From: s
To: Mary Gourley
Subject: Re: Budget Suggestions
Date: Monday, June 26, 2023 12:05:55 PM
Hi Mary,
Apologies if I sent the message below to the wrong address. I assumed you would forward it to the council, but there may be a different address for that now. If so, could you please advise accordingly?
Best regards,
Geo
On 6/22/2023 12:49 PM, sugeo wrote:
Dear Council Members,
I'm writing to provide a few suggestions regarding Sebastopol's ongoing budget discussions:
City Manager:
Promote Mary Gourley to City Manager; Mary has been facilitating much of the department’s operations under a part-time City Manager for many years.
Assuming that Mary would agree to accept this proposal it might be possible to convert her present position to part-time if some of her current responsibilities could be folded into a full-time City Manager’s job description.
Promoting Mary would eliminate the need for recruiting fees.
City Attorney:
Sebastopol has had a part-time City Attorney for many years. Hiring a fulltime City Attorney rather than contracting with an external law firm on an as-needed basis seems unnecessary.
Ongoing Litigation: The ACLU has deeper pockets than Sebastopol.
Settling the current suit against our RV parking ordinance as suggested by Kate Haug seems like the best approach.
Police Department:
Savings created by implementing the proposals above could be redirected to Sebastopol’s police department.
De-funding our already-understaffed police department in a time of rising crime might prove an unwise course of action.
Fire Department Stipend and Retention Pay:
The Sebastopol Volunteer Fire Department has saved Sebastopol millions of dollars over many years.
The increased stipends and retention pay in question represent only a small percentage of Sebastopol’s proposed budget.
Eliminating these incentives while increasing budgets for the City Attorney and Manager positions seems mean-spirited.
Community Benefit Grants:
Rather than provide crumbs to the Ad Hoc Budget Committee’s favorites, it might be better to suspend all grants until solvency is attained in the interest of fairness.
City Revenue:
Directing Sebastopol's Planning Department to do everything reasonable to facilitate construction of the currently proposed downtown hotel might encourage the developers to begin construction ASAP.
Providing a short-term tax reduction to any and all hotel developers for projects located downtown might result in long-term revenue benefits.
Best Regards,
George Noel