LATINO LIVING » Community seeing
tangible progress after challenges. L1
WILDFIRE RECOVERY » INDUSTRIES IN QUANDARY
What will help drive
economic rebound?
Greg Kappes, left, tries out new golf clubs with assistant golf professional Erick Andres on the Fountaingrove Club’s driving range Wednesday in
Santa Rosa. The golf and athletic club, which was damaged by the Tubbs fire, has struggled with a loss of buildings and a decline in membership.
Some businesses make comeback while others struggle or close their doors
By KEVIN McCALLUM
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
I
f anyone epitomizes the spirit of Sono-
ma Strong, the local rallying cry since
October, it’s Ashish and Sia Patel.
The Sonoma couple purchased the his-
toric former Glenelly Inn in 2011, renovat-
ed the rundown Glen Ellen landmark and
reopened it as the Olea Hotel the following
year.
But last
fall, the
woody Warm
29, 2018 • SECTION
Rebuild
SUNDAY, APRIL
Springs Road
NORTH BA
Y property with
guest rooms
was badly
scorched by
the Nuns fire
as it ram-
paged across
Sonoma
REBUILD NORTH BAY Valley.
Two of
Six months after the October
fires, there are encouraging the cottages
signs the region is adapting / H1 burned to
the ground.
Fences, outdoor furniture and landscaping
all were incinerated.
And buildings that barely survived —
thanks to the efforts of firefighters and a
rooftop sprinkler system — suffered major
smoke damage.
While there were dark days that fol-
lowed, the Patels say their outlook has
ICE detained US man for 1,273 days
IMMIGRATION » Review finds
agents often arresting Americans
by mistake, exposing system flaws
By PAIGE ST. JOHN AND JOEL RUBIN
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Immigration officers in the United States
operate under a cardinal rule: Keep your
hands off Americans.
But Immigration and Customs Enforce-
ment agents repeatedly target U.S. citizens
for deportation by mistake, making wrong-
ful arrests based on incomplete government
SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2018 • SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA • PRESSDEMOCRAT.COM
H
Olea Hotel owners Sia and Ashish Patel review plans for rebuilding two guest cottages burned
in the October wildfires. The couple is planning to make upgrades to their Glen Ellen hotel.
brightened recently. Their battles with
their insurer are behind them, a major
remodel is well underway, and their antici-
pation builds daily for the hotel’s July
reopening.
“The whole area around us was fairly
decimated,” Sia Patel said, “so to have
something come back to life again and be
better than it was before is really exciting
records, bad data and lax investigations,
according to a Los Angeles Times review
of federal lawsuits, internal ICE documents
and interviews.
Since 2012, ICE has released from its cus-
tody more than 1,480 people after investigat-
ing their citizenship claims, according to
agency figures. And a Times review of De-
partment of Justice records and interviews
with immigration attorneys uncovered hun-
dreds of additional cases in the country’s
immigration courts in which people were
forced to prove they are Americans and
sometimes spent months or even years in
detention.
WARRIORS ROUT PELICANS » Golden
State pulls way early in Game 1 win. C1
Donald Trump
Trump
scoffs at
midterm
threat
Republicans worry
president will undercut
party’s election strategy
By JONATHAN MARTIN
AND ALEXANDER BURNS
NEW YORK TIMES
WASHINGTON — President
Donald Trump is privately re-
jecting the growing consensus
among Republican leaders that
they may lose the House and
possibly the Senate in Novem-
ber, leaving party officials and
the president’s advisers nervous
that he does not grasp the grav-
ity of the threat they face in the
midterm elections.
Congressional and party lead-
ers and even some Trump aides
are concerned that the presi-
dent’s boundless self-assurance
about politics will cause him to
ignore or undermine their mid-
term strategy. In battleground
states like Arizona, Florida and
Nevada, Trump’s proclivity to
CHRISTOPHER CHUNG / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT be a loose cannon could endan-
ger the Republican incumbents
and challengers who are al-
ready facing ferocious Demo-
cratic headwinds.
Republicans in Washington
and Trump aides have largely
given up assuming the president
will ever stick to a teleprompter,
but they have joined together
to impress upon him just how
bruising this November could
be for Republicans — and how
high the stakes are for Trump
personally, given that a Dem-
ocratic-controlled Congress
could pursue aggressive investi-
gations and even impeachment.
Over dinner with the presi-
dent and other Republican con-
gressional leaders this month,
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ken-
tucky, the majority leader,
phrased his advice for the pres-
ident in the form of a remind-
er: Trump should never forget
TURN TO MIDTERM » PAGE A2
JOHN BURGESS / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
INSIDE
to us.”
Twenty miles to the north, Jimmy Chen
isn’t feeling so encouraged.
Nearly seven months after the Tubbs
fire leveled much of Larkfield, the co-own-
er of Kaede Japanese Restaurant has a
dazed, defeated look.
TURN TO REBOUND » PAGE A14
LOCAL’S GUIDE INSIDE:
Press Democrat home
delivery subscribers will
find Sonoma Magazine’s
Best Burgers guide included
with today’s newspaper.
SANTA ROSA
High 66, Low 42
Victims include a landscaper snatched in
a Home Depot parking lot in Rialto and held THE WEATHER, C1
for days despite his son’s attempts to show
agents the man’s U.S. passport; and a New Barber C1 Golis B1
York resident locked up for more than three Business E1 LeBaron T1
years fighting deportation efforts after a fed- Classified E5 Lotto A2
eral agent mistook his father for someone Community B10 Movies D8
who wasn’t a U.S. citizen. Crossword T7 Nevius C1
They and others described the panic and Forum B11 Obituaries B4
feeling of powerlessness that set in as agents
took them into custody without explanation
and ignored their claims of citizenship.
The wrongful arrests account for a small
TURN TO ICE » PAGE A8 ©2018 The Press Democrat
A14
“I think the feeling is changing now to we should be left alone
to recover. But if people leave us alone to recover, we’re in real trouble.”
BETH COSTA, executive director of Wine Road winery association
Tasting room staffers Shawn Hetherman, from right, and David Sharp pour red wine for visitors Casey Jackson, center, of Spokane, Washington, and Annette and Scott Wenger, left, of
Philadelphia on Tuesday at the Spann Vineyards in Kenwood. The owners of the winery say cancellations were immediate after the October fires.
REBOUND
CONTINUED FROM A1
“It’s not like we want to
give up,” Chen said as his eyes
drifted around his nearly empty
restaurant last week, “but the
situation is kind of forcing us
to.”
Chen said the restaurant was
having a great year last year,
and he was even considering
expanding to the space next door
in the Larkfield Center, where
the eatery has operated for four
years.
Then fire hit, devastating the
surrounding neighborhood,
though the center — thanks to
some local heroics — was saved.
When the restaurant reopened
a couple of weeks later, business
was initially strong, Chen said.
Customers he knew by name
returned, giving him hope the
things might recover.
But it wasn’t to be. At least
half of his regular customers
had lost their homes, Chen esti-
mates, forcing them to move.
“Most of them came here just
to say goodbye.” Chen said.
He has laid off his waitress
because he can’t afford her and
plans to end lunch service soon.
His lease is up at the end of the
year and that is likely when he’ll
close for good.
“We try not to care much any-
more,” Chen said. “Emotionally,
we just can’t keep up.”
As spring rains recede and
wildflowers brighten scorched
hillsides, Sonoma County is
poised to see if an economic re-
covery will blossom or whither.
No other region in the October
firestorm was hit so hard, with
nearly 5,300 homes lost, 24 peo-
ple killed and thousands of
residents displaced.
Will tourists spooked by the
disaster return this summer to
patronize the wineries, restau-
rants and lodging establish-
ments that have come to rely on
them, or will they steer clear?
Will the recovery effort make
a smooth transition from debris
cleanup to new home construc-
tion, giving fire survivors hope
and builders a full construction
season, or will a punishing lull
set in?
Will headway be made on
major new residential projects,
widely seen as crucial to solving
a housing crisis that constrained
growth even before the fires, or
will they remain mired in legal,
financial and political limbo?
And will those residents — in-
cluding members of the county’s
workforce, from doctors and en-
gineers to teachers and trades-
people — rebuild and propel the
region’s recovery or depart and
fuel a brain drain?
The drop in tourism after the
fires was most pronounced in
the areas directly affected by the
blazes, which torched more than
137 square miles in the county.
Peter Spann, who owns a
Sonoma Valley winery with a
John Gilbert, left, of Spokane, Washington, talks with tasting room staffer Shawn Hetherman while sampling
chocolate wine sauces Tuesday at the Spann Vineyards tasting room in Kenwood.
tasting room in hard-hit Ken-
wood, said the cancellations
after the fires were immediate.
“Everyone who had an ap-
pointment to come and visit us
between October and January
canceled,” Spann said.
Ever since, it has been a daily
struggle to convince customers
to return and to dispel miscon-
ceptions about how much dam-
age the fires caused to wineries.
Only one in the county, Paradise
Ridge in Santa Rosa, suffered
extensive damage.
But descriptions by regional
and national media of the “Wine
Country Fires” and the seem-
ingly endless images of winer-
ies and vineyards menaced by
flames didn’t help, he said.
“They thought every single
winery and every single vine-
Housekeeper Santos Ortega changes the bed linens Thursday at the Fern Grove Cottages in Guerneville. Despite
being far from the fire lines to the east, the Russian River destination experienced a wave of guest cancellations.
yard was burned to a crisp,” said
Spann, who opened his 5,000-
case Spann Vineyards in 2001
with his wife, Betsy.
Their story of struggle reso-
nates with Beth Costa, executive
director of Wine Road winery
association. Despite some initial
success convincing visitors to
support the region after the
fires, it’s been a challenging win-
ter for many wineries, she said.
Ticket sales at various special
events promoting the wineries
of the Alexander, Dry Creek and
Russian River valleys are “down
across the board,” she said.
“I’ve heard from people
all over the country who say
they’re going to plan their trip
for another year,” Costa said.
“They heard there was total
devastation and they don’t want
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2018
ALVIN JORNADA / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
to see it.”
Those who do visit appear
to be spending more, helping
offset revenue drops, she said.
However, Costa now worries a
different, more lasting slump
may settle in following visitors’
initial impulse to support the
area post-fire.
“I think the feeling is chang-
ing now to we should be left
alone to recover,” Costa said.
“But if people leave us alone to
recover, we’re in real trouble.”
A dip in winery tourism has a
ripple effect across the lodging
industry as well, but an uneven
one, said Ben Stone, executive
director of the Sonoma County
Economic Development Board.
Revenue from county taxes
on lodging establishments was
BETH SCHLANKER / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
ALVIN JORNADA / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
actually up slightly in the fourth
quarter of 2017, to $9.8 million.
The drop in tourism was offset
by people displaced by the fires
and recovery workers snapping
up hotel rooms.
“Some of the folks along the
Highway 101 corridor are saying
they’ve never had it so good,
while those along the river, they
are feeling it,” Stone said.
Jennifer Lamarre, co-owner
of the Fern Grove Cottages in
Guerneville, confirmed the
area’s struggle.
“Definitely this winter was
the slowest winter that we’ve
had,” Lamarre said of her four
years running the cozy getaway
with her husband. “It was really
tough.”
Despite being miles from the
fires, the Russian River destina-
tion saw guests cancel in droves.
It was even worse than the
previous winter, when the floods
and media coverage of them
— including a memorable and
widely publicized image of a
woman kayaking through her
living room — kept tourists at
bay for months, she said.
Now that the weather has
improved, bookings are up but
still soft, she said. Travelers are
calling days or weeks before
their stay, instead of months in
advance, she said.
Nevertheless, Lamarre said
she is impressed with the efforts
Sonoma County Tourism has
made to entice visitors back.
These include efforts to
encourage people to explore
areas off the beaten path, and
advertising to dispel misconcep-
tions about the extent of the fire
damage, which mostly affected
residential areas where tourists
don’t tread, said Tim Zahner,
chief operating officer of the
county’s tourism agency.
He pointed to an increase in
traffic to the visitor bureau’s
website as one sign of a budding
rebound.
“Did we lose business after the
fires? Of course,” Zahner said.
“But are we seeing signs of more
people signaling an interest in
coming here? We are.”
While the county’s $2 billion-
per-year tourism industry is the
lifeblood of a large part of the
economy, impacts on other vital
industries appear mixed.
The surge of recovery workers
has undoubtedly had a positive
effect on the economy.
Joe Molsberry, owner of
Molsberry’s Market in Larkfield,
said he doesn’t know where he’d
be right now without the influx
of cleanup crews after the fires.
The 60-year-old market founded
by his grandfather has strug-
gled since nearly 1,500 homes
were lost in the Larkfield-Wiki-
up-Mark West corridor. The fire
burned right up to the market’s
back fence.
In the weeks and months after
the fires, in addition to serving
as an informal reunion spot for
fire survivors, The market has
been mobbed by hardworking
TURN TO REBOUND » PAGE A15
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2018 A15

