Vice Mayor Sandra Maurer, Councilmember Phill Carter and Councilmember Stephen Zollman were present in chambers for the July 7 Sebastopol City Council meeting. Councilmember Neysa Hinton attended via Zoom. Mayor Jill McLewis was absent.
This week, the Sebastopol City Council revisited several hot-button issues they’ve discussed over the past few months. These included a controversial council pay raise, zoning changes for A&M BBQ, and a water rate increase freeze. Unsurprisingly, the council chambers and Zoom were filled with partisans on both sides of those issues. The other big issue of the evening was a worrisome report on the mold issue at the library, which we covered earlier this week.
Quick look at the 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.
The council unanimously approved the following items:
A contract with Moe Engineering for engineering services to the city, including the continuation of John Moe, PE, as the city engineer.
A revised classification and pay range for the City Clerk position, which will now report to the City Manager.
Letter of Support, including the use of the City logo, for the California Intergovernmental Risk Authority (CIRA), a municipal self-insurance program and risk pool of which Sebastopol is a member.
Approval of an amendment to spend up to $133,784 for consulting planning services from 4Leaf until a new director of planning can be found. (Estimated length of contract: Six months or until completion of the RFP process).
Public Comment for Items not on the Agenda
Several people, including Nan Watters, Dena Bliss, Kalia Mussetter and others, spoke about the importance of the library to the Sebastopol community, especially vulnerable folks who depend on it for their computer needs and don’t have cars to drive to a nearby library. They urged the council to open a temporary location—with computers—as soon as possible. After public comment was over, City Manager Mary Gourley said the city was working hard to get the Bibliobus back in town and perhaps create a temporary library book pick-up site at the Sebastopol Community Cultural Center.
Enterprise Funds Oversight Committee (EFOC) member Kate Haug urged the council to read her recent analysis of the steps to be taken to keep the city’s Water and Sewer departments solvent and help the city become compliant with Prop 218. She opposed the council decision at their last meeting to forgo raising water rates in July and cancelling tiered water rates without balancing those revenue cuts with money coming into the system. She suggested that reimbursing Water and Sewer for legal overcharges of roughly $354,000 would be a good place to start. Speaker Kyle Falbo mentioned these overcharges as well, asking if the city was purposely courting a lawsuit. EFOC member Oliver Dick noted that the next EFOC meeting was coming up on Monday, July 20, at 10:30 am. This is a public meeting and the public is welcome to attend in person (there is very limited seating) or by Zoom.
Jeff Ellsworth, brought a petition with about 30 names from neighbors along Pleasant Hill Avenue North, who want the city to add some traffic-calming measures to the street to prevent speeding.
Presentation: The Building the Commons Committee hones in on two sites
In this third-quarter update from the Building the Commons Committee, Councilmember Stephen Zollman said the committee had narrowed its choice of possible sites for the Sebastopol Commons to two: the O’Reilly site at the north end of town or the redevelopment of the existing library site. (Just as a refresher: the Sebastopol Commons is envisioned as a civic hub that could house a new expanded library, a new city hall and a variety of local nonprofits, including the Senior Center.)
Library Director Erika Thibault said the bottom floor of the O’Reilly building was not large enough: “The first floor is 15,000 square feet, which is about 5,000 square feet short of what we would want for a space in Sebastopol,” she said. “I would also discourage a two-story library building. It creates a lot of security issues, and it’s difficult to monitor.” She urged the committee to hire a consultant to evaluate the o’Reilly space and give “a rough order of magnitude of what the cost would be to renovate it” before they proceed further in that direction.
Several speakers, including Oliver Dick, Kate Haug and Lee Mathias, encouraged the city to pressure the County to provide more money to the city for services that are used by county residents as well as Sebastopol residents—like the library, the community center and Ives Pool. These speakers also thought that, given the city’s financial situation, it was unlikely that such a project could ever be funded.
“I like the Commons idea, but the city just cannot carry this kind of grandiose project with the revenue that we have coming in,” Dick said.
Mathias wanted more details—especially financial details—but also said of the committee, “Every time I read the reports, I’m impressed. I wish we had people of that caliber with this much motivation working on things like the structural deficit in the city.”
Haug introduced the interesting idea of turning the empty Hotel Sebastopol site into a temporary library site, and Planning Commission member Paul Fritz urged the committee to keep the library and the Commons downtown.
The Committee said they will report back, with more details, including funding details, in September.
