 Again welcome to old courthouse square and our Unification celebration and party and festival on this beautiful Saturday right here in Santa Rosa, California There are a lot of people from out of town who've never been to Santa Rosa before can you believe it? Yeah, they're gonna be looking in the real estate ads real soon here because this is the place to live and when we have places Like this to enjoy it just gets better and better It's an honor to have Dignitaries that are with us today that I'd like to have come up on the stage right now As a matter of fact to join me the city council if you can make your way up to the stage right now If gay labyrinth could also make her way up through the stage as well and while they're working their way up It's my privilege to introduce to you The current mayor of Santa Rosa You've known him for over his work with the press demograph for years and years enjoyed his columns forever And now he's our mayor. Here's the honorable Chris Corsi Welcome everybody What a day We've got sunshine. We've got blue skies, and we have a brand new Indivisible courthouse square So thank you all for coming down here to celebrate this momentous occasion And thank you for helping This reunited square become a reality I say thanks to all of you because I want to make sure right up front that we give Credit where credit is due and credit for this project doesn't belong to any one city council It doesn't belong to any one person. It doesn't belong to any single vision or Campaign or effort This has been a community effort For a quarter of a century and it needs to be recognized as a community accomplishment So right now everyone give yourselves a nice pat on the back for a job. Well done Now before we get too comfortable with our accomplishment, we need to recognize that we're not done yet Still to come are the Asawa fountain the That will be reconstructed with the original panels that were created by artists in the community and the famous sculptor Ruth Asawa that fountain will go right here also for beautiful Artfully designed and multifunctional light columns will go on the four corners of the lawn out here where the balloons are Those are being fabricated right now and will be in soon Eventually, there'll be a public art piece at the end of Mendocino Avenue or the beginning of Mendocino Avenue depending on your point of view So there's more to come But let's celebrate what's here today I'd like to start by calling out a few individuals in Organizations that have or groups of people whether they were organized or not is questionable But I'm going to start with the city council. We have the whole council with us today vice mayor Jack Tibbets Councilman Chris Rogers Councilwoman Julie Combs Councilman John Sawyer Councilman Ernesto Oliveris And councilman Tom Schwedhelm So I know we have other Elected officials in the crowd and former elected officials in the crowd I'm not going to try and name each of you, but please stand up if you're not standing up already and wave Thank you all for being here Besides our four former electeds and former council members. We have Our Present and former members of boards and commissions in this city that have worked so hard for this project for so long Please give a wave or stand up, please. I also want to recognize The many many people who have participated in community efforts to reunite this square and revitalize our downtown Including the latest iteration the coalition to restore courthouse square. Welcome to all of you, too I want us all to thank our city staff who have worked tirelessly and very hard on this project despite a Few setbacks over the past year But city staff, thank you for your work and thank you for being here today The consultants and contractors who designed and built this square Thank you Just to make sure I haven't missed anybody. I wanted want to make sure Anyone who's ever had anything to do with this project including being a taxpayer Or showing up here today Another round of applause for all of you Let's let's also acknowledge the wonderful music that we've heard from the brass quintet of the Santa Rosa Symphony The symphony is celebrating its 89th birthday today. So wish them a happy birthday as well and Ted Williams who introduced us and who provided some music accompanying our gathering here today from KZST radio Alright We're down to one last introduction to go I'm proud to call Gayla Barron my friend and also my mentor We were colleagues for a lot of years at the press democrat She taught me that in order to be a complete journalist somebody who chronicles the day-to-day Goings on of a present-day community. You also need to know and understand the history of that community If you've read the newspaper for the past 60 years or so you've probably learned from gay, too You've learned a lot about courthouse square because she's written about this space many many times We're lucky to have gay here today To talk about some of that history and to talk about why this space was created Please welcome Santa Rosa's own gay. La baron. It is absolutely great to see such a huge positive turnout Those of us who have listened to the naysayers for a long time are enjoying this enormously You know the last time I stood here to speak in the square or in half of it It was five o'clock in the morning on the anniversary of the oh six earthquake and this is not nearly as chilly And and the future of this particular spot also appears to be a sunnier than it was that day The PD headline last Sunday on Kevin McCollum's Ultra-complete history of our town center talked of its past as a remarkable journey And that's exactly the right adjectives. You know, I'm not a historian. I'm always quick to say that I'm not a social scientist I'm a storyteller and the back stories, which is a term that I use a lot are Remarkable in all kinds of ways Because now I'm here at at Chris Corsi's invitation to lay a foundation for stories of the plaz's past He's asked me to talk about Julio Carrillo specifically Julio who inherited the land and he had a vision of what it should be Julio's story was one of those In many ways good news bad news sockets that our history books are filled with The good news is that he has long been regarded as Santa Rosa's first citizen It was Julio after all who dug a pit in his front yard and provided the steer to be barbecued at the party For everybody in Sonoma County when Santa Rosa