All Things Considered

We’re thinking of the Sonoma City Council’s decision last week to push ahead with the reconstruction of the permanent council chambers and police station on First Street West, instead of switching to the more popular site on Broadway at Patten Street. Change had seemed so simple: better location, owned by the city, sure! Alas, few things are ever simple.
In a perfect world (and Sonoma comes close, of course), a fresh decision could be made with fresh information, and the location changed. But government does not work the way we run our private lives or the way private businesses operate.
Nor should government work that way, frankly. Its processes run slowly, and publicly. All citizens have a right to ask questions and to offer advice. Contracting is by open bid. Borrowing is via bonds. All of these processes take time, as they should, so we citizens can trust that our public funds are not being mis-used.
In the present case, it’s been fully nine years that the council has been planning to rebuild those facilities. Seismic upgrading is an imperative that can’t be avoided, so the need that existed in 1998 exists still. Council members now are concerned, as they should be, that making so fundamental a change in the project at this stage might add years, literally, to the schedule. Moreover, there is some risk that, if the Broadway site proved unworkable, the opportunity at the First Street site might be lost.
The funding is in place and the plans are in place, and the tenants are out of the place, making it ready for construction work, so we don’t disagree with the close decision. Whatever site we might have preferred, what we most prefer is effective city government. It takes attentive representatives, able staff, and informed citizens. Not everyone will like all the decisions, but Sonoma has all three elements, so we can say that, yes, local government works.