Last week, the Cloverdale Chamber of Commerce hosted a forum for the five candidates running for Cloverdale City Council. The five candidates — Melanie Bagby, Mary Ann Brigham, Jenny Candelaria-Orr, Nicole Garcia-Hinchliffe and Todd Lands — are vying for two seats on the council, currently held by Bagby and Brigham.
The Reveille has compiled some of the questions and answers asked during the Cloverdale Chamber of Commerce’s Sept. 25 forum. To watch the forum in its entirety, including opening statements, candidates’ thoughts on Proposition 15 and Measure P, and closing statements, click here.
The forum was moderated by the Cloverdale Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors’ president, Ron Pavelka.
In some cases, candidates’ responses have been edited for clarity and length.
What solutions do you have in mind regarding the homeless population in Cloverdale?
Bagby: We continue forth with a lot of the efforts that the city was involved with, except there was a huge wrinkle that happened this week with the board of supervisors. It’s probably been determined that the current management structure for the continuum of care … the legal opinion is that it was never actually valid and it is probably going to be completely reformed. This is really an opportunity for the cities to get involved and it looks very very promising that we will be able to have a bigger voice and a seat at the table, because the big issue that Cloverdale deals with, not just where homelessness and mental health issues are concerned. It’s really all of the resources that the county is charged with that need to happen in Cloverdale and in the north county.
What I’m going to do is make sure Cloverdale has a seat at the table when that new governing body is formed up and is administering resources throughout the county to make sure that we get our fair share.
Brigham: I’ve been pretty involved in that particular issue and I think the closest we’ve come to actually having a site that actually dealt with it was over at St. Peter’s Church. Before COVID hit, every Tuesday it wasn’t just food and clothing giveaways, it got to the point where we had Sonoma County mental health, Reach for Home, intakes for Catholic Charities and then COVID hit and unfortunately most of the volunteers were old and couldn’t stay there.
One thing is true is that we finally may be getting that seat at the table that Melanie mentioned. I think that’s pretty critical because they were grouping us as “north county” and basically most of the services that were supposed to come up from the county never really made it past Healdsburg, a little bit (did). I think that with this new structure it should work much better, and I’m hoping once COVID is done we’ll be able to restart some type of an intake facility like what was developing at the church.
Candeleria-Orr: I’m coming from a resident perspective, not necessarily having my hands in as many things when it comes to this solution of homelessness and I think, from my perspective, … the Home Sonoma is wonderful. What’s frustrating for me is the fact that we’re having to buy into something, but I think that that is super important, that we do get that seat at the table. I think that’s absolutely crucial. I think for me it’s frustrating because through this whole experience I’ve felt like Cloverdale has just on the whole been neglected in different ways.
What I can guarantee you from me anyways is the fact that I want to be that loud voice. I want to be that advocate for Cloverdale. I want to make sure that we’re getting our fair share. But for me also with homelessness, talking about different populations, we have so many great services here in town but I’m wondering if whenever that question is being asked, what specific population are we talking about? Are we talking Plaza? Are we talking river? Or are we talking just as a whole? I think whenever it comes to different populations, there’s obviously different solutions. Again, getting that seat at the table will be wonderful for people who are looking for their services, especially in the time of COVID I think that will be great for us.
Whenever it comes to the Plaza population, I think that is something that will need to be a community effort. We need to be able to come together to discuss what will happen because that’s something that, to be honest, I’m not quite sure what to do — but we’ll figure it out.
Garcia-Hinchliffe: This issue is really important to me and I’ve spent a lot of time digging in with meetings and researching options that have happened in the past and what’s currently happening in other cities. Here’s my concern — it’s important that we don’t automatically categorize these individuals. They are individually affected, so they are without shelter and they need their community’s help, point blank. The fact that Santa Rosa engulfs most of the county’s budget to bring assistance to these members, that troubles me. Like Melanie stated, we’re looked at as the north of it and we don’t see funds as grand as Santa Rosa does. If we’re seeing scraps, then that’s exactly what the outcome is going to be. You can’t get cupcakes with crumbs and water.
Our current available resources, they need expansion and we need to create a corporate plan with all hands on deck and be able to communicate with each other to be able to create long-term solutions instead of just quick solutions, and we need to do this smartly as well.
Lands: With the homeless problem, I don’t think people are giving this the right definition. There’s a difference between the homeless and what the real problem is. The real problem comes down to separating the homeless people that have no home and nowhere to go and need help with a home versus those that are mental health or have drug and alcohol problems, they are the ones that are causing the problems that are stirring our community so much. It is not the 40-year homeless man that we all know and love so well, or the lady who has been here for forever, they aren’t our problems.
