Cotati City Council
Agenda Staff Report
Item type: REGULAR AGENDA (ACTION)
To: City Council
Subject: Equity Ad Hoc Report and Next Steps
Date: November 22, 2022
Written by: Damien O'Bid, City Manager
Recommendation
It is recommended that the City Council adopt a motion approving the recommended measures from the Equity Ad Hoc, directing the City Manager to implement said measures in the City Council’s order of general priority, and dissolve the ad hoc committee.
Background
On June 22, 2021, the City Council formed an ad hoc subcommittee to look at ways to improve equity and appointed Vice Mayor Harvey and Councilmember Sparks to the subcommittee. The intent of the City Council was to, “Form a two-person Ad-Hoc of the City Council, supported by City staff. This type of body would have a maximum term of 12 months. The Ad-Hoc could review City polices and training and provide recommendations to the full City Council. The Ad- Hoc would be available to meet with any community stakeholders to get feedback in the process of developing recommendations and should include monthly updates to the full City Council.” Due to continuing discussions, the ad hoc extended beyond the assigned 12 months, but did arrive at consensus on measures that the City could implement and/or investigate further.
Therefore, the assigned tasks of the ad hoc is completed, so staff recommends moving to measure implementation.
Analysis/Discussion
The Equity Ad Hoc arrived at a consensus on the following equity measures for City Council consideration.
Community Engagement
• Provide fee waiver and possibility of grants for multicultural events in La Plaza Park.
Background. Based on experience, staff have found that the primary determinant to new events is the time and effort involved in organizing and running a community event as well as sufficient seed funds and revenue generation at the event to pay for the costs of entertainment, tents, etc. The cost of park rentals or staff time are minimal compared to other costs and organizers have not cited it as a barrier to events.
The existing park policy allows for fee and City staff time waivers in the first year of an ongoing community event, with a 50% waiver in the second year. If the event organizer is a nonprofit and is not charging admission, an on-going 50% fee waiver is permitted by the park policy.
Additionally, there are lower fees for residents versus non-residents. Therefore, in the most expensive-case scenario, assuming none of these blanket fee reductions are applied, a park rental would be $200 per day under the current fee schedule. However, it’s likely to be significantly less for the reasons stated above. Note that this policy, as currently written, applies to any type of event that qualifies, regardless of the community sentiment about the event, even if it’s distasteful. The City has no ability to prevent event rentals, unless the event poses a real and significant threat to public safety.
Some cities, such as Rohnert Park, provide community grants which could be a potential model – particularly for the application and grant recommendation process. In Rohnert Park’s case, the grants can be used for general community improvements (not just events) and is funded through Graton Casino contributions. The City Council currently has a $25k contributions budget, funded from the General Fund, which is primarily used for Chamber of Commerce funding ($15k) and the previously mentioned fee and staff time waivers for events throughout the year. For an event grant, the City could establish a formal application process that would evaluate all requests at the same time with a set budget. The City Council has the ability to use their discretion to grant public funds to support whatever events they believe further the community goals.
Recommendations. It is recommended that the City pilot an event grant process, where the City Council can consider small grant applications and award a total of up to $5,000 per year. This would allow for multiple grants per year, in addition to the potential existing fee/staff time waivers previously described, to determine if the program is achieving the goal of bringing in new multicultural events. To be eligible, it is recommended that it be for new events only and the event should highlight/celebrate one or more cultures in Sonoma County. This level of funding is also expected to fit within the existing City Council annual contributions budget of $25k.
It is not recommended that the existing fee reduction and waiver process be modified. This is to not disrupt current events with multiple changes at one time. Once the grant pilot program runs for 1-2 years, changes to the park policy can be considered at that time, if warranted.
If this recommendation is supported by the City Council, staff will reach out to multicultural organizations and invite them to hold events or festivals in Cotati. • Investigate partnering with Rohnert Park for joint Leadership Academy, providing need-based scholarships to Cotati residents.
