EXPLORING TOLAY » New addition TAPPING INTO TOURISM » Windsor

to county’s regional park system banking on economic synergy

opens to visitors in Petaluma. A3 from brewery’s new taproom. E1

CANNABIS AND THE NFL » It makes

no sense why pro football at odds
over policy, Phil Barber says. C1

WINNER OF THE 2018 PULITZER PRIZE

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2018 • SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA • PRESSDEMOCRAT.COM

Gunman kills 11 at synagogue

PITTSBURGH » Assailant shouts
anti-Semitic slurs at congregants
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
AND CHRISTOPHER MELE
NEW YORK TIMES
PITTSBURGH — Armed with
an AR-15-style assault rifle and
at least three handguns, a man
shouting anti-Semitic slurs
opened fire inside a crowded
Pittsburgh synagogue Satur-
day morning, killing at least
11 congregants and wounding
four police officers and two oth-
ers, authorities said.
In a rampage described as
among the deadliest against the
Jewish community in the Unit-
ed States, the assailant stormed
into the Tree of Life Congrega-
tion, where worshippers had
gathered in separate rooms to
celebrate their faith, and shot
indiscriminately into the crowd,
shattering what had otherwise
been a peaceful morning.
The assailant, identified by
law enforcement officials as
Robert Bowers, fired for several
TURN TO GUNMAN » PAGE A13
ALEXANDRA WIMLEY / PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE
Law enforcement officers secure the area Saturday at
the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh, where a
gunman opened fire and killed 11 congregants.
COTATI VIGIL » ‘Jewish
community is shaken’
By ROBERT DIGITALE
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Sonoma County Jewish leaders expressed sor-
row and solidarity Saturday as they reacted to the
mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue.
“The entire Jewish community is shaken,” said
Irwin Keller, spiritual leader of Congregation Ner
Shalom in Cotati.
Congregation members held a vigil there Satur-
day evening attended by more than 80 people of
various faiths.
“We decided we need to be together,” Keller
said. Members sought not only to express grief
TURN TO VIGIL » PAGE A13

HOME CONSTRUCTION » BACKBONE OF WORKFORCE

Latino builders inject

resiliency into recovery
Cesar Sayoc

Bomb
suspect
inspired
by Trump
‘Loner’ found kindred
spirits at rallies and on
social media, lawyer says
By DANIELLE PAQUETTE, LORI
ROZSA AND MATT ZAPOTOSKY
WASHINGTON POST

BOCA RATON, Florida — The

first thing that stood out about
Cesar Sayoc was his vehicle.
As far back as 2002, lawyer Ron-
ald Lowy recalled, the windows
of Sayoc’s white Dodge Ram van
were covered in stickers of Native
American regalia. Though Sayoc
was Filipino
and Italian, he GOP STOKING
claimed to be a FEARS IN US?
proud member Trump, his allies
of the Seminole face accusations
tribe, Lowy said. that rhetoric
The lie was has helped
one of many rising right-wing
PHOTOS BY BETH SCHLANKER / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT Sayoc would extremism / B1
spread about
Alejandro Carradas of R&R Framing arranges his tools at a construction site for a home rebuild Tuesday in Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park neighborhood.
himself over the years. He false-
As many as 80 percent of the construction laborers involved in Sonoma County’s rebuild effort are Latino, according to building officials.
ly claimed to have worked as a
Chippendales dancer, and he
Workers taking pride, satisfaction in helping families after wildfires was once charged with fraud for
modifying his driver’s license to
make it appear he was young-
By MARTIN ESPINOZA er, said Lowy, who represented
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT him in the case. Sayoc seemed to

R
have a new business venture ev-
anchera music fills the air in Coffey ery three months, though none
Park, where a boombox blasting was successful. He worked as
inside a half-built home sends a a DJ or bouncer at strip clubs,
traditional Mexican folk tune echoing dabbled in bodybuilding and
down the street of a neighborhood rapidly
taking shape in northwest Santa Rosa. TURN TO SUSPECT » PAGE A2
The wailing vocals and Latin beats are
punctuated by
hammer blows, INSIDE
screeching YEMEN FACING FAMINE:
circular saws and Multifaceted war exacting
the successive greater toll on civilians
pat, pat, pat of while raising catastrophic
nail guns that risks, experts warn / B1
are bringing this
former ash-heap SANTA ROSA
back to life. High 73, Low 45
In one home
on Kerry Lane, THE WEATHER, C8
REBUILD NORTH BAY Joel Calderon,
59, cuts white Business E1 Lotto A2
Latino entrepreneurs, Carpenters Joel Calderon, left, and his twin brother, Eliseo, share a burrito on their lunch break Classified E5 Movies D6
workers helping to propel baseboard for the
living room while while working on a Kerry Lane home project Wednesday in Santa Rosa. Community B8 Nevius C1
recovery efforts / H1
his crew, twin Crossword T7 Obituaries B4
brothers Eliseo and Juan Gallardo, 33, tion workers assembled to rebuild Sono- years. But the new homes in Santa Rosa’s Forum B9 Sonoma Life D1
install baseboards, shelves, door molding ma County, where wind-driven wildfires burned neighborhoods are unlike any LeBaron T1 Smith A3
and other finish work. destroyed 5,334 homes a year ago. they’ve worked on, said Calderon.
Since September, the three-man crew The nails and screws they sink, the “It’s a very emotional thing to see the
has been doing nonstop work in Santa measurements they take, the baseboards expression of gratitude on the owner’s
Rosa fire zones, mostly in Coffey Park. and cabinets they skillfully cut and fit, is
They are part of a small army of construc- the same work the crew has been doing for TURN TO BUILDERS » PAGE A12
©2018 The Press Democrat
A12 THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2018

“The faster you build the better, because families can get back into their homes.”
ALEJANDRO CARRADAS, Santa Rosa construction worker employed by R&R Framing who’s helping to rebuild homes for familes after the 2017 wildfires

PHOTOS BY BETH SCHLANKER / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Eliseo Calderon, a carpenter with APM Homes, cuts a piece of trim at a house under construction on Kerry Lane in Santa Rosa on Wednesday,

