The Woman Who Changed the Future of Petaluma
In 1970, the idea of Petaluma citizens participating in shaping a path forward for their city was unthinkable. Outside developers were firmly in the driver’s seat, and they used their muscle and pocketbooks to ensure that no one got in their way.
But Helen DuMont Putnam, the city’s first woman mayor, did just that, shutting down all new development in the fall of 1970 to spend a year engaging with citizens in hammering out a new planning policy, one that would curb the urban sprawl overtaking the city.
That planning process not only united a city that had become increasingly split between its east and west sides, but it demonstrated that nothing gives people a sense of belonging more than having a or the chance to shape the community in which they live.
The plan that emerged was revolutionary, leading to a legal battle with developers over the next three years that unfolded in a series of dramatic twists and turns before ending up at the U.S. Supreme Court. The court’s decision would not only have an impact on the future of Petaluma, but on cities facing urban sprawl across the country, making Helen Putnam a torchbearer of the urban slow-growth movement.
Surprisingly, it was not a path she ever envisioned for herself. Neither an activist nor a crusader, she was best known in political circles for bringing disparate people together in forging compromises. To most people outside her inner circles, she was the “nice lady with all the bracelets,” a reference to the 25 bracelets she wore on each arm her as her signature look.
But once Putnam committed to a course of action that she believed in, a willful and determined side of her personality kicked in, one best expressed by her favorite motto, “Full speed ahead.”
Stylish, charismatic, and strikingly tall, from the moment Helen DuMont arrived in Petaluma in 1931, she became known for her ability to infuse energy into every room she entered. Born in Bakersfield, raised in Alameda, she came to town at the age of 22, fresh out of UC Berkeley with a degree in education, to teach elementary school, and then junior high.
A classically trained pianist, during the 1930s Putnam played in a musical trio that performed at gatherings around town, including those of the Business and Professional Women’s Club, whose message to women at the time—that women needed to assume their share of responsibility for their communities by rendering public service—planted a seed in the mind of the young schoolteacher.
Putnam also began hosting local fashion shows, where she honed her skills as a mistress of ceremonies as well establishing a reputation as a fashion maven.
In 1937, she married Petaluma native Rutherford (Rud) Putnam, a service manager at a local auto dealer, and moved into the family home at B and Fair streets, whose address that became symbolic of another of her mottos: Be Fair. Four years later, she retired from teaching to devote her time to starting a family, giving birth to a daughter and son in short order. As a homemaker, Putnam prided herself on having a place for everything and everything in its place. That sense of order would carry over in her public service.
An outgoing personality whose conversation crackled with energy, Putnam was naturally drawn to networking among community organizations, beginning with the Gamma Gamma Society, a sorority that gathered for bridge and other amusements. As in almost every organization she joined, she quickly rose through the ranks to become president of the local chapter.
In 1947, she was coaxed by women in her network to run for a seat on the school board. Outpolling the other candidates, she was only the second woman to ever be elected to the board, and among current members, the only one with teaching experience. Recognizing Putnam’s natural leadership ability, her fellow board members chose her to serve as president, a position she would hold for the next 12 years.
The school system she presided over in the late 1940s was dramatically different than the one she had experienced as a young teacher. Immediately following World War II, California discovered a second gold rush in suburban housing.
In Petaluma, as in other towns on the outskirts of large cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, an influx of discharged servicemen from all over the country were moving into town with their young families, creating a housing crisis. To help address the crisis, the federal government subsidized developers in building a cascade of suburban tract homes for the veterans, and also provided the veterans themselves with low-interest home loans requiring no down payment.
To ensure that new suburban communities in places like Petaluma remained largely white, the government required developers to insert clauses into the deeds of the houses they built prohibiting the sale, resale, or even rental to people of color.
Petaluma’s first suburban development, Madison Square, created by Goheen Construction of Mill Valley, broke ground in 1946 on the farmland east of town. Bounded by East Washington, Payran, and Vallejo streets, and extending north to the Petaluma River, it was the largest housing development the city had ever seen, ultimately comprising 240 homes.
A three-bedroom home in Madison Square sold for $7,000, or $92,000 in today’s currency, with a monthly mortgage of about $44, or about $600 in today’s currency. A similar, though smaller development also went up at that time on the west side near Petaluma High School, extending along Dana Street from Fair to Melvin streets.
