Despite persistent questions if not challenges to the new Foley Family Community Pavilion framework, the full City Council agreed with the city staff presentation about levels of events in the city—and the city’s participation in them. More specifically, the “Phase 1” use of the Community Pavilion in city events was outlined, explored and finally agreed upon at this week’s council meeting. As decided last year, the city had set up a hierarchy of “events” around the degree of the City’s participation. Those include “signature” City of Healdsburg events, Sponsored or Collaborator.
The concept of “Signature Events” has been introduced to define those that can continue to use the Healdsburg Plaza—a city-owned park in the heart of town—as the event location. Signature Events are simply those that have been authorized by the City Council for use of the Healdsburg Plaza, according to Mark Milde of the Community Services Department.
That’s the takeaway of this week’s meeting: an insistence on use of the Community Pavilion, and a denial of the Plaza location to any other event than a select few. These “Signature” events are Merry Healdsburg (coincidentally, Friday of this week); Dia de Muertos (usually in late October); the Fourth of July Celebration including the Parade & Duck Dash (early July); Tuesdays in the Plaza (from May to August); and Sundays in the Plaza (June and July).
All of those events will continue to be held in the Plaza, but several events that heretofore have enjoyed the shaded greenery of the park will be excluded. Instead, they are being encouraged if not forced to move to the Pavilion going forward.
Saturday’s booked
The frustration is that the Healdsburg Farmers’ Market essentially has the Community Pavilion booked on Saturdays from April to December. So any Saturday event has to work around the Markets’ operation, which begins in the early morning hours and officially concludes at 12:30pm, though some break-down continues after that.
When the plan was presented on Nov. 3, several event organizers made their case to continue to operate in the Plaza. The only successful one was Gayle Okumura Sullivan, executive director of Healdsburg Jazz, who pleaded that the book-ahead period for the talent the 26-year-old organization brings to Healdsburg was too far in advance, and that it wasn’t possible to rebook those artists to another date.
So the council made an exception, permitting Healdsburg Jazz to hold its Juneteenth event in the Plaza for one more year, if the institution promised to move it to Sunday the following year. It did, and the exclusion was allowed.
Left behind by the city’s drive to reduce use of the Plaza and increase use of the Pavilion were several other events and groups that still lobbied for a Plaza location. Among them: the Boys & Girls Clubs’ annual Healdsburg Crush, a major fundraising wine-tasting event held in the Plaza for many years. At the November meeting the Clubs’ executive director, Jennifer Weiss, said if the Clubs could not keep the Plaza location, they would move elsewhere.
But the city denied the Clubs’ request to hold their event in the Plaza, not least because the special event policies that would permit a Plaza location could not be met. Though the Boys & Girls Clubs of Sonoma-Marin is a nonprofit, the event would be roped off from the general public and paid admission required, unlike any other Plaza event.
Another legacy event in the Plaza is the Healdsburg Arts Festival, held in the Plaza on a Saturday in September for a dozen years. Director Kathy Birdsong was less willing to see the show under the roof of the Pavilion, and petitioned for an exemption to permit a Plaza location for the event.
A Saturday in the Plaza, she said, was the only day to effectively hold the arts festival, since sharing the Pavilion with the Market on the same day was impractical.
“The logistics of moving dozens of farmers’ market stalls off the Pavilion and trying to move 50-plus festival vendors on to the Pavilion immediately afterwards would not only be bedlam, but also limit the [arts] festival to only a few viable hours,” Birdsong said.
Pilot program?
Her argument was somewhat undercut when Professionals with Pride, a relatively new local nonprofit, applied for a Pavilion permit on a Saturday in June, Pride Month. Ozzie Jimenez of Professionals with Pride (and a former City Council member) said they had begun speaking with the Farmers’ Market on how to manage the transition from a morning marketplace to an afternoon and evening Pride celebration.
Councilmember David Hagele suggested looking at the dual use of the Pavilion on the same day as a “pilot program,” just to see how overlapping events at the Pavilion might work, or what the pitfalls are. Community Services Director Mark Themig said, “We love pilot programs, we do,” but seemed more concerned that Professionals with Pride was speaking directly with the Healdsburg Farmers’ Market instead of including the City in those conversations.
But such a cooperative same-day use of the Pavilion did not seem practical to Birdsong, or to the Healdsburg Arts Festival. As Birdsong said on Monday: “We take care of the Plaza seriously. I’m sure our footprint is minimal. Foot traffic is restricted to walkways. Booths are placed next to the walkways, leaving large areas of grass open for enjoyment. We use no heavy equipment or vehicles. Compared to larger, high-attendance events like Tuesdays on the Plaza or Dias de los Muertos, the Art Festival has a much lighter impact.”
She added later, “Our position will always be to hold the Arts Festival on the Plaza and promote the Arts and Culture commitment the City Council has made.”
Unless the Healdsburg Arts Festival can be reclassified as a Signature event before its desired date of Saturday Sept. 26, 2026, its future remains murky.