Background. Rohnert Park has started a leadership development program for residents, Leadership Rohnert Park. In summary, this program is intended to develop the knowledge, skills, confidence, and network to become a community leader in Rohnert Park. It is run by Coro Northern California (Coro), with more information is available at the following link. In general, many community minded people want “someone” to do a particular event or program for the benefit of the community. The goal of the program is to instill in them that they are that “someone” and seeks to give them the confidence to take a leadership role in making it a reality.
To date, Coro has hosted two (2) Leadership cohorts, with attendees generally from Rohnert Park and Cotati. Leadership Rohnert Park completed their second class in 2022; the initial class was two years ago, with a year off because of COVID. Each class can accommodate up to 24 participants, with actual enrollment in the two initial classes closer to 20. Details on the curriculum and speakers can be found here.
Rohnert Park had about 55 applicants for the first year of the program and about 30 applicants for the class of 2022. Rohnert Park believes that the number of applicants for the second class may have been lower because they largely ran through the pool of interested people in the first year, with COVID possibly being a related factor.
The initial classes were offered one Friday each month, so another possible factor was potential work conflicts. Initial conversations with Rohnert Park about expanding the program have included moving the class days to Saturdays as well as a geographically larger area (i.e. including Penngrove). At this time, Rohnert Park intends to schedule the next class to start in the fall of 2023.
Rohnert Park has expressed interest in expanding the program and turning it into a “Leadership Central Sonoma County” program that includes Rohnert Park, Cotati, and Penngrove, funded by Rohnert Park and Cotati. Currently, Rohnert Park does not charge participants to attend, as they fund it at a cost of approximately $80k per year. It’s expected that a joint program with Cotati will be a similar cost, except that the cost would be split on some proportional basis between the cities.
An expected approximate cost, simply based on population, would be $12,000/$68,000.
Recommendation. Work with Rohnert Park to jointly create a Leadership Central Sonoma County, but modified with a specific element to encourage civic participation as well as general community participation.
• Investigate cost/options for providing Spanish language access to newsletter Background. In addition to various forms of electronic communication, a primary source of City information is the utility newsletter, mailed with the water/sewer bills to residents. In the past year, these mailings were expanded to include “newsletter only” mailing to reach renters in multifamily housing that don’t have city utility accounts, as this was an obvious oversight. The current newsletter is 1 page, front and back.
If we were to mail translated newsletters, presumably in Spanish, it would either require that we shorten the newsletter to a single page (with the reverse side translated) or create a second newsletter that is translated and mailed together with the English language newsletter. However, based on the community poll conducted in November 2020, when speaking to residents who speak another language at home other than English, only 3% found it to be barrier to participation in city meetings. By extension, a similar percentage would likely also find this to be a barrier with mailed information and general city communications.
Alternatively, if not mailed, the City could translate the English language newsletter, include a QR link on the mailed flyer, and post a Spanish language newsletter on the website for anyone that preferred that version. This would still require the staff time or contract cost to translate, but would avoid the printing and mailing costs, as well as the mailing delay for translation.
Contract translation services for Spanish typically take 5 business days and cost $0.18 per word.
Therefore, a typical 1,000 word newsletter will cost approximately $180 to translate. With approximately 2,500 mail pieces at $0.15 per page, the estimated mailing cost is $375 per mailing, if the city were to include a Spanish language newsletter in the regular mailing. Recommendation.
A balanced approach, given the relatively low number of residents who find English language to be a barrier, would be to continue to produce and mail the English language newsletter while providing a Spanish language version on the website. The English language newsletter would include a QR code or similar feature to allow easy access to the Spanish newsletter, if desired.
Additionally, after the English language newsletter is completed and sent for mailing, there is a 2- 3 week delay before they arrive in residents mailboxes. This time would allow for Spanish translation of the newsletter and posting prior to or concurrently with the mailed version arriving in mailboxes. While the City currently has Spanish speaking staff who can complete the translation as part of their daily work, if this were not the case in the future for some reason, the City would need to pay approximately $180 per newsletter to contract the translation service. • Investigate cost/options for providing Spanish language access to city social media posts.
Background. The city currently operates a website and several social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, Nextdoor, and Nixle). Most citywide news is distributed electronically through the website, Facebook and Instagram. The website allows for content translation into many languages.