On the front lines of the sudden flood of young families into Petaluma were the elementary schools. As school board president, Putnam was tasked with mounting a school bond campaign to replace three cramped and outdated elementary schools built in the early 1900s—Lincoln, Washington, and McKinley—that failed to meet new earthquake safety requirements set by California’s recently passed Field Act.
The bond passed, and in 1949, a new McKinley School, able to accommodate 200 students, opened on Ellis Street. A year later, it was already in double session. In just five years, from 1945 to 1950, Petaluma’s population grew from 8,000, where it had sat at since 1930, to 10,000 residents, a 20% increase.
In addition to raising capacity issues at McKinley, the two new elementary schools planned for the west side, McNear, which was already under construction, and Valley Vista, scheduled to open in 1954, were already in need of expansion, forcing Putnam to campaign for a second school bond as large as the first.
As president of the school board, Putnam was provided a seat on the city planning commission, which gave her a bird’s eye view of another post-war tsunami: the dramatic rise in car ownership that set off a massive expansion of state highways. In 1949, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors approved the location of a new freeway east of town, scheduled to open in 1957.
The news set off a land-buying spree of East Petaluma by developers. Two developers in particular, Blackwell Brothers of Santa Rosa and John Novak of Novato, both financed by Chicago and east coast backers, locked up farmland along both sides of the future freeway, and set about building tract homes.
Novak mapped out the land north of East Washington Street along McDowell Road, including 25 acres slated for the Petaluma Plaza Shopping Center, to construct 295 houses in a development called Novak Meadow.
The Blackwell Brothers were planning 385 houses south of East Washington Street along McDowell Road, in a development called McDowell Village. They also intended to build the Washington Square Shopping Center cater-corner to Novak’s shopping enter.
In 1952, five years before the new freeway opened, both developers began marketing their homes to commuters working in San Francisco, 45 minutes away by car. They were selling out. In exchange for requesting that the city annex their housing tracts, developers agreed to install sidewalks, sewers, street lighting, and fire hydrants, leaving the city on the hook for water, sewage, police, fire, and schools.
By 1954, the city had annexed another 1,800 acres for subdivisions on the east side, and also approved developments on the west side in the hilly neighborhoods of Sunnyslope, La Cresta, and Cherry Hill.
Petaluma’s school population, which stood at 1,600 students in 1950, was projected to double by 1960. That placed Putnam back out on the campaign trail for yet another school bond, matched this time with a long term loan from the state for a combined total $4.2 million, or $40 million in today’s currency.
On the drawing boards this time were building two new schools on the east side—McDowell Elementary and the original Kenilworth Junior High on East Washington Street—and a replacements of the high school on Fair Street, which, having been built in 1915, was at capacity and deemed unsafe for earthquakes.
During this period, Putnam was also busy raising her profile in the area, especially among women, by making frequent appearances at PTA meetings, giving talks on Petaluma’s early history, and hosting fashion shows throughout the North Bay. In 1949, she became host of a midday talk show on KSRO radio, “Shopper’s Guide with Helen Putnam.” Targeted at homemakers, the show featured local news, shopping suggestions, and homemaking tips and was so popular it ran for five years.
Putnam also expanded her involvement in educational circles, joining the Sonoma County School Boards Association and rising though its ranks to become president in 1952. She followed a similar path with the California School Boards Association, becoming president in 1958.
By the late ’50s, Putnam was spending considerable time traveling around the state hobnobbing with various school boards and elected officials, including the governor, who appointed her a delegate to the 1955 White House Conference on Education hosted by the vice-president, Richard Nixon. While in Washington, D.C., she took the opportunity to visit the chambers of a former California governor she had worked with, Earl Warren, who had recently been appointed chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
But all the travel and hobnobbing increasingly pulled her away from Petaluma, where problems began to surface in the school district. In addition to the city’s increasing population, which jumped 40% from 1950 to 14,000 residents in 1960, the local tax assessment for schools was woefully insufficient, resulting in a group of underpaid, and very disgruntled, teachers.
In May of 1959, Putnam campaigned for increasing the tax assessment as well as for another large school bond to replace the junior high on Fair Street and build a second high school on the east side, which a decade later became Casa Grande High. The tax assessment passed, but the school bond did not, as voters made it clear they wanted to see a change on the school board. A month later, they got it.
