Sebastopol City Council Recap, Part 1
Updates on fire consolidation, new funding sources for city revenue, and more
All councilmembers were present for the Sept. 3 council meeting, including Mayor Diana Rich, Vice Mayor Stephen Zollman, Councilmember Neysa Hinton, Councilmember Sandra Maurer, and Councilmember Jill McLewis.
This grueling meeting lasted ’til 11 pm, but that wasn’t long enough to finish up the ambitious list of items on that night’s agenda. The meeting covered some big, juicy topics: fire consolidation, new revenue sources for the city, the EIFD and preparations for hiring a new police chief.
According to Councilmember Sandra Maurer, “Three items on the agenda (selecting a facilitator for a goal-setting session, discussion of council priorities, and the fleet assessment contract) were not addressed. They will come back at the next council meeting on Sept. 17, or a special council meeting will be scheduled.”
Welcoming the new city attorney
The meeting began with the introduction of Alex Mog, the new city attorney, who was in attendance at a council meeting for the first time in this official capacity. Mog is an attorney at Redwood Public Law in Oakland.
Awards and Proclamations
This was followed up by Years of Service awards to financial analyst Miko Lim (5 years) and volunteer fireman Alexander Roa (10 years). The council then proclaimed September as National Senior Center Month and Sept. 15-Oct. 15, as National Hispanic Heritage Month.
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 from previous meetings, the city council unanimously approved the following items:
Approval of artist for a new sculpture by the Joe Rodota Trail and an agreement with the Sonoma County Regional Parks to have Sebastopol’s Public Arts Commission place the sculpture on park grounds at the head of the trailhead on Petaluma Avenue.
Approval of the completion of work of the pedestrian improvements near the high school at Sunset Avenue and Taft Street.
Approval of completion of ADA upgrades at the Sebastopol Youth Annex.
Two items were pulled off the consent calendar for discussion later in the evening, including salary schedules for city engineers and a fleet management study.
Presentation: LAFCO Update on Fire Consolidation
Mark Bramfitt of LAFCO, the Local Agency Formation Commission, gave an update on the progress of the consolidation of the Sebastopol Fire Department and Gold Ridge Fire Protection District. He pointed out that, technically, this was a “reorganization,” in which the fire department would be detached from the city of Sebastopol and annexed by Gold Ridge. Before the annexation process can begin, however, LAFCO has to prepare a Municipal Service Review and Sphere of Influence amendment, which is currently in the works and expected to be approved at LAFCO’s October meeting.
Bramfitt said that citizens of Sebastopol will have an opportunity to participate in a “referendum” on the fire department consolidation.
“I want to be really clear to the citizens of Sebastopol that they will have an opportunity to weigh in on this process,” Bramfitt said. “LAFCO has a statutory role to conduct what we call a ‘protest proceeding.’ You could call it a referendum. It gives the citizens a chance to say, ‘Hey, wait a minute, we don’t like this item.” That could either force an election or it could actually nullify the proposal.”
“We send out notices to all landowners, because they’re going to be affected by taxes. So they get a chance to say, ‘No, we don’t like this proposal.’ We also put notices in the newspaper and say, ‘Hey, voters, you can also protest.’ We count the piles completely separately. If either pile gets to 25% [of landowners or registered voters], we go to an election.”
He also noted that Gold Ridge was planning to do a single application to annex both Sebastopol and Monte Rio fire departments. This would also mean their referendum votes would be co-mingled. He advised the city to make a decision about whether it would prefer to be annexed separately.
He also noted that, should the city change its mind about consolidation, it could be reversed. The reorganization can be “undone” in the future by following the same process. He also noted that this had never happened during his long tenure at LAFCO.
Report from the Fire Ad Hoc
Councilmembers Jill McLewis and Neysa Hinton presented the council with a list of duties and tasks for the Fire Ad Hoc committee. After a long discussion, the council suggested they add two more items: regular reports to council and reports out to budget committee on issues that have a financial impact. With these additions, the council voted unanimously to approve the Fire Ad Hoc committee’s duties and tasks. See the Fire Ad Hoc report here.
Revenue Measures
City staff and the city council’s Budget Committee had a two-hour meeting with staff in August to decide which revenue-producing strategies (in addition to the sales tax) the city should prioritize. Then city staff reviewed that list and came up with the following list of most promising strategies:
Expand Economic Development.
Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District (EIFD) (More on this topic in Part 2 of this city council recap.)
Review User Fees.
Initiate Development Impact Fees.
Update Building Valuation Fees.
Consider Trench Cut Ordinance.
Councilmember Jill McLewis recommended breaking down item #1 into a few more concrete, actionable items. “A few little steps is better than staring at a whole mountain and not taking any,” she said.
In the end there was some confusion about multiple priority lists, and these lists were sent back to the Budget Committee for review. See the staff report on revenue measures here.
Part 2 of this city council recap will appear tomorrow.
Watch the full Sept. 3 Sebastopol city council meeting here. The next Sebastopol City Council meeting is on Sept. 17 at 6 pm at the Sebastopol Youth Annex.
I think you may be confused as to what consolidation of fire organizations might be. It's a better use of the taxpayers money. This in no way effects how we do business. It does however gives us a better chance to have equipment and personnel to your emergency in a timely matter. As for your example of the fire on Tilton Rd. not only local agencies were dispatched as well as ground and air support from Calfire, depending on the location the only thing that changes is who is charge of the incident i.e. local or state agencies. In the state and county there is wide range of mutual aid agreement which exist just for these kinds of incidents to ensure emergency are handle with the proper personnel and equipment.
Question, with consolidation of fire organizations, what will be the interface with CalFire as in for example, the recent fire on Tilton Road where aircraft were CalFire, but I suppose there were people on the ground?
Thanks