TID comment

 

Fred Allebach

8/20/24

Public comment for 8/21/22 city council meeting, Tourism Improvement District (TID) renewal item

As the renewal of the TID comes up as a consent calendar item, I submit that while Sonoma has a Sustainable Tourism web page, https://www.sonomacity.org/sustainable-toursim/, Sonoma tourism is fundamentally unsustainable because not one word is mentioned on this page or otherwise at the TID about equity for the people who work to uphold the whole industry. The city Sustainable Tourism page amounts to superficial greenwashing that leaves actually sustainable, triple bottom line, full cost accounting out.

Actually sustainability, with triple bottom line and full cost accounting is a real, going policy frame, not a vague generality. The world is going to the dogs rapidly because of failure to adopt actually sustainable UN policies known since the 1980s and before.

If the city General Plan says that people who work here should be able to live here as a top aspiration, where are the efforts by the city to see that this may actually happen?  

I worked hard on a proposal (sent to you all earlier) to leverage the TID to bring more socio-econ benefits to workers. Upon meeting with City Manager Guhin, I was told that leveraging the TID for anything other than benefiting hotel management and tourism boosting was really not possible, and that my proposal was too general and did not have specific data to show that hotel, tourism, and hospitality workers were getting a bad deal locally. See attached SoCo wages sheet provided to me by Unite Here!

I sent David hard data on the tourism sector's low wages and my objective Census data studies from the 2022 American Community Survey update showing DACs and DUCs right here in the city and the valley. Same people on the wages sheet who are hotel workers. 

How can the city endeavor to make local tourism actually sustainable by making sure that hotel and tourism-hospitality workers can make a living wage? How are we going to address unsustainable aspects of our local economy? Does the whole system ride on a Faustian Bargain that requires exploiting low wage labor to fund the city with TOT while hotel management, many which are large corporations, makes money hand over fist in a billion dollar+ SoCo economy?

Hotels are the total boogeyman of local development projects and here the city is throwing them a bone? 

I just find the whole gestalt really disappointing. I would hope that the council would see more than a fiduciary responsibility to bring bodies to shop here to fund city coffers when the whole arrangement has deep equity flaws that end up being overlooked as not pragmatic. If the wine-tourism-hospitality combine is the horse that pulls the cart of the local economy, why can't this cart pull along some freight to support the workers on whose backs the whole system rides?

Aside from the TID, I hope the council and staff will look at actual sustainability as a valid policy frame and try to make that work so that equity here doesn't seem to always come in last place.   

   

Why participatory planning fails

Why participatory planning fails (and how to fix it)

https://norcalapa.org/2021/05/why-participatory-planning-fails-and-how-to-fix-it/

 

Northern News

A publication of the American Planning Association, California Chapter, Northern Section

Making great communities happen

June 2021

 

By some metrics, Denver leads the U.S. in displacement of Latino residents, and there are meetings — so many meetings — all focused on gathering resident input on coming changes.

 

… the city seeks their input on projects but doesn’t listen to their concerns.

 

… a future where, without significant investment in affordable housing, displacement seemed assured.

 

She realized she needed to slow down to build relationships with residents, bringing as many people as possible into the fold while acknowledging the long-term contributions of the three or four people who always show up.

 

Research shows that participatory planning addresses the needs of older, whiter, and wealthier residents.

 

It’s harder for people with kids, long work hours, or lower incomes to contribute, so recently some community activists who participate regularly have advocated to be paid for their time, pointing out that community engagement professionals are salaried.

 

In a study of participation in zoning forums for new housing development in Massachusetts, Einstein found that participants who gave their feedback to city councils opposing new affordable housing developments were whiter, older, and wealthier than the average resident in their cities.

 

… residents “participated without power.” In other words, community members showed up to meetings guiding development but their feedback was not incorporated in planning decisions.

 

“There’s nothing that holds anyone accountable for … taking in feedback,” said Nola Miguel, the executive director of the GES Coalition, a group that has organized around housing access since 2015. “It really frustrates me that equity and community process are put in the same sort of box when an equitable process is very different from a general community process.”

