Sebastopol CITY LIMITS Podcast

In this audio interview recorded last Friday, a day after school started, Chuck Wade, the principal of Analy High School, reflects on the first week of the new school year and changes from his first year as principal. He says that his job is both “exhilarating and exhausting” and one that Wade really loves doing. The assembly on the first day of school featured dance performances by students and i...

Karis Morasch is graduating from Analy High School in a couple of weeks. She is remarkable, high-achieving student who exceeds expectations, taking more AP classes than you knew existed, and an athlete who excels in track and field setting school records in the triple jump. She is also a thoughtful student leader and she was recognized at the WCUHSD board meeting on May 8 for serving as the electe...

This interview with Andrew Graham, a reporter for the Press Democrat , explores his year-long investigation into DEMA Management and Consulting, a for-profit company overseeing housing and medical services for the homeless in Sonoma County. DEMA’s contracts with the County’s Department of Health Services included two former hotels purchased with State funds under Project HomeKey: Elderberry Common...

Sebastopol artist Ken Berman’s painting, “Temporary Restraining Order,” was selected for a new juried Open ‘23 show at SF's de Young Museum, which is open now and runs through the January 7th. Berman is a bit of an outlier among Sonoma County artists; he doesn’t do landscapes or seascapes. Instead, as a young man growing up in Pennsvylvania and New Jersey, Berman was inspired by steel mills and ra...

Press Fest is this Saturday at the Luther Burbank Experiment Farm from 10 to 2pm. You’ll be able to use an antique apple press or a more modern electric one to make delicious juice from local apples. This week, I had the opportunity to talk to Steve Fowler who was curator at the Luther Burbank Experiment Farm from 1989 until 2010. Fowler is the one person who knows as much about the farm’s past as...

Burning Man, the desert festival of radical inclusion, is also an amazing art festival by day and by night. My guests on this episode are two local art-makers, Deborah Colotti and Peter Loughran, who brought their own art to Burning Man this year. They returned home last week in good spirits after two weeks on the Playa. Both of them have been going to Burning Man for many years, and they are used...

It’s easy to take the Sebastopol Farmers Market for granted after 30 years. For some, it’s a Sunday morning ritual to stroll through the market and get whatever is in season. Since the pandemic in particular, some might have gotten out of habit of going regularly to the Farmers Market. Barbara Hom, the new market manager of the Sebastopol Farmers Market is doing all that she can to get you to come...

Sebastopol Times is a reader-supported publication. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber today. Carmen Snyder is the executive director of Sonoma County Farm Trails and the producer of the Gravenstein Apple Fair at Ragle Park this weekend (August 12 & 13). In my conversation with Carmen, we talk about the Apple Fair at 50; it’s hardly news that the Gravenstein is still “the star of the show....

Last spring, Sara Gramm was named the new superintendent of Sebastopol Union School District , which includes Park Side (TK-4th) and Brook Haven (5th-8th) schools. She succeeds Linda Irving, who had been in the role for ten years. Sara has been Assistant Superintendent since 2017. Sara grew up going to Sebastopol schools including Brook Haven and Analy. She student-taught at Park Side and then was...

Region is celebrating its third birthday this month with a party from 2-4pm on Saturday July 22nd in their space at the Barlow. Region represents an innovative approach to wine tasting that promotes the best small, independent wineries in Sonoma County. They also now have three businesses: the shop in the Barlow, another space in San Luis Obispo and Sampl, a new wine-tasting product that can be sh...

Sebastopol poet Raphael Block talks about his latest book of poetry, The Dreams We Share and shares several of his poems, including one about an old cat that sought out his attention. Described as an eco-poet, Block is moved by the Earth to speak in his own wonderful voice about what he sees and experiences all around him. “When I go outside, I'm literally moved by the earth. Physically. Emotional...

Steve Griffith is a former elementary school teacher who moved to Forestville about 10 years ago. Wanting to do an event for the West County community, he proposed to the Russian River Rotary Club that they sponsor a Fix-it Fair at the El Molino campus in Forestville. They agreed and the Fair took place April 29. I talked to Steve before and after the event to learn more about how he organized the...

