‘Climate Action’ committee leadership limited to citizens within city limits
Council members,
Regarding agenda item 9 ‘Climate Action Committee
Appointments and Recruitment’, this group is currently
organized by the City of Sebastopol stating ‘ members must reside in 95472 zip code area’.
The recruitment aims to support the following City Council Goals:
Goal 5 - ‘Provide Open and Responsive Municipal Government Leadership’, including
Goal 5.1.4 ‘Enhance the use of the City of Sebastopol Committees, Commissions and Boards’.
Given the five alarm budget shortfall fire we are currently experiencing in a serious recession, may I suggest this 95472 area code wide group of activists officers should be limited to known citizens within the city of Sebastopol?
The 95472 zip code area is sixty nine square miles. The city of Sebastopol is 1.88 square niles in size.
We have a very overstretched and underpaid city staff and council.
There are various Sonoma County climate and environmental groups which many of the current members of our city’s ‘Climate Action Committee’ are also members of. There are also lots of ‘non profit’ and lobbyist groups with political agenda goals to eliminate all energy sources except electricity, and to encourage the use of digital surveillance to monitor water and energy resource usage in the name of conservation.
A number of City of Sebastopol residents, particularly in the Luther Burbank and Fircrest areas of our city are deeply concerned about these digital surveillance technologies and the impact they may have on their health due to digital device adjacencies to their homes.
It is unfair to have residents of a 69 square mile area taking up valuable city staff and council time to promote their global (5,489,256,960,000,000 sq ft) climate goals when we have such huge local fiscal and organizational problems ahead of us, including increasing our city sales tax income, revitalizing our downtown to make it attractive to visitors again and finding other ways to fund our fire, public works and other amenities and replenish our financial reserves.
There are plenty of other local groups, clubs, lobbyist groups and non profits that non city resident members of the city climate committee can join locally, instead of over stretching our City of Sebastopol Committees, Commissions and Boards and staff.
I think it is great to have local city of Sebastopol leadership on responsible environmental behaviors and concerns but it is not appropriate or fair to have formally city recognized leadership within our city who do not reside within city limits.
Oliver Dick
Downtown Sebastopol