 

If the engagement process was good enough for the city but not rigorous enough for activists, it raises the question: What counts as good participation? Surveys, meetings, flyers, coffee hours, focus groups, and petitions can all help planners understand community needs. But without a more comprehensive approach that includes standards for participatory approaches, cities may continue to reach their targets for involving constituents in the planning process while the most vulnerable residents go unheard.

 

She wants to see heavily impacted communities use a Community Bill of Rights, a strategy promoted by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund to increase local control in decision-making. And a more holistic approach to engagement in the planning process — rather than one that’s project based —

 

The key to better participation, for Miguel, is to distinguish community engagement processes at large from equity-focused development. She pointed to tools that other cities have used to judge fairness in development processes — like Minneapolis’ Equitable Development Scorecard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Demographics of displacement

 

Fred Allebach

8/14/24

 

Exclusivity displaces inclusivity

 

Sonoma Valley is a fractal of coastal California where there has been a long-term, land use chess game to restrict growth which is seen as implicitly bad and destructive. In reality growth has simply reflected the US birthrate. This game has been played by a determined Boomer cohort who emigrated to the suburbs in a tide of white flight in the 70s, 80s and 90s. They came here and to other nice places in the US and now want to build a wall and don't want any more people to come based on cumulative negative impacts to the environment. 

 

This cohort’s wealth and power came about because of the very same growth they decry. This Boomer group is now made up of mostly white, upper middle class, senior property owners whose voices are over-represented in local government and public policy formation, like an oppressive HOA.

 

This group now has a valley-wide coalition galvanized around and against SDC, the Hanna project, and the Springs Specific Plan. CEQA lawsuits and appeals are and have been used to stall and kill projects and plans that address California’s housing supply and demand issues, RHNA, and the state housing crisis, all of which are seen as illegitimate. Environmental issues and impacts are played way up, socials issues not so much.  

 

A Green Checkmate dynamic is created where environmental reasons forestall any pushing of local perimeters but where people in the core urban service area also resist all dense infill. All land use change is fought and resisted. The longer CEQA stalling goes on, the more powerful and entrenched local elites and the Green Checkmate get because smaller fish are increasingly displaced because of super high housing burdens. This is the demographics of displacement. See the new NPOB/ Legal Aid displacement map: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/e69a2477c76542279c910a3ded1f9b65   

 

The results of this aggregate game have their demographic effects. Restricting land use raises prices and ensures that mostly market rate housing is all that can be built. As land and housing prices are driven up by restricted access, valley public policy voices sort to more of the dominant Boomer cohort. This cements their control, and acts to displace disadvantaged communities whose voices are lost. Because of lack of dominant-class political will and money; near all the affordable housing built is from inclusions, and policy loopholes therein allow even those to be bypassed. 

 

The higher the land costs get, the less able anyone is to build affordable housing. Demographics here are steering here to an elite, high-end, high-resource community where aggregate land use amounts to modern redlining under the guise of environmental protection. A good chunk of this checkmate situation derives from aggregate policy choices.

 

Centering on and animated by Green Checkmate issues, the local controllers (formerly known as NIMBYs) downplay and ignore local inequity issues and/or set pragmatically impossible conditions to ameliorate them. When rules and policy get made, (urban growth boundary for example) they are tweaked to the advantage of the controllers. The local Latino immigrant community and the essential worker class are having their lunch eaten on public policy and land use issues and for various reasons are not producing self-deterministic community leaders to fight for their interests.   

 

Meanwhile, the US has an aging population shifting to more elderly and less youth. The Boomer generation has accumulated many material and legal advantages but now needs youth and vitality to serve and sustain them in their old age. 

 

In Sonoma Valley there is youth and vitality in the form of the Latino immigrant community, but this cohort is mainly in the unincorporated Springs area that has the least political power and influence in overall Sonoma Valley land use issues. Youth and vitality here are second class citizens.  

 

Sonoma and surrounding valley elite, wealthy unincorporated areas do address demographics in policy but only insofar as it affects their interests. Yet, for overall environmental impacts, higher wealth translates to higher greenhouse gas footprint, more energy use, and more environmental impacts. It is elites, upper middle class and above, who are in fact the most unsustainable, here and in the world. This group wants to have its cake and eat it too in Sonoma Valley, to disproportionately hoard resources in a nice place and then deny any new people the same opportunity. Exclusivity displaces inclusivity.  

