One-wayers and two-wayers battled it out in public comment, but the council relied on the expertise of the consultant and the planning commission. Plus, a Q&A with Geoff Rubendall
While I don't know whether two-way or one-way is ultimately a better, safer traffic configuration, I do have to ask WHY we have to reinvent the wheel and have this conversation every few years when other, more pressing (and probably less expensive and less headache-inducing) traffic concerns should be dealt with first (like finish repaving Bodega Hwy out to Watertrough Road!). In fact, I have a lot of "why" questions about this issue:
-WHY not wait until we've lived with the other massive changes approved by the planning commission and city council that are going to affect Sebastopol traffic (the hotel on Depot Street and the condo-ification of the O'Reilly building) and see how they impact the town before deciding to create further chaos redesigning the flow of traffic?
-WHY not take an honest look at prior planning commission and city council approved measures that have made traffic worse and try to remedy those first (2-lane reduction to 1-lane)?
-WHY have a small number of people make decisions about huge issues like traffic flow and congestion when they admit that auto traffic is not their chief concern in redesigning city streets (Rubendall, Fritz)?
-WHY all this talk about making Sebastopol more walkable? This town is eminently walkable with sidewalks and crosswalks everywhere in the roughly 2-mile town radius. All the talk of turning Sebastopol into Amsterdam with bikes everywhere, or Brooklyn with closed-to-traffic streets, completely --and cruelly-- disregards the fact that Sebastopol is a town that serves a huge rural population in a hilly area that requires vehicular access by most of those people living in West County. These people not only outnumber the town residents many times over, they also pay Sebastopol sales tax with every purchase they make in town, yet they get no say in what happens in town. For all you town dwellers who pat yourself on the back for being green and buying local, try thinking about all of us who make and grow the goods you buy at your local stores but who need vehicles to transport them to you.
-WHY are the city planners and city council so unconcerned about traffic, and so blind to the fact that increased traffic is going to make their utopian vision of Sebastopol even more unattainable (walking and biking amidst angry drivers fighting traffic and who can't park their cars is no fun). Sebastopol isn't --and shouldn't be-- a theme park. It's a working town for working people. It’s an economic center covering a vast geographic area that's provides necessary goods and services to a broad area, not just constant entertainment for tourists, pedestrians and bikers. City planners and city council need to stop feeding this insatiable desire to somehow make a perfect Sebastopol. Recognize that it's a nice town with a lot going for it already, and trying to make huge infrastructure changes to it every few years, without the total support of the majority of its consumers and inhabitants (in the widest sense possible) is reckless and, ultimately, futile.
I couldn't agree with you more. It takes me a long time trying to get out into traffic each day.
Please don't include all of us who live in the city - we all don't agree with the planning commission and their pie in the sky view of a re imagined Sebastopol. In fact, most don't. The reality is this won't happen anyway as one of our past city council said it will just end up on a shelf at city hall with all the other studies (that have cost the city) gathering dust.
On a more positive note. - how about I rent a room to you and you can run for city council?
Thanks to the Sebastopol Times for ongoing thorough evenhanded reporting of this issue, and many others.
A link to comments on the One Way vs Two Way Street issue is attached. The comments highlight how the public surveys were ignored, Geoff Rubenall from Fehr and Peers was forced into backing away from his company's carefully considered trade study recommendation to back an undefined hybrid plan, the traffic situation was ignored, impacts to surrounding streets were ignored, safety impacts are not substantiated, impacts of removing parking from downtown businesses were ignored and there is no commitment to improve or maintain bicycle infrastructure.
Comments were made by authorities in the Commission Meeting regarding improved access to the Barlow and the hotel (that will never be built without tax abatements), that's may be what this was really about.
Here are detailed comments on the two way traffic plan.
But there is no need to be concerned, the time frame for this is so far out that we will all be in flying cars before it happens.
Lastly, there have been so many private meetings on this issue between City Council members and various interests that the Brown Act may come into play. Feed the following question into your favourite AI and see what you get:
Is the following statement from a City Council member in possible violation of the Brown Act in California? "Even if you attended, you're not privy to all the details, and council members have very limited time to explain their thinking at the mic. That's exactly why the conversation we had beforehand was so valuable — thank you sincerely for all of that input."
I've seen the document you are referring to and have first hand knowledge that the conversations were with constituents, not other City Council members.
Public officials consulting private individuals prior to meetings is exactly how the Brown Act is supposed to work. The Act is designed to prevent public officials consulting EACH OTHER before a public meeting. You want individual officials to have sufficient background and understandings, so they can have productive public debates with their fellow decision makers.
If a public official consults a private individual to gauge opinions, and then shares those opinions with other members to build a consensus (acting as a "hub" or intermediary), that is a "serial meeting." Serial meetings are illegal under the Brown Act.
The Brown Act requires that collective decisions, deliberations, and agreements take place in public view. A series of private meetings, calls, or emails that lead to a predetermined outcome violates this principle.
