Late Correspondence (Uploaded 05-15-2023) — Santa Rosa City Council, May 10, 2023

From: Victor Delpanno
To: City Council Public Comments
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Proposed 2023-24 Budget
Date: Monday, May 8, 2023 8:10:48 PM
We already have street, road, and parking capacity for nearly everyone in the city to get around by car. That is the problem. We need to move away from that status quo (for air quality, climate, livability, and health), and when you find yourself in a hole, the first step is to stop digging.

Please don't allocate any new funding to car capacity expansion projects. Instead, let's use that money
for transit, bike, and pedestrian improvements. For example, there are many crossings that would benefit from raised crosswalks for pedestrians' safety, or protected bike lanes for bikers safety.

Either way, let's move away from car-centric urban planning towards transit-oriented development and thinking. For any new construction, expedite permitting but also consider the value per acre it will bring to the city.

Our urban land is valuable and scarce, and we'd all benefit more from having 6 small businesses within walking distance to each other rather than a single large store surrounded by 3 acres of surface parking.

From: Minona Heaviland
To: Guasco, Cher
Cc: CityCouncilListPublic; City Council Public Comments; Elizabeth Ridlington Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] Agenda Item 3: Budget Study Session: Day 2 Date: Tuesday, May 9, 2023 1:08:12 PM
Hi Cher,
Thank you for your kind note. I hope that the City Council will take action and request that TPW increase the allocation of funding for bicycle and pedestrian improvements, and be more transparent in tracking
how funds are being utilized to make streets more welcoming and accessible for community members to travel around the city outside of motorized vehicles.

Best regards,
Minona
On Tue, May 9, 2023 at 9:29 AM Guasco, Cher <[email protected] > wrote:

Good morning,

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with the City Council and the City Manager. We appreciate input from our community. All City Council Members and the City Manager have received your email and I have also forwarded it to the appropriate department.

Sincerely,

All emails are subject to the California Public Records Act and neither the sendor nor any recipients should have any expectation of privacy regarding the contents of such communications.

From: Minona Heaviland <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, May 8, 2023 7:09 AM
To: _CityCouncilListPublic <[email protected]>; City Council Public Comments <cc- [email protected]>
Cc: Elizabeth Ridlington <[email protected]>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Agenda Item 3: Budget Study Session: Day 2

Dear City Council--

I have a few questions and comments on the TPW and CIP budget.

First, is the City Council looking at this budget and thinking about spending through the lense of the Climate Emergency that was declared in 2020? Is the City making a serious
effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

1) Slide 39 on TPW Programs: why is there not a TPW program for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure? Also, there is a line for Zero Waste but not for Vision Zero, the effort to reduce traffic fatalities and serious injuries. Is the City Planning to fund Vision Zero? I think the City has a couple projects planned to stripe
bicycle lanes, and it would be really great to
see the staff time and resources that are planned to be dedicated to bicycle network improvements, and where there might be opportunity to direct resources away from cars to support improvements to building out the bike network, and making streets safer for pedestrians.

2) Slide 57: stats on public infrastructure lists 1,134 lane miles, but how many miles of bike lanes or bike routes does the City maintain (class 1, 2, 3, &4)? how many of the existing bike routes are connected to each other? would it be possible for the City to record and report on miles of connected bike routes as a part of the budget hearings going forward?

3) Slide 71: the first mention of bicycles in the entire budget that I could find. It lists $1.2 million will be spent on bicycles as part of the CIP. What will this be spent on and how will it help to create safer more connected bike routes?

Please consider encouraging TPW to spend more of available resources on improving the safety and accessibility of bike routes to support mode shift away from cars to active transportation. This is important to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector, and also would make Santa Rosa a more pleasant place to live or visit. Please refer to Bikeable
Santa Rosa vision for examples of what residents would like to see.

Also, more transparency and tracking of expenditures to improve bike routes, connections, and safety would be appreciated.

Best regards,
Minona Heaviland
Santa Rosa Resident

From: Gregory Pech
To: City Council Public Comments
Cc: City Clerk
Subject: [EXTERNAL] FY 23-24 Budget Study Session 23-0365 May 9-10 Date: Tuesday, May 9, 2023 4:13:02 PM
I have three fundamental concerns from an overall perspective:

1) The General Fund 5-Year Forecast shows a progressively deepening deficit year after year without any systemic corrective actions. The way the current deficit is being addressed is to pull funds
out of the General Fund Fiscal Stability Reserve which is diminishing quickly.
 2) The use of time-limited General Fund Fiscal Stability Reserve funds to offset General Fund deficits masks a significant budgetary problem. I understand this Reserve is primarily funded by the PGE lawsuit from the 2017 North Bay fires.

Is it
allowable to allocate
these funds to resolve General Fund issues rather than toward reconciling the claims that generated these funds?
 3) There doesn’t appear to be a performance measurement system in place to determine how efficiently departments are utilizing their funds and therefore where the waste exists within the City operations.

This
is apparent in the lack of showing FY22-23 goals
and objectives in the presentation alongside the accomplishments and expenditures for that year.

Suggestions:

1) Do not approve any withdrawals from the General Fund Fiscal Reserve that cannot be matched with a specific PGE claim (no indirect associations allowed) and establish an annual goal to re-build and maintain the Reserve for true emergencies. 2) Establish staffing goals, including attrition, and closing some open requisitions, to ultimately downsize year by year to a) right- size expenditures to be less than budgets, and then b) replenish reserves.

For FY23-24 as a minimum deny any staffing increases at the bottom line (adds OK for Police and Fire this year but net subtracts from all other departments to meet the goal).
3) Establish a 5% process improvement goal per year for all departments.

