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Politics & Government

Protect Sonoma Opposed to Preserving Sonoma, and Vice Versa

A group called Sonomans for a Sustainable Future has launched a website with arguments against the Hotel Limitation Initiative.


A new voice is about to be heard on the and it's quite likely the initiative's backers - Preserving Sonoma - will not like what they have to say.

The website protectsonoma.com has appeared under the name Sonomans for a Sustainable Future, with a simple message:

Thank you for visiting our website. We are currently working on content to better help you understand the “Hotel Limitation Initiative” and why it is important that we work together to stop this initiative from hurting our small town, city services and community groups.

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It is followed by a number of points in direct opposition to the arguments Preserving Sonoma is making in favor of the initiative.

"It was inevitable that those opposed to our initiative would employ a variety of tactics," said Larry Barnett, chair of the Preserving Sonoma Committee. "To date we have seen a misleading 'push poll' financed by hotel developers, and now a 'community group' with a name that might create confusion in the mind of the voters,"

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Barnett is currently leading the effort to collect over a thousand signatures to place an initiative on the ballot limiting the size of new hotels in the City of Sonoma to 25 rooms or fewer, until the annual occupancy rate exceeds 80 percent.

Among the arguments listed on the Protect Sonoma website are that

  • hotel proposals in the City of Sonoma should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the General Plan;
  • the 80 percent threshhold is unrealistic;
  • the Transient Occupancy Tax is the best way to keep the City funded;
  • the City has done a good job of planning so far;
  • a ballot initiative is not the best way to set policy for our City;
  • Sonoma does not have a hotel problem;
  • "Nothing is broken – our current General Plan and land use review process is extremely restrictive, methodical and careful."

Efforts by Patch to contact the organization today by email were not successful. However spokeswoman Nancy Simpson was quoted at length in an article published this evening on Sonomanews.com. Simpson is identified as a member of the Sonoma County Historical Commission.

Simpson is quoted in that article as saying "“We believe the initiative is harmful to our community because it circumvents the process and takes public comment out of play.”

"We welcome reasoned and honest dialogue about our initiative," Barnett said. "It's perfectly normal and healthy for community members to have differences of op inion. We hope Protect Sonoma is an expression of that."

However, he voiced skepticsm that Protect Somona is "a sincere grassroots effort or an "Astroturf" organization acting as a front for others.

"We'll be following the money," he said.

The hotel that sparked Barnett's organization is the former Chateau Sonoma, now known simply as the Sonoma Hotel Project, is being financed by Kenwood Investments, whose CEO is Darius Anderson.

Anderson is a principal of Sonoma Media Investments, which owns The Press Democrat as well as the Sonoma Index-Tribune, one of the buildings that will be razed for the proposed hotel.

In an article in the Press Democrat last week, Anderson admitted fo financing the opinion survey by J. Moore Media of Sacramento, which Barnett refers to as a "push-poll."

Anderson said Kenwood Investments conducted a survey “because we want to know what the community thinks about the issue of hotels and tourism.”

It will be interesting to see if the results of the "push-pull" survey are reflected in the arguments used by Protect Sonoma.

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