My understanding is that serial meetings are private meetings between public officials. It violates the act when more than a majority of a particular body of officials have participated in serial meetings, thereby potentially having come to a consensus prior to a public meeting. For instance, if there are 5 council members, 2 of those members could meet, discuss, and research a council related topic, but they couldn't PRE-publish their intended vote or discuss the topic with one or more of the other 3 council members prior to the public meeting where the topic is discussed.
The Act in no way precludes officials learning about topics at hand through conversations and meetings with private individuals and research materials.
In this case, I believe the conversations were not between public officials in the same decision making body. They were between a Council member and various constituents. And, in this case, the topic had already been presented in a public meeting prior to publication of the thank you for pre-meeting discussions.
I am not speaking as a lawyer nor am I representing anyone involved in this particular instance. I do serve on a Brown Act covered committee, so I have familiarity with its rules.
This is the first step in returning Sebastopol to a healthier community downtown. Now the job is to raise the money to pay for the change to two way traffic. A big thank you to those who created the plan, and to those who supported it!
The ongoing discussion is about whether Sebastopol is a Through Town, or a Destination Town. There are benefits and challenges with each choice. What does the ideal Sebastopol look like? How does it need to operate to have sustainable services and attractive amenities? How do we balance the desires of the 7,500 City residents with the 40-50,000 West County residents who engage with the City's businesses and civic functions?
There is a way that it is now. A way that informs all of our personal experiences. Any change will delight some, piss off others, and confuse the rest. We debate technical issues which are either already codified into laws or amply studied by reputable organizations. We bemoan a 4% parking loss that was going away anyways. We point to a survey, which captures less than 2% of the West County people who will be affected by Sebastopol's choices. We argue about details, which can only truly make sense in the context of the overriding vision: Through or Destination?
The only "truth" in this whole conversation is that change is coming. It can't remain the way it is now. Anyone arguing for sameness isn't seeing the big picture. Caltrans has new laws around safety and travel. The roads will change. The City has plans and opportunities enhance our business districts and create more housing. The traffic patterns will change.
Everyone will have an opinion about this or that. It's our right. It's also useful if any statement about what we are against can be embedded in a vision of what we are for, considering the changes that are already happening around us.
Sebastopol is a City not a Town, meaning we are financially responsible for ourselves even though we only get 20 cents on every dollar collected for property tax! We are still in a fiscal emergency and need to focus on what we can afford and what we can't in everything the council votes on. At this point, it's pretty clear, we can't afford much of anything.
While I don't know whether two-way or one-way is ultimately a better, safer traffic configuration, I do have to ask WHY we have to reinvent the wheel and have this conversation every few years when other, more pressing (and probably less expensive and less headache-inducing) traffic concerns should be dealt with first (like finish repaving Bodega Hwy out to Watertrough Road!). In fact, I have a lot of "why" questions about this issue:
-WHY not wait until we've lived with the other massive changes approved by the planning commission and city council that are going to affect Sebastopol traffic (the hotel on Depot Street and the condo-ification of the O'Reilly building) and see how they impact the town before deciding to create further chaos redesigning the flow of traffic?
-WHY not take an honest look at prior planning commission and city council approved measures that have made traffic worse and try to remedy those first (2-lane reduction to 1-lane)?
-WHY have a small number of people make decisions about huge issues like traffic flow and congestion when they admit that auto traffic is not their chief concern in redesigning city streets (Rubendall, Fritz)?
-WHY all this talk about making Sebastopol more walkable? This town is eminently walkable with sidewalks and crosswalks everywhere in the roughly 2-mile town radius. All the talk of turning Sebastopol into Amsterdam with bikes everywhere, or Brooklyn with closed-to-traffic streets, completely --and cruelly-- disregards the fact that Sebastopol is a town that serves a huge rural population in a hilly area that requires vehicular access by most of those people living in West County. These people not only outnumber the town residents many times over, they also pay Sebastopol sales tax with every purchase they make in town, yet they get no say in what happens in town. For all you town dwellers who pat yourself on the back for being green and buying local, try thinking about all of us who make and grow the goods you buy at your local stores but who need vehicles to transport them to you.
-WHY are the city planners and city council so unconcerned about traffic, and so blind to the fact that increased traffic is going to make their utopian vision of Sebastopol even more unattainable (walking and biking amidst angry drivers fighting traffic and who can't park their cars is no fun). Sebastopol isn't --and shouldn't be-- a theme park. It's a working town for working people. It’s an economic center covering a vast geographic area that's provides necessary goods and services to a broad area, not just constant entertainment for tourists, pedestrians and bikers. City planners and city council need to stop feeding this insatiable desire to somehow make a perfect Sebastopol. Recognize that it's a nice town with a lot going for it already, and trying to make huge infrastructure changes to it every few years, without the total support of the majority of its consumers and inhabitants (in the widest sense possible) is reckless and, ultimately, futile.
If it is ever implemented it will be a nightmare. But that is a big IF, as mentioned in the article, of course.
I couldn't agree with you more. It takes me a long time trying to get out into traffic each day.
