Dear Council Members and City Staff,
In reading the EFID proposal, I am once again extremely doubtful as to the exact benefit to Sebastopol tax payers.
It seems that the County should be reimbursing Sebastopol for the services it already provides to West County:
1) Ives Pool
2) Senior Center
3) Sebastopol Community Cultural Center
4) Ives Park
5) Luther Burbank Experimental Gardens
6) Skate park
7) Willard Libby Park
8) Analy High School, which serves all of West County (more traffic on roads/ more policing necessary/ more wear and tear on infrastructure) 9) Much of the affordable housing in West County
a. Park Village – homeless housing – over 80 residents
b. Sebastopol Inn/ Elderberry Commons – 31 units homeless housing c. SVP Gravenstein Commons – 22 units homeless housing
d. Woodmark Apartments – low income farm worker housing e. Burbank Heights Apartments – senior housing
f. 699 Gravenstein North, Burbank Housing
These are all items which would qualify as projects within the EFID yet, we do not get reimbursement.
In addition, Sebastopol only gets 14% of the property tax paid by residents and commercial property owners while the County gets 22%. How are these percentages determined? Instead of entering an EFID, the City needs to re-negotiate the City’s percentage of property tax. Sebastopol should be getting the 22% and the County the 14%.
Part of the EFID, should be that the County does a $2 to $1 match to the City’s contribution to help support the existing resources that Sebastopol ALREADY provides to County residents.
The most salient part of the EFID is the ability of the City to secure infrastructure bonds.
Council and City Staff should ask questions regarding what would be needed for the City to secure infrastructure bonds via EFID which focus narrowly on road repair and upgrades (current cost $18,000,000), water and sewer upgrades and repairs ($13,000,000), sidewalk repair (TBD) and any other basic and vital infrastructure. No money should be allotted for libraries, parks or other items that are not part of our critical infrastructure. We have too much immediate need for crticial infrastructure repair with no means of funding it.
Best,
Kate Haug