The exception is third party website integrations, such as our legislative management platform, municipal payment platform, recreation registration platform, or projects platform. However, none of these contain city news updates. If a user of Facebook or Instagram has their devices set to another non-English language, when they view an English language post, it allows for translation.
The exception is language embedded into graphics. This obviously works the other way as well, when English language speakers view foreign language content.
For emergency information, the City uses Nixle. At this time, there does not appear to be an automatic translation service attached to this platform.
On a related note, City zoom meetings are fully captioned in English with the option for live translation into one of about a dozen different languages (including Spanish).
Recommendation. Continue to explore translation options for third party hosted elements of the City website and update the social media procedures to ensure that text is not embedded in images for translations and visually impaired residents (screen readers) or duplicate the text outside of images. At this time, it’s not feasible to translate Nixle posts, as this could significantly delay the dissemination of emergency information. However, staff will continue to explore options for emergency communications in other languages. • Expand social media outreach to Nextdoor/more frequent posts Background. The City has an active Nextdoor account, which generally allows the verified municipal account to simultaneously post to all “neighborhoods” in Cotati. Unless users opt out of city posts, it will appear in their feeds. However, the City Nextdoor account only allows visibility on what the City posts and any responses to the City posts. There is no visibility on any community posts.
Engagement with City posts has been minimal compared to other social media platforms, such as Facebook or Instagram. For a typical post, Nextdoor will get zero, or at best, couple of “impressions”, while other social media platforms get “engagement” in the dozens or more for the same post. Therefore, staff have gradually reduced pushing content on Nextdoor, as it seems to add little value for the limited staff time available for public information efforts. With renewed interest from the Ad Hoc, staff inquired with other cities, as well as Nextdoor support, to determine if there are ways to better utilize Nextdoor.
Unlike other social media platforms that retain posts chronologically, Nextdoor functions more like a live stream of news. In other words, when we post on Facebook or Instagram, the post stays at the top of the feed and comments, likes, etc. are in that post. A Nextdoor post starts at the top of the feed, but then immediately gets pushed down with new posts or comments on other existing posts. Therefore, unless there is a significant amount of commenting, the post is quickly pushed down and no longer visible to users unless they search for it. In inquiries with Nextdoor and other cities, staff confirmed that our account is properly set up, and other cities seem to generally have very low engagement with their Nextdoor posts.
Recommendation. Unless there is a way to create some greater visibility with posts (such as companion emails or text messages), the recommendation is to discontinue use of Nextdoor. • Investigate options to upgrade to electronic bulletin board downtown (“marquee”).
Background. The intent of this option was to generally improve public communication by moving from a static information board, manually updated, to an electronic information board that can be remotely updated quickly and contain more information at once through multiple scrolling “pages”. Provided power is available, this type of sign can also be an effective means of communicating emergency information in addition to the city website and social media channels.
In previous years, this option has been explored but not pursued in the annual workplan, primarily because it was not universally supported by the City Council, thus became a relatively lower priority. The primary concern was about aesthetics, in particular that it shouldn’t look like or use colors similar to what is commonly seen in freeway electronic signs. At the time, it was approximately $30-50k (depending on amount of electrical work needed and type of sign) to replace the existing information board with a similar sized electronic billboard. In the interim, a new board and letter tracks were installed to improve the function of the manual information board.
Over time, the plywood board warps with hot/cold weather, which distorts the letter tracks and makes the letters more prone to falling out of the tracks with vibration caused by passing vehicles.
Therefore, the existing board should also be replaced every 5 years or so.
Recommendation. Include an electronic marquee as a potential project during Strategic Planning for Fiscal Year 2023-2024. There are likely options that can improve public communication using an electronic marquee but use a “standard” layout that is simple and not gaudy using black and white contrasting text with colors or eye-catching animations reserved for special occasions that can be vetted through accompanying procedures. Other considerations include back-up power, if deemed necessary, and ensuring access to sign updates by the City Manager’s office as well as Police Dispatch.
• Provide space on downtown wayfinding bulletin board for public use.
Background. With the installation of wayfinding signs in the downtown area, it was observed that people have been informally attaching community flyers, advertisements, etc. to the structures.
