Hmmm, I’ve mentioned to people thinking of moving to “Sebastopol “, that the region is nice, but be careful of living in the city limits. So many controversies over funding and trash collection and water and “politically correct “ concepts.
Tactically short term challenges and questionable choices, the hospital, CVS, funding for maintenance. Sigh. I’m glad I live in West County.
Thank you Sebastopol Times for persevering in your important journalism.
What kind of agreement lets either party back out but payments still have to be made? This is just thievery. The city needs a citizens fiscal oversight board without business interests, careers to grow or axes to grind.
this city somehow finds itself in these predicament where staff or council members make decisions that become financial debacles for the citizens. The hospital was one, and I don’t think we’ll ever be finished paying for that. when staff who are paid to do their job competently make mistakes like this there needs to be real consequences not just I’m sorry, otherwise other employees will not feel compelled to do their job correctly and responsibly.
It seems like an old friends club and no one wants anyone’s feelings hurt. Well that is no way to run a city.
we paid a boatload of money to have the two-way street situation evaluated and then someone with a big brain decided to ignore most of the suggestions. People who lived here when we had a two-way street design and half the traffic tried to give their experience and were ignored because somebody with a big brain thought they knew better. I hope that not a single dime that we do not have will be spent on changing the streets to two way. just get some paint and erase the under utilized bike lanes on Healdsburg Avenue. Going back to two lanes there. Put it back the way it was and everything is just fine without spending money we don’t have.
It is concerning that Vice Mary Sandra Maurer is horrified. It was not the fault of the company, it was the fault of the "Administrative Services Director" - that was obvious. If Sandra doesn't know there are concerns in this area, she has not been paying attention. Those of us who have been paying attention know information has been inconsistent, to say the least, and wonder what else is going on that the public doesn't know about. Probably the most important issue in any city is fiscal responsibility and there are many questions about that in our city right now.
Hi Mary - I just wanted to clarify this. Sandra wrote me soon after this article came out.
"At the meeting, I should not have said, 'I can’t fault the city at all.' That statement was a reaction," she wrote. "There’s really no excuse for not billing 9 customers. But since the repayments were spread over 10 years, I don’t believe the missed bills were the primary cause of the loss. The program failed because BayREN closed it. The staff did what they could to negotiate a settlement."
Let's give her a little grace here. Sometimes, when you're shocked or surprised, you say things you wish you hadn't--things you don't actually even believe. That seems to be what happened here. I'm going to include this clarification in Sunday's RoundUp.
If an AI looked at the contract it would flag this immediately. Upon reflection it is total incompetence on the part of city staff that they did not do this. Don't get into the anti-ai pontification. If this was reviewed by an attorney and they approved it, they should be fired.
Q. The town I live in just found itself in a pickle. It had a contract with a company to work on reducing residents water use. The contract had a clause that either party could cancel but the company would still get paid. If Claude had reviewed this contract is it likely this clause (ha ha) would have been flagged as problematic?
6:58 AM
Answer:
This is a fun question! And yes, almost certainly — a clause like that would likely have been flagged during contract review.
Here's why it stands out as problematic:
It's a "pay anyway" termination clause — sometimes called a termination for convenience clause with a guaranteed payment. The core issue is that it removes the financial incentive for the company to perform. If they get paid regardless of whether the contract runs to completion, the town loses its primary leverage.
Specific red flags a reviewer would note:
The clause creates an asymmetric risk structure. The town bears all the financial risk — it pays even if it terminates for good cause (poor performance, missed targets), while the company faces no downside from cancellation. That's unusual and worth questioning.
It could conflict with public interest obligations. For a municipal contract funded by taxpayers, "we have to pay them even if we fire them" is a tough thing to explain to residents — and some jurisdictions have procurement rules that frown on or prohibit such arrangements.
The scope of the guaranteed payment matters enormously. Is it the full contract value? A percentage? There's a big difference between a reasonable kill fee (common and defensible) and full payment regardless of work completed (much harder to justify).