BUILDERS eo, opens a blue cooler and

CONTINUED FROM A1
face when you hand them
the keys,” said Calderon,
speaking in Spanish.
Calderon, who has
been working construc-
tion in Sonoma County
for 32 years, is part of a
crucial Latino workforce
— or as he puts it, “mano
de obra” — that is rebuild-
ing neighborhoods leveled
during last year’s historic
wildfires.
As many as 80 percent
of the construction work-
ers involved in the rebuild
are Latino, according to
building officials familiar
with the reconstruction
underway.
“Without them it
couldn’t happen,” said
John Allen, chief opera-
tions officer and vice pres-
ident of APM Homes of
Santa Rosa. He compares
the outsized role Latino
construction workers play
in the rebuild to the critical
part they play in the state’s
agricultural industry.
“In this case, the crop
that we’re harvesting is
hope, resiliency and love.
It’s a labor of love,” he
said.
APM Homes is current-
ly constructing 67 homes
in Coffey Park and three
in Fountaingrove. It has
sold 17 brand new homes
in east Santa Rosa’s Sky-
hawk neighborhood to fire
survivors.
Allen said that every
builder and subcontractor,
whether they’re coming
from Santa Rosa, Sacra-
mento or anywhere else,
have seen the devastation
and been moved by it.
“It affects,” he said.
“You’re not just building a
new home.”
Saul Diaz, a 42-year-old
framer from the Sacra-
mento area, moved to
Sonoma County shortly
after the fire with the
hope of taking part in the
rebuild effort. Diaz, who
works for R&R Framing of
Rancho Cordova, land-
ed some condominium
construction work the
company was doing in
Petaluma.
He found an apartment in
Rohnert Park, brought his
family to town and enrolled
his 11-year-old son into
school. He quickly became
attached to his new commu-
nity, and has been deeply
moved by the gratitude of
homeowners who watched
their houses rise in an
array of framing studs and
plywood sheathing.
“I don’t want to leave
now,” he said. “I like it
here and the schools are
good.”
Alejandro Carradas, 33,
of Santa Rosa also works
for R&R Framing, an APM
Homes subcontractor. Car-
radas, who has a wife and
two children, 11 and 6, has
worked for APM for about
four years and has lived in
Santa Rosa for 18.
He said R&R Framing
has so far erected 52 homes
in burned neighborhoods.
Like the Calderon broth-
ers, Carradas said there’s
something different about
rebuilding as opposed to
new construction. There’s
a sense of urgency.
“The difference is this is
a place where there were
already people,” he said,
speaking in Spanish. “The
faster you build the better,
because families can get
back into their homes.”
It’s unclear exactly how
many Latino construction
workers are involved in
the rebuild effort.
Allen said Latinos
comprise about 80 percent
of APM Homes’ work-
force. Keith Woods, CEO
of North Coast Builders
Exchange, said he’s heard
local contractors put the
overall share of Latinos in
the rebuild at about
70 percent.
All agree Latinos play
an outsized role in the
housing recovery for
Sonoma County, where
27 percent of the county’s
504,000 residents are Lati-
no, according to
U.S. Census estimates.
The concentration of
Latinos in the construc-
tion industry is the result
of recent demographic
changes taking place in
Sonoma County, said Ben
Stone, executive director
of the Sonoma County
Economic Development
Board. Latinos tend to be
a younger cohort than the
general population.
During the recession,
many longtime construc-
tion workers either retired
or moved away for oppor-
tunities elsewhere, Stone
said. Some went into other
fields, such as the tech
industry, he said.
The Latino workforce,
he said, is a “critical com-
ponent for homebuilding.”
Woods said the construc-
tion industry has become
highly dependent on the
Latino community for
workers.
“I hear constantly from
our Builders Exchange
members that the work
ethic and willingness to
learn new skills that their
Latino workers display
make them a critical part
of the industry’s present
and future,” Woods said in
an email.
As recently as the late
1990s, most workers in the
local home building indus-
try were white, said Allen,
whose father was a con-
struction superintendent
for Condiotti Enterprises,
the “grandparent compa-
ny” of APM Homes. The
shift toward more Latinos
occurred with the change
in the county’s overall
demographics, he said.
“There’s really no dif-
ference, whether its white
or Hispanic,” he said. “All
people in general, they
want to be happy and
prosperous. ... If you actu-
ally sit down and talk to
people, all of us are pretty
much the same.”
The vast majority of
Latino workers in the
rebuild are not unionized,
according to local labor
and economic justice
advocates. Marty Bennett,
Above, Alejandro Carradas
of R&R Framing Inc. takes a
measurement for a house
Tuesday in Santa Rosa’s
Coffey Park neighborhood.
At left, Joel Calderon, right, same year. The Calderon
installs a bathroom door
while his brother Eliseo, left, time and by the late 1980s
does trim work at a house
being built on Kerry Lane in
Santa Rosa.
Below, Joel Calderon’s steel
toe boots show their wear.
labor co-chair with North
Bay Jobs with Justice, es-
timates that no more than
30 percent of the hours
worked at rebuild sites are Santa Rosa, Calderon
union labor.
Union organizers would of work rebuilding homes.
like to change that. The
North Bay Labor Council
is promoting a 120-hour
pre-apprenticeship
program to train a new
generation of union
construction workers.
The North Bay Trades
Introduction Program
makes apprenticeships in
the trades more accessible a great deal of pride and
to people without related
work experience or a
union connection, said
Christy Lubin, director
of the Graton Day Labor
Center, which is affiliated
with the North Bay
Labor Council. Priority
is given to women, people
from disadvantaged
backgrounds and veterans. next week we’ll hand over
Back at the job site last
Wednesday, Joel Calderon
and his two-person crew
take a lunch break shortly Martin Espinoza at 707-
after noon, sitting on the
porch of the home on Ker- za@pressdemocrat.com. On
ry Lane. His brother, Elis- Twitter @renofish.
pulls out burritos made of
egg chilaquiles, beans and
rice. Joel himself cooks a
daily lunch for the crew.
The Calderons speak
proudly of their deepening
roots in Sonoma County.
Their father, Antonio
Calderon, was a “brazero,”
or laborer, who for years
during the 1960s and early
1970s traveled between
Sonoma County and his
parents’ small town of
Tlazazalca, in the north
of the Mexican state of
Michoacán.
When the elder Cal-
deron grew weary of
traveling back and forth,
he decided to bring his
wife and eight children
to Sebastopol, where he
was a foreman at an apple
orchard.
“He said, ‘You know
what, I’m bringing ev-
eryone.’ Back then it was
an easy procedure,” Joel
Calderon said, referring to
the county’s immigration
process.
He said that his father
applied for legal residency
for his wife and children
in January 1973 and it was
granted by May of the
brothers were 14 at the
both had become journey-
men carpenters.
Joel Calderon, who owns
a rental home in Santa
Rosa, now lives with his
family in another home in
Windsor. He said Sonoma
County is more a home
than his native Mexico,
which he hasn’t visited
since his father died
18 years ago.
“All of us siblings are
here now,” he said, adding
that his brother, Victor
Calderon, is the owner
of La Hacienda Mexican
Restaurant in Cloverdale.
When the Tubbs fire
roared through northern
knew there would be a lot
But like many others, his
first reaction was one of
horror.
“I thought of evacuating
but I didn’t want to clog
the highways,” he said. “I
wanted to leave the roads
to those who really needed
to use them.”
Calderon said he feels
satisfaction to see homes
rising in burned areas like
Coffey Park. The owners
often come around to see
the work being done. They
get to know the workers,
he said.
“It’s beautiful to give
them the keys to their
house,” he said. “I think
another two homes.”
You can reach Staff Writer
521-5213 or martin.espino-
 SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2018 • SECTION H

Rebuild NORTH BAY

ALVIN JORNADA / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Like many Latino entrepreneurs, ice cream truck operator Griselda Benítez faced a mounting set of challenges after last year’s wildfires in the North Bay.

FOCUS ON THE LATINO COMMUNITY

T
he October 2017 fires were an
indiscriminate disaster, cutting
across all segments of our com-
munity. No figures yet exist to
say how deep and wide the toll
was for Latino residents, who make up
more than a quarter of the population in
Sonoma County. The quick thinking of
Spanish-speaking volunteers steered many
to safety in the earliest hours, while the
tireless work of nongovernmental groups
and churches offered much-needed services
and financial assistance in the weeks and
months that followed. Families on the mar-
gins, deprived of so much by the fires, were
thrown lifelines even by complete strangers.
And now, the skilled labor of genera-
tions of Latino workers is propelling the
North Bay’s housing recovery. El esfuerzo
latino — a community effort whose contri-
butions, like so much that was lost a year
ago, are immeasurable.

INSIDE

COFFEY PARK RESIDENTS
STAND TOGETHER
On the first anniversary of
the fire disaster, neighbors gather
to reflect and show their resolve.
Page H3
FINDING OUTLETS AMID
SLOW PROGRESS IN VALLEY
Glen Ellen and Kenwood residents
turn to rehabilitating gardens and
landscapes during slow recovery.
Page H9
EMERGENCY ALERT PUSH
FOR SPANISH SPEAKERS
Leaders in Latino community
step up to ensure disaster alerts
transcend language barriers.
Page H13
MIGRANT FAMILIES FIND
HELP IN UNDOCUFUND
Nonprofit comes through to close
gaps for survivors leary to seek
assistance over wildfire losses.
Page H21

PARTICIPATING SPONSORS
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2018 H3

COFFEY PARK IN SANTA ROSA »

Residents gather to mark fire’s one-year anniversary, but also
to share hardships and hope that neighborhood will recover

United by loss,
Jared and Jill Hammer, left, talk Oct. 1 with Jill’s parents, Jack and Janet Reisner, who lost their Coffey Park home to the Tubbs fire last October.

unified by resolve

PHOTOS BY KENT PORTER / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Emily Lyons and her daughter, Hailey, 1, who moved from Coffey Park seven months before the Tubbs fire, snuggle Oct. 9 at a remembrance marking the firestorm’s one-year anniversary.