Currently, public works removes items attached to the wayfinding signs, utility poles, or other public fixtures weekly, or as time allows. It was suggested that staff look into the pros/cons of formalizing a public community bulletin board in the downtown area, or at City Hall, to provide a single location to post community information.
Currently, several businesses downtown host private community boards, including Redwood Café and Cotati Coffee. These boards are located inside the businesses, so they must be open to be accessible to the public, thus access is limited to business hours. As privately managed bulletin boards, the business has full discretion to manage content on the board without any potential first amendment issues.
An official location provided by the City would become a limited free speech forum, so the City would not be able to remove distasteful speech with limited ability to take down information unless they clearly posed a threat of violence. Given the limited public works time, and the need to handle all postings the same, the most likely method of maintenance would be removal of all postings on some fixed time period (weekly, bi-weekly, etc.). This would mean some items would stay up for the entire time period, while others may be removed almost immediately, depending on when they were posted relative to the removal day.
A public bulletin board downtown would either be a new free-standing structure, or more likely removing or converting the locked display cabinet in the existing wayfinding kiosks to an open board or unlocked display cabinet. This would need to be maintained by public works on a regular basis. However, public works is already overcapacity with daily activities and projects.
In the front entrance to City Hall, there are two locked display cabinets; one that holds City Council Agendas, Planning Commission Agendas, and public notices, and one that holds flyers for upcoming recreation events and classes, as well as overflow from the first cabinet, as needed. One alternative is to install a larger cabinet where the existing cabinet currently is, with one side unlocked for community postings. A second alternative is an open board separately mounted, free standing, at the base of the stairs at the front entrance to City Hall. This option would be maintained by the City Manager’s office.
Recommendation. Initiate a pilot to utilize the existing cabinet currently holding recreation flyers by keeping one side locked for official city postings and remove the lock on the opposite half of the cabinet so that it can be opened and closed without a key. Maintenance would be incorporated into the City Manager’s office normal posting activities. Therefore, flyers would be taken down twice per month, on the regular City Council agenda posting schedule. This side would be clearly labeled community information to distinguish it from anything official from the City. If this becomes problematic in the future, the City Council can direct staff to re-lock this box in the future.
This type of enclosed cabinet should mitigate any issues around exposure to the elements and generation of wind-blown litter.
• Investigate ways to increase participation at police beat meetings, including varying days/times/locations, more publicity.
Background. As the next evolution in Neighborhood Watch, the City created neighborhood officers, each assigned to one of six beats in the City for 1 year before rotating to another beat. For simplicity of communication, these beat areas are also co-terminus with evacuation zones. The City provides an interactive map of the beats, as well as the name and contact information for each officer on the Police Department page on the City website. The police department hosts neighborhood meetings, at least twice per year, to hear from residents of each beat and better understand neighborhood issues and concerns. Due to COVID, these meetings have been held virtually over the past couple of years and have been generally advertised through social media (Instagram, Facebook) and the city website. Beat meetings are held in the evening, with some beats combined, over the course of several days as the respective beat officers are on duty.
The police department also conducts rotating concentrated enforcement, rotating through the beat areas monthly as well as citywide focused efforts, such as distracted driving, pedestrian safety, large trucks passing through downtown, or similar future efforts.
The specific concerns raised were lack of awareness of when/where these meetings were occurring and a beat map on the website that could be updated to be simpler to navigate, including a simple address lookup tool. The City of Santa Rosa currently hosts the website that contains the City GIS map, including the current embedded police beats map.
Recommendation. The City can use police volunteers or interns to deliver flyers to homes and businesses in each beat in advance of the biannual beat meetings to raise awareness of the meeting dates and locations. This would be in addition to the existing website and social media noticing.
If volunteers or interns are not available, and a separate mailing was needed (if it can’t be incorporated into utility bill mailers), this type of direct mailing is estimated to cost $2,300 per mailing, twice per year. Therefore, the preference is to reduce cost by either mailing in the same envelope as the utility bill mailers or incorporating it into the utility mailer, if possible.