It may undermine performance accountability. If the goal is reducing water use, there should ideally be performance milestones tied to payment. A clause that decouples payment from performance cuts against that entirely.
To be fair, termination-for-convenience clauses with some payment protection for vendors are actually common and not inherently bad — contractors take on real costs and risks when they commit to a project. A kill fee covering work already done or mobilization costs is reasonable. The problem is when it extends to full payment regardless of circumstances, which tips from fair to one-sided.
So yes — a good contract review would almost certainly have flagged this for renegotiation, or at minimum asked the town to clearly understand what they were agreeing to before signing.
I thought the same thing. What kind of contract did the city sign that made them liable for the full cost of the program if BayREN decided to fold the tent? To be fair the city council frequently votes for things that "feel right" (save the planet) even when there are legal issues or even strong public opposition. In this case they were also doing one of their favorite things, demonstrating that Sebastopol is a leader showing the way for the big cities in California. Sebastopol was the first to sign up for BayREN in the Bay area.
Here is a quote from the meeting they approved this:
"The program will be turn-key for us where we won’t have to make any additional hires, and we won’t have to manage it," said Sebastopol Vice Mayor Sarah Gurney. "For an understaffed small city with a lot of older houses, the program offers great benefit.”
It wasn't as attractive as expected with something like 50 households participating. "Not having to manage the program" was not true - The billing system had to be modified to apply the charge. Each charge had to be manually entered into the system. Questions had to be answered. A monthly report and payment had to be sent to Bayren. It turns out that "understaffing" was an issue as 9 households that joined the program never got the charge put on their bill by the city.
Of course, no mention that the city would be on the hook for paying off all the debts if the program folded. Given the nature of the public discourse on the "historic drought" at the time you can imagine the desire to get attention for doing the right thing for the planet without much concern for risks to the city's financial security.
Hmmm, I’ve mentioned to people thinking of moving to “Sebastopol “, that the region is nice, but be careful of living in the city limits. So many controversies over funding and trash collection and water and “politically correct “ concepts.
Tactically short term challenges and questionable choices, the hospital, CVS, funding for maintenance. Sigh. I’m glad I live in West County.
Thank you Sebastopol Times for persevering in your important journalism.
What kind of agreement lets either party back out but payments still have to be made? This is just thievery. The city needs a citizens fiscal oversight board without business interests, careers to grow or axes to grind.
It’s pretty bad form for the Council to address staff issues in the public meeting.
this city somehow finds itself in these predicament where staff or council members make decisions that become financial debacles for the citizens. The hospital was one, and I don’t think we’ll ever be finished paying for that. when staff who are paid to do their job competently make mistakes like this there needs to be real consequences not just I’m sorry, otherwise other employees will not feel compelled to do their job correctly and responsibly.
It seems like an old friends club and no one wants anyone’s feelings hurt. Well that is no way to run a city.
we paid a boatload of money to have the two-way street situation evaluated and then someone with a big brain decided to ignore most of the suggestions. People who lived here when we had a two-way street design and half the traffic tried to give their experience and were ignored because somebody with a big brain thought they knew better. I hope that not a single dime that we do not have will be spent on changing the streets to two way. just get some paint and erase the under utilized bike lanes on Healdsburg Avenue. Going back to two lanes there. Put it back the way it was and everything is just fine without spending money we don’t have.
Well, that sucks! When will we get some good news? I appreciate Sebastopol Times making this info public. Thank you... again!
That is only the beginning of the bad news. Read the public comments from the last 6 months!
A storm in a toilet bowl.
It is concerning that Vice Mary Sandra Maurer is horrified. It was not the fault of the company, it was the fault of the "Administrative Services Director" - that was obvious. If Sandra doesn't know there are concerns in this area, she has not been paying attention. Those of us who have been paying attention know information has been inconsistent, to say the least, and wonder what else is going on that the public doesn't know about. Probably the most important issue in any city is fiscal responsibility and there are many questions about that in our city right now.
Hi Mary - I just wanted to clarify this. Sandra wrote me soon after this article came out.
