Letters to the Editor

Local taxes and how they’re spent

Editor: The letter (Nov. 29) suggesting the City of Sonoma couldn’t afford to exist without the County of Sonoma created a perfect opportunity for me to share some information about local taxes and how they are spent. While the Valley boundaries seem “invisible,” the distribution of local government [City and County] revenues and responsibilities are well defined.
Let me start by reviewing some quick facts about the revenue sources for the City of Sonoma. They are listed in order of dollar amounts generated to the City’s general fund.
TOT (hotel tax)
Property tax
Sales tax
Real estate transfer tax
The City’s general fund is responsible for direct services provided to the citizens of Sonoma including General Administration (Council, Clerk, Manager, Finance, Attorney), Public Safety (Police, Fire), General Services (Public Works, Streets, Parks, Planning, Development, Community Activities) and emergency ambulance services. Many of these services are also benefits to County residents.
The County gets 50% more of proceeds from property taxes within city limits than the City. In turn they provide us with services like jails, health and human services, etc. Clearly, we are paying for those services. They are not given to us. The letter’s reference to the dump and the operating of general elections are also issues which are paid by the City and/or its residents. Elections costs are reimbursed to the County Clerk’s Office and dump fees are charged and paid for through local garbage rates. Even the ultimate closing and remediation of County dump sites is a liability of the City for the City’s “contribution” into the landfill. Interestingly, the City provides services to the County without any ability to recuperate the costs. The City’s general fund gets a whopping nine-tenths of a percent of sales taxes. To suggest County residents should boycott City businesses is preposterous and wouldn’t do our Valley any good. Again, it is a give-and take issue in that the businesses in the City limits affords County residents with a convenient shopping center reducing the need to commute for services.
The City does, however, provide public services to the County. We provide ambulance services that would otherwise be provided by the County, at County expense. We do this because we want a higher level of service than what the County could provide given the distances to Santa Rosa. Our ambulance service, servicing all of Sonoma Valley, can mean the difference of life or death in a medical emergency.
The City also funds a bevy of other public services for the County: parks and recreation, youth and family services, public safety, community activity grants, library improvements, pet education, sports programs, ecology educational programming, and more. Most recently, the City Council approved $200K+ toward equipment costs to keep the community hospital open during an emergency. This is vital to all of us; rich or poor, regardless of whether we live in the county or the city.
The Sonoma Valley Hospital benefits the Springs redevelopment area. Without getting into the complexities of local redevelopment areas and how they impact County and City budgets, I want to point out that the availability of emergency health care most definitely affects the entire Valley, whether you live in the Springs or Sonoma. Again, this is an issue of providing a service which mitigates costs the County would otherwise be liable for absent the Sonoma Valley Hospital. Indigent care would fall to County services. It is not a matter of weighting one redevelopment project over another. County redevelopment can fund a variety of projects and should be viewed in that fashion. Property owners in both the City and the County individually contribute to the redevelopment agencies and therefore should have the opportunity to benefit.
Joanne Bouldt Sanders
Mayor Pro Tem, City of Sonoma
P.S. If you are wondering what happens to 99% of sales tax revenue, it goes to the State of California.

Flowers for Flowery

Editor: We are the first-grade students of Flowery School. We want to tell you that a lot of people helped us to make a beautiful garden in front of our classroom. There are flowers, soil, frogs, bees, barrels, rocks and three beautiful benches. It is much better because it looks very pretty. Before there was only dry soil. Now there are seeds and we can study the plants. We made this garden with the help of Mom Rocio, Celeste’s mother. Genesis’ mother, Mom Silvia helped us get the flowers. The garden needs water, Javier and Jose helped us make the holes for the barrels, so that we could water it and the water could come out. It looks beautiful! We can seed more plants. We can take care of the garden. Thanks to the moms that helped us make the benches. The whole class made a bench. It was a lot of fun and we are proud of our work. We love the way our garden looks. Now we have a nice place to sit down. Our parents can sit there and wait for their children. We sit there after school. Some of us sit there to wait for our parents, read a book or do homework. We are very satisfied with the garden. We want to thank everyone who made this possible. Thank you to Sonoma Building Supplies for giving us the rocks and the soil so that our class looks pretty! Thanks to Parsons Lumber and Hardware and to Gundlach Bundschu Winery for giving us the barrels! Thanks to Blooms Nursery for giving us the flowers!
The First Grade Class
at Flowery School.
Sonoma