The City of Santa Rosa’s GIS team can establish a separate page with a simple search tool, similar to what they did for Rohnert Park’s election districts, which can be found here. This would take approximately 4-5 hours of time, at a cost of around $1,000. The simplest option would be to embed this easily searchable map into the existing Neighborhood Officer page, like it is now, with the officer contact information listed on the City maintained portion of the webpage, updated annually by city staff.
An alternative would be to embed a static link to each beat that doesn’t change, but then city staff would update the content of the linked page each year with the new beat officer. • Explore providing a mid-year verbal update to the City Council from the Chief of Police, including current activities, focused enforcement events, crime trends, new programs and community engagement.
Background. For the past couple of years, the Police Chief has begun providing annual reports to the community, typically in the first quarter of the following calendar year. This annual report, presented at a City Council meeting, summarizes a significant amount of data derived from the police dispatch and record systems, as well as other law enforcement sources.
Police related data and data reporting systems have been designed around the extensive, and always increasing, reporting required by the State Department of Justice (DOJ). However, much of this directly reported data is not in a useable form locally, as it is a “backend” upload of raw data, which is then processed by DOJ, including corrections of erroneous data, into a useable final form for public reporting. The recent requirement for police data to reported locally has been a challenge, particularly for smaller agencies, due to the lack of data analysts on staff to mine these databases and create new reports analyzing the data in different ways in different formats and more quickly than what is produced by DOJ. Therefore, the annual police report currently takes a significant amount of staff time to compile.
Given this, the ad hoc felt that an overview mid-year verbal report would be a good addition to keep up with the latest events and activities of the police department, while leaving the data analysis to the annual report.
Recommendation. Include an annual mid-year verbal report from the Chief of Police to the City Council on current activities, focused enforcement events, crime trends, new programs and community engagement. To be feasible, the mid-year verbal report will have limited or no associated data analysis.
• Work with Farmster to incorporate CRPUSD public school class field trips to Veronda-Falletti Ranch into future work plans.
Background. The City has regular joint meetings with Rohnert Park, the Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School District (CRPUSD), and Sonoma State University to discuss issues of common interest, in the so-called 2x2x2 meetings. Vice Mayor Harvey and Councilmember Sparks are the currently assigned representatives. To explore this option, staff followed up from a 2x2x2 discussion by contacting the Superintendent of the CRPUSD (Myra Perez), who introduced staff to the Program Administrator for the Special Education Preschool Program. Superintendent Perez suggested that we utilize the special education preschool program as a pilot program. If successful, the thought was that it could expand to other grades/programs. Given the early childhood focus, we introduced the Program Administrator for the Special Education Preschool Program to Sandy Loam to discuss the details and opportunities for collaboration. However, at this time, the Program Administrator indicated that due to staffing shortages in their program, they don’t have the capacity to pursue engagement at the Veronda-Falletti Ranch at this time.
Recommendation. Staff intend to remain in contact with the CRPUSD Program Administrator and coordinate programming opportunities when/if they have the capacity to engage at the Veronda-Falletti Ranch.
Hiring
• Investigate and provide “Just-In-Time” anti-bias and equitable interview practices training for employees who will participate in job interviews.
Background. This type of training is required in Community Colleges, in accordance with Education Code Section 87360, which reads in part that, “[i]n establishing hiring criteria for faculty and administrators, district governing boards shall, no later than July 1, 1990, develop criteria that include a sensitivity to and understanding of the diverse academic, socioeconomic, cultural, disability, and ethnic backgrounds of community college students.” Examples of how this is implemented in the Community College context are attached, as well as other publicly available sample questions for reference.
Currently, the City provides mandated “harassment” training for all staff and managers on two and one year cycles, respectively. While this training covers some of the same topics, there is no specific bias training for staff participating in interviews. Currently, in interview panels, there are no questions specifically intended to assess the applicants’ sensitivity to diversity.
In investigating options for this type of training, staff found that Leibert Cassidy Whitmore (LCW) offers training for staff that will be on interview panels and will also assist in developing questions for interviewers. LCW is a legal firm that the city uses for employment law and is well acquainted with Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) training and the associated laws and regulations.
