Sent: Monday, September 14, 2026 9:55 AM
From: Gail Peters
To: City Council <[email protected]>
Subject: Input about Sebastopol Commons
Dear Mayor and City Council Members,
I think the commons project has huge potentials for cost overruns. Here are just some that come to mind.
-We might not get as much as expected for the sale of the current in town buildings since one had mold and all are old.
- They might have trouble renting one building.
- Set up costs.
- To be effective the 24 bus might have to run in 2 directions which means adding adding bus stops on both side of the streets and doubling the number of trips or extending the time between trips to 2 hours instead of 1 hour
- The one elevator per 3 story building might break down. Elevators are costly to repair with a scarcity of repairmen. Using the stairs would not be possible for a lot of seniors.
With the city's tight budget, the city first needs to spend money improving our infrastructure and just getting our library back to how it was functioning. -Fund the Pleasant Hill Loop project and the Well 4 Replacement projects. If Well 4 fails, I would think some residents would not have water or all of us would be on strict water rationing.
If the sewer system fails some, or all of us would have our drains backing up. That certainly would be more of an inconvenience to our population than currently having limited access to library materials and going to different locations for senior center activities. - The library just spent money remodeling and putting in an automated check-in system. They talked about expanding the library services. Lets just concentrate on getting it functioning as before.
Then consider taking on a project such as this. Until then don’t spend city money on studies or outside consultants for this or any similar project.
Sincerely
Gail Peters Kinzel