Prisoner in my
home
Editor: I really hate the taking of sides in a community. It is divisive and creates wounds that are hard to heal. When a portion of the Leveroni property was being discussed for taking via “eminent domain” a few years back, I was against it, until the folks who spearheaded the option were asking to place a 3-story garage across from my house. You see I live at 813 Hayes Street, directly across from the Cuneo/Carinalli/In-Town Option parcel. At that point, struggling with the worse of two personal “evils” (NIMFrontY vs. liberal environmentalist), I need not have worried too much, as the incompetence (albeit well-meaning) of the then board and management of the hospital created an unprecedented election from “H… E… Double Toothpicks” that cost you and me as taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars while pulling up lame from the finish line when the race hadn’t even really started.
Unfortunately, we have new board, new management, still well-meaning UGB watchdogs and yet still the same old story. I am experiencing “eminent domain” as we speak. I couldn’t sell my house right now if I wanted to (and I want to, trust me) and the property across the street from me that is zoned residential (check the city plan) has been in limbo for the past 3-4 years and, if the bond passes and is built upon, will be for 6-7 years more. I am a prisoner in my own house.
I don’t want to be “placated.” I don’t want to be labeled. I just want to say this “In My Neighborhood” option is bad. It’s bad not only for me and my neighbors and their property values and the pain of living through 6-7 years of construction but also because we have not been treated with respect by the folks that want to change our lives dramatically. None of my neighbors have ever once in all of the years of discussion been asked our opinion, until the hospital board decided upon the “In My Neighborhood” option and began inviting us to meetings, whose sole purpose I believe is to appease vs. listen. It is bad because it doesn’t look to the future and it doesn’t deal with dramatic impacts on local traffic and safety (driven on Bettencourt or MacArthur lately?). It is bad because again the hospital has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to procure property that will no doubt be lost when their bond election fails. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money, without any environmental impact report, election, analysis of whether this option is feasible or not – scary.
Oops. It sounds like I just took a side. I guess I decided to take a side for my children, for my neighbors, for my community, for the taxpayers who are tired of the inability of the hospital board to find an option that everyone can live with. Because that is what this issue is truly about – consensus. The folks who got their way with the board this time didn’t include me in the discussion and thus I am a loser if the bond passes. My neighbors and I are not the Leveroni family, with large property and over a hundred years of valley history. We are the Gossetts, the Mixes, the Rinaldis, the O’Briens and many more and we ask those who are making poor decisions to stop and build community consensus on what will work for all.
Bob and Melissa Gossett

Sonoma Council pay good for future

Editor,“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” [Greek proverb.] The Sonoma City Council took a step towards greatness when they voted unanimously to pay Council members a small monthly salary. The Council looked to our future as all good leaders should. This small salary is not for the enrichment of the present Council but to put in place some small financial help for others who might want to serve their city, but find it too great a financial sacrifice. This might apply especially to women who would need reimbursement for childcare and other expenses.
A letter to the editor (in another local newspaper on Nov. 16) struck me as extremely snide and negative. The writer derides our Councilwoman Sanders, for saying that “if she gets nothing else done in her four years, she will be proud of making this change in policy.” I ask, why shouldn’t she be proud? She and the rest of the Council are creating a path to change so that a wider base of our town might participate in the democratic process.
The letter writer goes on to insult the entire Council by inferring that they do not work hard enough. I wonder if this writer has any idea how many hours our Council puts in FOR FREE every single month and how much on top of that they donate to Sonoma from their own pockets.
Every other City Council in Sonoma County receives some compensation for their time. Why shouldn’t ours?
Our Council deserves nothing but praise and thanks for all the countless hours spent on our behalf, and the good that they do, out of love for our community. In fact they are … priceless!!!
Catherine Sperring
Sonoma