Don't fence us out ... and other issues
City council recap of the Oct. 1 Sebastopol City Council meeting
All councilmembers were present for the Oct. 1 council meeting, including Mayor Diana Rich, Vice Mayor Stephen Zollman, Councilmember Neysa Hinton, Councilmember Sandra Maurer, and Councilmember Jill McLewis.
The first public comment at the Oct. 1 Sebastopol City Council meeting came from Oliver Dick, who looked at the new black stanchions separating the council and city staff from the rest of the citizens in the council chamber, and said “What’s with the fence?”
We wondered the same thing.
Mayor Diana Rich explained that some members of the council said they felt unsafe at a previous council meeting when people came up to the dais and got in their faces after the contentious Measure J (anti-factory farming) vote. (Oh, those vociferous vegans.)
The fence seemed especially superfluous, given that the agenda items that evening were, for the most part, deeply bureaucratic and unlikely to arouse the passions of anyone in the room. They included the hiring of a facilitator for the council’s Goals and Priorities meeting; the choice of a voting delegate for the Mayors and Councilmembers meeting; choice of a liaison to explore the formation of a West County Homeless and Mental Health support and assistance program (OK, so this was interesting); the approval of two city intern positions; a statement of intent to combine Sebastopol Fire with the Gold Ridge Fire (while this is—or at least was—a hot issue, this particular statement was merely a bureaucratic step required to kick off the LAFCO consolidation process); waiving a permit fee for a new event called Trashlantis; and consideration of policies regarding the mayor and vice mayor positions.
Consent Calendar
(The consent calendar consists of items that are routine in nature or don’t require additional discussion, often because they’ve been discussed extensively at a previous council meeting.)
In addition to approving the minutes of previous city council meetings, the city council approved the following on a unanimous vote:
Receipt of the annual sanitary sewer system performance report.
Receipt of notice to amend the city of Sebastopol Conflict of Interest code. Amendments include the addition of new city positions that participate in governmental decisions and revision of disclosure categories as appropriate; narrowing disclosure requirements to the duties and responsibilities of city positions; and including language regarding e-filing with the Fair Political Practices Commission.
Approval of resolution amending city personnel rules and regulations (adding at-will position language to the rules and regulations, as well as state law language changes and other minor clean ups).
Regular Agenda
Choice of a facilitator for the city council Goals and Priorities meeting
After interviewing five firms, city staff recommended that the city council choose the firm Baker Tilly. The cost for the facilitation of this meeting is $10,000. Vice Mayor Zollman preferred the application of the other recommended firm, The Mejorando Group, and indicated that he felt the council had directed enough money to Baker Tilly this year (they also did the financial analysis of the city this spring) and that he would prefer a more neutral facilitator who didn’t have preconceived notions about the city. Others felt that having a local company that was familiar with the city was a better choice. The vote broke 3 to 2 in favor of Baker Tilly, with Mayor Rich and Vice Mayor Zollman dissenting.
Mayors and Councilmembers Meeting
Mayor Rich is unable to attend the upcoming Mayors and Councilmembers meeting, which is made up of city electeds from Sonoma County. Vice Mayor Zollman will vote in her place. In addition, Zollman had put his name forward to be on the Measure O Oversight Committee. The council advised Zollman to vote for himself and Cotati Vice Mayor Ben Ford for that committee position.
City Council Liaison to explore West County Homeless and Mental Health Support and Assistance Program
Police Chief Ron Nelson asked the city council to appoint a council member to work as a liaison with the police chief to explore the formation of a West County homeless and mental health support and assistance program.
Chief Nelson reiterated that his staff spends 50% of their time dealing with homeless individuals. He said the department had dealt with 64 mental health emergencies (not necessarily homeless) in the last two years.
The two programs that Nelson is monitoring are Petaluma’s SAFE program and the county’s Mobile Support Team (MST), which Sebastopol already has access to, though response times have sometimes been slow. Nelson said that SAFE offers the most wrap-around services, but it comes with quite a hefty price tag ($1.1 million in Petaluma).
Both Councilmembers Hinton and McLewis called this “the right idea at the wrong time,” given Sebastopol’s budget crisis, but they were outvoted by their colleagues, who appointed Vice Mayor Zollman as the liaison to explore these alternatives to policing for dealing with mental health issues.
Three quick topics
In quick succession, the council unanimously passed an budget amendment for $2,500 to fund two intern positions for the city; agreed to submit a letter of intent to LAFCO to consolidate Sebastopol Fire with the Gold Ridge Fire Protection District; and waived $825 in permit fees for Trashlantis, a kinetic sculpture festival planned for October 26 at the Sebastopol Community Cultural Center. Learn more about Trashlantis, which its website describes as “An Active Transport, Zero-Waste, Music+ Eco-Festival.”
Reviewing council policies: mayor and vice mayor positions
The City Council Policy Ad Hoc committee is working on creating a policy handbook for councilmembers. As such, the committee, made up of Mayor Rich and Vice Mayor Zollman, is reviewing different council policies and bringing them back to the council for approval.
In the past mayor and vice mayor have been chosen via nomination and council vote. At this meeting, the council voted to change the way the city council will choose the mayor and vice mayor in the future to make it more “objective.”
Council voted unanimously to create a policy that the vice mayor automatically becomes mayor the next year.
Next, in a 3 to 2 vote (Maurer and Hinton dissenting), the council approved a policy that the selection of vice mayor is determined by the number of votes received in the previous election.
To quote from Sandra Maurer’s email recap, “In the 2022 election Stephen Zollman received the most votes, followed by Jill McLewis and then myself. Therefore, in December Stephen will become Mayor, and Jill Vice Mayor. In December 2025 Jill would become Mayor and I would become Vice Mayor.” This means Maurer would not have a chance to be mayor unless she ran again.
Councilmember Hinton, perhaps noting how long this discussion was taking (almost two hours) and seeing more of such discussions in her future, said she thought the Ad Hoc was just supposed to be assembling a handbook of existing council policies and not reconsidering all of them from scratch.
That clearly was not the Ad Hoc’s understanding of their role.
The council then agreed that the mayor was the only person who could speak for the council as a whole when speaking to the media, and that all councilmembers were to alert the city manager and all other councilmembers every time they spoke to the media. (As a reporter, I spoke against this idea—though not as forcefully as I should have.)
The council also discussed where various council members should sit at the dais, decreeing that the mayor should sit in the center with the vice mayor on either side and that other councilmembers can request of the mayor where they’d like to be seated.
The Policy Ad Hoc will be presenting more policy suggestions at the next two council meetings.
You can watch the full video of the Oct. 1 council meeting here. The next city council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 15, 6 pm at the Sebastopol Youth Annex, 425 Morris St., Sebastopol.
I feel like the city council spends a lot of money on facilitators when the mayor could take on that role without additional expense.