 

Fire evacuation and perceived water shortages are more than pawns in the land use chess game here, they are bishops and knights. Wealth and CEQA appeals and lawsuits are the queen. In local land use policy we see alternative universes of facts colliding; the elite cohort floods the media with their views, over-representing their policy flavors, interests, and rationales to the detriment of overall inclusivity and equity.

 

State housing laws are increasingly under attack by this dominant class. Broad-spectrum housing advocates, renters, and housing burdened constituents support these state laws and want results. The message to housing burdened lower middle class and essential workers get when officials trash state housing laws is that local elites are not fighting for them, not looking out for them, this is the sort of dynamic that tips the working class to populism and Trumpism.

 

The more the renter cohort, near 45% of county residents, hears local gov’t and property owners get on the anti-state housing law bandwagon, the more renters see them as out of touch with their issues and interests. These laws, after all, are designed to break logjams of too much local control that has prevented the building of adequate housing supply. Too much local control in Sonoma Valley has stifled growth and has tipped housing prices to an unsupportably high level.

 

Local upper middle-class controllers see themselves as fighting a good fight against capitalism, corporate power, growth, developers, and perceived corrupt state housing laws and to save the environment. In this struggle, those below them in the pyramid of society are forgotten and are maybe thrown a few noblesse oblige crumbs to prevent an all-out revolt.

 

For these reasons, the lower-income cohorts struggling to get by don’t see much difference between political parties. All politicians talk and promise but the fundamental inequalities of society never change. No one gives up advantages. Politicos are voted in by the powerful, even in districts designed to share power with protected classes. Given that people cling to power, the local Boomer cohort will not move over gracefully and let the young share power, be included, and decide their own fate in Sonoma Valley.

 

Checkmate. 

 

Fred Allebach is a member of a number of county and Sonoma Valley government commissions and committees.

 

 

 

LAFCO Board meeting, 8/7/24

 

Fred Allebach

8/7/24

LAFCO Board meeting notes

LAFCO = Local Agency Formation Commission

(my editorial comments in parentheses)

 

Opening public comment

Duane Dewitt 

Comments on Roseland. 

 

Fred Allebach

Comments on DUCs (disadvantaged unincorporated communities), annexations, and services-capacity arguments used to forestall annexations. Says that public policy has to aspire to inclusion and to address social inequity. Refers to new Uncharitable movie, where all system incentives are for profit and unjust, unhealthy outcomes, and the creation of adaptive social goods and policy is not prioritized by our society.  In the wealthiest country in the world, in one of the wealthiest, most amenity-rich areas of that country, to make arguments that we don't have enough capacity to share, is not forward looking or just. Decision makers need to aspire for better, with vision, not a simple “pragmatic” business as usual bandwidth that ends up excluding and displacing DUCs. 

 

Agenda Item: VOMWD annexation

VOMWD = Valley of the Moon Water District 

VOMWD annexation of a few parcels in the Trinity Oaks area of Sonoma Valley (SV), in the VOMWD service area, because of water issues. Staff recommends annexation.

 

This small item opened a window to the western water politics of how water is being used in SV as a trump card/ chess piece to limit growth and development. Big discussion by the LAFCO Board and the public ensued.  

 

Mark Bramfitt, LAFCO director

UWMP- Urban Water Management Plan

SDC- Sonoma Developmental Center

SSP- Springs Specific Plan

Hanna- proposed project on Arnold Drive 

The VOMWD UWMP (Urban Water Management Plan)  has a 1.5% growth rate but did not contemplate current SDC, Hanna, and SSP projects. SDC and Hanna are “very significant” projects, and not in the UWMP. However, VOMWD has done two separate studies that show VOMWD has enough water; the Hanna project falls within their supply availability. 

 

With SDC the state has retained the water rights. The developer is stranded for water supply, does not have water rights, and the current water system is not functional.

 

Sandra Lowe, Sonoma 

Asks about combined Verano Ave. Krug hotel and MidPen 100% AH (Affordable Housing) project, what about cumulative impact on water there? 

