Tying it all Together - Part 2: The Cloverdale Depot and the Marin County Board of Supervisors

The Cloverdale Depot and the Marin County Board of Supervisors
Tying it all together - Part 2
(click here for part 1) 

More really interesting stuff!

SYNOPSIS: Part 1 introduced this blog’s theme of, “Friends in High Places,” and then, in succession:
1- “Mainstream America;”
2- a snippet of California history;
3- the modern Pomo Indians in Cloverdale, Sonoma county, California, one of whom got evicted for a freeway and was denied relocation assistance for reasons that astonished me.

Part 2, (this episode) covers the consequences of that singularly revolting event and hopes to create at the very least a small measure of shame in the minds of some of our more enlightened public officials. If Providence is on our side, we can then look to the future with a little less pessimism and, who knows, perhaps even a ray of hope?

Reading time, about 4 minutes.
P.S. Everything I say here is documented in the Reference Department of the Sonoma County Library in Santa Rosa.

***

The final scene in Part 1 had been the Cloverdale Rancheria in the weeks preceding the Fourth of July, 1976, our country’s bicentennial. The woman in question was a Pomo Indian – rather short, rather robust, rather dark skinned, rather advanced in years – and utterly forlorn. She knew why I had come. I handed her the “3 Day Notice to Pay or Quit.” She vacated the premises, July 4, 1976, still owing the State a little less than $200 back rent.

Here it is essential to establish the context in which these events unfolded. A new freeway in Cloverdale had been in the hoping and planning stages for a long time before it was finally built, but Caltrans began acquiring the right of way in the 1960’s. In 1990, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) authorized construction this new section of freeway, about four and half miles long. Construction began in 1991 and the freeway opened in1994 with a grand public ceremony celebrating this pageant of progress, “The Cloverdale Bypass.”

Brace yourselves now, for what is to follow.

The historic Cloverdale depot was built in 1872, the year Cloverdale was incorporated. It was a one story, wood frame building, shingle roof, two large rooms, about 2300 square feet. Pure redwood throughout. It was the community's center of commerce for a hundred years, a status proudly recorded in historic old photographs. Cloverdale was a “destination.” But with the march of time things change, and eventually the railroad turned the Cloverdale depot mostly to storage.

In 1976, as a Bicentennial Project, a group of local citizens rose excitedly to the occasion by forming a non-profit corporation under the name, "Cloverdale Depot Association," which entered the venerable structure in the National Register of Historic Places. But it was in the path of the long planned and still unbuilt freeway, and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), which had final authority over the Cloverdale Bypass, as a condition of its approval for the project required Caltrans to relocate the old Cloverdale depot to another site (the site where the present Cloverdale depot stands today) and to convey the land to the Depot Association at a nominal cost. The Depot Association and Caltrans shook hands and went to work.

But in some quarters a fear arose that the freeway, which they had been expecting for such a long time might be thrown off schedule by this belated turn of events. The Depot Association in return made public assurances that their project to move the old Depot would not delay the freeway at all, in any way.

The Cloverdale Depot Association’s goal was to move the historic depot away from the freeway and to preserve it for the benefit of Cloverdale’s citizens and for future generations. The Cloverdale Chamber of Commerce, the Cloverdale Historical Society and the Cloverdale Art Commission were to share space in the restored depot.

The Association's architect drew plans of the new site, meetings were held, commitments made. The surviving elders of the Cloverdale Rancheria became an honorary Native American Advisory Panel for a monument on the site to the Pomo Indians, memorializing “Musulacon,” their ancestral chief for whom the 1846 Mexican land grant, “Rincon de Musulacon,”is named, upon which most of the city of Cloverdale stands today. A model of the site was prominently displayed in the office windows of the local newspaper, the Cloverdale Reveille. The Native American Heritage Commission, a State agency in Sacramento, passed a resolution of endorsement and notified the Cloverdale Depot Association, the Cloverdale Historical Society and the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors of their action. Rose colored glasses made this an exuberant scene, but myopia obscured the reality. In the dead of night on Saturday, September 21, 1991, the old depot - vacant, humble, awaiting its rebirth – burned to the ground in suspicious circumstances. The Cloverdale Reveille suspected arson.

Readers of this blog are urged to pay particular attention to the next paragraph, because it is critical to understanding what’s going on here.

In 1973, during preliminary field studies for the freeway, a previously unknown archaeological site was found on the land where the Historical Cloverdale depot was to be relocated (where the present Cloverdale depot now stands) and recorded in the State’s inventory of archaeological sites, which was not sufficiently important to be recorded in the NATIONAL Register of archaeological sites. Nevertheless, the Environmental Impact Study (EIS) approved by FHWA unequivocally provided that the portion of the land containing the archaeological site will have only passive uses such as picnic tables and grass lawns for the visitors to the depot. No subsurface activity was permitted, including the laying of utility lines and paving. (Remember the Pomo monument?)

The deed to the property was recorded with seven easements - under the ground, on the ground, above the ground - To Pacific Bell, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Viacom Cablevision, Southern Pacific Transportation Company, City of Cloverdale and the State of California. Not a whisper about an archaeological site. You can check that for yourself at the Recorder’s Office in Santa Rosa.

Re-enter now, The Railroad.

Parallel to the plans for the freeway were plans in the political arena to revitalize railroad service in Northwestern California. The North Coast Railroad Authority (NCRA) was created by the California Legislature in 1989. The present Cloverdale depot, a “multi-modal” transportation facility, now occupies the site in Cloverdale which had been reserved for the historic depot. And through all its interlocking memberships in public agencies (like SMART, the Sonoma–Marin Rail Transit District, and GGBHTD, the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District) our own Marin County Board of Supervisors is inextricably bound to the Rincon de Musulacon. History is breathing hot on their necks.

To be continued –