Dear Council and City Staff,
I’m writing in regard to Item 7, the retaining of Ron Nelson as Police Chief for 180 days.
As the City moves forward with the hiring of a new police chief, I would suggest that the new chief has experience with reducing drug use and drug supply in situation like Sebastopol, which is a small town located in larger spheres of influence.
It is clear that the fentanyl, meth and heroin circulate freely in Sebastopol, specifically amongst the homeless population as this article documents.
https://www.sebastopoltimes.com/p/keeping-track-of-the-transients Sebastopol, due to extremely poor Council decisions, will also be home to two HomeKey hotels, which combined will have 50 or more residents. HomeKey is treatment optional. If you read the Press Democrat article, you will see that many people in the SVP Commons project are active drug users.
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/st-vincent-de-paul-sonoma-county-homelesshousing/?ref=home-A1top#login Sebastopol will have one Homekey Project at the east entrance of town and one at the north, both of which run along the Joe Rodota trail.
One might assume that drug dealers will be supplying not only our current homeless population but the new residents of the HomeKey Projects.
In addition, Sebastopol has one of four sites in the ENTIRE county for needle exchange. There is another site in Guerneville. The other two are in Santa Rosa. This also brings IV drug users into our community.
https://sonomacounty.ca.gov/health-and-human-services/health-services/divisions/publichealth/disease-control/hivaids/syringe-harm-reduction-services I would suggest asking West County Community Health Centers to eliminate the needle exchange in Sebastopol to help curb the flow of IV drug users into Sebastopol.
As the City moves forward with hiring a new chief, I would suggest making them aware of the HomeKey projects, drug use and drug dealing that takes place in and around Sebastopol and ask them how they would address this situation as Sebastopol also have a high population of school aged children.
It seems these facts would be very important as you move forward with recruitment.
Best,
Kate Hauig