My conversation with Kristen Madsen, director of Creative Sonoma, explores how arts organizations are adapting to life after the never-say-goodbye pandemic as well as the ongoing assessment of the role of the arts and arts education in our community. It continues a discussion about challenges facing the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, which we featured in a previous article. The challenges facing...

On Memorial Day for every year that Alan Murakami can remember, his family went down to the National Golden Gate Cemetery in San Bruno to lay flowers beside the grave of Peter Masuoka, his uncle. During Covid, Alan decided he had the time to write about his uncle and his Japanese-American family. Peter, who grew up in Sebastopol, died in France fighting for his country in the 442nd Battalion in Wo...

Micah and Michelle Sawyer join me to talk about fentanyl, a drug that’s become more widely available illegally in Sonoma County and elsewhere across the country. The Sawyers lost their 22-year old son, Micah, Jr to a fentanyl overdose in 2019. Since then, they have been letting others know about how prevalent fentanyl is, how addictive and deadly it is and how having drug Narcan widely available c...

This episode, a conversation with David Mark-Raymond, covers a lot of ground. It’s about community service and the way that individuals get involved in service clubs like Rotary to do things locally and internationally. It’s about David’s personal story; he was once a teacher and then a realtor; he’s been a longtime member of Sunrise Rotary ; and a few years ago, he was diagnosed with cancer and b...

Janet Webb recently shared her experience of the 6.4 earthquake that happened on December 20th in Ferndale. Skip Jirrels, head of Sebastopol Ready, which organizes MYN, invited Janet who lives in Sebastopol to speak at a meeting of the MYN group about what happened and what lessons she learned from the emergency. “I didn't do as well as I would've hoped,” she said candidly. This podcast is based o...

Note (January 17): After publishing this interview, I learned that Jennifer will be leaving WCCS to take a job working in senior housing. In  the summer of 2021, those who lived in RVs parked on Morris Street near the Barlow had become a problem that the city had to deal with. The conditions were becoming hazardous for those who lived there, with debris accumulating on the street. One RV caught on...

Stephen Zollman joins Dale Dougherty to talk about running for City Council, getting the most votes in the election and then being sworn on December 6th. He talks about his work as a public defender in San Francisco and as a family law lawyer in Sonoma County. His decision to run for office was motivated by a desire to see more diverse voices in elected office and also to be one of those who can r...

Music promoter and event producer Cloud Moss produced the Sebastopol Celtic Festival for 16 years (1995-2011) and the Kate Wolf Music Festival for 24 years (1996-2021). In this interview, we talk about: * how Brad became Cloud in the 1970’s because he brought news to a couple who lived on top of a mountain in Mendocino. * his youth in the San Fernando Valley where he played sports and imagined tha...

The Bell Clock is an art project by Jim Wheaton that sits, for now, in his backyard in downtown Sebastopol. Jim sought to create the same kind of feeling with sound that church bells create in town, but he wanted to hear bells playing secular music instead of sacred hymns. He wondered, though, would his art project run up against the town’s noise ordinance? In this episode, I talk to Jim about his...

In this conversation, we talk to a local political consultant, Dennis Rosatti, about the election results, which are still coming in. Dennis lives in Sebastopol but did not work for any of the City Council or School Board candidates in Sebastopol in this year’s elections. He shares his observations on the City Council election, addressing what seemed to matter in a close race and touching on voter...

Lewis Buchner is running in an uncontested race for trustee from the Fifth District of the West County Union High School District. The Fifth District represents the downtown area of Sebastopol. Originally from New Jersey, Lewis has lived in San Francisco and the East Bay but moved to Sebastopol about eight years ago to live in the residence his parents had owned in Sebastopol. He is a woodworker a...

The Vice Mayor of the Sebastopol City Council, Neysa Hinton, speaks her mind even if it might not be completely politic to do so. She knows her own voice and it is a strong one. A working mother, who has worked in radio and now in an assisted living facility, she has juggled a career and her duties as an elected official. Neysa talks about growing up in Sebastopol but also in Jerome, Idaho where s...

Paul Fritz is an architect in Sebastopol and a member of the CORE Project. He has been an advocate for parklets as a way for people to reoccupy the public spaces devoted to cars. During Covid, parklets became an answer to indoor use restrictions and cities everywhere were approving them. Paul did a lot of the leg work to obtain permits to bring parklets to Sebastopol over two years ago. All three...