Public Hearing: The Capital Improvement Project (CIP) budget
Public Works Director Oriana Hart introduced the Capital Improvement Project Budget for 2026-27 and went through it item by item. There were few comments by council members. In public comment, Lee Mathias noted that it’s difficult to track year-to-year which projects have been completed and which are still outstanding. Kate Haug asked why the Rotary Plan for a centennial plaza in Ives Park wasn’t on the CIP. Doug Yule asked how the city prioritizes which traffic projects it does first; he encouraged them to focus on the intersection of Main Street and Burnett, a particularly dangerous place to cross the street. Hart said the Burnett crossing is at the top of their list.
The council accepted the CIP budget with a 4-vote majority.
Regular Agenda
Council raises its compensation from $300 to $900 a month
Following the City Council’s direction on May 19, 2026, city staff prepared an ordinance to increase City Council compensation from $300 to $950 per month. The new compensation rate will not become effective until January 2027. Recent legislation, sponsored by Bill Dodd, raised the cap on council compensation with the goal of removing the financial barriers that prevent working-class individuals and those with childcare or career obligations from serving.
During public comment, Kirstyne Lange, president of the Santa Rosa-Sonoma County Chapter of the NAACP, spoke in favor of this change, noting it was a part of “a statewide endeavor, supported by the NAACP across the state” as a way to make serving on city council more accessible to a diverse group of working people.
Kate Haug said, “As a citizen of Sebastopol, I one-hundred-percent support council raises. I know how hard council members work, and I admire their diligence and the hundreds and hundreds of hours that they spend working on behalf of our community.” She did note, however, that she didn’t want Water & Sewer ratepayer money to go to pay for this raise because the council spends relatively little time on that topic. Mary Cone echoed this sentiment.
Commenter Lee Mathias said, “While this is allowed by law, it’s not mandated. It seems a little bit tone deaf in the city of Sebastopol, given that you’ve repeatedly been told by your Finance Director Kwong that there is a structural deficit, which means that expenses—salaries and benefits—are growing faster than revenue.” He also noted that, “Um, if you’re doing this job for $900 a month, you might want to re-examine your life goals.”
Janelle Rovetini, whose father spent 20 years on the Sebastopol City Council, did not approve. “I think that $900 is a lot more than most people in town think it should be,” she said. “As I remember, serving on this council is done because of how much we love our city and the passion that we have for our city. I know that’s what my dad and the fellow council people he worked with over those 20 years thought—that’s just the way they worked.”
In council comment, Vice Mayor Maurer pointed out that the current $300 stipend was set in 1984—and what you could buy for $300 in 1984 would cost you roughly $950 today. “It’s a matter of respect,” she said.
Councilmember Carter said he’d be more comfortable with a smaller raise, and Councilmember Hinton announced she was opposed to the increase.
“I don’t believe people run for city council for money. I don’t think money is the motivation, and if I thought it was, I might feel differently. But having served on the council for 10 years, I think that we serve because we’re serving our community. I don’t know that this kind of a raise” — basically tripling their pay — “at this time makes sense. I would be willing to support a lower amount, but to go to the maximum of $950 I just cannot support that with where the city is with the fiscal crisis.”
That plea fell on deaf ears. The council voted to raise the monthly council compensation from $300 a month to $950 a month on a 3 to 1 vote—with Zollman, Carter, Maurer in support and Hinton opposed.
Council votes to suspend water rate increase and tiered water rates
In light of both the recent Grand Jury report and a report from a city Oversight Committee, the city council has been struggling with how to reform the way it charges its enterprise funds (i.e., water and sewer) for city services. The Grand Jury said the city owed its enterprise funds $5.5 million, and the Enterprise Funds Oversight Committee (EFOC) has made a number of suggestions for how the city might repay this debt and get in compliance with several California statutes on this topic.
As a part of its incremental approach to solving the Water and Sewer issue, the council voted this week to suspend the planned water rate increase and tiered water rates, but that didn’t appease its critics, especially EFOC member Kate Haug, who has a very particular program in mind for how the council should approach solving this tricky financial problem.
As we reported on June 23, the EFOC had 13 recommendations for how the city can get itself out of this mess. Number 11 on that list was “Remove Tiered Water Pricing and do not raise water prices until the new Cost Allocation Model supported by time tracking is in place.”
But Haug said the council was taking that recommendation out of context.
In a July 2 letter to the council titled “Cherry Picking EFOC's Recommendations is Fiscally Dangerous,” Haug wrote, “The EFOC never recommended just freezing Water rates and removing tiers. This was an interpretation by Staff and Council. You cannot simply reduce revenue. You need to also reduce expenses and also refund illegal charges, which have been found by the EFOC and the Grand Jury. It is irresponsible to simply reduce revenue to the Enterprise Funds. The Water System has over $10,500,000 in needed infrastructure upgrades.”
