From: Tom Boag
To: Mary Gourley
Subject: Hwy126N RV Village Project - Comments to Sebastopol Mayor and City Council Date: Tuesday, January 18, 2022 5:22:55 PM
Attachments: Oct 27 City Council Mtg - SAVS RV Village Proposal.pdf Attached Message Part
Nov 30 City Council Mtg - RV Village Staff Report.pdf
Attached Message Part
Dec 21 City Council Mtg - Parking Policy Options Introduced.pdf Attached Message Part
To the Sebastopol Mayor and City Council
From Tom Boag, Resident and Homeowner in Sebastopol
I would like to speak about the - seemingly underway - RV Village Project on Highway 116 North - and how the location was suddenly changed.
Thanks to Diana Rich, who supplied me with a number of Staff Reports and proposals - which I have read in full. I realize that the council has already approved a direction on this but there seems to be a lot of what I think is justified unhappiness among businesses and residents in the Highway 116 North area and, to the best I can learn from reading the staff reports and talking to a few locals, not enough outreach to these people was conducted.
Understand I am in favor of assisting homeless (that is, Sebastopol homeless but not necessarily imports) but I think the Highway 116 North location has obvious risks (compared to other locations) and am disappointed in your haste for this switch - apparently without testing the feeling of Hwy 116 N businesses and homeowners.
Earlier, there were other locations proposed - behind Weischmann Hall and the Youth Annex and also at the existing City Corporation yard. The decision not to use these locations seems to be based on capital cost estimates to the city and other present uses for the alternate locations.
It would be interesting for someone in city to inventory and justify all the stuff stored in corp yard and behind Weischman Hall. Also, why is the transfer point get priority? The pressure to move the homeless away from the Barlow (and featuring their letters) and the absence, if so, of asking the Northern Sebastopol merchants/residents for their opinion is not fair. I am also concerned with the project layouts I've seen - with apparent small distance between trailers and recall how quickly fire spread in the Journey’s End trailer park spread in Tubbs fire. I thought that trailer parks are required to have a minimum spacing between trailers - How is RV Village exempt from this spacing? Does the declaration of Emergency override this requirement?
Seemingly a declaration of emergency (& COVID) really separated the alternative locations - rather just hustled the decision. (All the services to homeless could be delivered in either location.) It seems that Saint Vincent de Paul and SAVS are working together to push the City for quick decision.
From what I hear - maybe we'll hear tonight - that there is a group of market, hardware store, bank, wine store, veterinary, charter school plus a couple of streets of residents behind the church and down Hurlbut who say they haven’t been consulted. In fact the Staff Report acknowledges they have not and makes that now a task for SAVS to survey! Unfortunately those people may be forced to seek legal relief to have their voices heard. It's unfortunate that might interfere with the good that can be done here.
As someone who listened through several years of arguments about CVS, I see a messy situation happening again.
Regards,
Tom Boag
Sebastopol Resident