W
By ROBERT DIGITALE
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

hen the fateful date

returned, Coffey
Park stood together.
On the first anni-
versary of the neighborhood’s
destruction, hundreds of Coffey
Park residents returned where
their homes once stood in a sub-
urban residential area of north-
west Santa Rosa.
Together the neighbors reflect-
ed upon their losses from the
most destructive wildfire in state
history. They also looked forward
to a second year of recovery that
would include stronger ties with A new Coffey Park sign was unveiled at the ceremony marking the anniversary of the Tubbs fire.
those who had shared hopes and the fire killed five residents and destroyed stock response is: “One day at a time.”
hardships over the past year. 1,321 single-family homes. On the evening of Oct. 9, about 500 people
In the days leading up to the first anni- gathered for the anniversary observance
For many residents, October marked the end versary, residents shared how they took near Hopper Avenue and Coffey Lane. Many
of the most disorienting year of their lives. small steps forward. Many said they plan had parked cars by their old home lots and
“Everything that’s familiar is gone,” said to persevere based on a hope they and their walked through the neighborhood to the
Mike Baker, whose family lost a home on neighborhood will recover. gathering spot.
Keoke Court. “I long for the day I can say to those who Once there, neighbors mingled, exchanged
The North Bay wildfires began on the ask, ‘I’m fine. I’m great,’” said Velma Guil- hugs and offered animated updates on their
night of Oct. 8, 2017. The most destructive lory, a retired Sonoma State University pro- lives.
blaze, the Tubbs fire, reached the Coffey fessor whose home burned on Hilary Court.
Park neighborhood early the next day. There For now, when asked how she’s doing, her TURN TO COFFEY PARK » PAGE H5
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2018
Coffey Strong president Pamela Van Halsema addresses neighborhood residents during the one-year anniversary remembrance Oct. 9 in Santa Rosa.
COFFEY PARK
CONTINUED FROM H3
“I’m hearing joy and chatter,” Sonoma
County Supervisor James Gore said in Cof-
fey Park. “I get the chills, what I’m feeling
here.”
The observance was different than the
more reserved gathering the night before at
the countywide commemoration in down-
town Santa Rosa on Old School Square.
The neighbors in Coffey Park silently lis-
tened to the names of the five residents who
had lost their lives in the Tubbs fire. Coffey
Strong President Pamela Van Halsema told
residents they should acknowledge the past
year included plenty of sadness and difficul-
ties “and it’s taken a toll on each and every
heart in the space.”
The audience cheered and applauded
when Van Halsema spoke about the future
of a place they were rebuilding together. A
day was coming, she said, when neighbors
would walk past rebuilt homes and “greet
each other by name, because we know
each other now and we can call each other
friend.”
Here is a recap of Coffey Park news from
October:
New utility lines installed
More than half of Coffey Park proper-
ty owners have started construction or
have the green light from the city to break
ground and rebuild their homes.
As of mid-October, workers had started
to rebuild 552 single-family houses in the
neighborhood. Property owners had re-
ceived building permits but not yet started
construction on another 162 lots.
The city was processing 133 more
building permits. And 26 homes had been
completed. That accounts for 875, or nearly
twot-thirds of the burned single-family
houses there.
Along with the home rebuilding, Cof-
fey Park has been the site of other major
construction projects, some completed and
some yet to come.
The fire badly damaged underground
utilities beneath the neighborhood’s side-
walks. As a result, Pacific Gas & Electric
Co. in the spring began digging 17 miles of
trenches to replace electric, gas, phone and
cable television lines.
More than 100 workers helped with the
trenching and installed 22 miles of electri-
cal cable and 10 miles of gas lines, PG&E
A tree decorated with lights shines next to the new Coffey Park neighborhood sign, which was unveiled Tuesday during the Tubbs fire remembrance.
Coffey Park residents made luminaries for the anniversary of the Tubbs fire.
spokeswoman Deanna Contreras said.
The work was estimated to take until
year’s end, but was wrapped up last week.
“We’re done two months early,” Contre-
ras said.
For now, the utility will keep in place tem-
porary overhead power poles, which also
hold city street lights. And PG&E contrac-
tors will continue to make road repairs and
other improvements in Coffey Park over the
next few months, Contreras said.
Concrete walls to be replaced
Another project, which has yet to begin,
is the replacement of burned concrete walls
that run nearly 1,500 feet along both sides of
Hopper Avenue east of Coffey Lane.
The cracked concrete and wood trim
walls sit on the private property of more
than 40 homeowners, complicating their
removal and replacement. In response,
Coffey Strong has worked to find a solution
with the nonprofit Rebuild North Bay and
AshBritt Environmental, a Florida debris
removal company that has agreed to donate
$450,000 in cash toward rebuilding the walls.
Coffey Strong had wanted to start demol-
ishing the walls in September. That did not
occur, but permission to replace the walls
has been granted in writing by all the affect-
ed property owners, said Van Halsema, the
group’s president.
“It’s really getting close to being able to
get going,” she said of the project.
Park rebuilding effort underway
Another future project is the rebuilding
H5
PHOTOS BY KENT PORTER / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
of the 5-acre park for which the neighbor-
hood gets its name.
Coffey Strong and the Santa Rosa Parks
Foundation are jointly raising money for
the new park, said Michele Rahmn, Coffey
Strong’s fundraising chairwoman.
The park could cost up to $5 million,
according to city parks officials.
They expect the state and federal govern-
ments to contribute more than 90 percent of
the costs.
The exact amount of local fundraising
needs remains uncertain.
A new park design is slated to begin next
month by the Santa Rosa firm of Carlile
Macy. It’s unclear how much of that cost
will be covered by federal disaster relief
funds.
Donations for the neighborhood park
can be made at srparksfoundation.org or
coffeystrong.com.
In addition to the park, Coffey Strong is
raising funds for other projects, including
welcome baskets for those returning to
their homes. The group is planning its first
fundraising event, a bingo night, on Nov. 16
at Epicenter, 3215 Coffey Lane in Santa
Rosa.
The neighborhood park has long been a
central meeting place, Rahmn said. Looking
forward, neighbors hope to use it for casual
outings with children and a variety of orga-
nized gatherings.
“It’s going to mean a lot more to Coffey
Park than it ever has,” she said.
You can reach Staff Writer Robert Digitale
at 707-521-5285 or robert.digitale@pressdem-
ocrat.com. On Twitter @rdigit.
H6 THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2018

FOUNTAINGROVE IN SANTA ROSA »

‘Steady flow of homes’ anticipated to be in pipeline for reconstruction as
Habitat builds cottages for survivors; Paradise Ridge Winery breaks ground

‘Creative solutions’
for more housing

CHRISTOPHER CHUNG / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Irwin Trujillo works on the construction site for a cottage being built Oct. 19 by Habitat for Humanity on the Medtronic campus in Santa Rosa. The nonprofit’s project is seeking to provide
temporary, affordable housing for wildfire survivors that will eventually be turned into granny units and placed on properties with single-family homes.

A
By HANNAH BEAUSANG
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

year after the Tubbs fire

destroyed more than
1,400 homes in Foun-
taingrove, a project to
install 10 modular cottages is
moving forward as the hillside
neighborhood continues its long
slog to rebuild.
The Habitat for Humanity
project on the campus of medi-
cal device maker Medtronic will
provide temporary, affordable
housing for those displaced by
last October’s deadly blazes. They
will eventually be turned into
granny units and placed on prop-
erties with single-family homes.
“People who are working in BETH SCHLANKER / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Sonoma County need a place to
live while permanent housing is
being built,” said John Kennedy,
board chairman of Habitat for
Humanity. “Sonoma County real-
izes it is losing employees and the
clock is ticking.”
About 400 people attended
an Oct. 12 commemorative
groundbreaking ceremony.
An unexpectedly high bid
for work to prepare the site
where the cottages will be
placed on temporary foun-
dations has pushed move-in
dates back from November
John to December or January,
Kennedy Kennedy said.
Santa Rosa’s Director of Planning and
Economic Development David Guhin said
the city is working with Habitat for Human-
ity to find “creative solutions,” like cottag-
es sharing a sewer lateral, to reduce the
amount of trenching needed that could help
with construction costs. In the meantime,
two cottages are being built in a parking lot
on the campus.
The village will feature four models of one
and two-bedroom modular homes, ranging
in size from 480 to 750 square feet, Kennedy
said. A 10 a.m. Nov. 10 meeting will be held
at the Shiloh Neighborhood Church on
Founder and president Walter Byck, center, joins his daughter Sonia Byck-Barwick, left, friend
Katherine Paus, second right, and son Rene Byck for a groundbreaking ceremony Oct. 22 for a new
tasting room and event center at Paradise Ridge Winery.
5901 Old Redwood Highway for those inter-
ested in applying.
Water advisory lifted
City officials announced Oct. 11 that the
water in Fountaingrove is once again safe
for drinking and bathing. An advisory was
issued last November for a 184-acre section
of the neighborhood after flames melted
water pipes and contaminated parts of the
water system with benzene, a chemical that
can cause cancer.
Recent tests showed traces of benzene at
levels lower than the state-mandated limits,
and the city said the water “continues to
meet all state and federal standards for safe
drinking water.” Testing will continue for at
least a year, and those results will be shared
with residents, said Jennifer Burke, the
city’s deputy director of water resources.
City crews replaced nearly a quarter-mile
of the water main, as well as water lines to
more than 350 properties. Valves and hy-
drants that showed signs of contamination
were also replaced.
Those repairs cost $8 million — a frac-
tion of the $43 million estimate the city had
initially put forward for replacing the entire
system. City officials are hopeful the repairs
will be reimbursed by FEMA.
“We sincerely appreciate the patience and
support we received from the community
as we tirelessly worked and devoted all of
our resources to restoring water service to
these fire-impacted residents,” Mayor Chris
Coursey said in a statement.
Steady reconstruction effort
Meanwhile, “a steady flow of homes”
are headed toward the rebuilding process,
Guhin said. He’s anticipating an increase
in permit applications in the next month
because the water restrictions were lifted,
which he called a “turning point.”
Tainted water, uneven terrain and debris
removal slowed construction in the area,
where only two homes have been completed.
In Coffey Park, 26 homes have been finished
and 552 are underway. In Fountaingrove,
180 houses are under construction, with
285 permits issued. More homes are on the
way, with 410 applications submitted, just un-
der a third of the pending permits in the city.
A groundbreaking ceremony was held
Monday for a new tasting room and event
center at Paradise Ridge Winery, where
three homes, a winemaking building,
a tasting and events center and several
TURN TO FOUNTAINGROVE » PAGE H7

“People who are working in Sonoma County need a place to live

while permanent housing is being built.”
JOHN KENNEDY, board chairman of Habitat for Humanity Sonoma County
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2018 H7

“It’s been a long haul, there’s been a lot of work done, a lot of
cleanup. You’re finally starting to see houses going up.”
BRUCE MCCONNELL, 72-year-old Fountaingrove resident who’s rebuilding his Shillingford Place home, lost in the Tubbs fire

KENT PORTER / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Aidan Phillips, right, and Paul Cacey of Superior Seamless Gutter work on a single-story home being rebuilt Thursday in Santa Rosa’s Fountaingrove neighborhood.

FOUNTAINGROVE Repairing the natural habitat

CONTINUED FROM H6
outbuildings burned to the ground. It will
take a year to build and is expected to cost
about $5.5 million to construct, said co-
owner Sonia Byck-Barwick.
Bruce McConnell, who’s rebuilding
his Shillingford Place home, said signs of
progress in his longtime neighborhood are
uplifting.
“It’s been a long haul, there’s been a lot
of work done, a lot of cleanup. You’re finally
starting to see houses going up … That’s a
positive sign,” the 72-year-old resident said.
“That makes you feel like, well, OK, things
are starting to get better. People are build-
ing houses. A year from now, things will be
much different.”
While home foundations are being laid
and frames are rising, the landscape is also
on the mend.
The Fountaingrove II neighborhood, a
community of 591 parcels overrun by the
fire, manages more than 230 acres of open
space and landscaped property. About
85 percent of that acreage was damaged
by the Tubbs fire, said Dennis Searles,
president of the open space management
association. Many of the Douglas firs, bay
and oak trees were reduced to “burned
matchsticks,” said McConnell, the associa-
tion’s vice president. Work to remove dead
trees that could pose safety issues is up to
30 percent completed, with up to 40 acres
cleaned since the spring, Searles said.
“We are definitely trying to focus on the
trees that could fall onto houses or the
street — things like that, or if a project is
approved or if there’s a large cluster of
houses nearby,” he said.
Efforts to remove the rest of the at-risk
trees will span into next year, he said. State
grants could help future work, and the
association will work with consultants to
create a brush management plan for the
rest of the open space, he said.
About two miles of irrigation system in
landscaped areas have been replaced and
400 trees have been replanted, he said. In
all, the work has cost about $230,000, with
about $50,000 covered by insurance, Searles
said.
You can reach Staff Writer Hannah
Beausang at 707-521-5214 or hannah.
beausang@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter
@hannahbeausang.

