Council members,
After attending most council meetings for the last year and a half. I am quite concerned about the city’s finances.
1) After reading the comments it seems the financial crisis is not justified because of the revenue numbers used. It
sounds like if historical data is used to forecast, the situation improves and there is no financial deficit.
2) Sebastopol does have an infrastructure funding emergency; however, any parcel tax should be explicitly used toward one aspect of infrastructure as the numbers do not add up toward funding everything. I believe a choice needs to be made between water and roads as both require over
$15,000,000 in infrastructure. $871,000 per year needs to be explicitly focused to accomplish infrastructure repair and maintenance.
3) I adamantly think that ANY parcel tax needs to be fully vetted with a clear plan and should not be brought to
voters until there is a document that outlines EXACTLY what the money will be funding, the timeline to complete the work and pricing adjusted for inflation.
4) The Firefighters Association explicitly asked at the last meeting AND a meeting before that AND another meeting
before that, not to put any competing measures on the
ballot. We need to be building bridges with the local
firefighting community as our fire service is in a state of flux. We need these relationships.
5) After stating the above, I think that putting a parcel tax or any tax on the March ballot is just another waste of taxpayers’ money. Use it to bring people here for the
holidays so our stores can thrive.
Mary Cone
Sebastopol