Residents took turns at the mic on Oct. 22 at city hall, criticizing the closed session process Healdsburg City Council took exploring the “Cerri Site.”
The site, located at 3 North St., has been discussed by council behind closed doors with Burbank Housing. Should the city move forward with a sale or transfer of the property, the council will eventually be legally obligated to make the process public at a regular council meeting. If the Cerri Site moves ahead, it may be on the agenda next month.
Many who spoke out against what they deemed an opaque process were also concerned with the fate of the Healdsburg Farmers Market, which uses the dirt lot on Saturdays. Before public comment began, City Manager David Mickaelian said that no one is being forced to move.
In addition to the market, the building on the site is currently used to store sandbags. The lot provides public parking when the market is not in session. City staff said outside the council meeting that the lot has also become somewhat of a homeless encampment, though work with Reach for Home has relocated a couple people who were living there.
Janet Ciel, the manager of the market, said the market has been doing well in its current location, as well as its Tuesday location on Center Street, and said she didn’t see the reason for it to move, though she said they would. She also said she was happy to see the Cerri Site develop.
Renee Kiff, a former head of the market and Alexander Valley resident, came up next, saying the rumor mill concerning the site had reached out to her orchard. Her concern was more about the talk of the Healdsburg Regional Library moving, possibly to that site. She said the location was not as centrally located, which was echoed by several other commenters. She also noted that in order for children to get to the site, they would have to walk past bars and tasting rooms, negatively exposing them to alcohol.
Others spoke in favor of keeping the library where it is, since they had not seen enough planning for a move and were concerned that the new site would not be as good.
Sonoma County Library Communications Director Ray Holley came to the podium and assured the crowd that the library wasn’t being forced into a move.
“However, we’re curious about it,” he said.
Holley noted that the library is in a building from the 1980s, prior to the dawn of the internet, and therefore did not have the best design to take full advantage of tech services, something he said has become a core need of library users. A new building could bring Healdsburg a greater level of service if it worked out.
Holley, who was not in any closed sessions, said he was confident that the process would come before the public and had severe doubts any decision would be made in the next couple weeks, citing his many years as a “council watcher” — possibly an allusion to having the managing editor position at Sonoma West Publishers in years past.
Residents’ general sentiment was also that the discussion was moving too fast, citing verbiage in the notice of closed session that mentioned pricing.
“This seems late in the process if we’re talking pricing for payment,” one resident said.
City Attorney Samantha Zutler said after public comment that the ‘pricing for payment’ wording was a standard phrase used in noticing these meetings, not necessarily a sign of how far in the city council has taken a potential deal.
However not all residents took council to task for what they said was a lack of transparency. Brian Sommer said he had faith in the council to act according to the spirit of open governance.
Ken Munson, who has been involved with the SDAT strategic planning process for the city, said council could avoid these situations if a master plan was created for all city-owned properties. That way, the public could review what has been said about any property that comes up for discussion in closed session.
As the topic was on closed session, no further information was provided by the city. Burbank Housing declined to comment at this time on the possible land transaction. Since public comment was for non-agenda items, council did not comment on the issue or provide any direction to staff.
