Cotati City Council
Agenda Staff Report
Item type: REGULAR AGENDA (ACTION)
To: City Council
Subject: UPDATED COTATI CONNECTION AND NEW COMMUNITY
MEMBER GUIDE
Date: March 25, 2025
Written by: Damien O’Bid, City Manager
Recommendation
It is recommended the City Council review and provide feedback on the New Community Member Guide and the revised format of the Cotati Connection Newsletter.
Background
A strategic goal of the City Council is to promote community engagement and awareness and encourage resident participation. Therefore, City staff have continued work on the City Newsletter which is distributed monthly to residents concurrently with the utility billing. These newsletters have been in the same format since creation. This newsletter serves as an update to community members on what new things are happening in the City. Since starting the letter staff have moved to also translating the newsletter to provide the same information in both English and Spanish on every newsletter.
The City Managers Department and Administrative Services Department have been discussing how to update our existing documents as well as provide new residents with key information about the City as part of a ”Welcome” letter. With this the City Managers Office has prepared an updated newsletter better showing the information for the City and more easily updated on the recurring reporting basis. The Administrative Services Department has developed the New Community Members Guide (Welcome Letter) to be distributed to new utility account holders.
Analysis/Discussion
The Cotati Connection is a newsletter that has been provided to citizens for almost 10 years and began to be translated into Spanish in January 2023. This resource has been a tool for residents and business owners to be informed on what is happening in the community, including upcoming projects and recreational events as well as public meetings. This source of news has continuously ranked the highest as the primary location that people use for information about the City. As such, staff continue to try and put as much information as possible in the newsletter. As this source of news has been provided in the same general format for the last 10 years, staff felt that it was beginning to look outdated and the software to manage the document was not flexible for updates. Staff reviewed other formats of other newsletters and developed a new format which is more easily updated and can provide more information within the available space.
To try and provide more information to our residents, staff have also developed the New Community Members Guide. Within the guide we are providing new residents or business owners key contact information for services around the City, including information on services such as SAFE, animal licensing, contact information for the Cotati departments and other resources in the county, a map of the City with the parks, City Buildings, Evaluation Zones and other resources, a checklist of things to do in your first year, information on recreation services and the historical society, and a general seasonal calendar for year around events and activities within the City. This guidebook is intended to be posted online as a digital resource as well as mailed out to new utility customers. Staff are also intending to have a companion refrigerator magnet that would contain a QR code to the guide, as well as some key numbers for the City.
Financial Considerations
The distribution of the New Community Members Guild is anticipated to cost an annual amount of $2.00 per mailing including printing and postage. There are approximately 380 new utility customers a year, leading to an anticipated annual cost of $760 per year. Refrigerator magnets will add additional cost, but it is expected to be relatively minor. There is additional staff time to produce the mailings which is estimated at 20 minutes per week (52 weeks in the year) or a total of 1,040 minutes or 17.3 hours per year.
For the newsletters, Cotati Connection, the new format should be more easily adapted for information and will not take more funding or staff time to produce.
Environmental Issues
Council action on this item is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) because it does not constitute a project as defined by CEQA Guidelines Section 15378.