Haug, EFOC member Mary Meilhaus, and frequent council commenter Lee Mathias did a financial analysis about the problem with the city’s current approach:
The difficulty is, the council seems to be getting different and conflicting advice from its legal and financial consultants—and the stakes are getting higher.
In commenting on this item, City Attorney Alex Mog said, “The council met in closed session last week to discuss issues regarding water and sewer rates and under threats of litigation that the council has received. During that meeting, the council directed staff to do four things: First was to create and issue an RFP for a new water and sewer rate study. Second was to create and issue an RFP for a new cost allocation plan for the Water and Sewer enterprise funds…and then to bring this item forward tonight. Then on July 20, first to bring forward an agenda item to forgive the loan that the General Fund previously made to the Sewer Enterprise Fund.
He added that, “City staff has taken steps to begin the process of implementing time tracking. Staff has evaluated a couple of options and providers. They’ve met with Springbrook to see how this could be incorporated into the current payroll system. Springbrook is preparing a demo for staff to look at.”
Haug told the Sebastopol Times that she wasn’t behind the litigation threat and didn’t know who was.
Council considers changing zoning to accommodate A&M BBQ
After a long and confusing discussion of zoning options, the council voted to have city staff return to a future meeting with zoning change options that would allow commercial BBQs in certain zoning districts.
As Vice Mayor Maurer wrote in her city council recap email, “Public commenters spoke in support of A&M BBQ and against the smoke. A&M owner stated the City had originally approved their business in that location. They asked for support to stay in the current location, and they also are seeking a new location. Councilmember Carter suggested the need for a filtration system, and the attorney said any permit in the future could require filtration.”
Adding filters to A&M’s smokers has been mentioned briefly in previous meetings, but it looks like the business might be seriously looking into this—though the cost mentioned by various people that night ranged from $5,000 to $50,000 per stack.
Lange from the NAACP spoke in support of A&M—saying Sebastopol was effectively harassing A&M out of town. After she sat down, she continued to make comments out loud when she disagreed with other commenters, despite requests from the dais that she refrain from doing so.
Doug Yule, one of the neighbors complaining about the smoke, snapped, “Shut up!”
“Please, please, you’ve had your turn to speak,” Vice Mayor Maurer said to Lange. “You’re disrupting the meeting and I don’t appreciate it and I would like you to please stop.” With a sharp crack of the gavel (a tool I’d thought was merely symbolic), she declared a five-minute break.
Lange and Yule’s disagreement resumed in the lobby outside the council chambers, with Lange telling Yule never to tell people to shut up. This continued at an increasing volume and with an increasing invasion of personal space until Yule and another A&M neighbor retreated back into the council chamber, and Lange walked out into the night.
Watch the full July 7 city council meeting here. The next Sebastopol City Council meeting is July 21, at 6 pm, at the Sebastopol Youth Annex, 425 Morris St., Sebastopol.
The decision to remove tiered pricing, set the rate at $5.22 and freeze all increases has a number of consequences. The revenue will be well below expense. Reserves will again be depleted as happened during the last rate cycle when the council decided to cut rates. The Public Works Director alerted the council to the fact that if they approved this rate change, the well 4 loan would likely be jeopardized. It is difficult to qualify for a loan with declining revenue and a big loan on the books for wireless water meters. Council did not even acknowledge her concerns.
Well 4 is the primary well serving Sebastopol. It is at least 30 years old. It has been scheduled for replacement for several years. The primary objective of the last rate study was to set a water rate that would create revenue sufficient to qualify the city for a low interest loan to replace the well $2,600,000). This vote by the city council ended all that good planning and work.
The fact the tiered rates were not permitted under Prop 218 has been highlighted in public comments for three years. With all that time the city could have come up with a comprehensive plan to fix all of the proposition 218 issues and not put the well 4 replacement at risk.
Instead, apparently in reaction to a threat of a lawsuit, they discussed the plan to change rates, in a closed meeting, with no public comment, apparently without much input from staff and made their decision before coming to the council meeting Tuesday evening.
The "Sebastopol Water Rate Freeze Analysis" linked in the article provides a comprehensive plan to remove tiers, lower and freeze rates and maintain the financial integrity of the Water Enterprise Fund and maintain qualifications for the well 4 loan. The information was available to council and staff before the meeting. It will hopefully be fully discussed at the July 20 EFOC meeting. That meeting could have provided a solution that would address the legal risks and maintain the financial integrity of the enterprise. Why would the council not defer to the EFOC for a full plan rather than just react.