That means that all other places in SONOMA County will have a lower sales tax. It's laughable that Lynda Hopkins supports Measure U. Hopkins, Gurney, Glass, and Rich all supported removing the TOT, Sales Tax, and Tourist money by turning Sebastopol's only downtown hotel in homeless housing, costing Sebastopol Residents $400,000 annually. At this point, Sebastopol residents have lost $1.6 million from this single decision, enough to cover the budget deficit. Then the same crew - Hopkins, Gurney, Glass and Rich all forced the failed Horizon Shine Village on Sebastopol, despite huge protests by residents. The failed Horizon Shine cost $1.2 million in tax money, housed exactly zero people and businesses are still living with RVs on 116. Sebastopol citizens have paid over $500,000 in legal fees for a law suit against the City brought by people living in the RV Village! Sebastopol spends 50% of its police money on calls to the homeless. Sebastopol residents pay for a homeless outreach coordinator who hands out free coffee and cell phone chargers to homeless people and has doubled the homeless population in one year! See the Sebastopol Times article: https://www.sebastopoltimes.com/p/sebastopols-homeless-outreach-coordinator
It's insane that Council is asking residents to pay more for everything when they are handing stuff out for free to homeless people, who are draining City resources.
Hopkins has no homeless services in Forestville. Hopkins tax rate will remain the same. The City should be reimbursed for all its services that it provides to the County like the Senior Center, Ives Pool, homeless housing in Park Village, Elderberry Commons, and its affordable housing projects like Burbank and Woodmark. All these benefit West County. Sebastopol should not have to pay more. The County should be reimbursing for lost TOT from the loss of the Sebastopol Inn. Supporters of U like Gurney, Glass, Slater, Rich, Hopkins, Litwin are all the same people who created this fiscal crisis. Litwin received a lucrative consulting contracted for Co-Mission during the pandemic. He got over $200,000 in tax money for doing absolutely nothing to support local businesses during the pandemic. Sebastopol's fiscal crisis was caused by irresponsible behavior not by lack of money. That is why Sebastopol and NO OTHER town in Sonoma County is in a fiscal emergency and has such extreme infrastructure failure. Look around. What is the financial health of Cotati, Windsor, Healdsburg, Sonoma? What are their tax rates? What is the condition of their infrastructure? Measure U will not solve the problems in Sebastopol as Sebastopol's financial problems were not caused by lack of money but by financial incompetence.
- Water and Sewer rates doubling not due to increased costs but necessary to pay down debt from accumulated deficits over the past five years that past city councils failed to address. These deficits were caused by poor assumptions in the 2019 water rate study and errors resulting in underbilling for sewer services for the last 5 years. Now rate payers are paying the price for poor decisions and failure to act, that are not their responsibility.
- The city has also been taking money from the water and sewer rate payers and using it to pay for general fund expenses. This is actually illegal and violates the state constitution. When public comments finally compelled the city to study the problem, it turned out the city has been taking as much as $700,000 a year from water and sewer rate payers, likely for many years. It has stopped for now.
- Water and Sewer rate payers are also paying $160,000 a year for a loan to install new wireless water meters. The loan was presented to a past city council as free money due to offsetting savings due to lower energy costs. Public comments at the time made it clear that the public understood wireless water meters don't save energy. The past city council moved ahead anyway. Now rate payers are paying the price. The old water meters seemed to be working just fine.
- A new city manager and hopefully replacing the "old guard" (Hinton & Rich) on city council may be the answer to turning the city around.
Raising taxes is the easy solution to the city’s financial problems. Looking at the list of organizations and individuals that support this tax increase confirms that advocating for tax increases it the path to popularity for any politician brave enough to step forward. Thinking about the list of supporters, it becomes obvious how many people and organizations such as unions have their hands out and expect a payoff from the increase.
The hard solution is to identify the reasons downtown businesses are vacant and step up with solutions. Unfortunately, this is likely to be a less popular and rewarded path. Sebastopol is unique in the county in that it has never had a Community Development Director. This is likely the result of the antibusiness focus of the Sebastopol Tomorrow group.
Fighting this entrenched special interest be it the antibusiness Sebastopol Tomorrow or the unions requires many more residents to participate in our political processes. These special interests spend a lot of energy to keep residents in the dark. The Sebastopol Times and increasingly the PD are beginning to show some light on what is going on in Sebastopol politics.
Couldn't agree more with Kate Haug and Lee Mathias' comments. For the last 22 years I have supported tax increases BUT NOT THIS TIME. Past City Councils (Hinton, Rich, Glass, Gurney, etc.) have pulled the wool over citizen's eyes for a very long time, which is why we are all paying lots more for water and sewer and are paying off a huge loan for the smart water meters (that are failing) for years and years to come. Probably should have been a specific tax to be used for the top issues taxpayers are concerned about fire, roads, and police. Then it would have to be used for those issues and only those issues. This tax measure can be used for any of the items listed in the text. It is all up to the City Council as to where the money is spent and as stated in the measure, it can go to "general government use" which seems pretty broad...
Balancing the Sebastopol City budget has always been a challenge, given the disparity between the population this city actually serves and the actual tax-paying population within the City limits. Who thinks bike boulevards and beautification are more urgent here than our core public services like roads, sewer and water systems and public safety? Until there is some candid public discussion about the causes of the current financial crisis, along with a plan to avoid same in future, asking us to pony up more money for “general government use” is a pretty big ask.
