City dissolves landscape districts

Sonoma’s City Council answered one question of fairness at their June 18 meeting and left hanging another.
The council voted 4–1, with Councilmember Stanley Cohen dissenting, to dissolve three special assessment districts – City of Sonoma Landscape and Lighting , El Prado and Fryer Creek Village by which residents were charged for neighborhood upkeep. The council decided on the move last June, since it didn’t seem fair for the Sonoma’s public works department to provide city-wide landscape maintenance but only assess these three areas.
Annual assessments for the three amount to $70,339. Currently, some $42,000 remains in the district accounts, and the initial plan was to draw on them as needed before turning for maintenance money to the city General Fund.
But resident Dave Sickert, citing the fairness issue, asked if the $42,000 couldn’t be redistributed to the taxpayers from whom it was taken. This prompted a suggestion from Councilmember August Sebastiani that the council find a way to make that happen, a sentiment seconded by Councilmember Steve Barbose.
“It’s their money,” Barbose said. “We should give it back to them if we can do it.”
On the other hand, Mayor Joanne Sanders wondered whether or not the refund amounts would justify the personnel effort toward determining how much the city owes to whom. City Manager Linda Kelly said she’d bring to a future meeting an estimate of the needed staff time.