 

(Hotels are a hotly disputed part of the SDC  and Hanna projects and are hotly political otherwise in SV too. Hotels, growth, sprawl etc. are immediately glossed as ipso facto evil by some cohorts. On one hand Sonoma and Sonoma County (SoCo) spend big money to boost tourism as a way to get TOT (transient occupancy tax) and fund government. Hotels are a piece of that equation. On the other hand, the wine-tourism-hospitality combine has triple bottom line (TBL) negative externalities for water use, GHG (greenhouse gas) and VMT (vehicle miles traveled) impacts and for the social inequity resulting from lower-wage jobs that don’t meet the cost of living in SoCo. Government needs to address these TBL negatives, of what it, itself creates with its agro-tourism economic policy. What we see in SV and SoCo is a selective focus on some negative externalities over others, depending on the interests of proscribed groups; this dynamic doesn't lend itself to any big picture view or to a comprehensive sustainability policy view with TBL full cost accounting for economy, environment and society. In fact, TBL framing is mostly not used at all and we go on acting as if each sector is somehow separate. What we get is alternative universes of facts colliding instead of the synthetic, full cost accounting view that actual sustainability calls for.)   

 

Mark

The Krug-Mid-Pen project was already approved for VOMWD water capacity and is not in the SSP area either. 

 

Susan Harvey, Cotati

Opens up topic of SV population projections, says VOMWD had nothing about SDC and Hanna population additions. She refers to Sonoma Water and to groundwater (GW)  and the SV GSA (Groundwater Sustainability Agency.) She says VOMWD has two inactive wells, what about these as indicators of lack of capacity for supply? 

 

Does the SSP have an acre feet per year (AFY) figure for GW?

 

Mark

These VOMWD wells are just being rested, they are functional. VOMWD also has plans for new wells.

 

VOMWD has sufficient water to 2035. The SSP has plans for higher density for more housing, the buildout date is 2040, but the plan is not complete, no AFY figure. (In fact, SDC and SSP are being sued and likely Hanna too.) Hanna is already in the VOMWD service area. 

 

SDC is in the VOMWD sphere of influence. VOMWD is planning on using on-site SDC water resources but that is state water; VOMWD may not get control of that water. (Possible that Sonoma Water will have more power and will get control of it. I’m not sure if there is already a Sonoma Water aqueduct intertie to SDC, or if there is some deal for that in the future?)

 

Susan H

GW rates are now artificially low in SV, full cost fees will raise rates. (What she doesn’t know is all the inside baseball of the SV GSA and that all VOMWD wells are not in the GW basin, and that VOMWD has a GSA mandatory metering proposal out for non-de minimis pumpers, and VOMWD has an argument that the Sonoma aqueduct water it sells offsets SV GW use by a LOT, so any GW used or extra wells they may use has to be counted against the the GW they have already saved.)

 

Susan Gorin

The SV GSA is just past the first year of a three-year GW rate subsidy from the SoCo BOS, (Board of Supervisors.) Mentions the two SV deep aquifer depletion areas and that demand reduction will need to get serious at some point. Litigation is already here and is coming for SDC, Hanna, and the SSP. (The worst deep aquifer depletion area is nowhere near Hanna or SDC and the deep aquifer is not like one big lake underground, the conditions are more localized. The deep aquifer depletion area near the golf course is closer to Hanna but isn't as large in scope as the east side depletion area.) 

 

Why is the state keeping control of SDC water? Mark says “who knows, it is part of the legislation.” Susan says the rights are VERY valuable; the state is waiting for an approved project, then will negotiate for the price of the rights.

 

Public comment

Fred Allebach

Trinity Oaks annexation opens window to a larger, long-term SV power struggle over land use.

 

At a Sonoma Water presentation to SVCAC, a top guy said there was enough water to meet current demands in SoCo. Fred gives short backstory of current land use power struggle in SV, of Sleepy Hollow Stasis mythology

 

Fred’s GW prescription: the more straws, the less each.

