Our Team

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Wine & Water Watch Team

Wine & Water Watch Board of Directors & Team


Charlotte WilliamsCharlotte Helen Williams (Calistoga) has lived in Calistoga since 1982. She has been a volunteer since her teen years, most recently with the steering committees of Wine & Water Watch and Napa Vision 2050. Charlotte has also volunteered in food co-ops, her children’s elementary and high schools, in their classrooms, field trips and sports teams, at community fairs, fundraisers and bazaars, in her sons’ Boy Scout troop, as a host mother (while her daughter was an exchange student) and then an area liaison with Youth For Understanding, an international high school exchange student organization, with the Kiwanis to coordinate and build an elementary school playground, at her husband’s church, as a signature gatherer and as a coordinator for two local referendums on land use issues. She has honored her family’s tradition of offering service to the community. She ran for local city council in 2012 and learned first-hand about political power struggles. She studies diverse working communities and how they work. Charlotte is Wine & Water Watch’s secretary/treasurer.


Deb PrestonDeborah Preston (Sebastopol) has lived in Sebastopol since 1987. After receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Arizona State University and a fifteen-year career as a professional ceramist, she worked for Superior Court of California. Ms. Preston was a Nevada volunteer in the Presidential campaigns of both John Kerry and Barack Obama, and most recently volunteered full-time for Noreen Evans for Supervisor. She is a longtime supporter of Southern Poverty Law Center, and joined WWW in 2016, contributing to meetings and the website, and assisting in representing WWW at community events.


Janus MatthesJanus Holt Matthes (West Sonoma County) worked for 2 years at the experimental organic Shone Farm while obtaining a degree in Sustainable Agriculture with high honors from one of the first such programs in the nation at Santa Rosa Junior College. During that time she started the college’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program which is still expanding. In 2009 she earned a degree in Environmental Planning and graduated cum laude from Sonoma State University. Janus worked on governance, policy issues and dry farming for the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) for 9 years, 5 of which were on the CAFF State Board. She is also a long time member of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Sierra Club, where her great uncle was a founding member and President for Life . She has been an active member of Sebastopol Water Information Group (SWiG) and the Sonoma County Water Coalition (30 organizations). Janus is Lead Content Manager of the Wine & Water Watch website.


Shepherd Bliss has been an organic farmer in Sebastopol since 1992. His vineyard is mainly boysenberries. A former U.S. Army officer and United Methodist minister, he received his Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) from the University of Chicago Divinity School. After serving various parishes in the U.S. and Latin America, and teaching at Harvard, Sonoma State, Dominican University, and elsewhere, he recently retired–at 72-years-old–to focus on social justice issues.

Over the years, he has been a co-founder or officer in many environmental groups, including being the Sierra Club’s wetlands chair, writing for the Sonoma County Environmental Impact Reporter, Sebastopol Grange, Cunningham Marsh Preservation Committee, Preserve Rural Sonoma County, Blucher Creek Watershed Council, Watertrough Children’s Alliance, Apple Roots Group, etc. Dr. Bliss has contributed to 24 books and writes regularly for the local and national press, focusing on environmental and social justice issues. He has been with Wine and Water Watch since its first meeting.


 


Pamela SingerPamela Stone Singer (Occidental) grew up in a family that revered nature. She has brought this reverence and love of nature to everything she has accomplished as an adult. As a member of Wine and Water Watch, she continues to protect the environment. Pamela is a poet/teacher with California Poets in the Schools, a coach for Poetry Out Loud, and a humane educator. She wrote and presented poetry programs on a local radio show. Pamela has taught in public, private and charter schools, on an Indian reservation and has worked extensively with abused and neglected children. In 2012 she was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.  In 2014, she was nominated to be Poet Laureate of Sonoma County. She has three published books. Recently she has been working to protect the Sonoma Coast from the wine industry, developers and weakened legislation. Her chapbook, Words from the Pelicans was published in June, 2016. Pamela hopes that by reading these poems about the sea, others will experience the transformative quality of the Sonoma Coast.