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H8 THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2018

LARKFIELD-WIKIUP AND MARK WEST SPRINGS »

Spirits running high as residents gather amid subdivision rebuilding
to commemorate one-year anniversary of destructive wildfires

Milestones and
new beginnings

CHRISTOPHER CHUNG / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

“Everything just seemed to fall in place,” says Nancy Thiele, who recently moved into a newly completed home with her husband, Mitch, in the Larkfield Estates subdivision in Santa Rosa.
The couple was the first family to take possession of a rebuilt home in the neighborhood following the Tubbs fire.

N
By J.D. MORRIS
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

ancy Thiele initially

thought the Larkfield
home she lost in the
Tubbs fire would be
rebuilt by mid December.
But thanks to the determined
work of her contractor, a family
friend, Thiele and her husband
moved into the new house on
their Oxford Court property on
Oct. 6 — two days before the first
anniversary of the disaster that
changed their lives.
“Everything just seemed to fall
in place,” she said.
The Thieles are the first Tubbs
fire survivors from the Larkfield
Estates subdivision to move BETH SCHLANKER / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

back into a completed house.
And if the walls and roofs going
up around them are any indica-
tion, they will soon be joined by
several others, as the flat neigh-
borhoods around Old Redwood
Highway and Mark West Springs
Road continue to be one of the
fastest-moving parts of Sonoma
County’s overall fire recovery.
Thiele said her neighbors still come
around often to check on the progress of
their own rebuilding efforts, and the noisiest
construction generally happens while she
and her husband are at work.
Being back in Larkfield Estates is a great
relief to Thiele, who had previously been
commuting roughly an hour from Hidden
Valley Lake to work at Piner High School.
She was also glad to be back home in time
for the one-year mark.
“I had a hard time leading up to the
anniversary date. The week before I was
struggling with it, but then once it got here,
it didn’t bother me as much as I thought
it was going to,” Thiele said. “I think it’s
because we were back in the house. It was a
Employees of CVC Concrete pour a foundation for a home being built Oct. 3 by Stonefield
Development in Mark West Estates. Stonefield is rebuilding about 80 homes in the subdivision.
good thing.”
Thiele joined numerous neighbors and
others from around the greater Larkfield-
Wikiup community for a lively evening
celebration Oct. 9, complete with live music
and a bounce house for the kids. They
wanted to turn what was once a somber date
into something positive.
“That was a good, happy-feeling party,”
Thiele said. “I didn’t anticipate it to be like
that.”
A ‘good day’ together
On the other side of Old Redwood High-
way, fire survivors from Mark West Estates
had a similar idea to commemorate the one-
year mark.
Numerous people who lost homes, along
with first responders and others, had a
barbecue and potluck in the neighborhood
park on Oct. 7. Mike Holdner, whose Pacific
Heights Drive home burned down, said there
was some “gallows humor” among attend-
ees due to the winds blowing through that
Sunday.
Otherwise, the mood was festive and posi-
tive, he said.
“It was a good day,” Holdner said. “It was
a good three hours we spent together.”
More than 175 homes were lost in Mark
West Estates, and by Holdner’s count 104
have now started at least the early phases of
construction. The owners of 30 more prop-
erties are having their designs reviewed by
the subdivision’s homeowners’ association,
he said.
About 80 homes in the subdivision are
being rebuilt by Orange County-based
Stonefield Cos., an effort Holdner helped
coordinate. His own home, which should
be completed by April, is part of the group
rebuild.
“That’s my baby,” he said.
Stonefield representatives said in a state-
ment earlier this month they had poured
58 foundations in Mark West Estates and
expects to have the remainder finished in
the coming weeks. The company has started
siding and installing roofs and expects to
soon start interior insulation.
Stonefield has also begun its 15-home
group rebuild in Larkfield Estates, with the
first foundations poured earlier this month.
TURN TO LARKFIELD » PAGE H10

“I had a hard time leading up to the anniversary date.

The week before I was struggling with it, but then once it got here,
it didn’t bother me as much as I thought it was going to.”
NANCY THIELE, Larkfield Estates resident and her husband who were the first Tubbs fire survivors to move back into a completed house
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2018 H9

SONOMA VALLEY »
Without a single home rebuilt and permit applications increasing,
pace of construction poised to shift gears in Glen Ellen and Kenwood

ROBBI PENGELLY / SONOMA INDEX-TRIBUNE

Mike Grace, left, joined by his husband, Steve Thomas, carries a box of vegetables grown on their O’Donnell Lane property. The couple, like many residents in their neighborhood, have

Persistent residents
replanted their garden after their home was destroyed by last October’s Nuns fire. Only the pool and a few garden boxes were spared in the firestorm.

keeping spirits up
R
By JANIS MARA “We all called the district after the fire
SONOMA INDEX-TRIBUNE to say, ‘I’m trying to save what’s left of our
landscaping,’” Thomas said.
ebuilding is continuing to pick up in the Sonoma Valley When the homes burned, the water district
communities hit hardest in the wildfires, Glen Ellen and turned off their water to prevent damaged
plumbing systems from leaking. Eighty-five
Kenwood, where neighborhood gatherings and the boun- homes burned in the district’s service area,
ty of replanted gardens are buoying residents’ spirits. which includes Glen Ellen but not the city of
In Glen Ellen, where 237 homes burned, construction is under- Sonoma. Rebuilt homes must have backflow
devices, which prevent the supply of drink-
way on 27 residences. Two miles to the north in Kenwood, where ing water from being polluted.
139 homes were lost, work is underway on 29 residences. This “We had to have a backflow device and
marks an increase of five and nine homes, respectively, since they were really expensive, around $1,000,”
Thomas said. “When all of us were calling
Sept. 5, part of a continuing, if modest, trend that began in August. (the district) was thoughtful enough to find
Permit applications, a strong indicator of progress, are also someone to donate them.”
Daniel Muelrath, general manager of
up in the two neighborhoods. Builders filed applications to erect Valley of the Moon Water District, said the
63 homes in Glen Ellen and 46 in Kenwood, an increase of eight agency felt compelled to act.
applications for both communities since Sept. 5. “We didn’t want to say, ‘Sorry, you have to
get a backflow device,’ on top of everything
So far, however, not one home has been completed in the valley, (they were) going through,” he said.
where 407 homes burned in all. The devices are mandatory for burned
homes being rebuilt, and for certain other
place until February, more than four months homes as well, he said. The district got 40
after the firestorm. Next came soil tests, then backflow preventers — a type of valve —
Celebrations of survival geological tests and structural engineering from Wisconsin-based Zurn via Backflow
With foundations being poured and fram- studies. Burned trees had to be removed, Distributors of Sacramento, as well as pipes
ing going up, Valley communities marked plans for new homes drawn up and approved. and fittings to connect the backflow devices
the first anniversary of the wildfires with “Have you got your permit yet?” has to the water system from Friedman’s Home
celebrations of survival. replaced “How’s it going?” for many valley Improvement.
Glen Ellen residents cheered as bulldozers residents. While Thomas and Grace pursue rebuild-
and fire engines rolled in the parade at the ing, they are renting a home in Glen Ellen.
annual Village Fair on Oct. 14. The previous They also have a screened-in tent on their
week, fire survivors toasted with chardon- Green thumbs get helping hand property.
nay at a firestorm remembrance block party As they struggle with the long, drawn- Everidge, their neighbor, is renting a
on Oct. 9 on hard-hit O’Donnell Lane. out process of rebuilding homes, many are 402-square-foot cottage on O’Donnell Lane
Residents of tight-knit Kenwood marked rebuilding their gardens and flower beds, a formerly used for vacation rentals. The
the anniversary by congregating at several much quicker process. owners converted it to a full-time rental for
locations in town, including the Kenwood A riot of yellow, white and purple flowers the fire survivors.
Fire Department on Sonoma Highway, grows at the front entrance of Marjorie “The Glen Ellen people did an amazing
where VJB Vineyard & Cellars donated free Everidge’s property on O’Donnell Lane, job before and after the fire of taking care
pizza and salad. where she has lived since 1952. Sue Braito, a of their community. They re-housed most
Palooza Brewery and Gastropub, which neighbor, has flowers and plants at the back of the people in the community by them-
served free beer and pizza to neighbors as the of her property. selves,” said Jennifer Grey Thompson, head
fire raged last year, offered free pizza all day. Steve Thomas and his husband, Mike of the Rebuild North Bay Foundation.
In the evening, it hosted a potluck dinner. Grace, replanted their garden after the Nuns “A lot of people with vacation homes
“We put out free pizzas and everyone fire destroyed the home they purchased on opened up their homes, a lot of people with
brought food. The courtyard was full and O’Donnell Lane just nine months earlier. ADUs (accessory dwelling units) opened up
everyone shared stories,” said Palooza man- Their garden has produced dozens of toma- their homes,” she added. Existing “granny
ager Patrick Odenthal. to plants, zucchini, yellow squash, green units” or guest houses supplementing main
beans, eggplant, lettuce, carrots and beets — residences have been pressed into service,
a bounty the couple have shared with their and new ones are under construction.
Litany of obstacles for rebuilders neighbors. As with many residents of the Valley, per-
Though the valley spirit is strong and “I doubled the size of my garden because sistence has paid off for Thomas and Grace.
activity is picking up, progress is hard-won I felt like I’m not going to have (homebuild- Their permit was issued in September, and
for many reasons. Nearly all those who lost ing) work to do anytime soon, so I might as work started on the house at the end of the
their homes are now familiar with a litany well do this,” Thomas said. month.
of obstacles to rebuilding. Many of these efforts succeeded thanks “You just have to learn to be super-patient,”
The Army Corps of Engineers cleanup to equipment donated by businesses to the Thomas said. “It’s definitely been a lesson in
of O’Donnell Lane in Glen Ellen didn’t take Valley of the Moon Water District. patience and managing frustration.”

