Santa Rosa City Council Goal Setting Special Meeting - February 6, 2024
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Santa Rosa City Council Goal Setting Special Meeting - February 6, 2024
This special meeting of the Santa Rosa City Council was convened for a Goal Setting Workshop, focusing on establishing priorities for the upcoming fiscal year and evaluating the City Manager's performance. The meeting included presentations from Jacob Green & Associates (JGA) on strategic planning best practices and from the Chief Financial Officer on the city's financial outlook, followed by extensive public comment. The council then adjourned to closed session to discuss the City Manager's performance evaluation.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Tom LaPenna (Santa Rosa Manufactured-Home Owners Association - SRMOA) supported recent council actions for manufactured home owners and requested a zoning overlay to protect senior parks and lowering the in-place transfer fee from 10% to 5%.
- Gregory Fearon urged staff to prepare for rapid utilization of a potential new revenue source for permanent supportive housing, pending a November 2024 voter approval for housing subsidies.
- Roger McConnell (SRMOA) supported lowering the in-place transfer fee and adopting a zoning overlay.
- Duane DeWitt (Sonoma County Housing Advocacy Group) advocated for a hard-headed fiscal oversight approach, not using reserves for the upcoming budget, addressing housing constraints, seeking federal and state funding for extremely low-income rental housing, and exploring grant funding for Roseland.
- Cris Eggers (Bikeable Santa Rosa) supported recent and upcoming bike projects and suggested allocating 15% of transportation funding to protected, connected bikeways.
- JoAnn Jones (SRMOA) supported creating an overlay to designate senior parks as senior parks.
- Calum Weeks (Generation Housing) supported zoning reforms, parking policy updates, impact fee relief, and housing goals.
- Melissa Stewart supported funding for the Violence Prevention Program (VPP) and other safety programs, including School Resource Officers (SROs) at high schools.
- Bill Montgomery (Friends of Prince Memorial Greenway) supported funding for parkways and median landscape maintenance and formally adopting the Friends of Prince Memorial Greenway as a city activity.
- Ananda Sweet (Santa Rosa Metro Chamber) supported goals in six areas: Economic Development/Business Support, Housing, Homelessness, minimizing fire risk, downtown vibrancy, and early care/education.
- Steve Rabinowitsh supported goals for Prince Memorial and Southeast Greenways to address climate change and enhance community attractiveness.
- Chris Guenther (Bikeable Santa Rosa) supported creating a low-stress bicycle network as part of the transportation system.
- Ryan Mathis supported budgeting for SROs at high schools.
- Yvonne Berg (SRMOA) supported lowering the in-place transfer fee, noting that the current 10% fee was causing buyers to fail loan qualification due to high rent costs.
- Joti Chandi supported funding or in-kind services for the Wednesday Night Market.
- Karen Weeks supported complete implementation of the 2014 Open Government report.
- Danielle Nelson (General Manager, Santa Rosa Plaza Mall) supported an office incentive policy, downtown parking strategy review, allocation of an Assistant City Attorney for misdemeanor enforcement, addressing safety at the Transit Mall, and overall downtown safety and attraction.
- Rebecca Sullivan (Safe Campus Alliance) supported prioritizing city safety programs and school campus safety, including funding for SROs and VPP.
- Mike Montague (Railroad Square Association President) supported additional funding for parks, specifically Prince Memorial Greenway maintenance.
- Michelle Klimek supported funding for bicycle paths, better connectivity, and downtown beautification.
- Jim Pedgrift (Southeast Greenway Campaign) supported making the Southeast Greenway a priority goal with adequate staff time in Planning and Recreation/Parks departments.
- Margaret DeMatteo (Legal Aid) supported lower in-place transfer fees and adoption of senior mobile home park overlay zone to prevent displacement, and suggested proactive rental inspection programs and eviction protections.
- Dianne Monroe supported adopting a zoning overlay to protect senior parks and lowering in-place transfer fees.
- April Liggett Ritts supported funding for safety on school campuses, including return of SROs.
- Jen Klose (Generation Housing) urged council to set “moonshot” goals to address the housing crisis, calling for a six-fold increase in production.
- Jeremy De La Torre supported overall safety as a main priority, focus on youth violence, continued funding for VPP, and wrap-around support services.
- Thomas Ells supported infrastructure and maintenance funding as a priority.
- Christopher Williams supported increased funding for maintenance of Prince Memorial Greenway and other creek maintenance.
- Anabell Nunez opposed SROs on campus, asked for focus on children’s safety, pedestrian access, homeless spending, and equitable distribution of funds across districts; supported more funding for VPP.
- Rick Dunniston supported SROs on campus.
- Cadance Hinkle Allinson (DAO) supported improving downtown safety, lighting, parking strategy review, retention/expansion of businesses, transit mall safety, and allocation of an Assistant City Attorney for misdemeanor enforcement.
Discussion Items
- City Council Priority Setting Workshop (Item 2.1): Jacob Green from Jacob Green & Associates (JGA) presented on strategic planning best practices, emphasizing the council-manager form of government, the need for alignment between council vision, staff execution, and budget. He outlined the Santa Rosa process: already held a public hearing in January (19 speakers), individual council member meetings, today’s second public input opportunity, followed by closed session for city manager expectations, work planning by staff, third public input at budget review (May), and final budget adoption in June. Green noted that the city has already done substantial foundational work.