 

Joe Wilson, Glen Ellen

He did the water math, objects to that LAFCO says VOMWD has “ample supply”, not the right term.  There’s a lot to worry about with water, he wants more water analysis. Hotels use “a boatload of water.” So many undetermined variables, annexation resolution with VOMWD should reflect that. (This is part of an SDC Next100/ Mobilize Sonoma plan to do a full court press challenge of any increase in density and land use in SV; goal is to attack on all fronts in any way possible. Thus VOMWD annexation is a chance for them to get their points on the board.)

 

Norman Gilroy, at center of all SV resistance to higher density

He is OK with Trinity Oaks annexation. He likes Mark’s amendments to the VOMWD annexation proposal, he would have asked for them. Whatever LAFCO says about SV water, there is a perception that it is correct. He doesn’t want water things to seem OK otherwise in the VOMWD annexation. 

 

He made some comment about VOMWD and increased density.

 

RHNA drives more growth. The SSP plan area is just a sliver of the overall Springs area which is not in the SSP and that area is subject to growth. This potentially impacts VOMWD supply capacity. (A large part of SSP is a Trump Economic Opportunity Area; in SV disproportional development and higher density is being undertaken there in the Springs DUC area. West of Arnold/ Glen Ellen, the wealthiest area in SV, with the most outsized voice of well-educated, senior, white property owners, is seeking to defend its turf with a proposed Sonoma Mountain Community Services District [SMCSD.] A coalition of all SV NIMBY groups led by Norman does not see USA-level infill  as appropriate, but Sonoma city resists infill as well; this is a total Green Checkmate.)

 

He refers to 45 state housing laws (SB-9, SB 335) that are not in the LAFCO analysis, these have a knock-on effect on potential VOMWD supply and demand and should be identified as missing info in the VOMWD staff report on the Trinity Oaks annexation.

 

He challenged the VOMWD SDC and Hanna will-serve agreements cumulative impacts.

 

LAFCO Board discussion

Susan G

She appreciates Norman’s comments. (The large bulk of the 1st District constituency is white, senior, wealthy.) Says to revisit VOMWD MSR in five years to calibrate what is happening with population growth and water use. The BOS and SV GSA have not reversed declining GW trends in SV, need stronger medicine. More “straws” are going into SV GW, review VOMWD MSR in five years, a LOT of uncertainty. 

 

Susan H

Says there is land subsidence in SV, wrong. Mentions state dictates “to cram down our throat” bemoans loss of local control. Wants VOMWD MSR in five years and update on GW conditions too. 

 

Mark

Will bring this back and continue this to the next LACO meeting and make the overall water picture language stronger. He thought he already had made it strong. He will be strengthening: 1 GW depletion as relative to VOMWD supply, 2 variables in access to SDC water by VOMWD, 3 unforeseen state housing laws, and that 4 VOMWD needs to account for SDC and Hanna.

(Can we also add variables about DUC and DAC displacement as a result of efforts to constrict growth and development and water, and fire evac as well. If we are going to dispute accounting of the big picture in terms of services and LAFCO factors in SV because that will set a precedent, we need to make sure that DUCs are accounted for accurately too. RHNA calls for 45% of housing to be for Low and Very low-income people, is the inclusion of these people a problem for the carrying capacity of SV aggregate services? An analysis of state housing laws can’t just look at them from a land-owner and government standpoint where an assumption is made they are bad; renters and lower income people see them as good and an antidote to too much anti-development local control that tends to over-control land, raise prices and to externalize lower-income people and their issues.)

 

Susan H?

Wants significant GW demand reductions; yet Sonoma Water/ Permit Sonoma is telling SV water retailers to make new wells so they have capacity for 40% of available supply. She sees countervailing policy forces at work.

 

VOMWD has enough for Trinity Oaks. The window this opens into water overall is a discussion that could happen county-wide.

 

Sandra

State housing laws, like them or not, do not require hotels. Hotels will have a big impact on water use, traffic, fire evac. In LAFCO VOMWD annexation analysis and language strengthening, separate hotels and housing. Keep AH impacts separate from hotel impacts. 

