What else happened at the Sebastopol City Council meeting?

At its Dec. 5 meeting, the city council approved "objective design standards," the purchase of a fire rescue truck, a fee waiver for Peacetown, and the creation of an EIFD ad hoc

Mayor Diana Rich, Vice Mayor Stephen Zollman, Councilmember Neysa Hinton and Councilmember Sandra Maurer and were present in person at the Dec. 5 Sebastopol City Council meeting. Councilmember Jill McLewis attended via Zoom.

Proclamations

Public works employee Andrew Cerini, the city’s water treatment operator, received an award for 10 years of service to the city. Public Works Director Dante Del Prete called Cerini’s job, which involves the management and protection of the city’s water supply “one of the most important jobs in the city.”

Public comment for items not on the agenda

Arthur George of West County Homeless Advocates inquired about warming centers for the homeless and alerted the council that the inhabitants of HorizonShine have been given until Feb. 28, 2024 to move out. (St. Vincent de Paul will be building permanent low low income housing on the site.)

In reply, Mayor Diana Rich said the Community Cultural Center had offered its space as a warming center and provided a staff member to act as supervisor. She said the city also has a cohort of volunteers ready to help with this effort, who will be trained by West County Community Services outreach worker Maria Rico. Interim Fire Chief Bruce Martin will track the indicators for extreme weather events that could trigger the need for the setup of the warming center.

She also said that SAVs, which runs HorizonShine, was working with the County of Sonoma to find HorizonShine residents alternative housing.

Election of Mayor and Vice Mayor

This was a wild ride. See our story on this portion of the meeting here.

Consent Calendar

(Note: 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 the approval of city council meeting minutes, the council approved the following:

• A request from the mayor regarding committee and liaison assignments. Appointments will be made at the Jan. 16, 2024, city council meeting.

• An amendment to the contract for Muchmore Than Consulting for services provided during the search for interim fire chief for the Sebastopol Fire Department.

Presentations

Erik Hawke of the Marin/Sonoma Mosquito and Vector Control District gave a surprisingly interesting annual review of that organization’s efforts. We learned that there are 22 mosquito species in Sonoma County—many of them in the Laguna. The good news is there have been no cases of West Nile Virus, a mosquito-born illness, in Sonoma County this year. The bad news is a new species of mosquito, the Aedes mosquito, is making its way north due to climate change. They are the main type of mosquito that spread Dengue Fever, Chikungunya, Zika, and other viruses. These mosquitos haven’t been detected in Sonoma County yet, but Hawke says its “not a matter of if, but when.”

Know of a mosquito breeding ground in town — an abandoned swimming pool or other source of standing water? Report it here. You can also report yellow jacket infestations, which have been particularly bad this year.

Regular Agenda

Objective Design Standards

The state of California has passed several pieces of legislation (including SB35 and SB9) intended to make it easier for developers to develop housing while skirting the rigorous (and sometimes capricious) demands of city planning departments. These laws were created primarily with the aim of increasing the amount of housing in the state.

Rather than leaving design approval up to the discretion of planning commissions or individual planners, these laws require cities that wish to maintain some kind of control over what gets built to develop “objective design standards.”

Objective design standards serve as a “style-neutral” guide for designers and builders that delineates in very concrete and “objective” terms how the city wants various types of buildings and architectural elements to be constructed.

The Sebastopol City Council created a Design Guideline Subcommittee in 2019 to develop Sebastopol’s objective design standards. The committee includes Planning Commission Vice Chair Paul Fritz, Design Review Board members Lars Langberg and Christine Level, and, until his retirement from city council, Patrick Slayter.

In addition, the planning department received a state grant to develop objective design standards for SB35. It hired Opticos Design as a consultant to assist with the creation of standards for SB35 (which applies to multifamily developments) and SB9, which applies to single family homes and will come to the council for review at a later date.

See the city’s new objective design standards here. Learn more about objective design standards in this handy PowerPoint from the League of Cities.

Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District Ad Hoc created

The council also voted to create an ad hoc committee to investigate the creation of an Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District, in cooperation with the County of Sonoma. Sebastopol has approximately 7,500 residents, but the town and its resources (the library, the senior center, the Community Cultural Center) are used by roughly 50,000 people in broader west county. An EIFD would take some of the tax money that currently goes to the county and shift it to fund city resources that county residents regularly use.

Three councilmembers (Rich, Hinton, and Zollman) voted in favor of the creation of the EIFD Ad Hoc, while two councilmembers (Maurer and McLewis) voted against it.

“I’m on the budget committee and this is/was on our to-do list,” Maurer wrote in her council recap email. “The budget committee is recorded so there would be transparency whereas the ad hoc meetings would not be recorded.” As a result, she wrote, “I opposed the creation of another committee.”

Other topics

• The council approved the purchase of a 2020 Ford F550 fire rescue truck from Hopland Fire Department for $80,000, which passed unanimously.

• After much discussion, the council also waived 50% of the permit fee for the Peacetown Concert Series.

City council and staff reports

Because of the lateness of the hour, there were no staff or council reports.

Because of the Zoom bombing during the council meeting, it’s taking longer than usual to get the video of the meeting up on the Vimeo website. When it’s posted, you can watch the full meeting here.

The next regular city council will be on Tuesday, Dec. 19, at 6 pm at the Sebastopol Youth Annex, 425 Morris St., Sebastopol.