Running for her fourth term as president of the board, Putnam was trounced along with another incumbent up for reelection. Six months later, their elected replacements succeeded in passing a new school bond twice the size of what she had asked for.
After her defeat, Putnam returned to teaching elementary school, first at Marin School and then at Waugh School. She also tried her hand at politics, campaigning for the Democratic nomination to a state assembly seat, where she placed fifth in a field of five.
In 1963, she was appointed principal and first grade teacher of Two Rock Union School west of town, a position she would hold for the next 15 years, most of them spent in public service as well. After wading back into politics as president of the local Democratic Club, in 1965 she decided to throw her hat in the ring as a candidate for mayor.
Mayors had traditionally been men drawn from the local business community. When her opponent pointed to her lack of business experience, Putnam demonstrated a graceful ability to reduce a political peer to a schoolboy, pointing out that “school business was big business.” In terms of budget and staff, it was in fact larger than most of the businesses in town.
Her mayoral campaign focused on three primary issues: generating new jobs by attracting clean, light industry to town; developing the Petaluma River into the business and recreational heart of the city, including rebranding Petaluma a river town as opposed to a chicken town, given that the local poultry business collapsed after World War II; and maintaining the city’s identity in the face of encroaching suburbia.
“The type of growth I’m interested in,” Putnam said, “is growth that retains Petaluma’s rank as a first-class city, not as a bedroom.”
That played well with many voters, among whom the watchword in the mid-1960s was “Let’s not become another San Jose,” referring to the south bay city that had been swallowed up by urban sprawl.
Elected Petaluma’s first woman mayor—or “electric mayor” as a second grader dubbed her, mispronouncing the word “elected”—Putnam was often showcased in the national press with a handful of other trailblazing women mayors. An informal survey conducted at the time by the Associated Press, found that the typical woman mayor was energetic but calm, outspoken but objective, and never lost her cool in public.
Many had backgrounds as teachers, which imbued them with talents of fierce dedication, idealism, organizational ability, and a human concern for the “people” side of problems. Typically the first woman elected mayor of their city, they made a point of asserting their femininity and maintaining a ladylike dignity. As one woman mayor said, the trick to holding the respect of your colleagues and citizens was to, “Think like a man and act like a lady.”
Yet, their very presence made them reformers in a political system where decisions were largely made by men in smoke-filled back rooms, who then came out to announce them to women.
Two of the favorite “back rooms” in Petaluma at the time were the morning coffee klatch at the U.S. Bakery on Petaluma Boulevard, where Della Fattoria is located today, followed by a two-martini lunch at El Sombrero restaurant on Petaluma Boulevard beside Penry Park.
But Putnam had no time for back room meetings, as her most immediate challenge as mayor was saving the downtown, and she chose to do so in a very public manner.
The new shopping centers on the east side were drawing foot traffic away from the downtown, throwing merchants into a financial tailspin. Commercial landlords, no longer able to command premium rents, were letting their buildings slowly deteriorate. East Washington Street, the sole, two-lane thoroughfare connecting the east and west sides of town, was chronically congested.
To alleviate the congestion and hopefully draw more people downtown, Putnam spearheaded an initiative in 1967 to widen Washington Street to four lanes, including installing a new four-lane bridge over the river. She then began championing a federally sponsored redesign of the downtown called the Core Area Plan.
The plan centered on converting Kentucky Street between Western Avenue and Washington Street into a closed-off mall, a common solution for federally funded, urban renewal programs around the country at the time. Parking for the mall would be provided by demolishing all the buildings along the east side of Keller Street between Washington Street and Western Avenue.
The plan also called for demolishing all of the buildings along the east side of Petaluma Boulevard from D Street, where the Theater District sits today, to Oak Street, and installing a six-lane thoroughfare running adjacent to the Petaluma River, with a pedestrian walkway between river and thoroughfare.
In June of 1969, the Core Area Plan was submitted to voters in the form of a bond issue, and rejected. In that same election, Putnam was reelected to a second term as mayor by a very slim margin.
During her second term, Putnam changed her stance on downtown development from destruction to restoration, embracing the local Heritage Homes movement, which had been born in 1968 out of a beautification project inspired by Putnam, and then spirited following the demolition of the Healey Mansion at the corner of Washington and Keokuk streets in 1969 to make way for a gas station.