REBOUND — compounds the challenge, he

CONTINUED FROM A14
cleanup crews.
“We were slammed up at our
deli,” Molsberry said. “It was
just like a mass of yellow and
orange vests up there.”
The neighboring Blue Beagle
Coffee enjoyed a similar jolt of
business from cleanup crews, he
said.
While lunch receipts have been
a bright spot for Molsberry’s,
the evenings and weekends can
be painfully slow with so many
regular grocery shoppers burned
out and relocated elsewhere. Joe
Molsberry is grateful to the ven-
dors willing to waive minimum or-
der sizes to help the market keep
costs down and perishables fresh.
And he’s touched by the local cus-
tomers who drive in from all over
the county, including Sebastopol
and Bodega, to shop at the market
while they wait to rebuild.
“It’s been kind of a tough
seven months, but we’re clawing
our way through it,” Molsberry
said.
Other types of retailers have
already benefited from the
combination of thousands of
fire victims needing to replace
so much of what they’ve lost
— from cars to cargo shorts —
with an estimated $7.5 billion in
insurance payouts flowing into
the county.
Stone referred to this effect
as “back-to-school on steroids,”
providing a bump for certain
types of retailers selling must-
have items, like clothes, shoes
and toiletries.
Another key indicator, auto
sales, rose 9 percent last year fol-
lowing a surge in purchases in
the last three months as people
replaced thousands of vehicles
destroyed in the fires.
Such big-ticket items should
help boost sales taxes for cities
like Santa Rosa, which along
with Sonoma County will nev-
ertheless struggle with budget
uncertainties in the short to
medium term, Stone said.
The big purchases, however —
such as home appliances, hot tubs
and boats — will likely be delayed
until people rebuild and have a
place to put them, Stone said.
That, unfortunately, is prov-
ing more challenging than many
had expected, said Keith Woods,
executive director of the North
PHOTOS BY ALVIN JORNADA / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Blue Beagle Coffee co-owner Alex Ligon labels coffee bean bags during a quiet moment after lunchtime Friday
at the shop in the Larkfield Shopping Center in Santa Rosa. Shops around the Larkfield-Wikiup neighborhood
are experiencing a business slowdown in the aftermath of the Tubbs fire.
Sonoma Uncertain,” Woods said.
“A whole lot of people don’t
know what they are going to do.”
The Federal Emergency Man-
agement Agency estimates that
30 percent of people on average
leave an area after a natural
disaster, Woods said. The rate
could be higher for this disaster
because of the huge number of
people who are underinsured.
United Policyholders, a
nonprofit that advocates for the
insured, said surveys six months
after the October wildfires show
80 percent of victims had yet to
settle their claim. The average
insurance gap — the difference
between the payout to residents
for property lost in the disaster
Customer Terrie King, left, of Windsor greets Molsberry’s Market and the cost to rebuild — was
employee Donna Lane outside the store in the Larkfield Shopping Center. $317,000, according to the orga-
In the months after the fires, Molsberry’s has been patronized not only nization.
by residents affected by the fires but also by cleanup crews in the area. That shortfall will make it dif-
ficult for many people to rebuild,
Coast Builder’s Exchange, a Woods estimates that county- and result in more lots going up
construction trade group based wide in the burn zones, 300 to for sale, Woods said.
in Santa Rosa. 500 homes — out of the 5,283 The value of land in Sonoma
Not long after the fires, Woods destroyed here in the fires — County and its enduring desir-
predicted that it might take the could be under construction by ability, will ultimately result in
region a decade to fully recover. the end of the year. buyers for those lots and even-
Seven months later, he stands A number of reasons exist for tually homes will be added, but
by that estimate, surprised and the slow pace of rebuilding, he it now seems destined to take
troubled by the relatively few said, mainly the large number far longer than many hoped,
number of people who have of people who haven’t decided he said. A shortage of skilled
begun rebuilding. Santa Rosa whether to stay. construction labor — and a lack
has issued 147 permits to date, “There’s not only the theme of temporary housing for those
the county 88. of Sonoma Strong. We’re also coming from outside the area
noted.
“I do believe that every prop-
erty that lost a home will have a
home rebuilt on it,” Woods said.
“It just may not be the home-
owner who was there when the
fires hit.”
What such uncertainty means
for the local job market is un-
clear.
Overall, the unemployment
rate is virtually unchanged,
inching up from 2.9 percent be-
fore the fire to 3 percent now.
While thousands of people
lost their homes, a smaller
number lost their jobs. In cases
where employees were displaced
— such as staff members at the
three Santa Rosa hotels that
burned — the job market is so
tight that they were likely hired
elsewhere quickly, Stone said.
Where he does see challenges
is in the medical field. About
200 doctors lost their homes
during the fires.
Of those, just 53 percent plan
to rebuild, according to a survey
by the Sonoma County Medical
Association.
Of the remainder, 36 percent
said they were undecided and
16 percent said they would not
rebuild, according to Wendy
Young, executive director of the
association.
Such trends can sap regional
recovery, so the Santa Rosa Met-
ro Chamber has been pressing
the city to further streamline
its permitting process for new
housing, hoping to expedite
construction for those who want
to stay.
Having a sufficient stock of
housing is crucial to retain exist-
ing residents, many of whom are
struggling now to absorb rising
living costs, said Peter Rumble,
executive director of the Santa
Rosa chamber. It’s also a key
factor for businesses trying to
hire and new ventures thinking
of relocating here, he said.
Santa Rosa officials appear to
grasp the challenge, Rumble said,
and the city’s move to further
ease housing construction shows
it is serious about recovery.
“We got punched in the face,”
he said. “So you fall back a little
bit and you regroup and you fig-
ure out how to move forward.”
You can reach Staff Writer Kevin
McCallum at 707-521-5207 or
kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.
com. On Twitter @srcitybeat.