“I doubled the size of my garden because I felt like I’m not going to have
(homebuilding) work to do anytime soon, so I might as well do this.”
STEVE THOMAS, Glen Ellen resident who restored the garden with the help of the Valley of the Moon Water District
H10
Gary Rowe, who lost his home and workshop on Mark West Springs Road to the Tubbs
fire, gets into the holiday spirit with Halloween decorations on his property Tuesday.
LARKFIELD
CONTINUED FROM H8
The company was expecting to start
framing the first home there the week
of Oct. 22, according to the statement.
The first homes in the group rebuilds
are expected to be finished this upcom-
ing spring.
Launching community group
Larkfield-area fire survivors also
announced this month they created a
new nonprofit to help improve their
community as it recovers.
The Larkfield Resilience Fund
will go after grant money and solicit
donations from community members
to help a variety of projects, the first
of which envisions planting as many
as 200 trees in the front yards of homes
that are being rebuilt.
The nonprofit is also interested in in-
stalling a warning siren and a lookout
camera that will monitor for potential
wildfires threatening Larkfield. An
emergency preparedness training pro-
gram also is envisioned for residents.
The fund is overseen by a seven-
member board of directors, all of
whom are fire survivors.
Separately, the Rebuild Northbay
Foundation and Habitat for Humanity
are helping Larkfield Estates and Mark
West Estates secure funds for 1 mile of
fencing to insulate the communities
from traffic on Mark West Springs
Road and Old Redwood Highway.
Our community is strong; our land is resilient.
Join us as we prepare for a safer future.
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2018
A LOOK AT THE REBUILD EFFORT IN SONOMA COUNTY
Stay and rebuild, or sell and leave? It is the big question facing thousands of Sonoma County fire
survivors. The first wave of rebuilding accounts for little more than a third of the homes lost in
the county in October 2017. A number of lots have changed hands or been put up for sale.
The big picture on reconstruction in October
49
1,159 Homes
Homes under rebuilt
construction
405
Permits
issued
5,334
Total
homes lost
KENT PORTER / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Jennifer Gray Thompson, the re-
build foundation’s executive director,
said the Larkfield effort will cost about 403
$476,000. Permits 3,318
“That is a half-million dollars that pending Homes not in
they then don’t have to come up with
in a community that is already under- permit process
insured,” Thompson said. “It’s a big
deal.”
Thompson said earlier this month Property lots in burn zones listed for sale from Nov. 1 to Sept. 30
that the organizations were still work-
LOTS LISTED LOTS SOLD MEDIAN PRICE IN SEPTEMBER
ing to line up all the financing.
Rebuild Northbay was founded by
Sonoma-based lobbyist and developer
Darius Anderson, who is managing
660 362 $295,000
member of Sonoma Media Invest-
ments, which owns The Press Demo-
crat.
Homes lost in the October 2017 wildfires, by neighborhood*
Coffey Park, Fountaingrove, Larkfield and Mark West Springs include surrounding areas.
Utility work nears completion
PG&E crews remain at work replac- 2,000
ing underground electric lines de-
stroyed in Larkfield Estates and Mark
West Estates. The utility expects to 1,500 1,729
have the whole project finished by the 1,586 *28 homes in outlying or
1,473 unidentified areas excluded
end of the month, according to spokes- from neighborhood counts
woman Deanna Contreras. 1,000
PG&E had previously said the work
would be done by the end of the year.
The project involved more than four 500
miles of trenching and installing eight 518
miles of underground electrical lines.
Contreras said PG&E is working 0
with Sonoma County officials to de- COFFEY PARK FOUNTAINGROVE LARKFIELD SONOMA
termine the best time for permanent AND MARK WEST AND BENNETT
restoration of the roads where the SPRINGS VALLEYS
utility trenched in the subdivisions.
Crews will place temporary asphalt Sources: County of Sonoma, City of Santa Rosa, Pacific Union International THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
in the areas in the meantime, she
said.
sonomalandtrust.org
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2018 H11

Generosity of family, friends, fellow parishioners and strangers over past year
has sustained Santa Rosa family of five who lost their rental home

Banding together postfire

‘T
By JOHN BECK FOR THE PRESS DEMOCRAT house, replacing rotten boards on the deck
and defective electrical outlets in the wall.
he kindness of friends and family and total strangers has “Some days when I’m running late and
kept us going this whole time,” said Agustin Aguilera. “It’s Araceli is still at work, (the homeowner) will
made our tragedy a little less painful.” call and ask if he can pick up Braulio from
school,” Agustin said. “We’ve become almost
After the Tubbs fire destroyed their Riebli Road rental like one big family.”
home early the morning of Oct. 9 last year, they moved from house to So far, even though Agustin is back at work
house as generous families opened their doors and gave them tempo- and Araceli got a job cleaning houses, the
rental housing market remains out of reach.
rary shelter. “It’s been difficult for us to find a place
A week into the ordeal, Agustin’s wife, Araceli, and their three chil- that we can afford,” Agustin said. “It’s al-
most impossible.”
dren — Braulio, Jacqueline and Sarahi — were still in shock. At one point, they considered moving to
“I’m trying to stay strong for my family,” Agustin said at the time, Yuba City, where his sister lives, and the rents
while taking refuge for a moment at the First Congregational Church are cheaper. But their kids were still suffering
anxiety after the trauma of the fire and they
in Santa Rosa. His wife’s tears made it hard to hold back his own. wanted to keep them in the same schools with
their friends nearby. The property owners who
As a carpenter, he had no work and no grown and live in Southern California. rented the house to them on Riebli Road have
income. He doubted he would qualify for It’s a scenario that’s played out through- promised the Aguileras they can move back
FEMA assistance, but was hoping the newly out Sonoma County since the fires. once that house is rebuilt some time next year.
formed UndocuFund, an aid fund supporting “Again and again, we’ve seen folks
immigrant households, might come through. banding together, families taking in fami- Overwhelming kindness
Their next meal and new clothes for the kids lies and friends taking in friends,” said Kai The kindness of strangers has surprised
were the most pressing concerns. Harris, director of programs for the Santa them over and over. A friend’s wife, who
Now, more than a year later, the Aguileras Rosa-based nonprofit California Human De- works as a nurse at Sutter hospital, pitched
are in a much better place. velopment. “It’s true how the worst events in with her entire nursing unit to buy them
“I didn’t know how hard it was going to be bring out the best in us.” clothes and presents last Christmas.
to get on the right path to recovery,” Agustin In the beginning, when fire victims seeking After the fire, Jacqueline’s plans for her
said. “But we are blessed.” services lined up around the Airway Drive 15th birthday on Nov. 11 last year had to be
building, Harris and fel- postponed. But once
Congregation connections low staff noticed most of her godmother and
After a long day at work with Shook
and Waller Construction, he and Araceli
their clients were staying
with family instead of
“I didn’t know the Lady of Guadalupe
congregation heard that
were meeting for dinner on a Friday night
at Roundtable Pizza. Braulio, 13, had just
going to hotels or the
fairgrounds or seeking
how hard it was Jacqueline’s quinceañera
had been canceled,
finished cross-country practice at Windsor
Middle School. He stayed for a few minutes
FEMA assistance. The
pattern was the same for going to be to get they joined together to
re-book the Druid’s Hall
until Sarahi, now 19 and enrolled at Sonoma many immigrant families in Santa Rosa and buy
State, dropped by to pick him up.
It was their adopted family — the congre-
displaced by the fires.
Instead, fellow church-
on the right path her a dress, along with
food, flower decorations
gation at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic
Church in east Windsor — that connected
goers, friends and even
strangers offered to help.
to recovery.” and music, to celebrate
her rite of passage into
them with families who volunteered to take The Aguileras were AGUSTIN AGUILERA, carpenter womanhood.
them in after the fires. They stayed the first grateful for the oppor- whose family has been displaced since “It was a miracle,”
few weeks with a family in Geyserville. Then tunity to share a large losing their home to the Tubbs fire Araceli said. “We cried,
they lived several months with two other house, even with people we laughed. It was a mix-
families in Windsor. who weren’t relatives. They bonded with their ture of emotions. People that we didn’t even
Six months ago, when church friends con- new host family over common meals, espe- know made it happen.”
nected them with a retired couple who lived cially dinners. Growing up in the Mexican At some point, the kindness can almost
in a four-bedroom house off Shiloh Road state of Guanajuato, Araceli learned to make become overwhelming, Agustin said. It
near Esposti Park, they found the closest tamales, fresh tortillas, mole and pozole. Now helped that early on, a friend gave him this
thing they’ve had to a home in a year. she makes a spicy pepper salsa for her family advice: “‘You don’t have to be too proud,’ he
The couple, who did not want to be identi- and a milder salsa for the homeowners. told me. ‘You have to learn to accept the help
fied for this story, are letting the Aguileras now because you need it. Then maybe in the
live in their three other bedrooms. They ‘Almost like one big family’ future, when you can help someone else, it
have plenty of space since their children are Agustin regularly fixes things around the will be your turn.’ That’s how we live now.”
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2018 H13

Rebuild
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Latino leaders step up to get bilingual emergency alerts to community

