Where Will the Farmer’s Market Go?

One of the most unusual projects the Sonora City Council is actively pursuing is a downtown catchment basin next to Sonora Creek, which would slow flood-stage waters raging downstream, inundating basements, streets, and Coffill Park. While in theory this sounds like a good idea, it unravels when looked at closely.

The catchment basin would occupy the entire Sonora Farmers’ Market site, a 40-space parking lot in the middle of the historic district. The lot would be completely demolished, and a large area excavated. In addition to requiring a new location for the popular market, some of Sonora’s most convenient parking places would be lost. To date, the City Council has neither revealed where the Farmers’ Market, an important community hub each Saturday from March to October, would relocate, nor where the parking spaces would be replaced.

Dewberry, a nationwide planning, design, and construction firm (1) whose Rancho Cordova office is Sonora’s contracted City Engineer, wants to start applying for grants to fund a study of what it calls the “Sonora Creek Restoration Plan and Parking Lot Removal and Replacement Plan.”

From the historic Gold Rush creek’s headwaters in the upper Greenley Basin, it is three miles to downtown Sonora, and the watershed is 1,800 acres. The creek has been channelized and narrowed by stone and concrete walls such that storm water overflows its banks and causes flooding in buildings and elsewhere. Engineers reviewed the same problem more than 25 years ago and concluded that catchment basins are needed upstream from downtown and the historic district. Former City Engineer Jerry Fuccillo believes Dewberry’s calculations regarding the size of the catchment basin are flawed and that converting the small size of the parking lot will not solve the problem.

The Vision Sonora plan, which the city is using as a guide to downtown “improvements,” does not mention the big dig (2). An excavation for flood control would likely be constructed of concrete, rocks, and other reinforcement. Aesthetically, it might look like a lake in the rainy season, but it could easily be a big mud puddle in summer.

Even though most county residents do not live within Sonora’s city limits, the Queen of the Southern Mines is the county seat where we frequent local businesses, participate in events, and enjoy its historic value. The city should emphasize and maintain its charm for residents and visitors alike.

NOTES

1. Dewberry
2. “Vision Sonora,” City of Sonora, 2017.
3. “City Council Regular Meeting Minutes,” City of Sonora, October 6, 2025.