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 SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2018 • SECTION H

Rebuild NORTH BAY

FOCUS ON ECONOMIC RECOVERY

T
he economic toll of October’s there are encouraging signs that our econ-
wildfires was at once massive omy is adapting to the new reality. The
— nearly $10 billion in insured labor force is holding strong, the tourism
losses in the North Bay — and and wine sectors have weathered the im-
not always obvious. Displaced mediate aftermath and building activity is
neighbors moved away, jobs vanished over- ramping up as at least $7.5 billion in insur-
night and scores of businesses untouched ance money begins flowing into Sonoma
by flames were nevertheless affected in County.
ways that keep unfolding. Inside, the stories from this month offer
But nearly seven months after the fires, a snapshot of our recovery.
Santa Rosa’s Paradise Ridge Winery, co-owned by Rene Byck, above from left, Walter Byck and Sonia Byck-Barwick, took
a direct hit in the October firestorm. The family is, nevertheless, forging ahead to rebuild the winery.

CHRISTOPHER CHUNG / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

INSIDE

MUCH WORK LEFT TO DO
IN SR’S COFFEY PARK
Building underway on 50 homes
in fire-ravaged neighborhood
as utility work continues.
Page H3
FOUNTAINGROVE RESIDENTS
STRUGGLE TO START OVER
Number of factors tipping
the scales as property owners
decide whether to rebuild or not.
Page H4
FIRES’ ECONOMIC BLOW
TEMPERS OPTIMISM
Home-building industry likely
to experience biggest boon while
tourism sector weathers aftermath.
Page H9
VOLUNTEER SHORTAGE
HITS LOCAL NONPROFITS
Six months after the wildfires,
organizations see their need shift
from funding to able-bodied help.
Page H11