PHOTOS BY KENT PORTER / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Terry Adair, a communications technician for Sonoma County, attaches a point-to-point microwave dish for a fire camera to a communications tower

Push to improve
on Geyser Peak on Oct. 3. The fires have sharpened local agencies’ focus on communicating effectively with everyone, including Spanish speakers.

communication
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CHRISTOPHER CHUNG / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
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0k/­kz íkzW/w”N m7cc”
Within minutes, calls kz/’
into /­w
the m— alert
cy 7cwG/ system
”—”/wí “ -­km­ it
— which k/ didn’t
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fw a7public
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kzl’Gí7/k’z ’llkmwGN
officer, oI need
zwwa to /’ be
fw a7 ak”7”/wG ­’/ckzw lG’í s.7zk”­ ­7vw 7mmw”” /’ kz gm/’fwG AHBJ
disaster hotline from Spanish have access to in October 2017
/G7z”c7/’GN? Pw
translator,” Det7LaSGW6
Cruz Gwm7ccwa
recalled”7—kzdR
saying. ”.w7pwG” were
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being l’G-7Gawa
forwarded —“to /’see
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/’ her
to ­wG cellphone.
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about íwz/” can
ments m7z warn
-7Gz the
/­w public
.Wfckm about
7f’W/
a7—fGw7pR Smoke
daybreak. sí’pw choked
m­’pwa /­w
the ak”7”/wG” through
disasters /­G’Wd­ cellphone
mwcc.­’zw text /wj/
”pkw”N and
skies, 7za people
.w’.cw needed
zwwawa to
/’ know
pz’- íw””7dw”R
messages.
­’- to
how /’ protect
.G’/wm/ themselves
/­wí”wcvw” lG’í
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7Gw7” targeted
/7Gdw/wa was-7”
­7clOa’6wz major
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kzlwGz’” fWGzO
burn- /­w r’”wc7za zwkd­f’G­’’a
the Roseland neighborhood in kz
kzd throughout
ing /­G’Wd­’W/ /­wtheGwdk’zR
region.
”’W/­-w”/ Santa
southwest s7z/7 r’”7N ­’íw to
Rosa, home /’ a7
gvwG the
Over /­w next
zwj/ days
a7—” and
7za -wwp”N
weeks, c7Gdw t7/kz’ m’ííWzk/—R
large Latino community. For peo- M’G .w’O
7cwG/” 7za
alerts and -7Gzkzd”
warnings-’Wca
would .cw in
ple kz Roseland,
r’”wc7zaN the/­w first
lkG”/ message
íw””7dw
fw k””Wwa kz f’/­ Dzdck”­ 7za
be issued in both English and
-wz/ ’W/ kz s.7zk”­ l’cc’-wa
went out in Spanish followed by f—
s.7zk”­N while
Spanish, -­kcw Santa
s7z/7 r’”7
Rosa ­’”/wa
hosted 7z’/­wG kz
another in Dzdck”­R
English.
press conferences entirelykz
.Gw”” m’zlwGwzmw” wz/kGwc— in s7z/7 Rosa
Santa r’”7 Assistant
I””k”/7z/ MkGw
Fire
s.7zk”­ 7za fkckzdW7c v’cWz/wwG”
Spanish and bilingual volunteers
e7G”­7c h7Wc t’-wz/­7c ”7ka
Marshal Paul Lowenthal said
-wGw .’”/wa at
were posted 7/ evacuation
wv7mW7/k’z ”­wcO
shel-
-­kcw /­w 7cwG/” 7Gw kí.wGlwm/ “
while the alerts are imperfect —
/wG” and
ters 7za 7””k”/7zmw
assistancemwz/wG”R
centers. ”­’G/ kz
short in cwzd/­
length 7/ H m­7G7m/wG”
at 90 characters
EW/ kz /­w w7Gckw”/ ­’WG” ’l /­w
But in the earliest hours of the
7za ­k/O7zaOík”” kz Gw7m­kzd 7cc
and hit-and-miss in reaching all
lkGw”N /­wGw -7” ck//cw kz .c7mw /’
fires, there was little in place to
mwcc.­’zw” fwm7W”w ’l ckík/” f—
cellphones because of limits by
m’ííWzkm7/w -k/­ /­w 7..G’jO
communicate with the approx-
”wGvkmw providers
service .G’vkawG” “ k/»” a7 way
— it’s -7—
kí7/wc— AH .wGmwz/ ’l t7/kz’”
imately 20 percent of Latinos
/’ dw/ kzk/k7c kzl’Gí7/k’z ’W/
to get initial information out
kz s’z’í7 S’Wz/— -­’ ”.w7p
in Sonoma County who speak
xWkmpc— -­kcw /­w mk/— íW”/wG”
quickly while the city musters
ck//cw /’ z’ Dzdck”­ “ G’Wd­c— /­w lWcc m7.7mk/— ’l k/” wíwGdwzm—
the full capacity of its emergency
little to no English — roughly
AyNHHH .w’.cwN 7mm’Gakzd /’ 7
26,000 people, according to a
Gw”.’z”wR
response.
AHBJ awí’dG7.­km” Gw.’G/ f— /­w
2017 demographics report by the
:0w ­7a JNHHH ”/GWm/WGw” ’z
“We had 7,000 structures on
m’Wz/— Dm’z’íkm Pwvwc’.íwz/ lkGw -k/­kz l’WG ­’WG”R o/»” ­7Ga
fire within four hours. It’s hard
county Economic Development
E’7GaR
Board.
/’ ­7vw 7 ”—”/wí kz .c7mw /’ aw7c
to have a system in place to deal
n­w lkGw” /w”/wa s’z’í7 S’WzO
The fires tested Sonoma Coun-
-k/­ ”’íw/­kzd ’z /­7/ ”m7cw kz
with something on that scale in
/—»” íw//cw 7za .Gw.7Gwazw”” ’z 7 /­7/ .wGk’a ’l /kíwN? t’-wz/­7c
ty’s mettle and preparedness on a that period of time,” Lowenthal
v7Gkw/— ’l lG’z/”N 7za ”­7G.wzwa
variety of fronts, and sharpened
”7kaR :n­wGw»” 7c-7—” /­w m­7cO
said. “There’s always the chal-
c’m7c 7dwzmkw”» 7fkck/kw” /’ m’íO
local agencies’ abilities to com-
cwzdwU b’- /’ fGkzd 7cc —’WG /’’c”
lenge: How to bring all your tools
íWzkm7/w xWkmpc— 7za wllkmkwz/c— kz 7cc 7/ ’zmw kz /­w íkaacw ’l /­w
in all at once in the middle of the
municate quickly and efficiently
-k/­ wvwG—’zwN kzmcWakzd s.7zk”­ zkd­/L?
with everyone, including Spanish night?”
”.w7pwG”R
speakers.
tkpw Pw t7 SGW6N ­WzaGwa” ’l
Like De La Cruz, hundreds of
oz sw./wífwGN /­w mk/— ’l s7z/7 s.7zk”­O”.w7pkzd m’ííWzk/—
In September, the city of Santa Spanish-speaking community
r’”7 m’zaWm/wa 7 /Gk7c GWz ’l /­w
Rosa conducted a trial run of the
d’vwGzíwz/»” -kGwcw”” wíwGdwzO
government’s wireless emergen- n2ri ng ItDrns 9 hICD bB
TURN TO ALERTS » PAGE H14

Ia7kGN 7 ”wzk’G m’ííWzkm7/k’z” /wm­zkmk7z -k/­ /­w m’Wz/—N

Adair, a senior communications technician with the county,
lkzk”­w” /­w 7//7m­íwz/ .G’mw”” l’G 7 lkGw m7íwG7N /’. Gkd­/N /’ 7
finishes the attachment process for a fire camera, top right, to a
m’ííWzkm7/k’z” /’-wG gm/R Y ’z Cw—”wG hw7pR
communications tower Oct. 3 on Geyser Peak.
H14 THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2018

KENT PORTER / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Vince Hurst, a senior communications manager, left, and Mark Lutz, a communications technician with Sonoma County, work to raise a microwave dish for
a fire camera that will be attached to a communications tower Oct. 3 on Geyser Peak.

ALERTS volunteers from far-flung places, including

CONTINUED FROM H13
leaders in Sonoma County stepped up in
large and small ways to help get urgent
information to people during the fires.
Jenny Chamberlain, president of the
Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Sonoma
County and district director for Board of
Supervisors Chairman James Gore, was
woken up by a message sent through Nixle,
an opt-in information service used by many
local agencies, including Santa Rosa police.
The message was alarming: Fountaingrove
was on fire.
She called to wake up Gore and dug into
that night’s work, getting the messages out
to people who needed to evacuate about shel-
ters and services. At some point Chamber-
lain realized there was “nothing going out in
Spanish.”
She sent a message to Hispanic chamber
members and within hours she had a data-
base of volunteers able to translate verbally
or in writing. Over the coming days and
weeks that list would grow to include about
1,000 names, mostly local residents but also
certified translators from language schools
in South America.
“The city of Santa Rosa would say, ‘We
need 10 people for a phone bank in 15 min-
utes,’” Chamberlain said. “I would text peo-
ple, ‘This area needs verbal translators’ and
people would just jump up, ‘I can be there in
15 minutes.’”
One of the local volunteers was Neil
Pacheco, a Windsor resident who works
as a host at Graton Resort and Casino
near Rohnert Park and teaches hospital-
ity through the Sonoma County Office of
Education.
While driving home about 11:30 p.m. from
his casino shift that first night, Pacheco had
seen the glow of the fires east of Fountain-
grove. He wouldn’t go to sleep that night and
didn’t return to work the next day, instead
spending hours translating messages com-
ing from the Sheriff’s Office into Spanish
and sending those out through social media
networks.
He heard Latino families in the hundreds
were fleeing to the Sonoma Coast, too fearful
of federal immigration officers to show up at
government sanctioned evacuation shelters.
So he drove to Doran Beach, where he spent
days helping link people with local services
and the Mexican Consulate.
“For people who lost everything, they
were looking for food, they were looking
for clothes, they were looking for emotional
support,” Pacheco said. “The help arrived
slowly.”
The fires proved Sonoma County has a
strong network of Spanish speakers poised
to respond, and people like Pacheco and
Chamberlain say they need to build on the
informal networks cobbled together last year
to create a more robust emergency response
for Spanish-speaking communities. Cham-
berlain still has that long list of volunteers
and she wants to find a central place to hone
and maintain it for the next emergency.
“A big group of Latino community leaders
wanted to help each other without knowing
where we were heading, what was the right
direction — and we learned a lot,” Pacheco
said. “We need to be prepared for these types
of events, like an earthquake. We need to get
communities and organizations doing drills
so they’re prepared.”
You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at
707-521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemo-
crat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.

