HomeMy WebLinkAboutStaff Report 5.C 11/07/2016DATE: November 7, 2016
Agenda Item #5.0
TO: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council through City Manager
FROM: John C. Brown, City Manager
SUBJECT: Discussion and Direction Regarding Regional Issues of Significance for the
Mayors' & Councilmembers' Association of Sonoma County
RECOMMENDATION
It is recommended that the City Council select and provide two or three issues of regional
significance to the Mayor, for use by the Mayors' & Councilmembers' Association of Sonoma
County, in selecting programs for 2017.
BACKGROUND
The membership of the Mayors' & Councilmembers' Association is comprised of all elected
officials in the nine cities of Sonoma County. As part of their quarterly General Membership
meetings, a program is provided to bring them information of interest or updates to county and
regional programs. The Mayor of Rohnert Park will be the Chair for 2017 and the Mayor of
Santa Rosa, as Vice Chair for 2017, will be in charge of programs.
DISCUSSION
At the October 2015 Board meeting of the Mayors' & Councilmembers' Association, the Mayors
took action to request that each city /town consider submitting suggestions for regional issues of
significance they would like the Association's General Membership to take up as issues in 2016.
At the February 2017 Board meeting, the Mayors discussed the items submitted which included
affordable housing, temporary occupancy surges (i.e., AirBnB), tax increment financing,
secondary units, innovative partnerships with developers, tax benefits from the state, and
transportation funding for Hwy 101 and all other roads. It was the consensus of the Board to
select Housing and Transportation Funding as the topics for programs for the 2016 General
Membership meetings. These meeting have been informative, relevant, and very well attended.
At the August 11, 2016 general membership meeting, Mayor Belforte of Rohnert Park raised the
subject of program topics for 2017 general membership meetings, and asked that a request be
made of each of the cities to provide a list of topics that can be considered by the Board at their
November 17th meeting. It was suggested that cities limit their lists to two or three of their
highest priority topic areas.
Input was solicited from Department heads, to determine which topics are of the most
importance to Petaluma and the region. Among those responses:
• Infrastructure financing
• Recruiting and retaining quality employees in an unaffordable housing market
• Stable -based funding for Public Safety staffing
• Climate change and sea level rise
• Collateral impacts of homelessness on public safety's limited resources, in the absence of
affordable /transitional housing
• Storm water funding
• Pavement condition and transportation funding
• Legalized marijuana
• CEQA streamlining for infill and affordable housing projects
• Gas tax trends and transportation funding
The Mayor's and Councilmembers' Association will meet four times in 2017, and will be able to
select one or more topics from among all the ideas submitted by each of the cities. The
preceding topics are submitted for consideration and use in selecting topics of interest to the
Petaluma City Council members. The Council can use these as submitted, or substitute at your
pleasure.
FINANCIAL IMPACTS
None.
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