Sebastopol City Council OKs a Narcan distribution box outside the library
Recap of the March 3 city council meeting
The council chambers were packed on Tuesday night, primarily with members of the city’s public works and administrative employees’ union (SEIU); supporters of one-way and two-way streets; and a smattering of Micah’s Hugs supporters, intent on reversing a previous council decision on Narcan distribution boxes.
Vice Mayor Sandra Maurer, Councilmember Phill Carter, Councilmember Neysa Hinton, and Councilmember Stephen Zollman were present in chambers for the March 3 Sebastopol City Council meeting. Mayor Jill McLewis was absent.
Preliminaries
Public Arts Committee Interviews: After interviewing four strong candidates for three positions, the council chose committee veterans Robert Brent and Barbara Harris and newcomer Nicole Letaw for the Public Arts Committee.
Proclamations: The city council declared March 15 through March 21 as National Surveyors Week and March 2026 as Red Cross Month and Women’s History Month.
Consent Calendar: The only significant issue on the consent calendar was the group of Surveillance Policy amendments discussed at the last council meeting, which the council voted to approve with 4 votes in favor.
Public comment for items not on the agenda: Members, representatives and supporters of SEIU spoke during the initial public comment period, complaining that the city was negotiating in bad faith and had walked away from the bargaining table. Travis Balzarini, the North Coast Regional Vice President of SEIU, mentioned all the things the union has done for the city over the years—including canvassing for Measure U—but suggested that the city’s behavior in the current negotiations threated to turn the union from an ally to an enemy. He said the membership had given the SEIU negotiations team “a strike sanction authorization,” which is a formal vote by union members empowering their negotiating team to call a strike if contract negotiations fail.
Regular Agenda items
Council approves deal with police union for a two-year contract
The council approved a Memorandum of Understanding between the city of Sebastopol and the Sebastopol Police Officers Association for the period January 1, 2026, through December 31, 2027.
In year one, the city agreed to the following salary increases based on “market equity increases.” (Market equity increases refer to salary adjustments that align an employee's pay with the prevailing wages in the wider job market.) These included the following increases:
Police Officer: 5.98%
Police Sergeant: 8.88% (20% differential between sergeant and officer)
Dispatcher: 6.88%
Communication Services & Evidence Technician: 8.88%
In year two, all active employees will receive a cost-of-living increase based on the CPI, with a minimum increase of 1% and a maximum increase of 3%.
Other details of this agreement can be found in the staff report.
This agreement will add $402,415 to the city budget over the next two years. That’s $122,235 for the current budget year and $280,180 for the next year.
City Council opts for two-way streets in downtown
The city council voted to approve the Planning Commission’s recommendation of a hybrid street plan that combined the pedestrian amenities and downtown parking of “Alternative 3: Walkable One Way” with the two-way street configuration of “Alternative 4: Totally Two Way.”
Because the Planning Commission’s hybrid alternative hasn’t been fully studied and all the Caltrans Sustainable Planning Grant money has been spent, the city will have to toss in an additional $7,000 to $10,000 dollars from the Planning Department budget to pay for Fehr & Peers consultants to do the kind of in-depth study on the hybrid option that they did on the first four alternatives.
Read our full report on this story, which also contains a Q&A with Fehr & Peers traffic consultant Geoff Rubendall.
Council approves a Narcan distribution box outside of the library
After the mass outcry that followed the council’s refusal at its Jan. 20 meeting to co-sponsor a Narcan distribution box on Main Street, Councilmembers Zollman and Carter brought back a new proposal that offered seven alternative locations for Micah’s Hugs to install a repurposed newspaper box filled with Narcan, a life-saving medication that reverses Fentanyl overdoses.
In public comment, Jeanne Fernandes, who serves on the high school board, urged the council to put distribution boxes in all seven locations, but the council, though chastened, was still somewhat hesitant. Councilmember Hinton asked for a one-year trial period. Ultimately, all four councilmembers agreed to have the city co-sponsor the box and have Michah’s Hugs install a single Narcan distribution box at a location between the Sebastopol Library and City Hall, for a period of one year. This motion passed with 4 votes in favor.
Staff Report: City Goals Survey available
The only significant staff report came from Interim City Manager Mary Gourley who noted that the city would soon be posting a Community Goals Survey to gather public input in advance of the city council’s Goals and Priorities meeting on April 14.
You can participate in that survey here.