 

Susan G

SDC and Hanna are both builder’s remedy projects, very little discretion for locals; “thank the state for that.” (The state was just tired of locals not getting housing done, a drawbridge mentality took hold after the 70s and 80s growth boom, UGBs, tighter controls, “smart growth” CEQA abuse, less production, higher prices resulted, locals blamed everything but themselves for this. Even smart growth is resisted, as James Gore noted in a recent BOS meeting.) 

 

Rich Holmer, Sweet Water Springs Water District

SV is “going through unprecedented rapid change now.” Keep an eye on this with the five-year LAFCO VOMWD MSR snapshot.

 

Mark

VOMWD is looking to annex SDC and looking to get control of the water. VOMWD is leery that the developer will ice them out of water control. (Meanwhile SDC Next 100/ Norman, and his SMCSD which excludes the Springs from local self-determination, is looking to get control of the water and the sewer west of Arnold to limit hookups, while using VOMWD capacity arguments in the Springs VOMWD service area as a pawn in their SDC-Hanna-centered arguments.)

 

VOMWD item continued to a future meeting. 

 

Staff updates

SMCSD. Mark met with proponents. They have the signatures but rules are that tehy have 60 days from the last signature to submit a completed plan. They don't have a plan now.  They can get one more signature and that resets the timeline, but they can't keep doing that forever. 

 

Mark mentions a district to the south of Sonoma, what is that? 

 

James Gore

Goes into detail about Alexander Valley area water issues and Potter Valley uncertainties. Possible new Alexander Valley GSA? Have a voluntary water master arrangement therte? 

 

Fred

SoCo and Russian River is a fractal of Cadillac Desert, western water, our problems in SoCo are the exact same as those of allocation disputes on the Colorado River.               

   

 

County EJ and Safety Element workshop notes and comments

 

Fred Allebach

Board of Supervisors (BOS) meeting/ workshop

7/23/24

Permit Sonoma (PS) Environmental Justice (EJ) and Safety Element (SE) info items to the Sonoma County (SoCo) BOS

 

EJ and SE workshop general info:

https://permitsonoma.org/longrangeplans/proposedlong-rangeplans/generalplanupdate/environmentaljusticeandsafetyelementupdate 

 

7/23/24 BOS Packet materials:   https://sonoma-county.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=6784258&GUID=EAF66AF5-6DAA-4017-BCAD-DB6654091313  

 

Find video of meeting at this site

https://sonoma-county.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx 

 

Tennis Wick

There are many state General Plan (GP) requirements, Permit Sonoma had to take Elements out of order, (Housing Element took priority over EJ and SE)

 

Katrina Brahmer (PS staff for EJ and SE Elements) presents staff report

Stella Acosta, Rincon consultants is present but does not speak

 

Critical point: “To what degree the GP should be general?”

- GPs are general, keep them adaptable, and also direct and accountable

 

Safety Element 

-SE has to be done on a schedule; it is late bc as Tennis said, PS had to take Elements out of order, do Housing Element (HE) 

-SE was last updated in 2014, the state has expanded the scope since the fires, need to identify risks

-evac route capacity, areas of limited egress

-a lot of wildfire work of late that will be leveraged in the SE

 

SB 379 climate change vulnerability assessment

AB 747, SB 99, AB 1409 (1469?) evac route assessments later this summer

 

Environmental Justice Element

-identify DACs (disadvantaged communities), low-income areas of SoCo, 

-(map of proposed EJ areas is in packet; the EJ and SE Equity Work Committee or EWC did a lot of work to ID these areas; two SoCo EJ communities in SV: South Sonoma [Tract 1502.03?] and the Boyes-Fetter’s Agua Caliente/ Census Tract 1503.05)

-“EJ communities” = DACs; (DACs, DUCs, EJ communities, all have varying methods to define them, not one way to quantify them; one common factor is median household income [MHI] below 80% of state MHI) 

-Katrina: all EWC comments are in packet appendix; EJ policy development is led by community voices, civic engagement is an EJ mandate

-PS will “incorporate and align” EJ Element with other SoCo equity work: Office of Equity, RCPA, Regional Parks, CARD (Climate Action and Resiliency Division), Sonoma Clean Power etc.

