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A Call to Action The Downtown Overlay being pushed by the City Council. An Opportunity to stop the overlay. There were two major issues that compelled me to run for city council. One was to bring our planning staff back in-house and not have it all outsourced to a private, for-profit consultancy (the M Group), and the […]

The Election Results Helen Putnam Park at Night. Several races didn’t go the way we had hoped, including mine. It doesn’t look like we are going to win this one, but the “winner” only got a little over 40% of the vote in District 6, so 6 in 10 voters did not pick the “winner”.

Petaluma’s Next General Plan A picture of the Ghirardelli Barn in 2005, shortly after it was moved from D Street. You think the Downtown Overlay is Scary? A major issue in the current Petaluma City Council election is the proposed 6-story luxury hotel and accompanying 6-story rezoning overlay over much of our historic downtown, but

We Need to Protect Our Ecosystem A picture I took of Scott Ranch back in 2003. My “day job” is being a landscape photographer. I go out in nature and try to capture its beauty in a single image. I love my job, but as a person whose profession involves “being observant”, I regularly notice

A Way to Increase the Supply of Affordable Housing A Mailbox and Roses in a Petaluma Neighborhood The main reason we don’t have more affordable housing in my opinion is because of the complicated way we go about it. Typically, “affordable housing” is built by a nonprofit builder who seeks multi-million-dollar grants from various public

Flooding and Sea Level Rise in Petaluma A Photograph of the Sid Commons 180 Unit Housing Site Petaluma is a river town (or more accurately a slough city). Our town has alternated between relying on the river for its existence to literally turning its back to the river (I’m looking at you Golden Eagle Shopping

The City of Petaluma Government is Broken – Typical afternoon traffic dealing with the re-Striping of D Street – We have a dysfunctional city council in Petaluma. For too many years, major projects that have major impacts on the quality of life in Petaluma have been planned and organized behind the scenes between city council

Facts about the DOWNTOWN HOUSING & ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY OVERLAY This is the first of a series of essays I am writing about what is happening in our town. I am starting with the overlay, because I think that is the most pressing issue. It is a long essay, but I wanted to be thorough in

My Campaign Sign I am Running for Petaluma City Council in District 6 My name is Lance Kuehne (pronounced “Keen”) and I have lived in Petaluma for 22 years and founded and operated the Riverfront Art Gallery in Petaluma’s historic downtown for 15 years. I also taught photography at Petaluma High School for a couple