LCW proposed a 2-3 hour workshop for staff on interview panels, which would cost between $2,500-$3,000 per workshop. If there is travel over 1.5 hours (required, if held in person), there is a $750 travel time charge. There would be an additional cost for assisting staff with developing interview questions.
Trainings typically cover the following topics:
o Laws and regulations regarding non-discrimination, focusing on those laws and regulations related to recruitment and hiring
o The benefits of workforce diversity
o Elimination of bias in hiring decisions
o Best practices for selection and hiring committees
o Crafting questions
▪ This section of the workshop is usually a series of case studies that get participates to think about the “good, bad, and really bad” questions to ask during the hiring process, with a focus on crafting questions that are intended to help increase the diversity of application pools without implicating protected class.
Recommendation. It is recommended that the City develop annual training for supervisors and managers, which are generally part of all interviews. The trainings can be held virtually to reduce costs. A minimum of one question to assess the applicants’ sensitivity to diversity would be incorporated into job interviews. Given the complexity of employment law, it is recommended that LCW provide this training and feedback on interview questions. • Work with recruiting firms used by the city to advertise jobs more broadly and in places likely to reach underrepresented groups, to ensure diverse candidate pools.
Background. The City only uses recruiting firms for Department Heads and City Manager positions. Other than these positions, a typical external recruitment includes posting on the following:
o City Website (IBS)
o Government Jobs.com
o Indeed.com (which then goes to virtually all electronic job boards) o Depending on position, other specialty sites (PORAC, APA, etc.) The job listings are widely available to anyone looking for a job, so this is unlikely to limit the diversity of the job applicants. Diversity of applicant pools is specific to the position being recruited for. For example, some positions are very over-represented by male applicants, and some are very over-represented by female applicants. There can also be over or under representation based on degreed or non-degreed positions. However, in general, with the shifting demographics in Sonoma County, the workforce is trending older and more Latin(x). Recommendation. When the city uses a recruiter, recruiting for a diverse candidate pool can be a stated criteria in their scope of work. Moving forward, the City can add voluntary demographic questions to job applications to develop a better understanding of applicant diversity relative to the surrounding community, which would help focus future diversity initiatives.
• Review job classifications for opportunities to include bilingual as a desired job skill.
Background. Currently, the City does not list language as a required or desired skill in any job classifications. It was believed that this may be helpful in recruitment by indicating that the City places value on this skill, as well as help the city functionally as the need for fluency (Spanish, specifically) arises in the provision of municipal services to the community.
The City currently has staff with fluency in various languages (in addition to English), including staff in the police department and City Hall that are fluent in Spanish. Based on the job classifications at the City, there are no jobs where bilingual fluency can be required. However, it is likely that some job classifications could meet the threshold of “preferred” bilingual fluency in Spanish. Essentially, if two applicants are otherwise equal, this skill would set them above for hiring.
To include this type of language in a job classification, each potential position would need to be evaluated and determined that Spanish is regularly used – generally defined as at least once per week. More specifically, the evaluation typically includes the following types of questions for each position:
• Who is the audience for whom the language other than English skills will be used? Is it other employees, or constituents? If it’s constituents, what percentage of the City’s population speaks that language and cannot easily communicate in English? • What are the scope of duties that the position would perform in the other language? • Would not having someone speak a language other than English pose safety concerns? For example, if a front-line utility worker only speaks Spanish, and their supervisor can’t communicate with them in their native language, would this pose substantial safety risks?
• Is there someone in the division/department who speaks the language at issue who can serve as a translator, therefore negating the need for applicants in the position for which the City is hiring to demonstrate such fluency?
The intent of this type of evaluation is to also avoid employment discrimination lawsuits when choosing one applicant over another by documenting the need for this skill. Based on estimates from LCW, each positional review will cost between $1,500-$2,500.
Recommendation. It is possible that the City could justify this preferential language on certain front-line job positions, such as certain front counter jobs, recreation, and police. The study to review and document of these job positions would likely be around $10-15,000 (dependent on number of positions reviewed). Calling this skill out as a desired would also likely result in a request for bilingual pay from bargaining groups in future negotiations.
Contracting
• Explore contracting as a means to employ a more diverse base of suppliers and contractors.