PARTICIPATING SPONSORS
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2018
COFFEY PARK IN SANTA ROSA »
Rebuilding picks up pace as Rotarians offer grants to fire-affected businesses
Lots left to do as
more homes rise
Josh Wilson works on framing a home under construction Monday along San Miguel Avenue in Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park neighborhood.
W
By ROBERT DIGITALE
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
arm weather is
coming, and with
it the prospect of
more homes rising
in Coffey Park.
By April 20, builders had be-
gun constructing 50 homes in the
northwest Santa Rosa neighbor-
hood, according to the city’s web-
site. That compares with fewer
than 20 a month earlier.
Even so, large sections of the
burned area remain little more
than charred trees and cleared,
empty lots.
“There’s not as much movement as one
would think six months out,” said Jeff
Okrepkie, chairman of the Coffey Strong
neighborhood group. “You want to see more
happening.”
The Tubbs wildfire claimed four lives and
1,200 homes in the neighborhood in Octo-
ber. The debris from those homes has been
hauled away, but an enormous recovery
effort still must be undertaken.
Many fire survivors are battling with their
insurance companies over money to replace
their homes, Okrepkie said. He worries
more neighbors will get fed up and choose to
sell their lots rather than try to rebuild.
Nonetheless, Coffey Strong volunteers
have been holding gatherings to bring neigh-
bors together. Events include barbecues,
potlucks and a communitywide seminar for
fire survivors seeking to rebuild.
The organization also is getting quotes for
rebuilding the long walls bordering Hopper
Avenue. The walls, which extend 1,500 feet
on both sides of the road, were damaged in
the fire. In response, Florida debris removal
company AshBritt has promised to make a
“significant” financial contribution to re-
placing the structures. AshBritt is working
on the project with Coffey Strong and the
nonprofit Rebuild North Bay.
Here is a recap of other Coffey Park hap-
penings within the past month:
Reimagining a damaged park
The 5 acres of public parkland in the
middle of the neighborhood remain a green
space, but one littered with wood shards,
glass, fiberglass and other debris that blew
in during the firestorm.
“There’s all sorts of stuff out there that
we don’t feel we can clean,” said Jason Nutt,
the city’s public works director and interim
director of recreation and parks. The park
received debris in amounts far greater than
occurred at parks in the burned Fountain-
grove neighborhood east of Highway 101.
Some topsoil likely needs to be scraped
away at the park, Nutt said, just as it was
done on the surrounding homes.
The park in Coffey Park likely will need to be scraped of contaminants, much like the homesites.
The city plans to rebuild the park “from
scratch,” he said. It started talking with
neighbors about what features they want at
the park.
Proposals so far include adding a dog park
and a public bathroom. The latter idea has been
debated by neighbors. Some fear a restroom
would draw homeless people, while others say
it would save parents of toddlers from having
to race home in the middle of a park visit.
The new park also may include some
type of public art installation, possibly one
that touches on the historic fire. However,
Okrepkie said such art needs to be sensitive
to those who don’t want to relive the horror
and heartache.
“It should be about hope,” he said.
Utility work gets underway
Construction crews in April began re-
placing key underground utility lines in the
neighborhood.
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. is overseeing the
work, which will include 23 miles of trench-
es in the Coffey Park, Mark West Springs
and Hidden Valley neighborhoods.
Into the trenches workers are placing new
electrical and natural gas lines, plus phone
wires and cables for television.
By April 20, crews in Coffey Park had
dug more than 2,000 feet of trenches and
completed the installation of 1,400 feet of
conduit. Workers there eventually must dig
15 miles of trenches. The project’s comple-
tion is planned for the end of October.
For any fire survivors able to move back
in before the underground work is complet-
ed, the utility will connect the rebuilt homes
with electricity and natural gas, said PG&E
spokeswoman Deanna Contreras.
In December the utility brought electricity
back to the entire neighborhood by stringing
overhead wires and streetlights on tempo-
rary poles. And the existing natural gas lines,
while slated to be replaced, were pressurized
to temporarily serve the neighborhood.
The utility similarly has installed tempo-
rary electrical lines in all the county burn
areas except Fountaingrove, Contreras said.
But some homebuilders still have brought
in large generators to Coffey Park and other
H3
PHOTOS BY CHRISTOPHER CHUNG / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
rebuild areas.
She said utility workers have contacted
those builders and told them, “Hey, you don’t
need a generator. We can hook you up.”
Help for businesspeople
Many fire survivors didn’t just lose homes
when the flames hit. They also lost cars, tools
and shops needed to run their businesses.
Their ranks include landscapers, painters,
house cleaners, musicians and others —
most who used their houses for home offices
or places to secure key equipment. Exact
numbers are hard to come by, but a local ser-
vice club has received requests for fire relief
from more than 250 county business owners.
“What we found were these home busi-
nesses are really at the fabric of our commu-
nity,” said José Guillén, a project manager
for a fire relief fund overseen by local
Rotary club leaders.
The Rotary members have interviewed
fire survivors and are helping to distribute
roughly $1.4 million in fire relief, including
$1.1 million from the North Bay Fire Relief
Fund, a partnership of the Redwood Credit
Union, The Press Democrat and state Sen.
Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg. The fund
raised and distributed $32 million to more
than 6,500 fire survivors and aid efforts.
By early April, the Rotarians had ap-
proved grants to 161 small businesses and 71
individuals.
In Coffey Park, the affected business-
people included John Thill, who lost his
Dogwood Drive home and the property
on Mark West Springs Road where he has
operated his auto body shop for 11 years. He
expressed gratitude for the $5,000 in aid he
received from the Rotary program.
So did John LaBonte, who runs his own
painting business and obtained help from at
least a dozen organizations and businesses.
Without such help, he said, “there is no
way that we could have gotten back on our
feet. We’re far from 100 percent, but we are
able to do work.”
You can reach Staff Writer Robert Digitale at
707-521-5285 or robert.digitale@pressdemo-
crat.com. On Twitter @rdigit.
H4
FOUNTAINGROVE IN SANTA ROSA »
Solution for water system may be close; damaged athletic club works to rebound
Residents wrestle
with starting over
Homebuilder Rod McCannell, right, talks with homeowners Larry and Carmen Kilcullen and their daughter Lauren Kilcullen as a crew works Wednesday on the foundation for their new
home on Cross Creek Road in the Fountaingrove neighborhood of Santa Rosa.
A
By KEVIN MCCALLUM
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
fter the October wild-
fires destroyed their
million-dollar Foun-
taingrove home, Larry
and Carmen Kilcullen considered
buying something else instead of
rebuilding.
They thought about taking their
insurance payout and going to
another community. They also
considered buying a smaller home
somewhere else in Santa Rosa.
But the Kilcullens ultimate-
ly decided that they loved their
Cross Creek Road neighborhood
so much that they wanted to
rebuild despite the daunting task
they would face.
“We just said to ourselves ‘Where else
would we go?’ ” said Carmen Kilcullen, a
retired educator. “We love it here.”
The Kilcullens’ decision to rebuild —
celebrated with a bottle of bubbly and a
blessing earlier this month — has brought a
welcome sign of life to a neighborhood that,
nearly eight months after the fires, has just
16 homes under construction.
Their decision also runs counter to the
prevailing narrative that older residents are
proving less inclined to suffer the slings and
arrows of outrageous rebuilding costs. The
assumption has been that, with fewer years
left to enjoy their homes and less interest in
tackling daunting task of rebuilding, many
older residents of Fountaingrove would put
their lots up for sale and move on.
But the Kilcullens, who are in their early
80s, were undeterred by the prospect of re-
building. They knew it would be difficult, and
it has proven so. Wrangling the project to this
point — foundation work began last week
and they hope to move in 10 months later —
has taken every bit of energy they and their
daughter, Lauren Kilcullen, could muster.
And yet Carmen Kilcullen’s a little irked
by the number of her neighbors who seem
to be “just sitting around” overwhelmed by
it all.
“I don’t know what they are waiting for,
the sky to fall?” Kilcullen said.
A number of factors tipped the scales in
favor of them rebuilding. Their insurance
through State Farm was excellent, thanks
in part to Kilcullen or her agent keeping
the policy current. The man who built the
home, Rod McCannell, agreed to rebuild it
for them. As chairwoman of the architec-
tural review committee of her homeowners
association, Kilcullen for years has watched
others build or remodel and felt something
in her would enjoy the process.
“Basically, the only thing that was standing after the fires was our athletic club.”
NANCY AZEVEDO, sales director for the Fountaingrove Club, which lost several buildings to the Tubbs fire
As the first people to rebuild a home in
her neighborhood, Kilcullen said they may
seem like an anomaly, but she predicted
the pace of rebuilding will pick up soon.
Her committee, the Architectural Control
Committee of Fountaingrove Ranch Master
Association, has recently been approving
projects at a faster rate, with 33 homes
signed off on to date.
“We should be seeing a lot more homes
going in this summer,” she predicted.
Water hookups may be allowed
Recovery from the October wildfires, the
most destructive and deadly in state history,
has been steady, but the rebuilding effort —
particularly in Fountaingrove — slow.
The fires took 40 lives and burned a total
of 6,190 homes in the region, more than
a third of them in the city of Santa Rosa.
The resulting home insurance claims have
exceeded $9 billion.
Of the 266 homes in Santa Rosa that have
started the permitting process, 135 have
been approved, with 75 of those under con-
struction, according to city permit data. Just
nine of those are in Fountaingrove.
One of the many challenges for rebuilding
in the area has been the contamination of
the water system in the 184-acre portion of
the neighborhood centered near Fir Crest
Drive north and south of Fountain Grove
Parkway.
Low water pressure in the area during the
fires is now believed to have sucked chem-
icals from melting plastic pipes and other
debris into the water mains, contaminating
the water in the zone so badly that a two-
year, $43 million repair looks likely.
That timetable was blasted by residents
who predicted that no one would move for-
ward with rebuilding their homes until they
could be certain that the city could supply
clean water to their homes.
City officials initially said that people
could rebuild but, for liability reasons, they
wouldn’t be allowed to live there until the
water system serving their homes was com-
pletely repaired. That became a significant
obstacle to people rebuilding.
Those folks were offered a glimmer of
hope last week when Ben Horenstein, direc-
tor of Santa Rosa Water, told the Santa Rosa
City Council that a solution to the dilemma
was at hand.
“We’ve landed on an approach that will
allow occupancy for rebuilt homes in the ad-
visory area in advance of the full repair and
resolution of this issue,” Horenstein said.
He said the city would be “installing
point-treatment where needed and where
necessary” for people who manage to get
their homes rebuilt in the advisory zone.
Those systems will use activated charcoal
to remove any contaminants, a cost-effective
treatment option, he said.
The city considered delivering potable
water in tanks to newly built homes, rerout-
ing lines from unaffected areas, or other
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2018
CHRISTOPHER CHUNG / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
treatment methods. It ultimately landed on
the charcoal filters after talking to residents
who’ve installed them, Horenstein said.
“I applaud their ingenuity,” he said,
adding that they’ve helped city staff see that
such systems, which cities typically have no
role in, can work effectively as an interim
measure.
More information is expected to be re-
leased Monday. The solution sounds similar
to the carbon filtration system that Jan
Verspecht, whose home was one of 13 that
survived the fire in the advisory area, has
installed.
Verspecht, an engineer, told the City
Council last month that he’d spent $5,000 on
the system for his home and that his water
quality was now unrivaled.
“I can guarantee it, the water that we
drink is the purest that any Santa Rosan can
drink,” he said. “There is hope.”
Fountaingrove club rebrands
While the 1,519 homes lost in Fountain-
grove have been the focus of the rebuilding
effort, they weren’t the only structures lost
in the fires.
There was the city’s new $4 million fire
station on Newgate Court; a shopping center
at the intersection of Fountain Grove Park-
way and Stagecoach Road anchored by the
popular Sweet T’s restaurant; and the Foun-
taingrove Golf and Country Club, which lost
several buildings.
This included the pro shop, the three-story
clubhouse and a group fitness building.
“Basically, the only thing that was stand-
ing after the fires was our athletic club,” said
Nancy Azevedo, sales director at the club.
While the course has been open for mem-
bers since November, it has struggled with
the loss of buildings and decline in member-
ship, Azevedo said.
Before the fires there were a total of about
930 athletic, golf and club members. Since
then 115 members have resigned, mostly be-
cause they’ve either moved away to be closer
to family or taken a pause as they consider
what to do next, Azevedo said.
Even so, the club remains strong and its
members committed to rebuilding, she said.
