Progressive Parking Policies Meetings

The City of Santa Rosa is hosting a series of meetings to consider and discuss progressive parking policies in Downtown Santa Rosa.  You are cordially invited to attend and participate in identifying interests and shaping policy recommendations for City Council’s consideration.

The first meeting will be held on February 3 from 10:30 am – Noon at the Central Library (Third and E Streets).  The goals will be to explore the connection between parking policy and economic growth; consider together progressive parking policies for mutual benefit; and develop consensual elements of parking policy for City Council consideration.

Click here for more information.

Help Keep Our Waterways Clean ~ Please Don’t Litter

The last two weeks of rain have enlivened our creeks.  Steelhead trout will soon be migrating through the City to spawn in the headwaters of our creeks.  The wet weather is part of the life-giving cycle of nature upon which our well being depends.  A walk along one of the 35 miles of creek trails in Santa Rosa after a storm is invigorating.  Water roars and pours over boulders, trees bend and snap, logs bob up then submerge, egrets search eddies for displaced organisms, ducks slice across the current.  But wait!  A plastic bag floats by, followed by a soft drink bottle, and was that log really a tire?  The rains have mobilized trash, automobile fluids, and other pollutants in our street gutters, parking lots, and roadside ditches carrying them through the system of storm drain pipes directly into creeks. 

It is a challenge to keep our creeks clean.  In an ideal world we could stop pollution at the source (e.g. littering in a parking lot).  However, while a lot of pollutants do end up in our creeks, they remain in fairly decent shape due to the efforts of volunteers.  In 2009, nearly 1500 volunteers in Santa Rosa helped with 63 creek clean ups that removed 151 cubic yards of trash and debris.  That amounts to a trash pile the size of 8.5 VW buses.

As well as removing larger, unsightly items like shopping carts and mattresses, volunteers have been great at picking up the smaller pieces of trash such as foil wrappers, cigarette lighters, and bottle caps that birds and aquatic animals mistake for food and ingest.  The Monterey Bay Aquarium emphasizes how our inland pollution effects the ocean:  “In the middle of the North Pacific Ocean, on a tiny island 1,000 miles from the nearest big city, about 40% of the Laysan albatross chicks born each year die because their bellies are full of bottle caps, toothbrushes and other plastic. Many people think that the biggest source of pollution in the oceans is oil spilled from ships, but most marine pollution is litter that starts out on land.” 

To show the toll that pollution takes on our wildlife, photographer Chris Jordan has published images at: (NOTE:  These images are graphic and are considered disturbing.)http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=11  

Find out how you can get involved in keeping trash and debris out of our waterways and oceans at Creek Stewardship Program.  Upcoming creek clean-up events on January 30 and February 6 are listed on the Storm Water and Creeks Events Calendar.

National Wear Red Day – February 5

Go Red For Women celebrates the energy, passion and power women have to band together to wipe out heart disease and stroke. Inspire friends, family and coworkers to wear red and speak up about heart disease — No. # 1 killer of women— on National Wear Red Day! 

Thanks to the participation of millions of people across the country, the color red and the red dress now stand for the ability all women have to improve their heart health and live stronger, longer lives.

Today, the near-term goal is nothing less than a 25% reduction in coronary heart disease and stroke risk by the year 2010.

Water Conservation – Now and Always

Even with the amount of rainfall that we have received in the last few weeks, it is important to remember to conserve water throughout the year – regardless of the season or reservoir levels.  Here are a few reasons why:

1.     Saving water saves energy

2.     Green house gas emissions are reduced with every gallon
        of conservation

3.     Water is a resource and needs to be used efficiently

4.     Reductions in water use will help lower your Utilities bill

5.     Winter conservation is especially important and will reduce
        sewer charges year round