Dear Council, City Staff and Chief McDonagh,
I hope you are well.
I am asking that the City and Police Department and Fire Departments keep specific data on calls related to Elderberry Commons and Park Village.
If the calls exceed normal calls to multi-unit dwellings, the City should ask the County for funding to help fully staff our police department.
As the City has lost revenue (property tax, sales tax, TOT) in relationship to these two properties, the County should not ask the City to bear any increased costs.
As the Citizens of Sebastopol, pay for Park Village’s mortgage, insurance and upkeep, the Citizens should not be required to pay additional money for increased police service. When the City purchased the Park Village property, they told Citizens it would be a park. Then they converted it to low income/ homeless housing.
Sebastopol only gets 14 cents of every property tax dollar while the County gets 22 cents or 63% more than Sebastopol. Yet, Sebastopol has the majority of affordable housing in West County (if not all) and all of the Permanent Supportive Housing.
Currently, Sebastopol has an unfair financial burden of being the epicenter for West County’s affordable and permanent supportive housing. Thus the Citizens and Businesses are subsidizing affordable housing for all of West County without any reimbursement.
The City needs data to show the County if there is any impact on City Services due to Permanent Supportive Housing locations like Elderberry Commons or Park Village.
This will be especially important in any financial discussions of the EIFD.
Thank you for your work.
Best,
Kate Haug