Background. Generally, City contracts can be fit into one of several categories: Professional Services, Non-Professional Services, Material Suppliers, and Construction Contractors.
Professional services are most commonly design related services and are selected based on qualifications in response to a request for proposals/qualifications posted on the city website and sent to a wide list of known consultants. While cost can be a factor in selecting professional services, it can’t be the only factor. Non-professional services are most commonly services such as janitorial, landscape, HVAC, and are typically selected based on cost from a request for proposals requested from known local firms that can perform the services (scale, insurance requirements, etc). Material suppliers are generally local suppliers of specialty parts, but can also include things such as general office or janitorial supplies. These are generally selected based on best value/lowest cost to the city, or the only available supplier for specialty items. Finally, construction contracting is highly regulated and depending on the value of the work, must go through either an informal or formal bid process, with formal bids sent to builder’s exchanges throughout Northern California as well as posted on the city website. Construction projects with federal funds require extensive reporting and disadvantaged business enterprise (DBE) contracting provisions. The existing procurement policy for non-federal projects provides contractors based in Cotati with a 5% preference, but otherwise does not provide for preferential contracting. While joint procurement is allowed, it is only regularly used in certain areas where the State has negotiated government rates, such as vehicle (state bid) and communication (Calnet) purchasing.
Additionally, there are several examples of municipal or county shared services agreements or joint powers authorities within Sonoma County, which can be another type of joint purchasing.
The County of Sonoma (County) is working on a cooperative equitable joint procurement initiative with cities that are interested. The City has expressed initial interest in being included in this effort. The County has issued RFP and is currently evaluating bids to develop a short list of potential vendors. Once a vendor is selected, the County will reach out to interested cities.
It should be noted that while staff are aware of various examples of vendors that are minority owned, woman owned, etc., it is unknown if the ownership of the City’s various vendors represent the demographic mix of the community, or if such a goal can be cost effectively achieved.
Recommendation. It is recommended that the City continue to engage with the County on the joint procurement effort currently underway and report back to the City Council once the program has been further developed to decide if continued participation will cost effectively achieve equity in contracting.
Homelessness
• Investigate possibility of reviving Safe Parking program, including funding models and possible locations
Background. The City ran a pilot safe parking program for approximately 1 year at the St. Joseph Park and Ride lot. This pilot program is administered by Catholic Charities, which provided services to the people utilizing the safe parking. The City experience issues with this pilot program concurrently with Catholic Charities initiating a reorganization of services in Sonoma County. As a result of this reorganization, Catholic Charities has stopped administering safe parking programs, with the exception of a safe Recreational Vehicle (RV) parking at the Utility Field Office for the City of Santa Rosa, off of Stony Point Road.
Due to the a growing issue of RVs parking behind the Barlow in Sebastopol, the City of Sebastopol created an RV village in town, utilizing SAVS to provide services. This program is year to year, and receives significant funding from the County. Future operational funding of this county supported program is uncertain.
The Ad Hoc recommended exploring this option, due to the 2020 homeless point in time (PIT) count, which indicated 37 “unsheltered” homeless in Cotati. The 2022 PIT counted 79 individuals.
This count is assigned to Cotati based on census tracts, which includes most of Rohnert Park west of US 101, as well as unincorporated areas south and west of Cotati to Penngrove. Unsheltered for the purposed of the PIT count includes people outdoors as well as sleeping in vehicles. Given the census tract methodology, it’s unknown if the people counted are in Cotati. Based on staff experience, there is some limited sleeping in vehicles, primarily in the industrial area west of US 101, with very few people outdoors within the city limits.
All local, state and federal funding streams for social programs are directed to entitlement jurisdictions (Petaluma, Santa Rosa, and Sonoma County) and the continuum of care. Nonentitlement cities, such as Cotati, receive no dedicated funding for this type work. The County of Sonoma, which includes Cotati as part of the “urban county”, receives Cotati’s population share of funds and uses it to benefit the county as a whole. Therefore, any City funds directed to these programs are discretionary contributions from the General Fund, so the City Council will need to balance this against other competing funding needs for municipal operations and infrastructure.