She also brought to town restoration developer Skip Sommer to begin reviving the historic downtown by converting the Petaluma Mill into specialty shops, as well as relocating to the Turning Basin two Victorian homes slated for demolition, one to make way for a Wendy’s restaurant and the other for a 7-11 convenience store.
Meanwhile, development on the east side, which had continued apace at an average of 300 new homes a year during the ’60s, suddenly accelerated in 1970, when builders erected almost 600 homes, bringing the town’s population, which stood at 14,000 in 1960, to 27,000 by 1970.
With 900 additional homes having been approved for construction, another 5,000 residents were projected by the end of 1971, raising the town’s total population to 32,000. In the fall of 1970, the city council was presented with a slate of additional proposals, which, if approved, would increase the city’s population by the end 1972 to 37,000.
Why the sudden acceleration in development? The short answer was water.
Prior to 1960, Petaluma’s main water supply was drawn from wells and the headwaters of Adobe Creek on Lafferty Ranch atop Sonoma Mountain. In 1961, the city council agreed to build an underground aqueduct that diverted water to town from the Russian River via the newly constructed Coyote Dam on Lake Mendocino. Substantial water capacity was added in 1962 with the approval of the Warm Springs Dam west of Geyserville, although it was delayed by challenges from environmentalists and slow growth advocates from opening until 1982.
The Russian River aqueduct extended to Novato, but no further into Marin County. That served as a natural limit on suburban development in southern Marin, which in turn, raised the cost of land there, meaning that a homebuyer could get the same quality and same sized home in Petaluma for 20% less than they would have to pay in Marin. With new tract homes selling in Petaluma in 1970 for between $25,000 and $35,000, or $150,000 to $200,000 in today’s currency, that represented a significant savings.
But while Petaluma had plenty of water thanks to the diversion of Russian River, it didn’t have adequate sewage treatment. The sewage plant, originally constructed in 1937, was expanded in 1965 to accommodate a maximum population of 32,000, a level the city wasn’t expected to hit until at least 1980, and certainly not in 1971. The soonest an expansion could be made to the plant was three years and half years away.
Putnam and the city council suddenly found themselves between a rock and a hard place. In January of 1971, they declared a moratorium on further land annexation and zoning changes. They also hired San Francisco consulting firm Williams and Mocine, to recommend revisions to the city’s 1962 General Plan. The consultants began by surveying residents. At the time, 76% of residents on the east side commuted to work outside of town, while 61% of residents on the west side worked in town.
They found that the majority wanted light industrial growth for jobs, open space of surrounding agricultural land, and a permanent greenbelt between Petaluma and towns to the north and south. Most importantly, they wanted controlled growth with a target population of no more than 40,000 people, considerably lower than the ultimate population of 77,000 envisioned in the city’s 1962 General Plan.
That became clear in June of 1971, when the mayor and the city council put a $2 million bond issue before voters, to be matched by federal funds, for expanding the sewage plant to accommodate a maximum population of 100,000. It was soundly defeated. As a stopgap measure, the city decided to fund a $3.8 million enhancement to the sewage plant from revenue bonds, with federal and state funds picking up 80% of the price tag. But it remained a temporary measure, as the enhanced plant fell short of meeting state standards.
Meanwhile, on the planning front, the city’s consultants convened a panel of six citizen committees to work on what came to be called the Environmental Design Plan. The draft plan was then subjected to a number of public hearings.
On the eve of the plan’s adoption, Putnam and the city council met with developers. At the meeting, Putnam pointed out there was a trend toward limiting growth in California communities, and the city’s proposed plan had the support of the state’s commission on city annexations, of which she was a member. It was in the best interests of all, she offered, that developers find a way which to work with the city on administering the plan, rather than opposing it.
The developers were not receptive. They wanted a more flexible plan, one that didn’t limit the number of new houses built per year, as they believed it would lead to an inequity in how permits were allotted among builders, especially since the city was planning to limit individual developers to no more than 100 units per year, and exert more influence over design and construction quality.
Such restrictions, they argued, would not only drive up land costs, as water restrictions had previously done in Marin, but also construction costs, as the 100-unit cap per developer reduced cost efficiencies. Those inefficiencies would be compounded if developers were required to build on the west side of town, as the city was proposing, where hills made development more costly than building in the flats on the east side.
