Dear Council and City Staff,
Tonight’s agenda discusses several appointments to existing committees including Planning, Public Arts, Design and Climate Action.
In previous meetings, it has been discussed eliminating the Public Arts, combining the Planning and Design, and converting Climate Action into a self-staffed and governed body group to save on staff time and City budget.
I support combining Planning and Design. Planning is also Parks and could absorb Public Arts as the public art is installed in public spaces.
Climate Action should be self-governed and more aligned with the County as Sebastopol is less than 2 square miles and has a very small population relative to the County.
The taxpayers and City Staff should support a Water and Sewer Enterprise Fund and Infrastructure committee as water and sewer are vital infrastructure, impact all residents and businesses and also collect fees from every household and business. In addition, the City and Council has a state mandated fiduciary duty to rate payers according to Prop. 218.
If the City/Taxpayers are going to spend money and staff time on a committee, it should be on a topic that impacts the majority of citizens and businesses such as Water and Sewer.
Tonight should be spent reducing the City’s expense on committees that have a very limited scope like Public Art or too broad of a scope like Climate Action. Sebastopol is in a fiscal crisis and needs to prioritize support toward City functions that impact the majority of residents and businesses – water, sewer, planning, parks.
Thank you!