Measure U will make Sebastopol's sales tax the highest in Sonoma County. The ONLY other places with 10.25% are Los Angeles and Alameda Counties. https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/taxes-and-fees/rates.aspx
That means that all other places in SONOMA County will have a lower sales tax. It's laughable that Lynda Hopkins supports Measure U. Hopkins, Gurney, Glass, and Rich all supported removing the TOT, Sales Tax, and Tourist money by turning Sebastopol's only downtown hotel in homeless housing, costing Sebastopol Residents $400,000 annually. At this point, Sebastopol residents have lost $1.6 million from this single decision, enough to cover the budget deficit. Then the same crew - Hopkins, Gurney, Glass and Rich all forced the failed Horizon Shine Village on Sebastopol, despite huge protests by residents. The failed Horizon Shine cost $1.2 million in tax money, housed exactly zero people and businesses are still living with RVs on 116. Sebastopol citizens have paid over $500,000 in legal fees for a law suit against the City brought by people living in the RV Village! Sebastopol spends 50% of its police money on calls to the homeless. Sebastopol residents pay for a homeless outreach coordinator who hands out free coffee and cell phone chargers to homeless people and has doubled the homeless population in one year! See the Sebastopol Times article: https://www.sebastopoltimes.com/p/sebastopols-homeless-outreach-coordinator
It's insane that Council is asking residents to pay more for everything when they are handing stuff out for free to homeless people, who are draining City resources.
Hopkins has no homeless services in Forestville. Hopkins tax rate will remain the same. The City should be reimbursed for all its services that it provides to the County like the Senior Center, Ives Pool, homeless housing in Park Village, Elderberry Commons, and its affordable housing projects like Burbank and Woodmark. All these benefit West County. Sebastopol should not have to pay more. The County should be reimbursing for lost TOT from the loss of the Sebastopol Inn. Supporters of U like Gurney, Glass, Slater, Rich, Hopkins, Litwin are all the same people who created this fiscal crisis. Litwin received a lucrative consulting contracted for Co-Mission during the pandemic. He got over $200,000 in tax money for doing absolutely nothing to support local businesses during the pandemic. Sebastopol's fiscal crisis was caused by irresponsible behavior not by lack of money. That is why Sebastopol and NO OTHER town in Sonoma County is in a fiscal emergency and has such extreme infrastructure failure. Look around. What is the financial health of Cotati, Windsor, Healdsburg, Sonoma? What are their tax rates? What is the condition of their infrastructure? Measure U will not solve the problems in Sebastopol as Sebastopol's financial problems were not caused by lack of money but by financial incompetence.
Examples of financial incompetence:
- Water and Sewer rates doubling not due to increased costs but necessary to pay down debt from accumulated deficits over the past five years that past city councils failed to address. These deficits were caused by poor assumptions in the 2019 water rate study and errors resulting in underbilling for sewer services for the last 5 years. Now rate payers are paying the price for poor decisions and failure to act, that are not their responsibility.
- The city has also been taking money from the water and sewer rate payers and using it to pay for general fund expenses. This is actually illegal and violates the state constitution. When public comments finally compelled the city to study the problem, it turned out the city has been taking as much as $700,000 a year from water and sewer rate payers, likely for many years. It has stopped for now.
- Water and Sewer rate payers are also paying $160,000 a year for a loan to install new wireless water meters. The loan was presented to a past city council as free money due to offsetting savings due to lower energy costs. Public comments at the time made it clear that the public understood wireless water meters don't save energy. The past city council moved ahead anyway. Now rate payers are paying the price. The old water meters seemed to be working just fine.
- A new city manager and hopefully replacing the "old guard" (Hinton & Rich) on city council may be the answer to turning the city around.
Would like to add a public comment from the last city council meeting. Very interesting:
https://www.cityofsebastopol.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Measure-U-tax-increase-campaign-funders-vague-goals-and-concerns_Redacted.pdf
Raising taxes is the easy solution to the city’s financial problems. Looking at the list of organizations and individuals that support this tax increase confirms that advocating for tax increases it the path to popularity for any politician brave enough to step forward. Thinking about the list of supporters, it becomes obvious how many people and organizations such as unions have their hands out and expect a payoff from the increase.
The hard solution is to identify the reasons downtown businesses are vacant and step up with solutions. Unfortunately, this is likely to be a less popular and rewarded path. Sebastopol is unique in the county in that it has never had a Community Development Director. This is likely the result of the antibusiness focus of the Sebastopol Tomorrow group.
Fighting this entrenched special interest be it the antibusiness Sebastopol Tomorrow or the unions requires many more residents to participate in our political processes. These special interests spend a lot of energy to keep residents in the dark. The Sebastopol Times and increasingly the PD are beginning to show some light on what is going on in Sebastopol politics.
Couldn't agree more with Kate Haug and Lee Mathias' comments. For the last 22 years I have supported tax increases BUT NOT THIS TIME. Past City Councils (Hinton, Rich, Glass, Gurney, etc.) have pulled the wool over citizen's eyes for a very long time, which is why we are all paying lots more for water and sewer and are paying off a huge loan for the smart water meters (that are failing) for years and years to come. Probably should have been a specific tax to be used for the top issues taxpayers are concerned about fire, roads, and police. Then it would have to be used for those issues and only those issues. This tax measure can be used for any of the items listed in the text. It is all up to the City Council as to where the money is spent and as stated in the measure, it can go to "general government use" which seems pretty broad...
Balancing the Sebastopol City budget has always been a challenge, given the disparity between the population this city actually serves and the actual tax-paying population within the City limits. Who thinks bike boulevards and beautification are more urgent here than our core public services like roads, sewer and water systems and public safety? Until there is some candid public discussion about the causes of the current financial crisis, along with a plan to avoid same in future, asking us to pony up more money for “general government use” is a pretty big ask.