-(should cities follow SoCo lead here? Sonoma will have an EJ Element? Sonoma seems resistant to opening too much GP equity material, IMO bc that will expose the city Housing Element as having  underplayed equity and AFFH/ Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing issues) 

 

BOS questions  

Hopkins

-go beyond EWC work to more granular work in each community, Forestville is different than other communities

-west county issues: homeless, septic in Russian River area

-(EWC was pretty granular for SV EJ communities, maybe did not get Temelec and all mobile home parks) 

 

Katrina says that MAC and CAC workshops, and public review period will provide more granular feedback 

-and that given state timelines for GP updates, the EJ and SE need to be finished

 

Hopkins, ask MAC and CAC members who to reach out to? (note, Katrina already did this with the EWC and I provided her with a who’s who of SV equity-focused people)

 

Gorin

-connect with Paul Dunaway on aging/ senior issues, make state senior initiatives local

-put a senior lens on EJ and safety

-critical area: put mobile home parks into evac analysis, she notes Paul Gullixon’s book “Enflamed”

-how to evac seniors? Are there enough buses? 

-require every new development to provide evac plans. Make hotels, VRs have evac plans

-GP be clear about evac analysis

 

Coursey

stays out of the weeds, for now

 

Gore

Make sure EJ community ID is consistent with other methods of DAC/ DUC ID (but these can’t be consistent if diff agencies use diff criteria)  

-SoCo residents want paving but don’t want gravel quarries; don’t externalize county enviro impacts

-SoCo needs to own it”; don’t push the burden to other communities (LPG tankers?)

 

Katrina

 yes, watch out for unintended consequences

 

Gore

-By-right housing, people are scared of affordable housing but prior BOS made it by-right

-he draws parallel to city-centered growth (USA/ urban service area growth too? 12 USAs in SoCo) but people don’t want it; “housing is a preeminent justice issue”, how does EJ and SE intersect with Housing Element?

 

Katrina

-EJ only focuses on housing conditions and pollution/ enviro exposure

-(Fred made point in EWC process that housing was the primary aggregating indicator of well-being, and thus, equity, AFFH, EJ, housing, all interrelated

 

Gore

-Where housing should be located, make it by-right

 

Scott Orr

EJ communities map shows housing burden areas (but only by Tract)

 

Gore

-Make Specific Plans in unincorporated areas, at intersection of county and cities: Springs-Sonoma, SR-Roseland/ Moorland

-prioritize infrastructure in lived-in areas, sidewalks, gutters

 

Rabbitt

-have GPs be general

-keep it relevant and in use for as long as possible, broad, general

-he sees impulse to more specificity as based on short-term political issues to stop something or to advocate for something (as if impulse to more general does not have a political dimension as well, i.e., to undercount EJ communities)

-he prefers ongoing updates to get specificity 

-address disaster response, refers to Turkey earthquakes

-”People want more DACs bc they want to get more money”

-how does EJ work on least expensive properties? 

 

Katrina

-mapped EJ community areas have to be elevated and prioritized

-data-based decisions important to implementation

-recognize historic underinvestment (PS seems to me to be on the right track here, with it for Sonoma to emulate)

-EJ map and EJ Element provides a structure to monitor conditions and make sure SoCo is operating on best available info (best is most general when it comes to counting DUCs?)

(-self-contained community means you have to have all functions here, like Gore said)

-have an adaptable GP document

 

Gorin

Mentions Tract-level as too general, can get a better granular analysis on DUCs and DACs?

 

Katrina

-state use Tract, majority of state data is at Tract-level 

-PS can “supplement with more community input”, (I sent my SV DUC study the next day)

-”Make data-based decisions”, continue to look at approaches we take

-for sub-Tract data she mentions timing and budget consolidations

-(on one had a call for best data, on the other, time and money preclude that, so we end up with less than best data; so what is it?)