“We are up and running,” Azedevo said.
“People think that we are going under, but
we are doing just fine.”
The club has waived dues for members
since the fires, though after May reduced
dues will be reinstated.
The club recently announced a rebrand-
ing, changing its longtime name of Foun-
taingrove Golf and Athletic Club to just The
Fountaingrove Club. The move was done to
get past the impression some had that the
clubs were separate, she said.
“I really think it’s brought us all closer
together,” she said.
You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum
at 707-521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@press-
democrat.com. On Twitter @srcitybeat.
H6
LARKFIELD-WIKIUP AND MARK WEST SPRINGS »
As wildfire recovery revs up, builders say residents who lost homes could see them
rebuilt at the rate of one a week, with the first ready for occupancy this summer
Neighborhoods
begin restoration
Construction crews work Monday on rebuilding homes above Riebli Valley in the Mark West Springs area of Santa Rosa.
A
By J.D. MORRIS
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
second mass rebuild
project is taking shape in
Larkfield as recovery picks
up steam in the unincor-
porated community north of Santa
Rosa where hundreds of homes
were destroyed in the wildfires sev-
en months ago.
Fairfield-based Silvermark Con-
struction Services is rebuilding
eight burned properties in the area,
including several on Willow Green
Place off Old Redwood Highway. The
company already has walls up for
one home and expects construction
to be finished in early June, weather
permitting.
After that, Silvermark anticipates completing
one home each week.
“That’s kind of our M.O.,” said David Hosk-
ing, the company’s vice president of operations.
“We put everything together, we get organized
in front of it … We’re pretty good at making stuff
happen fairly fast.”
So far, Silvermark is only working on prop-
erties sold by fire victims who didn’t want to
rebuild, but the company remains open to
working with property owners that do plan to
stay, Hosking said. Silvermark is rebuilding its
homes within the same footprint they had be-
fore, complete with some modern upgrades like
taller doors, he said.
Stonefield offers upgraded plans
In the nearby Larkfield Estates and Mark
West Estates, two subdivisions scorched by
the October firestorm, a Southern California
builder is also moving forward with its plans to
rebuild numerous homes.
Orange County-based Stonefield Co., which has
completed three prior group rebuilds in other
fire-devastated neighborhoods in the state, is on
track to construct 77 homes in Mark West Estates
and 14 in Larkfield Estates. The company hopes
to have county building permits secured by the
end of May, allowing it to break ground in the
first week of June. The first homeowners could
move in starting in December if the weather
holds up, said Robert Pack, Stonefield’s president.
Larkfield Estates will take longer — the
company began work on the Mark West Estates
rebuild first — but Stonefield hopes to start con-
struction there in August, Pack said.
In Mark West Estates, Stonefield is modern-
izing the subdivision’s original floor plans, de-
signing “great room” layouts where spaces open
up into each other more than traditional rooms
divided by walls.
“We didn’t use the old plans and just update
them to code requirements,” Pack said. “We
said, you guys have lost enough. We want to try
Luis Bautista, left, and Santos Franco with WF Builders Inc., construct the foundation for Duane Pedrioli’s home
in Santa Rosa’s Mark West Estates neighborhood on Monday.
to modernize them to what the new living condi-
tions and standards are today.”
Building on its popularity with Larkfield home-
owners, Stonefield is planning an open house for
Coffey Park residents May 12 and 13 to discuss the
possibility of a group rebuild in that neighborhood.
‘I’m just excited that we have walls’
Sonoma County has issued 31 rebuilding per-
mits for single-family homes and second units
in the greater Mark West Springs area, accord-
ing to county planning data. The fire destroyed
nearly 740 homes in the unincorporated area.
One of the Larkfield residents moving fast-
est with rebuilding is Jim Dickey, a local land
surveyor who got his county building permit in
mid-February. Workers poured the foundation for
Dickey’s Dorchester Drive home in March, and
they’ve now erected walls for the first floor. On
Thursday they were in the process of framing the
second story where two bedrooms will be located.
“I’m just excited that we have walls,” Dickey
said. “If it takes two years, I don’t care. At this
point, we got walls, and it’s pretty cool to walk
through the house and see how things are mov-
ing forward.”
Among all unincorporated areas, the county
has issued 77 rebuilding permits for single-
family homes and eight permits for accessory
dwelling units, planning data shows.
Sewer hookups optional
Also making progress is a plan from county
officials to extend sewer service into the Lark-
field Estates area. Supervisor James Gore, who
represents the neighborhood, hosted a commu-
nity meeting in early April to discuss the plan
with local residents, some of whom resisted the
proposal because they wanted to stay on septic
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2018
PHOTOS BY CHRISTOPHER CHUNG / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
and were worried about potential development
changes sewer service would enable.
The Sonoma County Water Agency’s financ-
ing plan for those who want sewer includes a
one-time connection fee of $12,000, with 20-year
loans offered at 2 percent interest to fire victims.
Annual loan payments would be about $750
starting in 2020.
Additionally, the system is estimated to cost
each parcel about $45,000 to build. Annual loan
payments would be about $2,750 but property
owners wouldn’t have to pay until 2030 and no
interest would accrue until then, according to
the Water Agency.
Michelle Gillies, who lost her Brighton Court
home and doesn’t want sewer, said she remains
concerned about potential overdevelopment of
the neighborhood. But she’s pleased her proper-
ty will not be required to connect to sewer even
if she decides to sell someday.
“It’s kind of a fight that I’ve given up on at this
point,” Gillies said. “People can go ahead and do
what they want, but they’re not putting some-
thing on me.”
Mike Thompson, an assistant general manag-
er at the Water Agency, said the voluntary aspect
of the sewer project appears to have assuaged
much of the concern from property owners. He
estimated at least 50 owners are ready to connect
immediately, and over the next several decades
he expects the “vast majority” of properties in
the area to connect to sewer service.
The sewer proposal is expected to come before
county supervisors, who also serve as Water
Agency directors, on May 22. Formal adoption
of the financing plan could happen in July or
August, Thompson said.
You can reach Staff Writer J.D. Morris at 707-
521-5337 or jd.morris@pressdemocrat.com. On
Twitter @thejdmorris.
H8
SONOMA VALLEY »
As residents in fire-damaged region come to terms with losses, permits issued
in Glen Ellen, Kenwood, Sonoma to those unwilling to leave property behind
Working through
Barbara Naslund, who lost her Glen Ellen home in the Nuns fire, has decided not to rebuild. The fenced swimming pool is all that remains of the home she lived in for 32 years.
‘grieving process’
I
By BILL HOBAN
SONOMA INDEX-TRIBUNE
f all had worked out as she
planned, Barbara Naslund
would be putting her Glen
Ellen home on the market
about now.
Naslund knew how she would
have staged her home of 32 years,
on 1.3-acres off Bonnie Way. In
preparation, she had trimmed the
oak trees that graced her property.
She had a photographer come out
and take pictures inside and out so
she would have some memories.
But her plans were upended in
the early hours of Oct. 9. Naslund
was sleeping when she was awak-
ened at about 1:30 a.m. by the smell
of smoke. She got up and looked
out to see her backyard ablaze.
With no time to spare, and still in her
pajamas, she scooped up her dog and headed
for the garage to make her escape. The first
time she tried her garage door opener, noth-
ing happened. She tried it a second time, and
it worked.
As she was backing around, she figures
she must have backed into her house, but
didn’t notice it until much later.
“I was one of the last people to leave
Bonnie Way,” she said. “The street was in
flames.”
She managed to make it to her daughter
and son-in-law’s residence in Bennett Valley.
While her son-in-law, who is a CHP officer,
got dressed and hurried into work, Naslund
and her daughter headed to Hollister to stay
with relatives.
“As we were driving down (Highway)
101 at that time of the morning, there was
no other traffic on the road — except for a
stream of ambulances who were also head-
ing south,” she said.
It didn’t dawn on her until later that the
ambulances were probably evacuating hos-
pital or nursing home patients.
She didn’t know what happened to her
home. It would take several days. She heard
it survived. She heard it burned. She didn’t
know.
Finally, her son-in-law, the CHP officer,
went by the house, what was left of it, and
took some pictures.
Then she realized, “I have to find a place
to live.”
She stumbled on an apartment close to
her daughter after finding out that the per-
son who originally took it canceled. With the
help of her insurance company, she moved
in.
“I had planned on selling my house any-
way,” she said. “I already had an agent.”
But now there was no home to sell.
“I could hardly go back,” she said. “It
was horrible. I couldn’t bring myself to sift
through the debris looking for things.” So
her daughter and son-in-law went back and
sifted through the ashes to see if there was
anything they could salvage.
“I lost my photos, my family heirlooms,
and I lost 10 quilts,” she said.
She hasn’t put her lot on the market yet.
“I’m going to take my time and not rush
into anything,” she said.
Naslund, 63, a retired
middle school teach-
“It was horrible.
er, wants to get the lot
cleared and have some of
the trees removed. I couldn’t bring
“It’s hard to look at
the ruins,” she said. “My
myself to sift through
daughter grew up there.
… She got married in the
the debris looking
backyard. It’s hard on
her. She still had lots of
for things.”
things in the house.” BARBARA NASLUND, Glen Ellen
She wants to come resident about the loss of her home
back and weed her flower to the Nuns fire in October
beds for one last time
once the weather turns warm.
“I’m not quite ready yet,” she said. “This
is like the last part of the grieving process.”
All of her neighbors are planning to re-
build. “I’m the only one who’s not,” she said.
Cleanup nearly complete
To sell or rebuild is a big question, but
many aren’t at that stage yet — the major
debris cleanup from the October firestorm
is near completion. Figures from the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers as of April 19
show the Corps has cleaned up 3,686 parcels
in Sonoma County and has removed almost
1.9 million tons of debris in the county.
The agency has completed 100 percent of
major debris removal in Glen Ellen, Ken-
wood and the greater Sonoma Valley.
And in the three-county area, Sonoma,
Napa and Mendocino, the Corps has re-
moved more than 2.2 million tons of debris.
“Right now we’re 92.6 percent complete,”
said Ed Johnson, a public information offi-
cer with the Corps.
“We still have some remote locations in
rural Mendocino and Napa counties that are
hard to reach,” he said.
There’s a lot of unknown factors in those
remote locations such as whether they can
get across some of the small bridges to reach
some of the sites.
Johnson, who was transferred to the job
this month, didn’t have an estimate on when
the Corps would wrap things up.
“We’re here until we’re done,” he said.
Survivors looking around
A number of burned-out properties are
starting to show up in the real estate market.
And the number of people who were burned
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2018
ROBBI PENGELLY / SONOMA INDEX-TRIBUNE
out and have decided to buy elsewhere is
growing.
Christopher Oscar, a real estate agent
with Better Homes and Gardens in Sonoma
said valley lots burned in the October fires
have been appearing on the market.
“There’s quite a few on the market right
now,” he said.
He was looking through the Multiple List-
ing Service and found a piece of property
in Santa Rosa where the house had burned
down, but the ad listed that much of the
infrastructure was in place and the swim-
ming pool and pool house survived and were
ready to go.
“We’ve also noticed
at a quite a few open
houses lately, that there
are more people who are
looking for move-in ready
houses instead of waiting
to rebuild,” he said.
While he doesn’t have
any clients who are
listing burned out prop-
erties, he closed a deal
recently representing the
seller where the buyer
lost their house.
Permit department busy
Still, not many are also unwilling to leave
their property behind. The county’s plan-
ning department has been busy issuing
permits for people looking to rebuild. As of
April 20, Permit Sonoma had issued permits
for 62 single-family units, seven second
units, 16 bridges, three guesthouses, two
mobile homes and one second mobile home.
According to the county database, 11 per-
mits have been issued in Glen Ellen, four in
Kenwood and one in Sonoma.
Maggie Fleming, communications man-
ager with the county planning department,
said fire survivors receive extra attention. A
separate permit center has been set up for
them and the process has been streamlined,
with a three-to-five-day turnaround time for
comments. Applicants can submit their pa-
perwork online to make the process easier.
Fees have also been reduced for fire sur-
vivors.
“We encourage property owners to con-
tact our permit center directly to get a fee
estimate specific to their property,” Fleming
said. And the planning department has
hired an outside vendor to provide addition-
al staffing in order to process the rebuilding
permits.
Naslund, however, won’t be among the
applicants.
For now, she’s going to stay in her apart-
ment in Santa Rosa. And she’s decided she
wants to stay in the city.
“Once the lot sells, I’ll close that part of
my life and move on,” she said. “I don’t have
the energy or desire to rebuild. Never again
will I live in the country. I’m going to stay in
the city.”
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2018 H9

