City reps hold forums to let public speak on local issues

Sebastopol City Councilmember Guy Wilson and Mayor Sarah Glade
Gurney held another of the council’s ongoing series of open houses
on local issues Tuesday night, this time with the focus on
Community Impact Reports.
Earlier open houses touched on local water supplies and traffic
issues and have been well attended by area residents.
Community Impact Reports, meanwhile, currently in place in a
number of cities across the U.S. and California, including
Petaluma, are primarily designed to evaluate the potential effects
of new development or projects on such things as quality of life,
local economics, and other impacts.
Particularly important to Sebastopol, said a number of speakers,
was protecting the character of the place in which they live and
preserving local community environmental values.
Tuesday’s meetings, held at the Sebastopol Public Library, drew
from 35 to 45 participants, according to Wilson and Gurney.
The open house, which occasioned wide ranging and lively
discussions on the potential nature, purpose and aims of CIRs, will
be followed by other open houses on the issue in the near
future.
Check the City of Sebastopol’s Web site www.ci.sebastopol.ca.us, for
upcoming open house notices.
Meanwhile transit issues affecting the area’s elderly were the
topic of discussion last Thursday at the Social Hall of Burbank
Heights & Orchards senior apartments.
More than 30 elderly residents discussed their difficulties in
accessing county and city busses to a panel that included
Mayor Gurney, Sebastopol City Council member Kathleen Shaffer,
Sonoma County Fifth District Efren Carillo, Sonoma Transit Manager
Bryan Albee and Sebastopol Area Senior Center Transportation
Coordinator Dean Brittingham.
The goal of the hearing was to generate ideas to increase bus
ridership in general and improve transit service to West County
seniors, particularly during a time of general service cutbacks and
route changes between Sebastopol and Santa Rosa.
A number of seniors expressed their concern about riding to
Santa Rosa’s transit mall which had been the site of criminal
activity in the past.
Supervisor Carillo told the seniors that the revamping of the
mall is in store and that more attention will be focused on senior
riders.
“It’s not just about buses,” he said, “but about mobility. It’s
an improving the quality of life issue.”
Among the most promising outcomes was a commitment by the Senior
Center to assist in providing transit training, including practice
bus rides, to seniors at Burbank.