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| Wonderful place to live. - 1/30/2012
I have lived in Sonora my entire life and love it. It is a small town with enough stores and conveniences to make it easy. Lots of things to do outdoors year round. Close to Yosemite and other fabulous things![read more...]
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| Sonora - 9/8/2009
I have lived here for almost 10 years...It works for me as a resident as I run a successful business here and teach at the college.
I am frustrated at times becasue we are so far from the airport and culturally the area is a bit weak...and the economy has of course affected everything...but that is true for most smaller cities in cal.
I will write more when i can...[read more...]
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| Friendly and Laid Back Small Town - 5/30/2009
I moved back to Sonora 3 years ago after living in the Bay Area for over 20 years and I am very happy with the friendliness and small town feel that makes me feel welcome. I recently read other comments that were very critical of Sonora. Sonora does have some issues, as does any other area. The meth users are depressing to see and there is a lot of low income and poor looking housing. However, I saw this to a much higher extent in the Bay Area. What I love about the Sonora area is that everyone cares about their fellow man. When I drive down a street, strangers will wave and smile at me. When I go to the bank, I hear friendly chatting, laughter and see people greeting each other with hugs and welcoming handshakes. In the Bay Area when I go to a bank, it is silent and serious. There is a very diverse type of people here, and many are of the "good ole boy" attitude. But I also see that almost all people are very open minded here and very easy to talk to. The old timers are charming and have wonderful tales to tell. The downtown history museum offers booklets and displays with many of these stories. Sonora has a very interesting history. Besides that, the surrounding mountains and valleys, rivers and lakes are lovely. As for the shopping - well that is a problem. However, driving to Modesto now and then is not such a bad deal. When you move to the mountains to get away from it all, you have to suffer a little. The job situation is bad and I hope that it will get better, so don't move to Sonora unless you have something good lined up. The casino's, funky bars and bikers all add a certain character to this town, I wouldn't criticize any of it.[read more...]
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| Not so pristine - 11/23/2008
Everyone will tell you how beautiful, wonderful, and safe this area is. I finally read a few paragraphs on here where someone hit the nail on the head. There is a ton of crime, drugs, and unemployment. Houseing costs and cost of living are through the roof leaving the working class in low income housing and barely able to feed their families.[read more...]
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| Friendly small town - 2/28/2008
Although Highway 49 is the main street of the town, even in dense traffic, drivers are polite. People wait for pedestrians to cross on designated crosswalks, and allow others to make needed left turns against oncoming traffic. If someone doesn't slow down for cross traffic or pedestrians, we assume they are from out of town and don't know any better. Living in a small town is pleasant in many ways, but that is one of them.[read more...]
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| The Bright Side...Well Maybe Not - 7/24/2007
On the bright side, the Black Oak Casino seems to be getting bigger and has given many new jobs to the area. Remember you can grow up, go to school, and work at the Casino, Wal-Mart, or the Prison.
Most people move to the mountains for the "Fresh Air and Clean Water" but not here. The smog from the central valley comes right in due to the inversion layer and winds. The crime rate is high and one of the hospitals just closed.
It says a lot about a community when the first sights coming into the town is a Strip Joint, a State Prison, the 1st of two Casino's (one of which has a sign pointing right which reads on your next left - Chicken Ranch Casino), and the Sewer treatment plant and ponds.
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| Sonora Review - 7/24/2007
Having lived here for almost a decade, I have found that Sonora is just plan wired. The locals that have been here for a number of years are either nice and respectable or are drunk out of work losers that have a huge egos about themselves and everything their granddaddy's did before they lost their ranches in a poker match. For a small rural county and area, Sonora has very few real working ranches. The community is all about fast development and sprawl. The area has absolutely no planning and traffic is a nightmare.
For most of the new comers, almost everyone is from the San Jose, Livermore, and Santa Cruz area. Most of these folks sold their homes for high dollars and have relocated to Sonora in hopes of becoming the new upper class. Bling, Bling in a lifted pickup trucks is everywhere. SUV's for family's lifted ten feet in the air are commonplace. Between the drug users, parolees from the prison (oh ya there’s a State Prison here to), the prison guards (what a sad scary group these folks are), developers, and everyone else; Sonora is just wired. All it takes is a stop at the town’s big shopping store, Wal-Mart to see the high concentration of different folks. It’s like going to a side show from 100 years ago.
What's also different is that everyone has tattoos,(including women - your standard moms but they also have implants and big bleached blond hair) and go to beyond normal non denominational Christian churches. Yet the amount of racially negative comments that are said is crazy. Sonora also has a group of anti gay protesters that drive in trucks around town with big signs that say "No Gays". Yet people don't seem to notice that may be a little different or insensitive. Then there’s the contestant flying of the Confederate Flag from trucks and cars in town. I mean come on, the war was over a 150 years ago and this is California not Mississippi in the 1960’s
Sonora’s economy the last few years was built on the building boom. But now that has dropped out and now people homes are worth much less they paid for them. Yet the town keeps trying to build more homes.
The local drinking water comes from Phoenix Lake that is surrounded by houses and leaking septic tanks. In the summer, the water tastes so bad that the water department gives out bottled water. The rest of the year the water tastes and smells of chlorine. Most people move to the mountains for the "Fresh Air and Clean Water" but not here. The smog from the cent[read more...]
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| Methamphetamine Capitol of California - 7/18/2007
Unfortunately, Sonora (and Tuolumne County) is a town with a “Very Dark Side”. Due to the poor local economy and high cost of living, crime is high. Along with that, Methamphetamine is king here. Local’s have become addicts and then have become criminals. Residential Burglary’s have increased and are common place. When the law-abiding residents leave their homes to go shopping, on vacation, or simply to work, the “others” come and take. The murder rate is also high here in comparison to many large cities. The mother load region attracts many folks with different ideas. Many famous Killers have resided in the area. Some examples are Cary Stayner, the Yosemite Killer, Charles Ng and Richard Lake, Killed and Raped 11 People, Wesley Shermantine, Killed at least 4 people and dumped the bodies down abandon mine shafts, and the Russian Mafia killed 11 and dumped the bodies into New Melones Reservoir from two area road bridges.
The area is beautiful but unfortunately holds many secrets. Local citizens are involved in many Skinhead and Aryan Nation groups. Local steams are polluted from dumping of chemicals from drug labs and large marijuana garden grows from the Mexican drug cartels grow everywhere in the Stanislaus National Forest. The areas below 6000 feet in elevation where people do have a chance to fish and recreate is littered with vandalism, arson, dumping, murders, and rapes. The Wild West in some ways still does still occur here.
Unfortunately the local police and sheriff’s department is understaffed and can not prevent such problems other than respond to the complaints for report purposes. For such a small area and community it’s unusual to have so many problems. But after living in this community for a number of years I am glad to have moved my family to a safer community. Mayberry does not exist in Sonora and Tuolumne County but it does in other places.
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| Lack of affordable housing - 5/24/2006
There is a definate lack of affordable housing for the working class families that live here. There are many homes for sale, though the market tends to lend itself to out of towners from the bay area who have cash and are relocating.[read more...]
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