The bottom line for developers was that the city’s restrictions were going to out price lower income buyers, who represented a large part of their market. One developer jokingly warned Putnam that if the plan was adopted, builders might “haul off and give you a good suing.”
A week later, on March 28, 1972, the city council approved the Environmental Design Plan. The plan limited new development to 500 units per year for the next five years; 250 on the east side and 250 on the west side. It also included a greenbelt around the city.
Given the plan’s impact on unincorporated areas adjacent to the city, Putnam and the city council sought out the approval and support of the county board of supervisors. But the supervisors withheld their endorsement, voicing concerns the plan was unfair to rural landowners, in particular dairy ranchers—many of them struggling to stay afloat at the time—who were denied the right to sell their property to developers at market value.
The supervisors were also concerned about legal challenges to the plan, which everyone knew was coming.
On April 24, 1973, a coalition of Bay Area construction interests filed suit against the plan in federal court, seeking to have it declared illegal on the basis that it infringed upon people’s constitutional rights to live where they wanted. The backdrop for the legal challenge was lawsuits being waged across the country against cities using redlining as a means of maintaining racial segregation.
Two months later Putnam was reelected to her third term as mayor on a platform of “orderly progress and prosperity,” as opposed to the helter-skelter approach the city had been hostage to. Also on the ballot was a measure asking residents to approve the new growth limits. Largely advisory, it passed by a margin of 5-to-1.
In January of 1974, Judge Lloyd Burke of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco issued a verbal ruling striking down Petaluma’s growth plan. The following April, he went further in his written ruling, demanding that Petaluma maintain its city services to meet “market demand” and not use measures designed to “limit growth,” which he contended served to raise property values to the point that constructing low-cost housing was no longer economically feasible.
The city immediately requested a stay of the order while they appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Burke quickly denied their request. The city then appealed to the Ninth Circuit for a stay, which they also denied.
At this point, many would have thrown in the towel. But not Putnam. She carried on in her usual “full speed ahead” mode, asking the city’s outside legal counsel to make a last resort request for a stay order to Justice William O. Douglas on the U.S. Supreme Court, which he granted.
On Valentine’s Day, 1975, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard Petaluma’s case. Attorneys representing the city argued that Petaluma was under unsustainable growth pressure by market forces, growing at a rate of 5% a year, versus 1.7% for the rest of the Bay Area, and 1.1% for the state. They held that the city should not have to provide services dictated by the whims of the housing market; nor plan the city’s development based on what developers wanted; nor be forced to annex land.
On August 23, 1975, the Ninth Circuit ruled that the city was within its rights “to preserve its small town character, its open spaces, and low density of population, and to grow at an orderly and deliberate pace.”
Now it was the builders’ turn to appeal the ruling, which they did, petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their case.
Up to that point, the city had spent $48,000, or roughly $250,000 in today’s currency, on legal fees. Of that amount, $11,000 had been covered by donations from other cities, in average donations of $250. The developers had spent $75,000, or the equivalent of $360,000 in today’s currency. Going to the Supreme Court was expected to cost each side another $20,000, or roughly $100,000 in today’s currency.
On February 23, 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case, letting stand the ruling of the lower court.
Later that year, a new majority was elected to the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors. They soon followed Petaluma’s lead in approving a new general plan that called for concentrated growth in the cities, limited development in rural areas, preservation of agricultural lands, and greenbelts between urban areas.
The new plan was timely, as right after Petaluma adopted its growth limits in 1972, the development tsunami moved on to Rohnert Park to the north of town, where a standard building lot sold for $10,000 less than in Petaluma, and $20,000 less than in southern Marin.
As developers descended upon Rohnert Park, the city’s population, which stood at 7,200 in 1972, tripled within six years to 22,000. In 1978, the city resorted to implementing its own growth management plan of 650 units a year, placing a hold on land annexation.
Meanwhile, Petaluma had become the darling of the “slow growth movement,” with Putnam receiving invitations to speak around the state and across the county. The second wave of feminism was happening all around her, and as one of only handful of women mayors in the country, she was asked to speak before women’s organizations, including the inaugural meetings of the Sonoma County chapters of NOW and the National Women’s Political Caucus.
But Putnam never served as a spokesperson for the feminist movement, nor even made public references to it. Instead, she was something more important than a mouthpiece: she was a model.