Recommendation. It is recommended that any strategy be undertaken as part of a comprehensive countywide strategy through joint planning and action of the continuum of care. This will best ensure strategic deployment of resources countywide, which will most likely include a significant required on-going discretionary city contributions. Staff will update the City Council on the status of the countywide strategy during Strategic Planning.
Additional Information
Background. A late addition that was not evaluated by the ad hoc was a suggestion from some constituents that the City should join the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE).
Information about GARE can be found here.
Consistent with the new item process, the City Manager will review this and provide an initial evaluation to the former ad hoc members to determine next steps, if any.
Recommendation. No recommendation at this time; informational only.
Financial Considerations
Depending on the mix of initiatives undertaken, the following is the estimated costs:
1. Multicultural Event Grants. New direct on-going spending of $5,000 per year from the General Fund, plus a commitment of staff time to develop and administer the grant program.
2. Leadership Central Sonoma County. New on-going spending of $12,000 per year from the General Fund. First year staff time commitment to assist in developing the program, which lower levels of on-going staff time.
3. Spanish Language Utility Newsletter. No direct spending if electronic only and translated by staff. New on-going direct spending of approximately $555 per newsletter if translated through a paid service and included in the regular utility mailing, from the Water and Sewer Enterprise Funds. If translated by staff, it is expected to require approximately 4 hours per newsletter to translate, format and post.
4. Spanish Language Access to City Social Media. No new spending for Facebook or Instagram, as this is functionality is built into the platform. No additional staff time is required.
5. More Frequent Use of Nextdoor. If this platform is phased out, it will result in staff time savings.
6. Upgrade Downtown Marquee to Electronic. New one-time spending of approximately $30-50,000 from the General Fund. Initial staff time required for design and construction oversight, with future public works staff time eliminated and incremental increase in City Hall staff time to remotely change marquee messages.
7. Public Bulletin Board. Minor direct spending to switch out the cabinet lock, but incremental City Hall staff time to remove public postings concurrently with agenda posting.
8. Increase Police Beat Meeting Outreach. Significant increase in volunteer staff time. required to distribute flyers, or new direct spending of up to approximately $4,600 per year for separate direct mailing and an additional $1,000 in one-time spending to upgrade the GIS page. Funding would come from the General Fund.
9. Incorporate CRPUSD into Programs at the Veronda Falletti Ranch. Unknown costs at this time, but the intent would be to incorporate this into existing programs funded by the City if possible. This is expected to require a moderate amount of staff time to liaise between the co-licensees and CRPUSD.
10. Anti-Bias and Equitable Interview Training. This program would require approximately $2,500-$3,000 per year in new spending allocated across city funds.
Approximately 45 hours of staff time for training each year, with initial staff time to develop questions and periodic updates.
11. Diverse Recruitment. This program is not expected to result in any direct expenses, with minor staff time to update and track job applications.
12. Include Bilingual as a Desired Job Skill, as Applicable. This program would require a staff estimated $10,000-$15,000 in one-time direct spending to interview and document job duties of specific job classifications. Based on the likely job classifications, funding would be largely General Fund. This would be a one-time moderate amount of staff time to manage the process, incorporate the changes and discuss with bargaining units. Possible future on-going costs if bilingual pay is incorporated into labor memorandum of understanding.
13. Diverse Contracting. At this time, this initiative is largely a commitment of staff time to explore the opportunities for joint procurement with the County. Any future costs related to joint procurement would be discussed with the City Council prior to formal City commitment.
14. Safe Parking (General Homeless Initiatives). A specific program is not recommended at this time, but it is expected that the City will participate in future joint Continuum of Care efforts, which will likely be in the range of tens of thousands of dollars per year from the General Fund in direct spending, as well as significant staff time to engage in this regional effort.
Environmental Issues
This action is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) because it is not a project which has a potential for resulting in either a direct physical change in the environment, or a reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment, pursuant to CEQA Guideline section 15378.
Attachments:
Hiring Orientation - Excerpts From Santa Rosa Junior College (PPT) SAMPLE 1: DIVERSITY QUESTIONS - SRJC (DOC)
SAMPLE 2: Diversity-Equity-Inclusion Interview Questions - Muse.com (DOCX)