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THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2018 H15

ALVIN JORNADA / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Lingering W
“My house hadn’t burned, but the trauma was there,” says Griselda Benítez, who pauses in her Santa Rosa home beside two chest freezers that are remnants of the ice cream business she
lost after the wildfires last October. She and other Latino business owners have struggled to rebound after the fires.

By CHRISTI WARREN
FOR THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

hen the Tubbs fire tore through Santa

upheaval
Rosa last year, it left behind a wide path of
destruction and displacement.
Local business owners faced an added
challenge: dealing with the disruption to their business-
es while coping with the upheaval in their personal lives.
Some, like ice cream entrepreneur Griselda Benítez,
would lose their businesses to the wildfires, consumed
directly by the flames or the economic dislocation that
followed. Others, like the owners of Lupe’s Diner in
Windsor and the Tipsy Taco & Cantina in Santa Rosa,
found themselves fighting to keep their businesses run-
ning while also figuring out how to rebuild a home.

Latino entrepreneurs confront obstacles with A year later, many are still struggling to return their
professional and personal lives to normal.

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THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2018 H17

UPHEAVAL
CONTINUED FROM H15
Here are the stories of how the Tubbs fire
changed the lives of three Latino business
owners in Sonoma County.
‘It was as if everything was falling apart’
Even entrepreneurs who weren’t touched
by the fires were affected by their aftermath.
A prolonged power outage spelled the end
for Griselda Benítez’s beloved mobile ice
cream business — her frozen inventory
reduced to a melted puddle when the power
shut off across southeast Santa Rosa.
Even if she had ordered more product,
there was no one to sell to for almost a
month, she said. With the air quality so poor,
there were no young families or children out-
side to entice. Gone were the smiling faces,
racing toward Benítez’s carts and ice cream
truck with change in outstretched palms.
With no income, her eight employees left
to find other jobs.
The first month after the fire was devas-
tating for the family. On top of their usual
rent on the house, they had to continue to
pay rent on a business that wasn’t func-
tioning. When the power went back on at
their home, all their food was spoiled. Her
children were kept home from school for
three weeks.
“It was as if everything was falling apart,”
she said in Spanish. “My house hadn’t
burned, but the trauma was there.”
She began to clean houses to build up
some income, but it took a long time for
her to unpack the bags she kept at the front
door — just in case the flames returned. She
didn’t sleep for weeks.
Six months after the fires, she was diag-
nosed with depression and anxiety.
She hopes to restart the ice cream busi-
ness in the spring.
“For many it has not been a normal life
after the fires,” she said.
‘The priority right now is my house’
Guadalupe “Lupe” Licea and Carlos
Licea bought their Coffey Park home on
San Miguel Road in 1989. When it burned
down early on the morning of Oct. 9, all they
could do was watch from afar as its security
cameras beamed the smoked-filled footage
more than 2,000 miles to the southeast —
the Liceas’ eyes fixed to a computer screen
while on vacation in Mexico City.
The emotional toll incurred by losing
CHRISTOPHER CHUNG / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
their home meant a decision to shutter their
Windsor restaurant, Lupe’s Diner, for four
Lupe’s Diner owners Guadalupe and Carlos Licea lost their home in Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park days.
neighborhood to the Tubbs fire. The couple expects to move into their rebuilt home next month. When they returned to normal business
hours, regulars turned out in full force to
“I’m happy that it’s finally over. It’s just support the neighborhood institution and its
owners. Some came with notes of sympathy,

like, you’re on hold, you’re on standby.” others with gift cards and still more with
hugs — eager to help out in whatever way
GUADALUPE LICEA, co-owner of Lupe’s Diner in Windsor who, with her husband,
lost her home in Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park neighborhood during the Tubbs fire TURN TO UPHEAVAL » PAGE H18

We are.
H18 THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2018

KENT PORTER / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Tipsy Taco owners Rosie Gutierrez and fiancé Miguel Calderon, joined Wednesday by their 7-year-old daughter, Giuliana Calderon, lost their home last year
in Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park neighborhood to the Tubbs fire. Since last October, the Santa Rosa restaurant has served as a guiding light for the young family.

UPHEAVAL 100 percent. It’s hard.”

CONTINUED FROM H17
they could.
Nov. 3 will mark the 15th anniversary for
Lupe’s Diner in Windsor. Also about that
time, the Liceas will mark their first night in
their rebuilt Coffey Park home.
“I’m happy that it’s finally over,” Lupe Li-
cea said. “It’s just like, you’re on hold, you’re
on standby. You can’t buy anything. The
stuff that you do have is not yours. Where
you live is not yours. So I’ll finally start pick-
ing out our own stuff.”
Balancing the business and the rebuild
has been especially taxing on the husband
and wife, Lupe Licea said. To-do list items at
the restaurant have gone unchecked, things
like working on the menu and coordinating
with staff. Luckily, her clientele has re-
mained steady and she has a good crew, she
said.
“But the priority right now is my house,”
she said. “I need to focus on this first, and
then I’ll get back and focus on my business
Tipsy Taco co-owner: ‘I could not fail’
Santa Rosa’s Tipsy Taco & Cantina had
only been open for five months when the
Tubbs fire took its owners’ home.
The downtown restaurant was a passion
project for Rosie Gutierrez and fiancé Mi-
guel Calderon, who had long worked in the
restaurant industry. It was their chance to
make their mark on Santa Rosa — the city
they called home and chose to raise their
daughter in.
When the Tubbs fire raced through their
Coffey Park neighborhood, they were on a
family vacation in Southern California, with
just the internet and phone calls to tether
them to their house on Sansone Drive.
When they arrived that first day to survey
the destruction, they had hoped to see at
least the frame of their house, but were met
with nothing more than a pile of rubble and
ash.
Shaken, they headed to their Mendocino
Avenue restaurant to gather what they
could: printers, computers, important
documents — uncertain whether the flames
might rebound into Santa Rosa.
The flames did not and, a few days later,
Gutierrez, now 32, decided it was time to re-
open the restaurant. She needed the normal-
cy and figured others might need it, too.
“It kept my mind busy,” she said. “It kept
me pushing forward knowing I have some-
thing to work for, something I can work hard
at.”
With their house gone, they held daughter
Giuliana Calderon’s sixth birthday party at
the restaurant, inviting friends, cooking and
reserving a bounce house for the occasion.
Since then, the restaurant has served as
a guiding force for the young family — as
refugees in Gutierrez’s parents’ home for
nearly a year, through the beginning stages
of the rebuild process, and while hunting for
an apartment of their own.
“It’s definitely stressful and stuff, but it
also made me realize how lucky I am to have
something still,” she said. “That’s all I had
left, so I had to definitely make it work. I
could not fail.”
La Prensa Sonoma Editor Ricardo Ibarra
contributed to this story.

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THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2018 H19

ALVIN JORNADA / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Former colleagues Cheryle Calles, left, and Rosa Chavez greet each other at a Hilton Sonoma Wine Country emploee reunion Oct. 20 at Finley Park in Santa Rosa. The hotel was destroyed

Charting new paths

last year by the Tubbs fire. Latino workers make up a significant portion of Sonoma County’s 27,000 hospitality workers, who have been high demand after the North Bay wildfires.

Hotel workers By ROBERT DIGITALE “What do you mean, ‘It’s gone’? It’s crazy. It’s sad.”