RECOVERY GAINS MOMENTUM » While cautious on timetable, county

employers and experts feeling upbeat about rebound after October fires

Economic resilience in air

By GLEN MARTIN

T
FOR THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

he fires that raged through Sonoma

Valley seemingly without end in October,
destroying more than 400 homes, were
stopped short of the Arnold Drive proper-
ty in Glen Ellen where Marshall’s Body Shop has
stood for decades.
Yet as the inferno dragged on — and along with
it a mandatory evacuation for much of Glen Ellen
— shop owner Cliff Casolla and his crew were out
of work for more than 2½ weeks.
“That hurt me, and it hurt my guys,” said
Casolla. “Plus, the paint we use in this line of
work needs to be in a climate-controlled environ-
ment, so everything we had went south.”
Casolla, a former San Francisco police officer,
was 29 when he bought the shop three years ago
from a friend who had owned it since 2000. Before
that, it was Bob Marshall, the eponymous and
original owner at the
helm.
“I anticipate “I grew up in
a flood of Sonoma County and
took my degree at
construction work Sonoma State,” he
said. “After gradua-
over the next five tion, I attended the
police academy and
to eight years.” started working as a
probationary officer
JOHN BURGESS / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

KEITH WOODS, CEO of in San Francisco.
North Bay Builders Exchange But I’d done a lot
of side work in this
shop for Bob growing up, and when the offer came
to buy it, I took it. I never thought I’d be a body
shop owner — but here I am.”
Things were tight when Casolla and his crew
got back to work. But now his insurance money
for lost inventory has come in, and he kicked a
percentage to his workers to compensate for lost
wages. His shop is full of cars, and business is
humming.
“We have a lot of typical (collision) insurance
work coming in,” said Casolla, “but we’re espe-
cially known for our custom work on classic cars.
Before the fires, we had people from Southern
California, from out of state, bringing their cars to
us. And of course we had work from local classic
car owners — a lot of people, including winery
owners, had extensive collections.”
But many of those customers lost their cars
to the fires that swept through Sonoma Valley
and Sonoma County. And even car buffs with
collections that escaped the flames are foregoing
restoration work.
“Insurance adjusters can be really rigorous on
Cliff Casolla, owner of Marshall’s Auto Body in Glen Ellen, works on a car door. Casolla and his crew were out of work for
weeks because of the October wildfires, but his auto restoration shop has begun to bounce back.
classic car documentation, so owners who lost
cars may not be ready to replace them,” Casolla
said. “And most people who still have their cars
are dealing with a lot of different priorities right
now. We understand that. We have quite a few
jobs, and I’m confident our classic car work will
come back in time.”
That resilient outlook is prevalent if not pre-
dominant among Sonoma County employers and
economic observers, who are looking into the
future for signs of what might fuel growth or drag
it down.
The biggest boom on the horizon? Home
construction, when it finally gets underway in ear-
nest, building officials say.
“Some contractors have five or 10 homes under
contract, they’re ready to go, and there aren’t
enough framers,” said Keith Woods, the CEO of
the North Bay Builders Exchange, a trade group.
“Nothing happens on a house until it’s framed. It’s
the first step.”
Six months after the North Bay fires and the de-
struction of nearly 5,300 Sonoma County homes,
only a handful of building permits for new houses
have been issued. But just wait, said Woods, things
are about to get interesting. And for builders,
architects, engineers, subcontractors and skilled
and semi-skilled laborers who can take part, the
activity is likely to translate into prosperity.
“I liken it to the tsunami that sometimes follows
a big earthquake,” said Woods, “but in our case
the quake was the fires and the tsunami is slow
moving. I anticipate a flood of construction work
over the next five to eight years.”
Woods cautions that the timescale of the
recovery will be affected by a couple of factors that
remain unknown. Though at least $7.5 billion in
insurance payments are expected to flow into the
county — along with sizable FEMA grants and U.S.
Small Business Administration loans — some of
that money is expected to flow right back out again.
“A lot of people are still undecided about pulling
the trigger on rebuilding,” Woods said. “There will
be a massive influx of insurance money, but wheth-
er it all stays here or moves out is another matter.
Undoubtedly, it’ll be a mixed bag. Some people will
TURN TO RESILIENCE » PAGE H10

