Sonoma County Office of Education. “For some of our districts (the cut) was $500 (per pupil) and in others it was zero.”

Many districts — concerned about the potential for increased absenteeism — were opting to make cuts elsewhere rather than eliminate their busing.

Still others said districts have little room to be creative in light of $4.8 billion in cuts that will hit K-12 education across the state if voters reject Brown’s tax initiative in November.

Still, the tweak to transportation dollars means $137,000 less in cuts than Petaluma City School was preparing for, said interim Superintendent Steve Bolman.

“Statewide, it was a break,” he said. “What was happening was some districts were getting penalized huge amounts of dollars because of the amount of transportation they provided,” he said.

“The administration supports the bill,” State Department of Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer said Friday.

Still, Brown has eliminated the entire school transportation funding program in his 2012-13 budget proposal unveiled in January.

Regardless of the change, Windsor Superintendent Tammy Gabel said the district is moving ahead with pursuing cost savings by possibly consolidating or eliminating some routes, shifting to a hub system and enforcing current distance limits.

The district has no plans to eliminate busing, she said.

While the most recent change represents a loss for Old Adobe School District in rural Petaluma, superintendent Cindy Pilar remained philosophical.

“We recognize this is a fair cut to districts across the state,” she said, adding that Old Adobe was never prepared to cut busing despite bracing to lose approximately $60,000 — or about $30 per student.

In Sonoma Valley, officials were preparing to cut $375,000 with the loss of transportation funding, but the new deal means that cut will be slightly smaller.

“Now we are looking at $250,000,” said Justin Frese, deputy superintendent.

Staff writer Kerry Benefield writes an education blog at extracredit.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. She can be reached at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com.

Two large groups representing North Coast grape growers said Friday they are likely to voluntarily comply with rules designed to protect endangered fish in the Russian River, even though a judge has put the controversial regulations on hold.

But it’s unclear whether other growers, who farm more than half of the 23,050 acres in the Russian River watershed, would follow their lead as they head into a critical time of year when water is commonly used to protect crops from frost.

Grape grower Larry Cadd checks the level of his vineyard well on Thursday near Geyserville as part of an ongoing record of his water usage and well capacity. During the last month, the level of the well has risen two feet with the recent rains. With bud break on the horizon, abiding by new frost protection measures means monitoring water wells on a regular basis. (KENT PORTER/Press Democrat)

A ruling Thursday by Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Ann Moorman halted enforcement of new state rules that regulate the use of water along the Russian River. The rules prohibit growers from spraying their crops with water during frost season unless they have submitted plans that outline the steps they will take to protect the river.

Growers have challenged the rules in two lawsuits, which are scheduled to be consolidated in Mendocino County in March. Moorman’s ruling prevents the state from enforcing the rules until the case is decided in court.

In the meantime, many growers intend to voluntarily comply with the water demand management plans they have submitted to the state.

“I think that we’re going to just go on ahead, because we have a point that we’re trying to prove, and we’ve been doing this voluntarily for the past three years,” said Al Cadd, president of Russian River Property Owners Association, which includes about 45 growers who manage 2,300 acres primarily in Alexander Valley.

Cadd’s group has been monitoring water levels on the Russian River for the past three years to determine just what impact they may have on the river and its fish.

“I don’t see any reason to stop at this point,” he said.

The State Water Resources Control Board declined to answer whether it would appeal two rulings Thursday that put the regulations on hold and transferred the case to Mendocino County, saying it does not comment on pending litigation. It won’t require growers to follow the rules while the stay is in effect, but it will assist those who choose to do so voluntarily, said Kathie Smith, spokeswoman for the water board.

“Yesterday’s decision was not a decision on the merits,” Smith said. “Regardless of whether the State Water Board appeals the stay or the transfer, it will vigorously defend the merits of the regulations at next month’s anticipated trial.”

The trial is scheduled to begin on March 23. Typically, the frost season runs from mid-March to mid-May.

The state required growers to submit a water demand management plan, outlining among other things the names of growers and a governing body, and a schedule for completing frost inventory and a stream monitoring program, which growers could submit individually or as a group.

More than 100 water demand management plans were submitted to the state by the Feb. 1 deadline, said Jim Kassel, assistant deputy director of water rights. Most of those were from individual growers who filed their own plans, while only nine of the submissions were from groups. The regulations require that growers measure their cumulative impact on the river, which is why group participation was encouraged.

“It makes a lot more sense for growers to get together and submit a plan,” Kassel said. “Especially for growers on tributaries to the main stem, many of them that I’ve spoken to don’t even know who their neighbors are.”

The first group to obtain approval, the Russian River Water Conservation Council, includes 39 growers who farm 7,000 acres of vineyards in the frost protection regulation area.

Pete Opatz, vice president of Silverado Premium Properties and the council’s leader, was signing up new members to join the group early in the week. Now, he plans to take a few days to see what happens in the courts, and discuss next steps with other members of the group.

“The issue is not going to go away by any means, so I think we will remain proactive and move ahead in terms of what we’re doing,” Opatz said. “We’re in uncharted waters right now, so we’ll navigate very carefully.”

Other growers, like Duff Bevill, founder of Bevill Vineyard Management, held off on submitting a water demand management plan because of the pending litigation. He said growers haven’t received credit for the proactive work they’ve done to improve water quality in the Russian River watershed, such as switching to no-till farming, a method that reduces erosion.

“We don’t break the soil open every spring, like all of us used to do years ago,” Bevill said. “The water leaves property crystal clear. No one legislated that, we did that voluntarily.”

Cadd’s group has been monitoring water levels in the river for the past three years, using four gauges they placed in the main stem of the Russian River, and nine gauges they placed in three of the river’s tributaries. They also monitor water levels in wells. This year, they’re planning to place a gauge in a stream that isn’t adjacent to vineyards, to offer a basis for comparison.

“We are quite sure that we’re not hurting the fish up here,” Cadd said. “Our data that we’ve collected so far indicates that we’re not hurting the fish, but we haven’t had enough frost events yet to prove it. … To convince each other, we’re going to have to do a lot more.”

The last stranded fish documented by the National Marine Fisheries Service was a steelhead found last May on the west branch of the Russian River, in the lower Redwood Valley area, said David Hines, water policy coordinator for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Growers have consulted with the National Marine Fisheries Service while crafting their plans. Hines said he had anticipated everyone would just walk away from the process if a judge issued a stay.

“But I’ve been pleasantly surprised that several of the larger growers have called to reaffirm their commitment to working with us,” Hines said.

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, which was set to revisit its frost protection program Tuesday in light of the new state rules, has postponed that discussion until March, according to its website.

Meanwhile, Cadd and his colleagues continue to collect data from their stream gauges and consult with scientists, as they have all year.

“We do not feel that we’re hurting fish, but if we find out that we are, we certainly intend to correct it,” Cadd said. “We get the impression that people believe you’re either an environmentalist or you’re a grape grower, and you can’t be both. But it’s not true.”