I
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT This has been a year like no other for Chavez and

affected by fires n her three years at the Hilton Sonoma Wine

the other workers in Sonoma County’s hotel business.
A relatively small number of workers lost their jobs,

face transition,
Country hotel, Rosa Chavez worked her way up as did the 130 employees at the burned Hilton property
from housekeeper to restaurant hostess, banquet on Round Barn Boulevard in Santa Rosa’s Fountain-
server and front desk staff. grove neighborhood. Many more worked extra hours
high demand She came to see the Santa Rosa hotel like a security
blanket, “a place I knew I had” in order to make a
as hotels filled with out-of-town disaster workers and
throngs of survivors who had lost 5,300 homes to fires
in hospitality livelihood. That sense of security was upended when
the Hilton and two other Santa Rosa hotels burned
around the county.
The North Bay wildfires, the most destructive in state

industry to the ground in the Tubbs wildfire during the early

hours of Oct. 9, 2017.
history, claimed 40 lives and caused nearly $10 billion in

“You just wake up and its gone,” Chavez recalled. TURN TO PATHS » PAGE H20

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H20 THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2018

PATHS
CONTINUED FROM H19
property damage. In the hospitality
sector, the fires destroyed or dam-
aged seven hotels and inns and nine
restaurants and fast-food eateries in
the county.
Latino residents make up a
significant number of the county’s
27,000 hospitality workers.
The workers’ most common
experience after the fires was to
find themselves extra busy on the
job. The county’s hotels averaged
an occupancy rate of 75.3 percent
last October, the month of the fires,
according to travel data firm STR.
By November, the rate had jumped
to 85.5 percent, slightly higher than
recorded in the summer months.
“I saw a lot of people in the in-
dustry working a lot of hours,” said
Neil Pachecho, an industry veteran
who teaches adult education classes
on hospitality for the Sonoma
County Office of Education and
Santa Rosa Junior College.
The extra work lasted into 2018
and was exacerbated by a shortage
of workers that continues to this day,
said Pachecho, who is a casino host
at the Graton Resort and Casino.
To make matters more challeng-
ing, some hospitality workers this
year shifted to better-paying jobs
in construction, including for the
rebuilding of hundreds of area
homes, he said. Others took jobs
harvesting grapes or working in
wineries.
Like many colleagues, Chavez
worked more than one job in hospital-
ity to make ends meet. A Cotati resi-
dent, she started a second position at
a Petaluma hotel a few months before
the fires. She has been working there
in various positions and now is part
of the front desk staff.
Still, Chavez said she missed her
former colleagues at Hilton, which
were “like a second family to me.”
So last month she joined other
former workers there for their first
reunion after last year’s fires.
Many said one of the more
emotional parts of losing their jobs
involved missing coworkers.
“It’s very difficult not getting to
see these people anymore,” said
Miroslava Beccerril, a Santa Rosa
resident who had been a Hilton
front desk worker. She has landed
a job in sales and marketing at a
small inn in Forestville.
Juliana Garcia of Santa Rosa had
been a housekeeper for 17 years at the
Hilton. She eventually found work as
a cleaner for two department stores.
Jen Schultz, left, former banquet supervisor at Hilton Sonoma Wine Country, embraces former director of housekeeping Kim
Formway at a hotel employee reunion Oct. 20 at Finley Park in Santa Rosa. The hotel, below, burned during the Tubbs fire.
However, one of those stores, Sears,
is slated to close its Santa Rosa Plaza
store at the end of the year.
Garcia said the fire led to times
of sadness and may have worsened
her high blood pressure, for which
she needed treatment this year at a
hospital.
Housekeeper Sandra Padilla said
after the fires she worked for anoth-
er hotel and then visited family in
Mexico before taking a winery job
this summer on the bottling line.
Through a translator, she said the
trauma connected to the devastating
fires remain.
When a strong wind blows, she
said, “you think it’s going to happen
again.”
ERIK CASTRO / FOR THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
For workers at burned county
lodging properties, the challenges
included uncertainty about re-
opening, even if the businesses had
escaped destruction.
At Safari West, the 1,000-plus
animals on the 400-acre wildlife pre-
serve above Santa Rosa had been
saved by Peter Lang, the 77-year-old
owner who had stayed to fight the
fire with garden hoses. But repairs
and cleanup were required before
the Porter Creek Road location
could reopen their special safari
tents, which include private view-
ing decks polished hardwood floors
and en-suite bathrooms.
Twelve staff members, including
two Latino workers, lost homes in
ALVIN JORNADA / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
the fires, said Kimberly Robertson,
a Safari West registrar.
To help them and other workers,
Robertson regularly gathered di-
saster-relief documents, in Spanish
and English. Owners Peter and
Nancy Lang also provided money
raised in crowdfunding for staff
who had lost homes.
Robertson said a common
question from staff members was,
“When can we go back to work?” A
related question was, “What will it
look like when we do go back?”
Safari West reopened in March.
Workers were brought back earlier
to help with cleanup and repairs.
In Sonoma, the El Dorado Hotel
and Kitchen closed the week of the
October 2017 fires, partly because
the main highway between the town
and Santa Rosa was closed due to
safety concerns, general manager
Brian Montanez said.
In the following weeks, hotels
on the Highway 101 corridor were
busier than El Dorado in housing
disaster-relief workers, said Mon-
tanez, vice president of the Sonoma
County Lodging Association. But
the hotel did house fire survivors
under a federal disaster-relief
program.
For the industry and its workers,
Montanez said “we’re still affect-
ed by the fires, but we’re moving
forward.” He expressed optimism,
saying, “We’re going to bounce back.
It’s just going to take some time.”

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THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2018 H21

After being displaced by the wildfires, Charlie Robles, right, his wife, Cristalyn,
their son Brielle Yoehan Robles, 8, and Cristalyn’s mother Alicia Tanael now reside at an
assisted living facility in Sonoma. The couple’s immigration status left them reluctant
to seek or accept assistance, but they found help through UndocuFund.

UndocuFund A
ALVIN JORNADA / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

By DEREK MOORE
FOR THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

year ago, the Robles family of Santa Rosa

to the rescue
faced daunting odds of recovering the life
they enjoyed prior to their narrow escape
from the deadly October firestorm.
The family was left homeless by the Tubbs fire,
which destroyed the Santa Rosa assisted living facility
where Charlie Robles and his wife, Cristalyn, worked
and lived. The first night of the deadly blaze, the couple
fled to safety with their 7-year-old son and four of the
facility’s residents.

Families wary to seek assistance in firestorm’s Compounding the couple’s challenge was their immi-
gration status, which limited their ability to access fed-

aftermath find help and stability they needed eral financial aid and other assistance. The family was
among thousands across Wine Country whose lives
on the margins were suddenly exposed by the flames,

TURN TO RESCUE » PAGE H22

Member FDIC | NMLS #458732

 H22 THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2018

RESCUE
CONTINUED FROM H21
leaving them wary of seeking or
accepting help from official sources.
Many managed to survive that
time by cobbling together their own
network of disaster relief. For the
Robles family, that meant relying on
aid from nonprofit agencies, private
companies and the online fundrais-
ing site GoFundMe. A year later, the
couple are once again employed and
living at an assisted living facility in
the city of Sonoma. Their son, now
8, attends a local school.
“I can’t believe in this country you
get big help like this,” Charlie Robles,
a 45-year-old native of the Philip-
pines, said recently. “In my country,
you help someone. But here, they
rebuild your whole life again.”
Even as fires still raged across
Wine Country last year, commu-
nity organizers were launching
fundraising campaigns to help
undocumented residents, who
are thought to number more than
38,000 in Sonoma County alone
and overwhelmingly are Latino.
One such initiative, UndocuFund,
has dispensed millions of dollars
CHRISTOPHER CHUNG / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
in aid, underscoring the disaster’s
scope and the unique collaboration UndocuFund coordinator Omar Medina, whose mother Ana Mejia volunteers with the organization, says the group’s organizers
of nongovernmental groups faced plan to distribute about $600,000 remaining in the trust to undocumented immigrants affected by the fires by the end of the year.
with unprecedented need.
Immigrant labor is a key driver of evacuation shelters because of said UndocuFund coordinator to 1,824 households. The average
Sonoma County’s economy, includ- law enforcement presence, or to Omar Medina. check amount is $3,157, with those
ing in construction and the wine, provide information to the Federal The program is a collaboration who lost everything in the fire
food and hospitality industries. Emergency Management Agency of the Graton Day Labor Center, eligible for up to $10,000 in financial
Half of the region’s largest food out of concern it would be shared the North Bay Organizing Project assistance, according Medina.
processors rely on the immigrant with immigration agents. Legally, and North Bay Jobs with Justice. Robles said he used $3,000 from Un-
workforce, according to a North mixed-status families may apply for Sebastopol-based Grantmakers docuFund to purchase new clothes
Bay Jobs with Justice analysis. some federal disaster relief using Concerned With Immigrants and for his son and to buy food for the
The county’s agricultural sector one of their U.S.-born children’s Refugees administers the fund. family. The family’s other sources of
employs between 4,000 and 6,000 Social Security numbers. Collectively, the groups benefited financial aid provided by California
permanent farmworkers each year The need was palpable. Across by already having established trust Human Development Corp., the Red-
— the majority of whom are Latino Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino and Lake within the communities they were wood Credit Union’s North Bay Fire
and undocumented, according to counties, more than 6,200 homes seeking to support with aid. Still, Relief Fund, the Filipino Community
the Sonoma County Farmworker were lost and 40 lives taken over the organizers initially held modest of Santa Rosa, United Way and an
Healthy Survey. course of 23 days. In Sonoma Coun- goals for the fund. online GoFundMe campaign, which
The October fires destabilized that ty alone, more than 150 commercial “When we started, none of us raised about $25,000.
workforce. Flames destroyed rental properties were destroyed. had experience with anything like Medina said UndocuFund or-
housing, incinerated work sites and Organizations that assist undocu- this,” Medina said. “We thought if ganizers plan to distribute about
left many in this already vulnerable mented residents were flooded with we raised a quarter-million dollars, $600,000 remaining in the account by
community bereft and adrift. pleas for help. But in those early that would be a lot.” the end of the year. He said a future
“There was so much fear,” hours, community organizers were To the surprise of everyone, how- goal is to help undocumented resi-
recalled Christy Lubin, director of unsure what legally they could do. ever, donations soon began pouring dents with longer-term needs, such
the Graton Day Labor Center. “Initially, it was figuring out in from across the country, and to as assistance purchasing homes.
Lubin said many undocument- what all the different rules were date, UndocuFund has provided “We’re hoping to take this fund to
ed residents avoided going to and how we could distribute aid,” more than $5.9 million in checks the next level,” Medina said.

“I can’t believe in this country you get big help like this. In my country,
you help someone. But here, they rebuild your whole life again.”
CHARLIE ROBLES, 45-year-old native of the Philippines who received assistance from UndocuFund

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