Dear Council Members and City Staff,
Please select Climate Action Committee Option 1: No Brown Act Body in regard to Item 7.
Council and staff told residents of Sebastopol that the City was in a dire fiscal emergency and did not have funding for roads, police and other vital services, which is why a sales tax increase was necessary.
Citizens, on good faith, voted in higher sales tax on themselves and all the local businesses.
If option 1, No Brown Act Body, saves over $40,000 (!) annually, then you must choose this option. The PowerPoint presentation also reveals that staff could spend more time on bringing in revenue. This is a win, win for the City.
The CAC can function as many other citizen led organizations function. It can still bring its recommendations to Council.
There is absolutely no reason why this citizen committee should be funded with any tax money until the roads are fixed, there is an ADA compliant walkway in Ives, the sidewalks are repaired of trip hazards and critical staffing positions in the police department are filled.
It would be a huge breach of faith for Council to declare a fiscal emergency and then fund a committee which does not need financial support to function. In the last 5 years, the CAC has cost citizens $200,000 or about ¼ of the current deficit.
As the presentation clearly shows, Committees cost the City/ taxpayers money and valuable staff time. I urge Council and Staff to work on combining the Design Review, Planning (which is also Parks) and Public Art into one group to implement further savings for the Citizens/City. If each group costs approximately $40,000 per year to run, that is a cost of $120,000 per year to run these three separate groups. That is the cost of a salary and a huge amount of staff time. There is no reason why these groups should be separate.
No town of our size spend this amount of money on extra groups that are not part of the City’s basic function.
It appears that the City is spending approximately $160,000 per year just to run committees that do not bring in any revenue. There should be a goal to reduce this by $100,000, thereby saving $1,000,000 over a 10 year period.
Uphold your word to the citizens that just voted to tax themselves more to support City Services and Infrastructure and make the Climate Action Committee a No Brown Act Body.
Best,
Kate Haug