 

Gorin

-SoCo failed to ID Springs DACs, does not want GP to lose track of people

-get additional data she says 

 

Hopkins

-refers to general/ specific tension

-unique identities of smaller areas, integrity of small towns, can we do better? (to preserve and protect them?)_

-”do meet specific EJ community needs”

 

Katrina

-mandate of EJ is to meet needs of communities, with parks, public involvement etc (but not to address structural issues that create EJ communities and segregation…)

-if specific EJ communities to highlight, please suggest says Katrina 

 

Public comment

Duane DeWitt

-for meaningful engagement, has to be authentic, not just pro forma; engagement needs to be acted on or said why not

-put “shalls” in or else it is all just aspirational

 

Thomas Els

-each element has to be reflected in the others

 

Cactus Pete

-living  cactus fire walls

-geoengineering

 

Laurel Chambers of Food System Alliance

-act on the FAP or Food Action Plan endorsed by BOS in 2012

-i have a lot of background on this, Sonoma endorsed FAP in 2014

 

Rue Furch

-there may not be many here today but many more are concerned about fire evac issues

 

Pete Parkinson

-sees PS as derelict for not doing SE sooner

 

Gail Yamamoto Seymour, NAACO EJ committee plus more

-please share list of all groups outreached to

 

Fred Allebach

-gives kudos to Katrina for acknowledging in staff report that housing is a critical indicator of well being and lack of secure housing has cascading negative health effects

-also good on PS staff to lead with EWC comments and put all of them in packet appendix, this is consistent with EJ public feedback being heard and being taken seriously 

-easy enough to do a Block Group-level to properly ID DACs, use LAFCO tool, don't leave 1000s of people unaccounted for as EJ communities by using a Tract method that doesn’t accurately see DACs

-EJ and Safety Element are in tension, on one had many want to protect small-town-rural character, but this has effect of being exclusive and maintaining segregation, and ends up working against EJ, equity, and inclusiveness

-disaster planning can’t go against AFFH law, DACs, DUCs and EJ communities have to be accounted for with AFFH; where Housing Element intersects with EJ and SE

-need consistent overall social justice policy themes

-tensions between exclusivity and inclusivity need to be balanced

 

Fred’s post-meeting thoughts

There was not strong consensus that the GP be more general than specific but the tension between these poles was noted; Gorin wanted many specifics on fire evac, some were concerned about more DUC specifics; will fire evac specifics trump DUC specifics?

 

Fire evac, as a Safety Element item, has become highly politicized as it relates to new housing or commercial developments and any potential increases in population and traffic. This has breathed new life into the preserve local character cohort that has already not wanted to see any changes; this translates into a renewed vigor by small town character advocates to play the fire evac card against all new development.

 

Small town character people and fire evac advocates typically ignore the equity externalities of their positions. This is an ongoing blind spot; their righteous fight is against growth, sprawl, and developers; DACs are collateral damage whose interests are lost by omission. 

 

VOTMA (Valley of the Moon Alliance), a member of the SDC Next 100 Coalition is seeking to limit development on Arnold Drive and Glen Ellen, has commissioned a fire evac study of its own that will likely be a lot more detailed than PS produces; will not be right for Sonoma Valley (SV) to have a very detailed plan but not the rest of county, this works into general/ specific tension, if SDC Next 100 insists on a very detailed evac plan in GP, then rest of county needs it too, and rest of county needs a very detailed DAC study.

 

Where do you stop with specifics in GP?

 

Hopkins plays the small town character card under different names “unique identities” and “integrity of small town areas”, her whisperer, Eric Koenigshofer was there but said nothing in public comment. 

 

Gorin and Hopkins ask for a lot more GP evac details and specifics, not “general”; Gorin also asks for more DAC detail in Springs.

PS needs to match DAC detail to fire evac detail, if we are going to go the detail routes and times for fire evac, that needs equity balance to get more DAC/ EJ community details too. 

 

Mobile home parks are a most serious evac issue for limited egress, put multiple exits in each park, get rid of so many speed humps. 

 

Disaster evac, disaster response; fire has taken the top disaster planning billing but disaster prep in general will serve us all well if there is a major earthquake. Before the fires, we weren't prepared for a big quake. We in SoCo can be prepared but not hyper-vigilant and paranoid, this area has risks all know and accept to live here.

 

Gore keys on on Green Checkmate dynamic, says make EJ communities and DACs consistent with LAFCO DUC map. How to make consistent when diff agencies use diff criteria? This makes DAC ID a sort of elective issue of seeing more or less depending on political, or budget obligation preference.