Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2026 7:43 AM
From: Emily Webster
To: Stephen Zollman <[email protected]>; City Council <[email protected]>; [email protected]; Sandra Maurer <[email protected]>; Phill Carter <[email protected]>; Neysa Hinton <[email protected]>
Subject: HOW LOW INCOME SENIORS CITIZENS OF SEBASTOPOL FEEL ABOUT GROCERY OUTLET We seniors desperately need an alternative to the high priced grocery stores in Sebastopol. I live in Fircrest mobile home park. I am 78 years old. Soon I will no longer be able to drive. I am practicing taking the bus and I walk everywhere in Sebastopol. If I have to go out , I drive to the Grocery Outlet in Rohnert Park, It's the safest route to take. I also shop the smaller Sebastopol local stores for things I can't get at GO. I had a meeting in Fircrest Mobile Home Park to see if others felt the same. It was unanimous that they did.
A few negatives were : It will change the look of Sebastopol, Grocery Outlet is a Corporation and Sebastopol doesn't want Corporations here, it will cause more traffic, we don't need another grocery store, it will hurt our small local businesses.
Rebuttal: We all know the extra parking lot is not forever and that some business will go in there, we already have corporations here and GO is independently owned by a local person, the study on the flow of traffic shows it will be less than significant, we probably do have enough grocery stores, but most of your senior population can't buy good healthy food here is Sebastopol and GO gives us the opportunity to buy healthy foods that we can afford. It won't hurt small businesses because we seniors buy minimal things in those stores that we can afford and we use mainly GO in other towns. OH, their look is not classy enough for Sebastopol. Have you seen the new Petaluma GO? It's much nicer than Safeway inside and out. I bet if we get a GO here the City Council could tell them they have to make their sign smaller.
Life would be so much nicer for us seniors if we could walk or take Sebastopol's free shuttle to GO for our bulk shopping. When you are considering a Grocery Outlet in Sebastopol, please think of your senior community. Gosh, we need it.
Kind regards,
Kind regards,