was promoting the county seat, which was then in Sonoma And he was the one who filed the 1854 plat map that made this an official town The party and the town at that time may not have been Julio's idea entirely There were a couple of enterprising newcomers named Hohen and Haman involved But it was definitely Julio who insisted that whatever came out of it all There should be a plaza writes back in the midst of things a space in the proper Spanish tradition with a fountain and benches and music and a place to quote Promenade on summer Saturday evenings as he said and that's where we are and that's good news Julio was 12 just 12 years old when his widowed mother Maria Carrillo and eight of his 11 brothers and sisters Came up here from San Diego in one of those bumpy creaky square wheeled Caritas Accompanied by a string of pack mules and he grew up here working on on Around his family's ranch. Oh making adobe bricks with his brothers To build a house the ruins of which as you may well know still stand Beside the creek a little more than a mile upstream from here He was an impressionable young man when the first Americans arrived and the sudden departures from old Spanish, California The way of doing things took him by surprise in the summer of 1846 after the bear flag revolt and the start of the Mexican war his sister Francisco sent him on a family errand to Suddus Fort in Sacramento Valley to check on the welfare of her husband the very Important Mariano Vallejo who had been taken there as a prisoner by the upstart Americans who were the bear flaggers When he arrived to make polite inquiries he was taken prisoner, too And he wasn't released until the general was more than a month later And then when the Americans took over establishing a justice court in Sonoma Julio Had the dubious distinction of being one of the first if not the first case on the court docket It was a misunderstanding of course or probably more aptly a culture shift Because you see the little Mexican cattle that roamed around this area disregarding boundaries We're raised for their hides and the tallow that was stuck to the hide Hides and those were a staple of Mexican commerce and it was okay under early California law To kill a cow or steer and use it for meat So long as you left the hide with the brand showing on a trail where it could be found by the owners The only requirement was that you left it out in the open Julio did just that and he took the beef to be made into stew or something and under the new American law He was arrested for cattle rustling Now it was early 1850s and Julio's mother had died and he had inherited a Substantial portion of her land Everything really downstream from the adobe There was there were more eager Entrepreneurs drawn West by gold who were arriving here every day including Barney Hohen and Ted Hohman Who had rented the career adobe for a trading post and they offered Julio a deal They would buy a chunk of his downstream land hire a surveyor to lay out a proper town and Julio would file the official map for the town of Santa Rosa and they would maneuver the necessary Politics to take the county seat away from the Pueblo of Sonoma In keeping with Julio's notion of a proper town center It was agreed that the center of this map would be an open square They may have had in mind something like a European plots or a Piazza, but Julio who was in the driver's seat at this point Preferred to call it a plaza So the deal was made and he joined in with pleasure and the land was left open as buildings rose up on the sides and Julio filed that map and the following year the first county fair was held here in this plaza and Crowds gathered to admire the agricultural exhibits and to picnic and to stay for music and dancing And it must have been a really great day for Julio But Julio didn't have a lot of great days after that He was his descendants wrote of him in the 1850s and said his mother had the the business ability He sold lots in the center of town for two dollars or a bag of beans And he gave a lot to weigh to churches and schools to the Masonic Lodge that built a lodge over there And Julio was a gambler and there are indications that he was taken advantage of every chance that people had His broodmare, which he was very proud of had won first place at that first county fair And he loved racing fast horses and betting heavily on their speed and apparently he lost more than he won He had married young he had a big family and within 15 years his wife Theodosia Was making and selling tamales to keep the family fed and then in 1868 which is the same year that Santa Rosa became an official city by the way That's what we'll be celebrating 150 years of next year a merchant refused to credit him for us Give him credit for a sack of flour and so Julio went out and he sold his half of the plaza That he and Hoenn had given to the people of the county forever And the buyer was a triumphant Yankee named Wesley Woods who was foaming his nose at Santa Rosa's Confederate majority and saying I got you now and he built a shaggy little house right about over there I would guess and he announced to the world that it was his new home The citizenry was furious they were puzzled and furious because this was the people's land It was no longer Julio's to sell The sheriff brought deputies to toss out the squatter and tear down the shack and there was a whole plaza again And there were ongoing lawsuits that were settled just in time For the county to build a new courthouse to replace the one in Santa Rosa Which was over there where the exchange bank is now Julio grew older and poorer Undoubtedly was not pleased but the wide granite steps and the expense of lawn in front meant that while it was no longer Referred to as just a plaza, but rather as courthouse square It was still the county's central gathering place And they gave him a lifetime job a Cinecure, I think you call it Lighting the lamps around the square and being doing janitorial work in the courthouse that they had built on the land that he had given And wouldn't you know that when he died in 1889 his funeral was the largest that the town had ever seen The Masonic Lodge the native sons the fire department the congressman the sheriff the county clerk and 14 carriages of family and mourners followed the hearse up 4th Street to McDonald And out to the rural cemetery Businesses closed and owners and clerks stood out in front saluting