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H10 THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2018

RESILIENCE
CONTINUED FROM H9
rebuild, some will figure they’d be better off start-
ing over in Nevada. Or older residents may decide
they need less house, and they’ll downsize.”
Another problem, of course, is housing the
workers who will build the houses.
“Where will our workers be living?” Woods
asked rhetorically. “Maybe with you. We’re train-
ing hundreds of new workers, high school seniors,
through the North Bay Construction Corps. They
already have places to live, and for other workers
it will be the era of creative housing — prefab,
multiuse, multifamily. We won’t be able to single-
family-home our way out of this.”
Tourism was and remains foundational to Sono-
ma County employment, and the fires delivered
the hospitality industry a devastating body blow.
Residents quickly determined that only about
7 percent of the county’s area was directly affected
by the fires, but that message took a while to per-
colate to the outside world.
As a consequence, the winter was relatively
sluggish for tourism-related businesses. But the
fires have brought an influx of “second responder”
relief workers, insurance adjusters and construction
workers, many of whom are occupying hotel and PHOTOS BY CHRISTOPHER CHUNG / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
motel rooms for extended periods of time. Combined A construction crew works Wednesday on a building that could be used as a temporary tasting room at Paradise Ridge
with the business from displaced residents, it’s no Winery, which was heavily damaged in October during the Tubbs fire in Santa Rosa.
surprise that many hotels have been at full occupan-
cy and their employees assured of steady work. solutely intent on forging ahead, no matter what,”
“We’re seeing a bifurcation in lodging,” said she said. “But once we started looking at our insur-
Tim Zahner, the chief operating officer of Sonoma ance reimbursement and the costs of rebuilding, I
County Tourism. “The larger ones, particularly just didn’t think we could do it. What changed my
those along the 101 corridor that can offer con- mind was the incredible support we got — we’re
tracts or rates to second responders, may be doing getting — from the community. They’re keeping
better than, say, small bed and breakfast inns in us strong. So we’re moving forward. We’re doing
more remote parts of the county.” custom crushing at a nearby winery, we’re putting
In a recent survey conducted by Sonoma County up temporary offices on the property as we rebuild,
Tourism, 32 percent of lodging business principals and we hope to open to a limited degree soon. We
said trade had increased for February and March know there will be bumps, but we’re anticipating
compared with the same period last year, 42 per- things will get easier over time.”
cent said it had decreased, and 16 percent said it Sitting in his office, Casolla looked out the win-
had remained the same. For wineries, 26 percent dow to his shop floor and sighed as he grappled
reported an uptick in business, while 57 percent with his responsibilities as an employer.
said trade had decreased. “This shop isn’t just about me,” he said. “I didn’t
One region that seems to have weathered the Paradise Ridge Winery co-owners Rene Byck, from left, know what real responsibility felt like until I had
fires’ wake is the Dry Creek Valley, where busi- Walter Byck and Sonia Byck-Barwick are working to rebuild. five full-time guys and their families depending on
ness in tasting rooms remains robust, said Kim me. It’s a little scary.”
Stare Wallace, president of Dry Creek Vineyard, merce event recently, and the entire town was That sentiment is widespread among business
which sits about 5 miles west of the front for the packed,” Wallace said “I couldn’t find a place to community and residents bracing for a long, diffi-
Pocket fire outside of Geyserville. park. Business is strong, and people are working.” cult recovery.
“We were very lucky,” Wallace said. “Our vine- Most wineries weren’t directly affected by the “I’m optimistic about the long-term future of
yards and facilities were never affected, and we fires, but Santa Rosa’s Paradise Ridge Winery Sonoma County,” Tim Zahner said. “I’m also real-
didn’t miss a beat during the harvest and crush. took a direct hit. Three homes, four barns, a istic. Everyone who lives here knows someone who
Tourism was definitely down for several weeks winemaking building and a tasting and events has been deeply affected by this disaster. People
after the fires, but the visitors are back and we’re center burned to the ground. Sonia Byck-Barwick, lost their jobs, their homes, or both. So if we’re
feeling very optimistic.” a Paradise Ridge co-owner, acknowledged the going to avoid a second tragedy — a deep economic
Wallace said restaurants and inns are also busy disaster has been a heavy burden on both owners downturn — we have to assist the people and busi-
in nearby Healdsburg. and employees. nesses who need help. And it’s not just a matter of
“I poured at a Healdsburg Chamber of Com- “My father (founder Walter Byck) was and is ab- economics. They’re our friends and neighbors.”

“Tourism was definitely down for several weeks after the fires,
but the visitors are back and we’re feeling very optimistic.”
KIM STARE WALLACE, president of Dry Creek Vineyard, which sits about 5 miles west of the front for the Pocket fire near Geyserville

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THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2018 H11

“There is an intense need for volunteers and volunteerism across the county.”

Nonprofits need do-gooders

CAMI KAHL, executive director of the Volunteer Center of Sonoma County

WILDFIRE RELIEF » County groups

facing volunteer shortage in light of
ongoing efforts to provide assistance
By MATT VILLANO

I
FOR THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

n the immediate aftermath of last year’s

devastating wildfires, nonprofits and other
organizations in the North Bay worked to
find cash for fire victims. But these days, the
needs have shifted, and organizations are looking
for something much more significant: they need
volunteers.
Strong, able and willing bodies. Selfless bodies.
In many cases, all comers are welcome, so long as
they are able to pitch in with recovery efforts —
and soon.
“There is an intense need for volunteers and
volunteerism across the county,” said Cami Kahl,
executive director of the Volunteer Center of
Sonoma County, which helps coordinate volunteer
efforts for more than 200 nonprofits. “Some of our
research indicates we could need more than 1,000
volunteers in the next six months alone.”
A recent survey conducted by the Center for BETH SCHLANKER / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Effective Philanthropy and commissioned by Volunteers Marty Haidet, from right, Tim Mayer, Cindy Belluomini and Melissa Roberts, park assistant manager,
Community Foundation Sonoma County and repair the Pony Gate Trail at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park in Kenwood.
Napa Valley Community Foundation highlighted
that need. State Park. Volunteer coordinator Sorrel Allen John Franchetti, regularly cooks dinners for 60
It found that 85 percent of North Bay nonprofits said there will be others in the weeks and months families who lost their homes during the wildfires,
were impacted in some way by October’s wildfires. ahead. For details, visit SonomaEcologyCenter. and the organization accepts volunteers for just
Of 184 respondents, 81 percent said they needed org/events. about any task — cooking, serving, packing or
to provide services to more individuals or orga- The workdays usually take place on Saturdays transporting food.
nizations after the fires, and 73 percent said they and run about four hours, Allen said. While Irwin said her group also is working with local
added new services or projects in response to the braving poison oak and sunlight overhead, partic- chefs to expand the program and create a chef
fires. ipants help build bridges and steps, install signs, emergency network to respond to future natural
“The message about our community’s needs clear debris, or carry supplies to distribution disasters.
is loud and clear: we need more help,” Elizabeth points along the trails. Many volunteers also have “We take volunteers of all stripes,” she said.
Brown, president and CEO of the Community been remediating the effects of firebreaks made by “Basically we need all the help we can possibly
Foundation Sonoma County, said in a statement. fire crews, Allen said. get.”
Some needs have been greater than others, Sonoma County Regional Parks also seeks Ariel Kelley agrees. Kelley, an executive at
starting with a demand for mental health counsel- volunteers. Corazón Healdsburg, an agency that works with
ors who can donate time and services to help fire Director Bert Whitaker said volunteer crews the Latino community to connect them with
victims still grappling with the trauma of losing will help with an ongoing effort to replant flora existing resources and services, was the master-
everything, Kahl said. Translators who can help that was wiped out in the fires or withered be- mind behind the Healdsburg Free Store. The store
native Spanish speakers navigate the process of cause of poor soil. provided donated clothing, furniture and other
filling out paperwork from the federal government “It can be hard work at times, but it’s fulfilling household goods to hundreds of people displaced
also are needed. to be able to see that you’re making a difference,” from their homes in the immediate aftermath of
As Habitat for Humanity and similar organi- Whitaker said about the volunteer opportunities, the fires.
zations begin rebuilding homes and other struc- open to locals and visitors alike. Though the store has since shut down, Kelley’s
tures, they’re going to need skilled laborers to “Regional Parks on our own do not have the organization has remained involved in volunteer
register as volunteers, Kahl said. resources to do this work,” he said. “We literally initiatives, helping connect those still homeless six
In Sonoma Valley, environmental and conserva- couldn’t do it without help from the public.” months after the fires with lodging options.
tion organizations are desperate for volunteers to Elsewhere in the county, nonprofits are seeking “At a time like this, anything anybody can do
help rebuild trails and repair hillsides charred in support in other ways — from preparing meals to to help is going to make a difference,” Kelley said.
the wildfires. helping the homeless. “Just because the fires are out and we’ve started
The Sonoma Ecology Center has led a number Sonoma Family Meal, a nonprofit run by Press rebuilding doesn’t mean our efforts should sub-
of trail-maintenance workdays at Sugarloaf Ridge Democrat food writer Heather Irwin and Chef side.”