In 1976, Putnam was elected the first woman president of the League of California Cities. Later, in 1982, the league created the Helen Putnam Award for Excellence in her honor that continues to this date, bestowed upon city governments that demonstrate innovative problem solving.
In 1978,Putnam successfully ran for a seat on the county board of supervisors, representing Petaluma, Penngrove, and Cotati. Sadly, becoming a supervisor required that Putnam step down as principal and first grade teacher of Two Rock Union School.
As only the second woman elected to the board, she served alongside Helen Rudee, the first woman elected two years before. Much of the board’s focus in Putnam’s first four years was devoted to implementing the new general plan which imposed controlled growth upon the county. She was reelected to a second four-year term in 1982.
Two years later, Putnam entered the Petaluma hospital for cancer surgery. She unexpectedly died following the surgery of a blood clot at the age of 75.
A few months before, she had addressed a black-tie fundraiser in Petaluma for California Lt. Governor Leo McCarthy, sponsored by the Petaluma branch of the American Association of University Women.
“I’m proud,” she told the gathering, “very proud, that everything I’ve done in my adult life, no matter how it turned out, I’ve done right here in this town.”
It was, McCarthy later remarked, like witnessing a real-life character from Thornton Wilder’s play “Our Town.”
*****
SOURCES
Newspapers 1930-1946
Petaluma Argus-Courier: “Annual Dinner of Commerce Chamber,” March 13, 1934; “Elks Will Hold Memorial Service Sunday Night,” November 30, 1934; “B.P.W. Hold Spring Fashion Show,” February 27, 1937; “Petaluma’s Baby Service Club Receives Charter,” AC, May 21, 1937; “Miss Helen Du Mont is Bride at Oakland,” July 19, 1937; “Easter Bonnet Parade is Scheduled for Tonight at Woman’s Club,” March 9, 1939; “N. Thompson Again Heads School Board,” July 10, 1941; “$500,000 Housing Program Here,” April 2, 1946; “Style and Color Feature Fashions on Display at Show Given by Silver Spray Lodge,” April 6, 1946.
Newspapers 1947-1964
Petaluma Argus-Courier: “18 New Homes to Be Built In Petaluma,” January 11, 1947; “Alice Burmester Installed as New Gamma Gamma President by Helen Putnam,” March 13, 1947; “W.J. Minogue Holds Lead in Election,” June 17, 1947; “Helen Putnam Heads School Board,” July 2, 1947; “All Out Vote Urged in Special School Bond Election,” June 21, 1948; “Petaluma Gets Plan for New Freeway,” August 31, 1948; “Mrs. H. Putnam Represents School Boards at Trustees Convention at Long Beach,” October 16, 1948; “The Schools of Today,” April 26, 1949; “First of 1949 Fashion Series,” May 25, 1949; “Early Petaluma is Subject of Talk by Mrs. Helen Putnam,” October 21, 1949; Ad for “Shopper’s Guide with Helen Putnam,” December 12, 1949; “City Council,” December 20, 1949; “Helen Putnam in Demand as Fashion Show Commentator,” October 11, 1950; “Great Changes Are Expected Here Due to the Residence Area,” January 5, 1952; “Sonoma County School Trustees Association,” May 26, 1952; “Mrs. Putnam Quits City Planning Commission,” December 8, 1953; “Mrs. Putnam Reports NSBA Convention, Atlantic City,” March 9, 1954; “Board President Writes, A Look at Area’s Schools: with New Money, Without,” December 4, 1954; “Bond Issue, State Loan Both Carry,” December 8, 1954; “Shopping Center, More Homes Due,” January 27, 1955; “Novak Expands Plan for East Petaluma,” August 19, 1955; “Education Chief Returns; Opposes U.S. Education Aid,” December 6, 1955; “Another Big Subdivision Planned,” February 22, 1956; “Kenilworth School Dedication Sunday,” September 14, 1957; “Mrs. Putnam Speaks Against Tenure Plan,” April 16, 1959; “Immediate need is Solved; Later Need is Postponed,” May 21, 1959; “Voters Drop Two From School Board,” June 10, 1959; “High School District Can Now Play New Schools,” November 5, 1959.
Santa Rosa Press Democrat: “$150,000 Special Bond Issue for Schools is Called,” September 21, 1950; “Bay Area Population Wave Rolls Toward Lower Sonoma County,” October 21, 1956; “Hope of the Future Is in Our Schools,” October 21, 1956.
