City Council tackles major issues

At its last meeting of 2007, the Sonoma City Council voted to increase water rates, decrease growth rates, and buy the fire chief a new “green” truck. Council members heard questions and comments from the public ranging from whether or not the City has a disaster plan to how to make millions by saving pennies in jars.
First, the disaster plan. The answer is yes. The plan resides with the city manager, and Vice Mayor Brown said that he hopes the incoming city manger, Linda Kelly, will take a look at the current plan and make recommendations for revisions to the council. Kelly is particularly suited to the task, he said, having been two days into her job as Fairfax City Manager when the 2006 flood inundated that town. Fairfax now has an extensive disaster plan and detailed information available on the Town of Fairfax website.
Land use issues got their share of time at the meeting. Former council member Larry Barnett cautioned the council to make planning decisions based in law, not sentiment, lest the City of Sonoma find itself in a similar position as the town of Half Moon Bay, which is being sued for $36.8 million by a developer prevented from building on a wetland. “Unless decisions are based in findings made in law,” Barnett said, “please be careful.”
Mary Pass, Sector Superintendent of California State Parks, said there had been some “misinformation” at the last council meeting, and she wanted to go on record about the State Parks’ willingness to discuss with the council the issue of the Montini property. “To my knowledge there’s not been any discussion with the City Council on this issue,” she said, “so I’d like to extend the invitation.”
In a separate interview, she explained that while it might sound like a simple solution just to run the new trail across a portion of the State’s property so as not to disturb the grazing cows, the problem is more complex. While both the open space district and the state parks are committed to providing public access to their lands, the two actually have different missions. An open space district can promote agricultural use as part of its mission, but state parks cannot. “In fact,” Pass said, “in a number of park areas, they don’t accept lands where there is grazing going on.” Grazing, she explained, can create adverse conditions for vegetation and streams as well as trails, which the state parks is obliged maintain to a certain standard. Currently that standard, which is to meet the American Disabilities Act requirements for accessibility, also applies to the open space district. Pass said the cost of this access is an issue, as is the need to protect, according to their respective missions, the character of the lands to which the public would have access. “Again,” said Pass, “right now, until some of these issues are resolved, it’s tough for the state to say, ‘Sure, we’ll take on another project.’ We’re barely hanging on with our own.”
On the issue of the Sonoma Valley Hospital “in-town” site, Mayor Sanders said that the council wants to encourage public discussion, in a formal way, from the city’s perspective. To accomplish that, she announced the formation of an ad hoc liaison committee to work to encourage public discussion and to make sure that the city and the neighbors and the cistrict are all kept informed of the respective interests and decisions and concerns. Appointees to this committee are expected to serve until October 1, 2008.
The council moved on to the consent calendar to hear discussions on transportation issues and environment issues and vote on water rates and growth. Then it came time to choose the new Alcalde. Mayor Sanders said she had been given three names and with great difficulty had chosen one, Sy Lenz. “He’s an unsung hero,” she said, “when it’s driving rain, late at night, and the phone rings, he’s the kind of guy who’ll go find a place for someone to stay. I’ve known him for 20 years. He’s always doing good deeds behind the scenes. He’s been instrumental helping us get the emergency shelter going in our town.” The council declared a five-minute break to call Lenz, who was surprised. He said he had been watching the meeting on SVTV 27 but had just turned it off to go to bed. It had indeed been a long, busy night.