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H12
“Rents are rising so fast that it’s difficult to keep people adequately housed.”
WADNER ANILUS, program coordinator for Community Action Partnership
With wildfire losses,
pain may be long-lasting
6 MONTHS LATER »
Working families
may feel pinch more
than professionals
By GLEN MARTIN
FOR THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
A
bout 10 people have come
by Vitali Barber Stylists
over the past two weeks
to shake hands with the
barbers and say goodbye.
“Their insurance checks are fi-
nally coming in,” said barber Larry
Anderson. “They’re moving out. A
lot of them are going to the southern
states — Louisiana, Arkansas, Okla-
homa, South Carolina. They can get
a lot more house for their money
there. One guy showed me photos
of a big, beautiful brick house on a
large property that he bought for
$215,000.”
Vitali’s is tucked away in a small
Hopper Avenue strip mall just down
from the leveled Santa Rosa neigh-
borhoods of Coffey Park. When the
fire came, it did more than destroy the
homes and disrupt the lives of Coffey
Park residents. It created a diaspora
of clients who supported local busi-
nesses, shrinking the customer base
to an almost unsustainable degree.
“And it wasn’t just our Coffey
Park customers,” said Anderson,
who reclined in a barber’s chair in a
shop without customers on a recent
weekday. “We had a lot of custom-
ers, usually older people, who’d
come in from Fountaingrove. A fair
number of our Coffey Park people
have managed to come back for
haircuts, but not our Fountaingrove
customers. After the fires, they just
disappeared. Overall, I’d say we’re
still down 20 to 30 percent.”
Six months after the North Bay
fires, Sonoma County’s economy
remains in flux. While the loss of
nearly 5,300 homes and numerous
businesses hasn’t crippled com-
merce, the impacts are real and will
likely prove long-lasting. For many
residents, it’s a matter of mere
inconvenience: increased traffic
congestion, for example. But for the
people who lost homes or jobs, the
pain continues, and it is acute.
Residents overwhelmed
Fire-affected county residents have
found themselves overwhelmed by
the demands of daily survival while
simultaneously trying to negotiate
with insurance companies and iden-
tify any relief and aid programs that
can help get them back on their feet.
“As an architect, I’ve found that
my role includes being an informa-
tion source,” said Doug Hilberman, a
principal at AXIA Architects in Santa
Rosa. He lost his home in the fires and
has recently purchased a new house.
“In many cases, it gets down to
the fundamental question of wheth-
er they can afford to rebuild or not,”
Hilberman said. “Determining that
is a real challenge, especially be-
cause it can involve issues that may
not be resolved anytime soon.”
The contamination of the city wa-
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Larry Anderson cuts the hair of Jim Muelrath, who had his first haircut at Vitali Barber Stylists 46 years ago. Business for the barbershop
on the edge of Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park neighborhood is down nearly 30 percent since the October wildfires.
ter system serving at least 350 Foun-
taingrove homesites is one example,
he noted. The city’s window for
fixing the problem could affect those
relying on insurance to cover their
replacement housing costs.
“The problem, of course, is that
most insurance companies only re-
imburse for living expenses for two
years following a catastrophic loss,”
Hilberman said. “We’re already six
months into that two-year period,
so that could very well affect any
decision to rebuild or not.”
Keith Woods, CEO of the North
Coast Builders Exchange, a trade
group, observed that the national
statistics for disaster recovery are
sobering.
“According to FEMA, about 30 per-
cent of the people who lose homes
in a disaster decide not to rebuild,”
Woods said. “I think we’ll be at that
number as a minimum. I have a deep
concern that the number of people
who are deciding not to rebuild
increases every day. They don’t have
the money, the patience, or both.”
Health care community at risk
A particular threat to the econom-
ic vitality of Sonoma County is the
fires’ impact to the region’s health
care community, said Woods.
“Hundreds of physicians and health
care workers lost their homes,” Woods
said. “Kaiser, Sutter and Memorial
Hospital are justifiably concerned
about keeping their talent base. These
are people who have specialized skills
that are in high demand, and they can
easily take them elsewhere.”
Judy Coffey, the senior vice presi-
dent and area manager for Kaiser-Per-
manente Marin-Sonoma, confirmed
that 200 Kaiser employees and physi-
cians lost their homes to the fires. The
HMO is providing both short-term and
long-term financial and counseling
assistance for those employees.
“Kaiser Permanente is commit-
jecstone.com
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2018
ted to supporting the Santa Rosa
community,” Coffey wrote in an
email, noting the organization has
donated $400,000 to emergency relief
for North Bay communities and
funded more than 50 local grants.
Kaiser has not experienced staffing
shortages or retention issues in the
aftermath of the fires, Coffey said.
But Greg Hurd, the executive
vice president of BFK Engineers in
Santa Rosa, said a potential labor
drain is the most worrisome impact
of the fires. The housing shortage
can be remedied by time and proper
policies; the true crisis, Hurd said, is
the loss of specialized labor.
The local labor force shrunk just
1 percent between September and
February, a seasonal shift similar
to previous years, according to the
Sonoma County Economic Devel-
opment Board. The unemployment
rate remained at 3 percent, lower
than it was in February of last year.
The specific worry is that pro-
fessionals and skilled workers are
decamping, Hurd said.
“The talk I’m hearing is that we’re
losing our technical people, our
CEOs, our professionals, because
they can’t find housing to suit their
needs or were underinsured and
can’t rebuild or won’t rebuild be-
cause they’re not inclined to dig that
deep,” said Hurd. “Further, many
of our working people are finding
they’re priced out of this new mar-
ket. Say they owned a home in Cof-
fey Park worth $600,000 pre-fire, and
they’re discovering it’ll cost $900,000
to build the same home — or even a
smaller one. So they move away.”
As an example, Hurd cites a fam-
ily acquaintance, a hairdresser who
lost her home and found she couldn’t
afford to stay in the North Bay.
“It was an easy decision,” Hurd
said. “She packed her kid and a few
possessions in her car and drove out
to Texas, where she has family. She
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won’t be back. And we’re feeling the
impacts in our own firm. Engineers
make good incomes, but it’s difficult
to attract people when single-family
homes rent for $4,000 or more.”
Despair is exception, not rule
Working families are likely to feel
the financial bite even more than
professionals. Wadner Anilus, a
program coordinator for Communi-
ty Action Partnership, the nonprofit
education and aid provider, said
housing remains the most critical
need for low-income fire victims.
“Rents are rising so fast that it’s
difficult to keep people adequately
housed,” Anilus said. “Rates have
also increased for motels and hotels.
When you add food, gas, car repairs,
all the additional living expenses,
it becomes a true crisis. I come
from Florida, where hurricanes are
annual occurrences, so I know how
natural disasters can break people’s
spirits. I’m seeing the same thing
happen here. So along with our
financial aid, we also try to provide
emotional support. To get through
something like this, people need
to feel they have a voice, and that
someone is listening. That can be as
important to them as money.”
But six months out from the fires,
outright despair seems the exception
more than the rule. People are wor-
ried. Some who are finding that their
insurance numbers don’t pencil out
are leaving. But many also seem
determined to stay, come hell, high
water or flames.
“I’ve been cutting hair here
for 25 years, and I’ve done well,”
Anderson said as he passed time at
Vitali’s, the Santa Rosa barber shop.
“For now, I’m working three days a
week and taking four days off. That’s
better than having to take the whole
week off. Coffey Park will be rebuilt,
and new families will move in. Our
business will come back.”
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