"At the meeting, I should not have said, 'I can’t fault the city at all.' That statement was a reaction," she wrote. "There’s really no excuse for not billing 9 customers. But since the repayments were spread over 10 years, I don’t believe the missed bills were the primary cause of the loss. The program failed because BayREN closed it. The staff did what they could to negotiate a settlement."
Let's give her a little grace here. Sometimes, when you're shocked or surprised, you say things you wish you hadn't--things you don't actually even believe. That seems to be what happened here. I'm going to include this clarification in Sunday's RoundUp.
If an AI looked at the contract it would flag this immediately. Upon reflection it is total incompetence on the part of city staff that they did not do this. Don't get into the anti-ai pontification. If this was reviewed by an attorney and they approved it, they should be fired.
Gee, they were subsidizing low water using toilets. I bought three to replace my toilets and no one paid me anything.
A pissoir in the backyard will save tons of water.
LOL ugh
here is what Claude the AI said:
Q. The town I live in just found itself in a pickle. It had a contract with a company to work on reducing residents water use. The contract had a clause that either party could cancel but the company would still get paid. If Claude had reviewed this contract is it likely this clause (ha ha) would have been flagged as problematic?
6:58 AM
Answer:
This is a fun question! And yes, almost certainly — a clause like that would likely have been flagged during contract review.
Here's why it stands out as problematic:
It's a "pay anyway" termination clause — sometimes called a termination for convenience clause with a guaranteed payment. The core issue is that it removes the financial incentive for the company to perform. If they get paid regardless of whether the contract runs to completion, the town loses its primary leverage.
Specific red flags a reviewer would note:
The clause creates an asymmetric risk structure. The town bears all the financial risk — it pays even if it terminates for good cause (poor performance, missed targets), while the company faces no downside from cancellation. That's unusual and worth questioning.
It could conflict with public interest obligations. For a municipal contract funded by taxpayers, "we have to pay them even if we fire them" is a tough thing to explain to residents — and some jurisdictions have procurement rules that frown on or prohibit such arrangements.
The scope of the guaranteed payment matters enormously. Is it the full contract value? A percentage? There's a big difference between a reasonable kill fee (common and defensible) and full payment regardless of work completed (much harder to justify).
It may undermine performance accountability. If the goal is reducing water use, there should ideally be performance milestones tied to payment. A clause that decouples payment from performance cuts against that entirely.
To be fair, termination-for-convenience clauses with some payment protection for vendors are actually common and not inherently bad — contractors take on real costs and risks when they commit to a project. A kill fee covering work already done or mobilization costs is reasonable. The problem is when it extends to full payment regardless of circumstances, which tips from fair to one-sided.
So yes — a good contract review would almost certainly have flagged this for renegotiation, or at minimum asked the town to clearly understand what they were agreeing to before signing.
I thought the same thing. What kind of contract did the city sign that made them liable for the full cost of the program if BayREN decided to fold the tent? To be fair the city council frequently votes for things that "feel right" (save the planet) even when there are legal issues or even strong public opposition. In this case they were also doing one of their favorite things, demonstrating that Sebastopol is a leader showing the way for the big cities in California. Sebastopol was the first to sign up for BayREN in the Bay area.
Here is a quote from the meeting they approved this:
"The program will be turn-key for us where we won’t have to make any additional hires, and we won’t have to manage it," said Sebastopol Vice Mayor Sarah Gurney. "For an understaffed small city with a lot of older houses, the program offers great benefit.”
It wasn't as attractive as expected with something like 50 households participating. "Not having to manage the program" was not true - The billing system had to be modified to apply the charge. Each charge had to be manually entered into the system. Questions had to be answered. A monthly report and payment had to be sent to Bayren. It turns out that "understaffing" was an issue as 9 households that joined the program never got the charge put on their bill by the city.
Of course, no mention that the city would be on the hook for paying off all the debts if the program folded. Given the nature of the public discourse on the "historic drought" at the time you can imagine the desire to get attention for doing the right thing for the planet without much concern for risks to the city's financial security.