We aren’t going to get mad because they’re going to sleep on our sidewalks. We’re mad because people are breaking into our homes and stealing our tools. We’re mad because they’re breaking into our homes in the middle of the night with knives and nothing is being done about it. I’m very familiar with Martin vs. Boise, which is a portion of the problem with this. This is what gave so many rights to the homeless and hamstrung the police. What we really need to look at is when this started. This started when we started losing our mental health facilities and our alcohol abuse facilities. The problem compounded from there.
When I was in law enforcement we got to do a lot of help for the mental health and those addicted in the jails because it’s all that we had. We no longer have that, that’s hamstringing the public and putting all of the pressure on the cities with absolutely no programs to help. Just finding houses or putting someone in a house is starting at the finishing line.
With the city’s budget stretched to its limits, how do you propose that Cloverdale repairs the many streets that need repair?
Candelaria-Orr: One of the things that … for me, when it comes to roads and whatnot I do not want to say that I have a ton of experience in this, so I will be forthcoming on that. But for me what I see honestly on the ballot that will help us is, I hate saying this measure … is (Measure) DD. The idea of Cloverdale actually getting carved out $150,000 a year from that increase in sales tax, that’s something that obviously we desperately need. Looking at our budget, the fact that we’re having to dip into reserves, I believe, what? $938,000. That, even though it probably sounds like pittance to many at least it is a step in the right direction for us. It’s something that we can at least earmark, it has to be used specifically for transportation purposes, which obviously is helping out our infrastructure whenever it comes to our roads.
What I would say from my experience with this so far this year is really promoting that particular measure.
Garcia-Hinchliffe: In business school there’s such a thing, and I’m sure we’re all familiar with it, as a marginal cost and a marginal benefit. You really have to weigh those two out when you’re making business decisions. I think I would definitely apply that if appointed to look at our budget.
The keywords to that is a benefit versus a cost — so, is this cost going to be a benefit to me or is it going to be more of a cost to where we would have to come back to the initial cost on top of it, and keep rebuilding, rebuilding, rebuilding.
Obviously cities constantly need updates and infrastructure support — I’ve seen some on Cloverdale (Boulevard) as well as the south end of town with the beautiful green-colored bike lanes. I think by honestly asking ourselves: Is this feasible? Will it be built smartly and for a long term so we don’t have to keep coming back to these issues? I understand how expensive it is just to do one block, the amount of money it takes to redo the road is detrimental, but I think if we’re able to be smart about our budget and tackle these issues, going at it with our feasible mindset, I think we can accomplish a lot.
Lands: I actually think that our current city council made a good decision recently with the water and sewer hikes because we’re going in the right direction on the path to start bringing us up-to-date to start having the money to do these things. The problem is when we start doing developments like the Baumgardner Ranch which would then max out anything that we’ve purchased and max out our resources further than we can, we don’t actually get to gain. We have to be very careful with the kind of houses that we’re putting in and we’re maxing out what they would bring to us, that destroys the purpose of it.
We need to use those rate hikes and use that money toward fixing our current infrastructure … the thing they used to do back in the ’80s here was they would actually save a certain amount per year and they would fix one street. One street per year, and as time went through it kept those bad streets decent. Right now we don’t have that because you look at Josephine or Fourth Street and we know that you can’t even drive a four-wheel drive down them.
We can’t focus on developer fees. We always seem to like to build a development and use the developer fees to update things and all that does is dig us deeper into a hole. What we need to do is take the community that we have, bring the prices up to everyone’s median value like the rest of the county, and use that money to fix the projects that we currently have.
Bagby: As far as our roads are concerned, Measure DD through Sonoma County Transportation Authority, it would be a renewal of a ¼ cent sales tax that we currently have and it expires in 2024. All we’re asking is that voters countywide, and it’s very important that Cloverdale supports this, passes this renewal. If it doesn’t pass this time we do have a little bit of margin where we could get it passed in a subsequent election. Jenny’s right — it represents $150,000 a year for Cloverdale, which you could measure the amount of road you can repair in feet for that amount of money. But it’s not the $150,000 that’s important. It’s the predictable $150,000 a year that we can use to leverage state and possible even federal funds. It is Cloverdale’s sole source of revenue that can be dedicated strictly to roads.
In this case, it’s very important that Cloverdale voters come out and support this.
