Capturing the Beauty of Our Environment: A Photo Gallery by Valley Of The Moon Alliance

SCALE is a California unincorporated association formed to advocate for a balanced development plan for Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC) lands. Together with its co-petitioner, Sonoma County Tomorrow, Inc. (SCT), on January 18, 2023, SCALE and SCT filed a legal challenge to the County of Sonoma’s  December 19, 2022 Certification of the SDC Specific Plan EIR (Environmental Impact Report).

SCALE’s organizing partners are Sonoma Mountain Preservation, the Glen Ellen Historical Society, the Valley of the Moon Alliance, and Eldridge For All. SCALE and Sonoma County Tomorrow, Inc. (a 501c.3 nonprofit organization of citizens concerned about the future of countywide land use, water sustainability, species survival, and pollution sources) stand united in seeking judicial review of the adequacy of the SDC EIR for this project, which will have significant impacts on Sonoma Valley.

Our mission is to preserve Sonoma Mountain’s scenic, agricultural, and natural resources by cultivating a sense of place, engaging people with the landscape, and inspiring them to become mountain stewards. We:

• Expand recreational opportunities on the mountain
• Provide a forum for constructive discussion of issues relating to the mountain
• Represent the interests of the mountain before public and private agencies and organizations
• Support and encourage the development of multi-use trails for low-impact access to the mountain
• Stimulate interest among county residents in supporting all these goals.

The Glen Ellen Forum is working on

• Building a stronger community for the benefit of us all.
• Working together from a positive frame of mind on common goals.
• Valuing all our experiences, with a shared sense of civic discourse and respect of participants.
• Carrying out all of our work with elements of tolerance, co-operation, compromise, diversity, preservation and inclusiveness.

There is always more that brings us together than what divides us. We are all volunteers.

The Glen Ellen Forum is a safe place for all people to participate and contribute. ​Every sex, age, race, ethnicity, and national origin, range of abilities, sexual orientation, gender identity, financial means, education, and political perspective​ is welcome.

When we wrote our vision statement in 1996, it read: “The mission of this Society is to encourage the participation of the people in the community to research, disseminate, preserve and celebrate the history of Glen Ellen.”

Over the years since then we’ve come to understand that our history is not simply about what has happened here in the past— It is in fact about the soul of this place today, as it has evolved over the years.

Our stories document the discoveries and the mistakes of famous and less known people, the triumphs and the failures that have shaped what we know of ourselves, and the vision as well as the damage that has been brought here, and is still here today.

As custodians of the past we undertake learning about the people who have lived here before us. As stewards of the future we recover and remember their vision, in order that a better world can be provided for those who have yet to arrive.

Founded by a group of nature-loving Glen Ellen residents hoping to permanently preserve a large portion of the Sonoma Developmental Center property as open space, Eldridge For All - Save Our Space began as a grassroots fundraising campaign to benefit the Sonoma Ecology Center (SEC), a nonprofit dedicated to achieving and sustaining ecological health in Sonoma Valley.  

Eldridge For All - Save Our Space applauds the work of numerous local nonprofits working together to preserve the environmental, historical, and cultural resources that make the SDC such a unique and priceless asset. Eldridge For All - Save Our Space serves as a platform for sharing information regarding development of the SDC Specific Plan and related redevelopment issues.

To keep the public apprised of current developments, we have broadened our scope to include information about the land-use planning process as well as links to other organizations working toward the goals of: 

1) protecting SDC wildlands in perpetuity

2) advocating for mindful redevelopment of the core campus.

3) envisioning a future for the property that best serves the interests of communities adjacent to the site, Sonoma Valley, and Sonoma County as a whole. 

Mobilize Sonoma was born to be a tool for the people of lower Schellville to be able to more fully participate in planning and development decisions taking place in our end of the valley.

We work thru active citizen participation and wide and deep knowledge of the planning process.

We use people pressure and our land-use knowledge to protect our area from overdevelopment, rampant environmental dangers and possible hazards.

We have taken on the original “Tanker’s Out” campaign to stop storing flammable LPG rail cars at the foot of 8th Street, the possible Amazon warehouse overdevelopment on that site, and now we are again taking on the possibility of SMART storing 160 tanker cars loaded with LPG gas.

Our Challenge: Balancing rural character & commercial growth in Sonoma County

Our Mission: Preserve Rural Sonoma 

County works to protect the rural character of Sonoma County from the urbanization and commercialization of agricultural and rural lands 

Our Objectives:

1. Actively support policy, regulatory solutions and enforcement that sustain long-term cooperation among residents, businesses and the Ag community. 
2. Work collaboratively with stakeholders and allied groups to develop a comprehensive approach to ensure retention of Sonoma County’s quality of life and the future health of our region socially, environmentally and economically.
3. Educate, advocate and organize to protect our families and neighborhoods, watersheds and wildlife habitat, addressing traffic safety, noise impacts, and other impacts on the quality of life.
4. Challenge inappropriate projects or policies that threaten the protection of rural Sonoma County and are out of compliance with the General Plan, Zoning Codes and environmental laws.