Wow, what a year! As things wind down and we are enjoying the holidays, I wanted to take a moment to share some of the actions we took as a council this year.
Housing. We made some major moves to shore up our existing affordable housing stock, as well as move towards the encouragement of new housing within the confines of the Growth Management Ordinance (GMO) the voters enacted nearly 20 years ago.
We approved over 200 units of new housing, of which over 70 will be income-restricted. We made quite the splash when, with our non-profit partners, we acquired three apartment buildings occupied by our workforce to preserve them as long term affordable housing. There will also be a ballot measure on the March 2020 ballot that expands the exemption for income-restricted multifamily units from the GMO to include “for sale” income-restricted multifamily units.
One of my priorities as mayor was to strengthen our Local Preference Policy that gets applied to any affordable or income restricted housing units. The policy gives preference to those that live or work in Healdsburg, as well as the unincorporated areas from Windsor to Cloverdale.
Adding the “Welcome Home” clause that expanded the local preference to include anyone that lived in Healdsburg at any time, was a personal favorite of mine. The regional approach our council took to local preference is now also being applied to our approach to homelessness, transportation and other issues that acknowledge Healdsburg is not an island, but an integral part of our neighboring communities and county.
Connectivity. One of the big buzzwords in 2019 was “connectivity.” While most think of connectivity as getting from one place to another in a more efficient manner, I believe it also includes popping the various comfortable social bubbles we live in as a community so we can come together and interact with neighbors we may not have known.
What’s the best way to do that? We get out of our cars, we interact, we do more activities where we see each other face-to-face. To further strengthen our community, we as a council engaged a number of master plans to further connect our community.
In 2020, we’ll receive a master plan for Montage Park, Badger Park, river access and connectivity as well as an Arts and Culture master plan. We’ll also start the process of taking a deeper look at what we call the “South Entry Plan,” basically, the entire area south of the bridge.
Environment. On the environmental front, we took a number of actions to move Healdsburg toward a greener future. We signed off on a floating solar project that’ll go on top of our wastewater retention ponds, generating 6% of our city’s electrical needs. We banned the use of polystyrene foam and enacted a reach code. We’re also actively pursuing incentive programs that we as a community can access to upgrade our appliances or vehicles to more energy efficient models. I would love to see an e-bike incentive program that helps the transition from cars for short in town trips.
Disasters. I can’t write an update on 2019 without including a few words about the local disasters that impacted Healdsburg. We started off the year declaring an emergency with the floods and finished the year on the heels of one of the worst fires in our history, barreling towards our beloved Healdsburg. I saw firsthand how our business community dropped everything to help our city staff provide a place of comfort for our neighbors being evacuated when the fire started. I saw first responders from other cities wrap their arms around Healdsburg to make sure our city was safe while our community was away. What I saw and experienced firsthand during these emergencies will stick with me and I can’t thank our community, our staff, elected officials and our first responders enough for coming together to save our city.
Finally, I want to finish by sharing one of my favorite quotes of the year, from our police chief during one of the updates we gave, as we stood in our empty town, ash falling around us.
“This community is nothing without its people.”
I’m proud to raise my family in this community and it’s been my honor to serve as your mayor in 2019. Please join me in throwing our collective energy behind our 2020 Mayor Leah Gold, Vice Mayor Evelyn Mitchell and my fellow councilmembers Joe Naujokas and Shaun McCafferey to move Healdsburg forward for the community we love Have a Happy New Year and I look forward to serving our community for years to come.
-David Hagele has most recently served as the mayor of Healdsburg