One first-order
approach to do this is to not fill open
positions created by attrition, and then redistribute the workload (reorganize).

The incentiv
e for this is to avoid layoffs.

Don’t
wait for the
Reserve to be exhausted, which could be in 1-2 years.
 4) Establish a performance measurement system that matches budgets to work content and then measures accomplishments monthly in both cost and schedule.

I hope the City Council can influence change now to avoid a big problem just over the horizon.

Sincerely,

Greg Pech
Santa Rosa, District 4
From: Laura Shumaker
To: City Council Public Comments
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Comments for proposed city budget
Date: Tuesday, May 9, 2023 9:57:31 PM
Dear City Council and Department members,
It is of deep importance to me, a new mom and resident of central Santa Rosa who wants to take my kid on errands by bike, that the city allocate adequate staff time and resources to constructing safe, connected bike infrastructure and supporting other multimodal transportation options.

Specifically, I want to see Santa Rosa:
- building a complete, safe, low-stress bike network to support and enable citizens who don’t have access to, or don’t wish to rely on, a car. - prioritizing planning and investments to enhance road safety, particularly for the most vulnerable street users, including following through on the City’s own Vision Zero Implementation Plan.
- reducing further investment in capacity for automobiles – we already have more lane miles and parking than we can afford to maintain, and additional investments will only undermine the city’s own fiscal, climate, and transportation mode shift goals.

Thank you,
Laura S
From: David Becker
To: City Council Public Comments
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Connected safe bike paths
Date: Wednesday, May 10, 2023 9:39:52 AM
I am asking for your full support for connected, safe bike paths for Santa Rosa.

Thank you.

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
From: SARA JONES
To: City Council Public Comments
Subject: [EXTERNAL] 101 Bike Bridge
Date: Friday, May 12, 2023 10:36:52 AM
Dear City Council Members,
It is so important to prioritize the 101 Bike and Pedestrian bridge overcrossing. It is a key link that will make public transportation and bike commuting work for SRJC and SRHS students and employees as well as those working and using services available at county offices. Our new student housing on campus at SRJC is relying on students being able to live without a car. To do this they need to be able to get to the Cottingtown Mall. The bridge is essential for them. It would be a shame to loose the matching funding from the state and other sources that Santa Rosa has secured. The bridge will make it possible for students from Piner and Elsie Allen High Schools to attend classes at SRJC by commuting on a bike. These students often don't have cars or parents who can get them to campus. The educational dividends will enfranchise our most economically disadvantaged citizens. The bridge will make a continuous safe East West bicycle network possible. Please make the 101 Bicycle and Pedestrian overcrossing a priority.

Sara Jones
Mathematic Instructor
Santa Rosa Junior College
From: Greater Cherry Neighborhood Association
To: CityCouncilListPublic
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Public Comment: Budget Workshop
Date: Wednesday, May 10, 2023 1:06:41 PM
Dear Mayor and City Council;
These are some of our concerns regarding the budget:
1) Not enough analysis was shown. One can not see a trend line for expense/revenue over a reasonable period of time.. like 5 or 10 years. This is significant when you are managing predictable, by increasing, expenses like salaries, benefits, etc. Not enough analysis was done to show how technology can replace some of the salary/benefit categories, so that money could be used for residents and visitors.
2) The theme that expenses are "outpacing" revenues should be a bit more sobering, rather than presenting the idea that one-time funds are routinely used for that deficit. 3) Our analysis indicates that there is plenty of waste in the budget that requires more than the will of department leadership to root out.

This includes insider or backroom deals,
unexplained "consultants", and other expenditures that do not produce value for the governed both in the General fund expenditures, as well other parts of the budget. There was hardly any money indicated for routine, but deep, audits. Start with PED, lots of potential corruption and savings there.
4) The revenues for the general fund (Revised Full Presentation, slide 13) included "Other Taxes, $27.8 million, 14%" of the revenue. In the brief explanation orally on 5/9, the presenter listed a number of significant sources that contribute to this revenue item, but more importantly these sources of revenue are markers for the health of the City.

More definition
needs to be presented about business licenses, TOT, SRTBIA, and other revenues that make up this "other".
5) It is significant that there is a $700,000 expense line item correlating to the Courthouse
Square reunification project. This is an ongoing expense. For how long? How much was interest? Our research team postulates that the Courthouse Square project is $20MM+. The status quo says it was "only" $10MM. That's a big difference. Why is there dissonance on what the actual figure is?
6) The Parking District is presenting some fundamental issues.

Besides the deferred
maintenance, it may be engaging in money-losing operations. For instance, the collection of quarters and dollars from meters (and card payments included), in addition to driving people away from visiting, may fundamentally be operating at a loss (all factors considered).

However, fines for parking in violation of 15-minute, 20-minute, 1, 2, and 4 hours zones - whatever - may be profitable.

Where is the top level analysis for this?
7) No money to the Metro Chamber until a full forensic audit is completed AND the questions about fairness, transparency, and inclusion are SRTBIA
are fully answered.
8) Still, no money to fix sidewalks in the downtown historic neighborhoods, especially those
that are within the Parking District.
9) Why did staff deviate from their consultants advice when presenting the revenue from Sales Tax? Actual reports show that that revenue source was weakening, yet Finance decided to present a much higher but unsupported figure. Why?
As this process plays out, we will probably have more questions and observations.

Looking forward to being of service,
Eric Fraser

GREATER CHERRY STREET NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION

Santa Rosa City CouncilMay 10, 2023

Santa Rosa City Council
May 10, 2023