Newspapers 1965-2010
Long Beach Independent: “Mayors Predict More Women in Government,” July 25, 1977.
Los Angeles Times: “Petaluma Doing ‘Just Fine’ After 17 Years of Controls,” April, 11, 1988.
Petaluma Argus-Courier: “Helen Putnam, First Woman Ever to Seek Office of Mayor,” Argus-Courier, May 25, 1965; “Group Formed Here to Restore Older Homes,” February 8, 1968; “Probe City Sewer Future,” October 16, 1970; “Annexation Rejected by Council,” December 8, 1970; “Planning Department Pays Key Role in Area Future,” April 24, 1971; “Residents favor Industry, Open Space,” April 13, 1971; “Support the Sewer Bond,” June 1, 1971; “Bind Measure in Close Vote,” June 9, 1971; “Planners Ask that Citizens’ Committees be Established,” September 9, 1971; “Sewage Disposal Problems Council’s Latest Headache,” October 21, 1971; “Environmental Design Plan Report Tuesday,” November 17, 1971; “Sewer Improvement isn’t Answer,” January 12, 1972; “How to Control Growth?” April 11, 1972; “House Builders Meet with Council on 500,” March 23, 1972; “Design Plan Passes; Is Effective at Once,” March 28, 1972; “Petaluma Environmental Play Fails to Get OK,” January 25, 1973; “Housing Limit Challenged,” April 25, 1973; “Good Case for Housing Limit,” April 26, 1973; “Putnam Traces Deeds for City,” June 8, 1973; “Measure A,” June 11, 1973; “Putnam, Mattei, Brunner, Harberson Elected to Petaluma Council Positions,” June 13, 1973; “City Loses Growth Suit,” January 18, 1974; “City Growth Ordinance Outlawed,” April 29, 1974; “Judge Burke Denies Stay in Petaluma Growth Case,” May 25, 1974; “Stay Requested on Growth Judgment,” July 11, 1974; “Growth Ruling Stay Ordered by Douglas,” July 15, 1974; “Growth Plan Upheld,” August 13, 1975; “Growth Case Moves to High Court,” AC, December 31, 1975; “Growth Review Denied,” AC, February 23, 1976; “Mayor Putnam Voices Excitement for Future,” October 19, 1976; “Putnam Elected Supervisor,” November 8, 1978; “Madame Mayor” Begins New Career,” December 25, 1978; “Helen Putnam Dies,” July 3, 1984; Don Bennett, “A Look back at Petaluma’s First Shopping Center,” August 20, 2010.
San Antonio Express: “More Females Go Into Politics,” April 14, 1968; “The Maternal Mayors?” March 10, 1968.
San Francisco Examiner: “The Lady is a Mayor,” June 27, 1965.
Santa Rosa Press Democrat: “Mrs. Putnam to Run for Mayor’s Post,” April 12, 1965; “County Supervisor Race: Growth is Key Issue to Putnam, Cavanagh,” October 3, 1978; “Putnam Elected Supervisor,” November 8, 1978.
Magazines, Books, Journals, Websites
California Planning & Development Report, “Petaluma Marks 30 Years Of Growth Control,” Apr 1, 2002. https://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-962
City of Petaluma: General Plan 2025 (May 2008). https://cityofpetaluma.org/general-plan/
Bernard J. Frieden, “The Exclusionary Effect of Growth Controls,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 465, Housing America (Jan., 1983), pp. 123-135.
Marisa Kendal, “For Whites Only: Shocking Language Found in Property Docs Throughout Bay Area,” Bay Area News Group, February 26, 2019. Bayareanewsgroup.com.
Ladies Home Journal: “The Mayor’s a Lady,” February, 1973.
Andrew Martin, Petaluma Memories Video Series, “Helen Putnam,” 2012, archive.org https://archive.org/details/cstr_vid_000248/cstr_vid_000248_04.mp4
“Helen Putnam, Papers and Correspondence, 1947 – 1984,” History Room, Petaluma Public Library.
Richard Rothstein, The Color of Money: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (Liveright Publishing, reprint edition), 2017.
Seymour I. Schwartz et al., “The Effect of Growth Control on the Production of Moderate-Priced Housing,” Land Economics, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Feb., 1984), pp. 110-114.
