As the COVID-19 pandemic wears on, the Healdsburg City Council agreed Monday night, Aug. 3, to explore several virus response actions such as eviction protection, civil fines for not observing public health orders, retail assistance, utility bill relief, child care programs and encouraging bicycle and pedestrian use.
“We’ve done a number of important things. You’ve adopted low-income assistance for electricity bills, there’s a prohibition on disconnects during these challenging times, we set up a late payment system for Transit Occupancy Tax, you did a business loan program that ended up supporting about 75 businesses, you adopted the outdoor activities permit process … and last week we did the open streets program, and so a number of folks have talked to us about what’s next,” said the interim Healdsburg City Manager Dave Kiff.
In terms of COVID-related eviction protection and civil fines, the council agreed to hear what first comes down from the state and the county, before proceeding with more concrete action. As for retail assistance, stimulating the economy, utility bill relief, child care and bicycle use, the council directed staff to return to council at a future date with a report and an update from each relevant department head.
Eviction protection
While each councilmember wholeheartedly agreed that focusing on eviction protection is key, they thought it would be more prudent to see what kind of aid comes down from the state before addressing the topic with a Healdsburg centric ordinance or measure.
Additionally, the city’s attorney, Samantha Zutler, said currently, courts are not processing eviction lawsuits.
“There are a few different schemes in place regulating evictions right now. I think the most comprehensive is the set of rules that the judicial council issued several months ago that essentially said that the courts will not process eviction lawsuits until 90 days after the state of emergency is lifted. That order is set to expire Aug. 14, and it was on the agenda for the judicial council to continue back in June. They declined to vote on it at that time and the statement from the chief justice was that she wanted to continue to work with the governor to see if the state would be issuing any new regulations. We are all kind of watching the state right now to see what it plans to do, but we anticipate a new order or new regulations coming down from the state in the next week or so,” Zutler said.
Councilmember David Hagele said if evictions are not currently being processed then the city should wait to hear what happens with the state and then receive an update from staff. The council unanimously agreed.
Public health order and mask fines
According to Kiff, the county is slated to consider a public health order/mask fine on Aug. 6. The civil fine could potentially be a $100 fine for not wearing a mask in public after an initial verbal warning.
While councilmembers thought they should wait and see what sort of measure comes down from the county, they all agreed that the city should have its own unique messaging and signage about the mask requirement.
Hagele said he would like to see concise messaging that is unique to Healdsburg and Councilmember Ozzy Jimenez agreed, saying it would be nice for the city to have streamlined messaging about the public mask requirement.
Healdsburg resident Mark McMullen expressed support for this idea during public comment and said that the city needs to be proactive and not reactive when it comes to COVID response.
“I heard talk about the county possibly providing signs and some things for us to use and I really think that this is something needed right now. We need to be proactive and not reactive. We need to get these signs up about masks encouraging visitors as well as residents to wear them as much as possible,” McMullen said.
Councilmembers suggested signage with a short, quippy message such as, “No shoes, no shirt, no mask, no service.” Mayor Evelyn Mitchell recalled seeing signs in Monterey that simply read, “No mask = $100,” and thought that was a good way to drive home the message.
Kiff said city staff will look at the possibilities of rolling out some form of mask signage that has a clear and uniform message.
Retail assistance and economy stimulus
The council had various ideas on how to help stimulate the local economy. Hagele brought up the idea of looking at long-term options that would encourage creativity in businesses and the use of vacant stores such as the old Bear Republic space or the former retail space on the Plaza where Bella All Things Beautiful was located. He also suggested creating some sort of “one-stop shop” for folks who are interested in starting a business and need help going through the process.
Jimenez suggested looking at what the city has done in previous economic downturns and Councilmember Joe Naujokas advocated for looking at how the city could change or loosen land use codes to allow for a wider array of businesses.
“What about cannabis sales? This would be a timely moment to revisit it as a tool to revitalize retail activity and to address our sales tax revenue challenges,” Naujokas added.
Ultimately, council decided to return to this topic during their goal setting sessions, which will
take place sometime this month.
Utility bill relief
Since the city’s utility bill relief programs — a bill waiver and reduced bill program — have been funded by the utility CARE program, council requested a report from the city’s utility director Terry Crowley before addressing the topic, however, they did voice interest in offering further utility bill relief for low-income families.
“Earlier in April the council made a decision to forgive electricity bills for low-income residents. We worked at Corazon Healdsburg in partnership with the city’s utility department to register about 50 additional families for that program over the course of the three monts where all utility electricity bills were waived and now there’s still 25% of electricity bills, but there’s a number of families who we recently got registered and into the program who missed out on the opportunity to have those free three months of electricity bills,” said Corázon CEO, Ariel Kelley. “I cannot express to you in words how excited, delighted and relieved so many of those families were when they realized they were going to save $100 to $150 a month on those bills because it meant the difference of being able to afford food or not for their families.”
The utility bill waiver program has since expired and Kelley urged the city to consider renewing it.
“With all of the closures that are on the horizon, I think it would be a huge benefit for our low-income residents,” Kelley said.
Jimenez said if the city does decide to renew the program then it may be a good idea to first consider families who didn’t get relief in the first round and to make sure that the program information is Spanish as well as English.
Child care options, biking and walking around town
In terms of looking at child care options amid COVID, council directed community services director Mark Themig to return to council with recommendations on how to meet resident child care needs. In regard to getting around town via walking and biking, the council agreed to put that topic in the goal setting pot and save it for later discussion.
Healdsburg city staff will return to city council at a later date with more detailed reports and recommendations in relation to the above actions.