as his procession went past and his brother-in-law Mariano Vallejo spoke at great side a county historical society publication in the 1950s summed up Julio's starcross life as that of one who Quote would have been a very rich man, but for his innate naivety and his grandiose Spanish generosity Well, we are in in the in the we are part of of his The benefits of his generosity here in the square today, and it's a different light that we shine on the past We might call him a victim of change and perhaps of man's inhumanity to others that too often comes with change This square would be a metaphor for change Since the long and often hostile arguments began over what to do here I've thought a lot about all the things that have happened in or to Julio's plaza For now, I hope I hope we have torn down the squatters shacks Metaphorically speaking of course and restored some old-world Tranquility, let's hold that thought. Thank you very much. Well, here we are in Julio's Square I have a feeling he might be out there somewhere with with us, too We're in the heart of the city the city's living room this place This space has been called those things, but I like to think of it more as a kitchen Because the kitchen is where people gather it's a place where people go to work in a piece place where people to go to enjoy It's a place for pleasure. It's a place for seriousness It's a place to be playful. It's the most functional room in the house That's my vision for this space a place for us all to celebrate For us to have serious discussions a place to relax to work and to play Courthouse Square has always been and always should be a civic space in a community space It has always been and always should be the first place that Santa Rosa's Santa Rosin's Think of when we need to come together As you know City leaders have been talking about how to recreate this space for more than two decades All of that talk and all of the studies that have been done All of the work that all of that work brings us here today All of it counts and contributes to this moment And all of it deserves our recognition But this city council didn't spend 10 million dollars on this space just to build a better kitchen We've invested 10 million dollars here to benefit all of santa rosa From the downtown to roseland from apple valley to bennett valley from south park to oakmont And how does that work? Well, take a look around you Ask yourself the question With the old at&t building Be transformed into what you see over there today If the the reunification of the square hadn't been in the works With the empire building Be under redevelopment as a boutique hotel If the square remained as it had been for the last 50 years And don't just ask yourself those questions Ask the developer of those two projects. Hugh. Hugh. Hugh futrell. That was that was a Freudian slip Hugh cotton Hugh's standing right over there behind my family. So You can ask him yourself And these are just two examples of the transformative power of this space You can see construction and remodeling going on all around the square up and down 4th street City staff is constantly fielding questions from prospective developers who are interested in properties Throughout the core of our downtown Once they come into fruition These commercial projects and mixed use housing developments will energize and revitalize the entire downtown Add that add to that the jobs and the tax revenues that they generate And you can begin to understand that this square is just the first domino in a chain of events That has positive impact throughout the city Including being able to help the homeless who some of our friends want to talk about as i'm speaking That's what this investment is about helping the whole city. It's not just about the square. It's not just about downtown But this square is only a square without people In this space should never be static Starting right now with this event It's a space that will be a constant place of activity A place for music and sports a place for commerce and conversation and community This afternoon As the festival goes on will be joined by activists in the in the mayday march who are marching here from roseland on wednesday evening The first downtown market of the summer season will kick off right here In two weeks from today Hundreds of triathletes and thousands of their fans will gather here for the inaugural Run of the iron man triathlon But i want to urge everyone not to wait for an event To use your new courthouse square This space should be put to use by the community as part of our everyday routine We should stroll here Meet here for coffee or lunch Hang out in the square. I was so happy to see all over social media yesterday when the fences came down This place is like a magnet people automatically knew to come here and use it And as someone who's worked downtown for almost 37 years, I've always enjoyed spending time in the square I plan to continue to do that both formally and informally in the in the future Starting Monday I'm going to be here every first and third Monday of the week for lunch And I invite all of you any of you to come and join me We can talk about the square. We can talk about the city. We could just enjoy a nice day So please come and come and have lunch with me, but bring your own lunch Okay We're close to being done up here and in a few minutes We're going to go and cut the ribbon over on the lawn over there But before we go I want to do one more round of thank yous and recognize two groups of people who've been instrumental in getting this job done First I want to say thank you to all of you who have a business downtown It's hard to run a business and it's even harder when for a year you have a major construction project going on in your front yard So thank all of you for putting up with this Thank you for surviving it And by the way, you're welcome for all the good things that are going to come from this in the future Lastly, I want to thank the people of santa rosa This is your day to celebrate a valuable new asset in our city In these days of smaller government and tighter budgets We don't see a lot of big beautiful public projects get done It's not an easy thing for a community to do But here we are we've done it You've done it This is a place for every person to enjoy So please enjoy it Celebrate our new courthouse square And give yourselves one more big round of applause Thank you