Please don't include all of us who live in the city - we all don't agree with the planning commission and their pie in the sky view of a re imagined Sebastopol. In fact, most don't. The reality is this won't happen anyway as one of our past city council said it will just end up on a shelf at city hall with all the other studies (that have cost the city) gathering dust.
On a more positive note. - how about I rent a room to you and you can run for city council?
Thanks to the Sebastopol Times for ongoing thorough evenhanded reporting of this issue, and many others.
A link to comments on the One Way vs Two Way Street issue is attached. The comments highlight how the public surveys were ignored, Geoff Rubenall from Fehr and Peers was forced into backing away from his company's carefully considered trade study recommendation to back an undefined hybrid plan, the traffic situation was ignored, impacts to surrounding streets were ignored, safety impacts are not substantiated, impacts of removing parking from downtown businesses were ignored and there is no commitment to improve or maintain bicycle infrastructure.
Comments were made by authorities in the Commission Meeting regarding improved access to the Barlow and the hotel (that will never be built without tax abatements), that's may be what this was really about.
Here are detailed comments on the two way traffic plan.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jxpBcBoRBN3TxMdR9CQ0L-5i467SfXAF/view?usp=sharing
But there is no need to be concerned, the time frame for this is so far out that we will all be in flying cars before it happens.
Lastly, there have been so many private meetings on this issue between City Council members and various interests that the Brown Act may come into play. Feed the following question into your favourite AI and see what you get:
Is the following statement from a City Council member in possible violation of the Brown Act in California? "Even if you attended, you're not privy to all the details, and council members have very limited time to explain their thinking at the mic. That's exactly why the conversation we had beforehand was so valuable — thank you sincerely for all of that input."
Additional details provided upon request.
Hi Tibby,
RE: Brown Act.
I've seen the document you are referring to and have first hand knowledge that the conversations were with constituents, not other City Council members.
Public officials consulting private individuals prior to meetings is exactly how the Brown Act is supposed to work. The Act is designed to prevent public officials consulting EACH OTHER before a public meeting. You want individual officials to have sufficient background and understandings, so they can have productive public debates with their fellow decision makers.
If a public official consults a private individual to gauge opinions, and then shares those opinions with other members to build a consensus (acting as a "hub" or intermediary), that is a "serial meeting." Serial meetings are illegal under the Brown Act.
The Brown Act requires that collective decisions, deliberations, and agreements take place in public view. A series of private meetings, calls, or emails that lead to a predetermined outcome violates this principle.
Tibby, additional details?
Mary,
My understanding is that serial meetings are private meetings between public officials. It violates the act when more than a majority of a particular body of officials have participated in serial meetings, thereby potentially having come to a consensus prior to a public meeting. For instance, if there are 5 council members, 2 of those members could meet, discuss, and research a council related topic, but they couldn't PRE-publish their intended vote or discuss the topic with one or more of the other 3 council members prior to the public meeting where the topic is discussed.
The Act in no way precludes officials learning about topics at hand through conversations and meetings with private individuals and research materials.
In this case, I believe the conversations were not between public officials in the same decision making body. They were between a Council member and various constituents. And, in this case, the topic had already been presented in a public meeting prior to publication of the thank you for pre-meeting discussions.
I am not speaking as a lawyer nor am I representing anyone involved in this particular instance. I do serve on a Brown Act covered committee, so I have familiarity with its rules.
This is the first step in returning Sebastopol to a healthier community downtown. Now the job is to raise the money to pay for the change to two way traffic. A big thank you to those who created the plan, and to those who supported it!
The ongoing discussion is about whether Sebastopol is a Through Town, or a Destination Town. There are benefits and challenges with each choice. What does the ideal Sebastopol look like? How does it need to operate to have sustainable services and attractive amenities? How do we balance the desires of the 7,500 City residents with the 40-50,000 West County residents who engage with the City's businesses and civic functions?
There is a way that it is now. A way that informs all of our personal experiences. Any change will delight some, piss off others, and confuse the rest. We debate technical issues which are either already codified into laws or amply studied by reputable organizations. We bemoan a 4% parking loss that was going away anyways. We point to a survey, which captures less than 2% of the West County people who will be affected by Sebastopol's choices. We argue about details, which can only truly make sense in the context of the overriding vision: Through or Destination?
The only "truth" in this whole conversation is that change is coming. It can't remain the way it is now. Anyone arguing for sameness isn't seeing the big picture. Caltrans has new laws around safety and travel. The roads will change. The City has plans and opportunities enhance our business districts and create more housing. The traffic patterns will change.
Everyone will have an opinion about this or that. It's our right. It's also useful if any statement about what we are against can be embedded in a vision of what we are for, considering the changes that are already happening around us.
Sebastopol is a City not a Town, meaning we are financially responsible for ourselves even though we only get 20 cents on every dollar collected for property tax! We are still in a fiscal emergency and need to focus on what we can afford and what we can't in everything the council votes on. At this point, it's pretty clear, we can't afford much of anything.