The city of Sebastopol heralded its new leaders as the city council unanimously appointed former Vice Mayor Una Glass as the new mayor and Councilmember Sarah Glade Gurney as vice mayor at the Dec. 1 city council meeting. Newly elected Councilmember Diana Rich beamed, taking her virtual seat at the table over Zoom while Neysa Hinton returned to hers and Michael Carnacchi bade the council farewell.
Outgoing mayor Patrick Slayter resettled in his position as a council member with a departing message. “Occupying the mayor’s seat in 2020, I see a Sebastopol community that is strong and resourceful,” he said. “I also see a vast amount of uncertainty, angst and worry.”
Like the rest of the world, Sebastopol could not have predicted or planned for the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic and its economic bite.
“We have readiness plans for floods, earthquakes, fires, power shutoffs, civil unrest, traffic collisions, water main breaks, legal challenges, municipal well-pump failures, wastewater infrastructure misadventures, personnel and staffing challenges and facility maintenance,” Slayter said, but the city will need to address many trials ahead.
He said climate change continues to be “an existential threat” with the nation besieged by wildfires and hurricanes as hate groups, food insecurity and unemployment grow. The housing crisis tightens around the local community, he said.
Slayter urged the Sebastopol community to take action to look out for itself and others. “Get a national or regional parks membership and use it. Recycle something, fix something instead of throwing it away. Install solar panels, buy a hyper-efficient or electric car. Bicycle to work. Vote, volunteer, donate. Compost. Organize a protest. Organize a counterprotest. Punch a Nazi. Wear a mask,” he said. “Keep your distance. Don’t go to a holiday party.”
He thanked city employees across departments and his peers on the council. Slayter pretended to pass the gavel to Glass across the Zoom screen.
Glass reflected that she once thought things couldn’t get any wilder than the wildfires of 2017 when she was previously mayor, since then each year has delivered back-to-back disasters leading up to the pandemic.
“However, the community has really pulled together. This has been an incredible challenge to all of us to make it through this international crisis,” she said. “So, I think we all know this is going to be a fairly difficult year ahead. We’re all going to have to work together and be supportive and tolerant of each other.”
Glass said the city’s first priority in 2021 would be to address impacts of the pandemic and keep the community safe, noting Sebastopol hosts the second highest average age of residents in Sonoma County. She said it was important that Sebastopol continue to “let science and facts drive our response and how we deal with this crisis.”
The city’s response must aid its residents who lost jobs and may yet lose housing, help sustain small businesses and support children studying through the pandemic, she said. Her vision for the coming year also involves continuing Sebastopol’s commitment to the environment and climate action.
Furthermore, Glass said Sebastopol would review its law enforcement policies and practices with an audit of the Sebastopol Police Department by Jerry Threet, former director of the Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach. His report is due to come out in early 2021.
The new mayor said the city would pursue practices to ensure the whole community feels safe, “and that we have the practices and policies in place, so our community feels that it is supportive of our police department rather than it being adversarial,” she said.
The city needs to commit to a culture of respect with no tolerance for hate speech or bigotry, she said. Glass continued to say it was not surprising that the Sebastopol community runs progressive, but people would still need to be respectful of those with a conservative perspective.
“What we’re not going to be respectful of is a lack of truthfulness. We will not be respectful of lies,” she said. “We will not be respectful of disinformation and all the things that go with that.”
Glass said Sebastopol faces a question of identity with the opportunity to define itself outside of two “Smalltownsville” paradigms.
“There’s that paradigm of you can be the big box store and you can have masses of subdivisions and you can have this kind of super cheapo economy that’s based on corporations that are out there,” she said, “Or the other thing you can do is you can be this cute little town that’s based on tourism and bringing in a lot of people with a lot of money.”
Glass said she wanted the city to pursue an alternative path supportive of a diverse community and its local economy.
Gurney’s appointment was unanimous, although Rei Blaser of the Sebastopol Downtown Association said during public comment she wanted to see Hinton as vice mayor.
The council thanked Carnacchi individually for his contributions to the city’s leadership despite disagreements throughout his term. Carnacchi thanked the council for the opportunity to serve.
“I can say that since the election, a huge burden has been lifted off my shoulders like you wouldn’t believe,” he said.
Carnacchi requested the city maintain the relationship with CalTrans he built and said he would remain engaged with the city.
“And to Diana (Rich), I just want to say congratulations, you got my seat, and I am fairly out and you are fairly in. So now we will see which one of us will be the happiest,” he said, laughing.
