Vision(s)

by Guy Wilson, Sonoma-West Times & News Columnist, 12-20-07 

Santa Rosa recently got into the branding game with its new “California Cornucopia” slogan. This municipal moniker was promptly derided, probably because it sounds more like a Disneyland ride than an appropriate advertising vehicle for an identity-challenged city.

The slogan also sounds geographically misplaced and vaguely suggestive. Maybe it's just my dirty mind, but “cornucopia” sounds like some sort of deviant practice conducted furtively in an Iowa cornfield.

Sebastopol residents may be tempted to view the widespread criticism of “California Cornucopia” as poetic justice. After all, Santa Rosans ridiculed our “Local Flavor, Global Vision” apple-shaped earth logo earlier this year.

Admittedly, we ripped out most of our Gravensteins and replaced them with grapes long ago. But at least we once grew apples here, and everyone knows that we have global aspirations, even if they gag on our conceit.

So our semiotics make sense, which is more than can be said for Santa Rosa's cluttered logo, which features an artichoke that could never be grown locally, even in Luther Burbank's Experimental Farm, which for that matter is located in Sebastopol.

But before we get too smug, we should consider that we may be on the verge of hoisting ourselves on our own petard with our “Local Flavor, Global Vision” motto. Maybe we do have great international insight with our global vision - but at the same time maybe we can't see what's going on under our nose.

I'm referring to Sebastopol's Northeast Area Specific Plan, which, according to a recent mailing from the city's Planning Department, “is intended to express an affirmative vision for the Northeast Area.”

“Vision,” of course, is all in the eye of the beholder. But if the local vision expressed by the Northeast Plan gets built - over 300 new housing units, over 390,000 square feet of new retail and commercial space, and over 8,000 new motor vehicle trips generated downtown on a daily basis - it is hard to see what will remain of our small town character. Indeed, our “local flavor” will probably take on the distinct aroma of exhaust fumes.

As for what will remain of our global vision, we won't have to look so far anymore for planetary inspiration - we can squint into our own atmosphere, which will be a breathtaking microcosm of the inversion layers of Mexico City and Shanghai in rush hour conditions.

The Northeast Plan is still a work in progress, of course. The recent city mailing states that public hearings on the Plan and related Final Environmental Impact Report are anticipated to begin in February or March 2008 before the Planning Commission.

There is something reassuring about having access to a public process in this situation. There is always the hope that the process will go the right way, that sound decisions will be made, and that the outcome will be the best attainable for the people of Sebastopol. One can hope that the process will ultimately yield a radically different plan from what is now on the table, one that will be more sensible in scope and that will meet the needs of the people who live in town, as opposed to meeting the needs of developers and speculators.

But a lot of process - workshops, meetings, hearings - has already taken place with the Northeast Plan. There has been so much process, in fact, that it seems like a substantive result has already been achieved, insidiously, and now the process lying ahead consists mainly of a selling job to the public. The recent city mailing states that “hundreds of persons” have participated in the process to date. The implication seems to be that the fruit of all this past process - the Northeast Plan - can't possibly be discarded at this late date.

Well, we will have to see about that - if we have the vision.

Merry Christmas to all.