- Financial Presentation by CFO Alan Alton: Alton highlighted several financial challenges: a structural general fund deficit (with a $3.3 million deficit adopted for the current year), deferred maintenance, overextended programs with insufficient funding, rising labor costs and turnover (e.g., water department had 23% turnover in the last calendar year), and new unfunded mandates like electric vehicles. He presented the city’s reserves: total general fund reserves around $80 million (after PG&E settlement), unassigned reserves at $60 million (32% of operating expenditures vs. 17% policy), and fiscal stability reserves declining from $40 million to about $24 million. Alton projected a deficit of approximately $5.2 million for FY 2024-25, growing in subsequent years. He stressed the need to examine core services, add revenue, and use reserves strategically. Vice Mayor Stapp clarified that the city has about a 2-3 year runway before reserves are exhausted unless revenue increases or cuts are made. Councilmember MacDonald discussed the potential of using one-time reserves for deferred maintenance to avoid higher future costs.
- Council Discussion: Council members asked clarifying questions about the deficit timeline, reserve growth, and the relationship between reserves and structural deficits. There was general agreement on the need for fiscal sustainability and prioritization.
Key Outcomes
- The presentation (Item 2.1) was received and filed by the council.
- Public comments were received and noted for incorporation into the priority setting process.
- The council adjourned to closed session at 11:43 a.m. to discuss Item 4.1 (Public Employee Performance Evaluation – City Manager) and reconvened at 1:41 p.m.
- Closed Session Report: City Attorney Teresa Stricker reported that there was no reportable action from the closed session.
- The meeting was adjourned at 1:42 p.m.
- Next steps include staff developing work plans based on council direction and public input, with a third public input opportunity during the budget review process in May 2024, leading to formal budget adoption in June 2024.
Meeting Transcript
All right, good morning. It is now nine. Oh, two in seeing a quorum. We will be starting our meeting for the day. Madam City Clerk, may you please call the roll. Thank you, Mayor. Councilmember Chris Rogers. Councilmember O'Krepke. Councilmember McDonald. Here. Councilmember Fleming. Councilmember Alvarez. Councilmember Vice Mayor Stapp. And Mayor Rogers present. Let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of Councilmember Fleming. Very nice to see everyone in the chamber. Good morning and welcome. And the first would be to introduce our new public works director, uh, Dan Hennessy. So welcome Dan to the team. During our public hearing, 19 members of the public provided input to the city council, and the public will have another opportunity to today to provide additional input after our consultant presentation. Following public comment, the council will adjourn into closed session under government code section 54957 B1 to solidify goals, objectives, criteria, and clear expectations for our city managers' future performance review. This is critical to ensure that the city manager understands the expectation of the council and projects and programs that we expect the organization to deliver. Our expectations for the city manager as they relate to the performance and goals of the organization will be shared publicly as part of the budget adoption process where the public will once again be able to provide comment and input. So I would like to just point out how many times I said the public will be able to provide comment and input. We definitely value your comments and your input. And again, I would like to thank you all for being here. And with that, I now like to introduce Jacob Green from Jacob Green and Associates, a California local government consulting firm that will provide a presentation about the priority setting process and provide us insight regarding the municipal best practice. So with that, Jacob, thank you for being here. Good morning, Mayor. Thank you very much for having me, and good morning, council. Really excited to be with you here today in the process of developing your strategic plan for your city and your goal setting, which will ultimately lead to your budget. As we start this morning, I do want to introduce uh a few members of our team. My company is Jacob Green and Associates. There are 29 of us. We all specialize in California local government. We work primarily with cities, counties, and special districts throughout the state, providing strategic planning and a variety of other organizational development services. Behind me on my team here is Nicole Beach. She will be working with your staff on the work plans and implementation plans for council and community review, consistent with the council's priorities developed in this process. Also, uh not sitting to my left, but uh in spirit is Greg Devereau, who because of the weather this morning uh was not able to make it in uh here into the open session uh component. Greg is a former city manager of two cities in California, former county executive of San Mario County, and will be working very closely and has been working very closely with the council and staff in this process. The agenda for this morning's uh presentation will be talking about why conduct a priority setting workshop. We'll be talking specifically about the Santa Rosa process, priority setting fundamentals and best practice, as the mayor mentioned in the introduction, and finally, next steps. We'd like to start by talking a little bit about the why. Uh the city of Santa Rosa, there is nothing wrong with the city of Santa Rosa. We're not here because there's any problems or challenges or issues with the city of Santa Rosa. It's very much like my car. I love my car, but every three to five thousand miles, my car goes into the shop. Goes in the shop, we check it out A to Z, and we make sure that it can be have its own change, every you know, kick the tires, make sure that it can get back on the road. It doesn't mean there's a problem with my car, it just means that it's best practice to take it off the road so it can continue to function in a high capacity. The same for the city of Santa Rosa and every municipality.
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