AI13 No further action on county ‘Enhanced
Infrastructure Financing District’ by CoS
Having repeatedly spent a lot of time attempting to
understand the fiendishly complex and open ended EIFD
documents and presentation I feel the city should apply pressure on District 6 supervisor Hopkins to organize this as an eventual future funding source for unincorporated west county and that the city should not become
entangled in this long term effort.
We don’t have the staff resources for what looks like
extremely complex bureaucracy demands (whose political
goal posts may well move over time), and it is is far from clear what defined benefits will actually accrue to CoS from this.
The current Staff Recommendations are alarmingly vague
and open to abuse and distortion over time by the county who have deeper pockets and manpower:
‘Staff recommends that the conditions for continuing to proceed with an EIFD include (1) ensuring that the
County is aware of the City’s expectation that the County will match City contributions to an EIFD focused on
Sebastopol with a 1:1 match of future funding, and (2) that we complete a full analysis of the impact of an EIFD
on the City’s General Fund before taking other steps that will require a significant amount of staff time’.
The 24% of CoS (downtown) ‘Corridor-Focused EIFD
Boundary Alternative’ is alarming in that 75% of the city will see little to no benefit while being asked to carry the EIFD costs and stresses.
There are a lot of ways this could end badly for the city, from being shortchanged after contributing effort to the sort of fiascos council have managed to become entangled with recently with St Vincent de Paul, SAVs, expensive
law suits versus the city and taking on financial
obligations for highly questionable non profit/advocate projects. We’re not very good at coming out ahead or with any success on these no doubt well meaning efforts.
The reality of where we are in district 6’s relationship with the only incorporated city within its borders in 2024 is that the county is putting huge pressures on CoS taxpayers to provide services and resources for all district 6 residents and beyond. At this point in time the county should
arguably now be urgently organizing to contribute
significant amounts to the CoS budget in order to help
pay for the many resources currently paid for by city
residents that are enjoyed by county residents.
The city of Sebastopol is the gateway to the coast (and of course commuters from the coast to inland) and an
important part of district 6’s infrastructure.
The county needs to now step up and start using its
bureaucratic muscle to obtain funding for the city, not the other way around. We need all the help we can get today from supervisor Hopkins, who has been embroiled in
various expensive virtue signaling schemes leveraging the city’ resources which have negatively contributed in
various ways to our budget crisis.
I therefore recommend the city not proceeding with this convoluted, bureaucratic long term project, but instead encouraging the county to drive this effort.
Oliver Marks
Downtown Sebastopol