Brigham: This question gets asked to me a lot and I’m not going to lie — the roads in this town are not going to get fixed anytime soon. The money from the gas tax, all of these things were supposed to be funneling in and helping us with that but the cost of everything has gone through the ceiling. $150,000 won’t even to a quarter of a block, but Melanie is right. We’ll take whatever we can get, but that is the huge hole I see in mandated taxes that we don’t get our share of or have dried up for one reason or another. I could try and paint a rosy picture that we’re going to fix Fourth Street … flurry sealing the roads are only going to last so long. Some of the roads now are getting to the point that they’re going to have to be taken out, the whole street is going to have to be taken up because it’s disintegrating.
Do I like it? No, but Cloverdale is not exactly an affluent town. We’ve had to sink about $940,000 from reserves for this year along. I’m not going to bulls—- you. It isn’t something I see happening. There is no rosy picture here on this one, sorry.
The SMART train is in financial difficulties and expansion to Cloverdale looks doubtful in the foreseeable future with expected buildout cost over $350 million in today’s dollars. How would you propose to work with SMART to obtain this funding? Or would you rather attempt to attain some of that funding for Cloverdale, and if so, what would you use it for?
Lands: I don’t think that we’ll ever see SMART in our lifetime. I think there have been too many hiccups, as much as I would love it and support it here, I think if it even came in my kids’ lifetime I would be surprised. If we want SMART to come in, we have to support the measures that would pay for it.
The voters, they shot down the measure that would’ve given them money to bring the SMART train to Cloverdale and so I have to go with what the voters want, and if they’re saying they don’t want to pay the money to bring it to Cloverdale it’s hard for me to swallow, but it’s what they want at this point. I think that we should be using that money for other things. If it’s money that could be put toward things like transportation, we should be using it to repair our roads and infrastructure.
Bagby: If residents in Cloverdale want to see the train, they need to stop electing people who say they’re never going to get the train in their lifetime. The first thing that Cloverdale needs to do is realize that transportation funding comes in segments and it comes in matching funds. The idea that we’re going to get money and not spend it on SMART and apply it to another project is just a complete fantasy. What we need to do is make sure we have a predictable source of local funding in Sonoma County and then that is what is going to attract state investment. Caltrans is already interested — not just in Cloverdale, but in connecting SMART to Lake and Mendocino counties.
You have to look at this in the way that big transportations planners think of it, not as “OK, this is a really big problem that we can’t solve on our own. How are we going to do this?” Well, we what we have to do is reach out, understand the funding mechanisms, and position ourselves to be eligible for that funding. Ironically, the thing that we need to do in Cloverdale for transportation, is we need to make sure that we have our zoning, our planning and our plans for housing near the train station so that we can attract that state and federal funding.
Brigham: We’ve known that we were kind of at the end of the line for a long time. Overruns of the costs have made it, I’ve got to say, that probably in my lifetime I will not see that train. Does that mean I wouldn’t love to see it for my nieces and nephews and great-nieces and great-nephews? I think it would be a great project and I’m behind the idea of the project, yes. The funding for it and trying to figure out a way that we could match anything that would help it, from Cloverdale itself, besides voting correctly on this measure is zero. The only way we’re going to do it is raise some kind of tax. We have to accept that if we want that in our children’s lifetime, you’re going to have to fork over … it’s like planting a tree. You plant that tree for your grandchildren or your children or whatever, but don’t expect to see it in your lifetime.
Candelaria-Orr: I attended the same (SMART) discussion as Melanie and Mayor Wolter on Monday. Speaking from a person who voted ‘yes’ on Measure Q in 2008, it was interesting to have kind of more of a “civilian” perspective in the sense of, “Where’s the train?” That’s kind of the outrage I have at this moment.
There were great promises with this and I know that the hard work has been done, I know that they’re trying to complete up to Windsor, but the feeling I got in that meeting was that Cloverdale is just not there. It’s just not something that’s necessarily on the board’s radar right now and I think something that we could actually do is try and get an elected official on the SMART board. Having that representation would be a really great thing for us to do. To be again that loud voice, a proponent for Cloverdale. I think the board for SMART needs to be more transparent. We need to see exactly where this money is going.
Garcia-Hinchliffe: You’re right on, Jenny, because we’re not seen. The general manager’s report was just released last month and the only mention of Cloverdale was a signal technician named Sean who was born and raised here in Cloverdale. You see extensions, you see plans, you see what’s happening in Windsor, you see a bulldozer. As a resident and not yet a council member, I really had to do some digging for this information. I think the important thing to state here is, we can’t get a train until Healdsburg does … We really have to support our sister city and get them on board, get them into a completion date for a general fund or grant fund. That’s key to getting the train here, is to work with Healdsburg and discuss with them what (their city could do) to get funds and get the train to them.
… I think by speaking with Healdsburg, having representation on the board, I think we could see that maybe in my lifetime.
