From the City of Healdsburg
The Healdsburg City Council met this week to discuss matters as diverse as urban planning, youth activities, public safety cameras and the City budget.
The meeting began with a proclamation recognizing April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Rebecca Fein, the executive director of Verity, which supports survivors of sexual assault and human trafficking, received the proclamation, thanked the council and offered a sobering account of sexual assault statistics.
The council heard from Warm Springs 4H members who led a survey of local youth. The survey gave good marks for cleanliness of some parks and amenities, with room for improvement elsewhere.
Youth survey suggestions included beach volleyball courts, improved sport courts, a bowling alley, a teen recreation center, teen movie days at True West Film Center and taking youth into consideration when planning the SMART train station.
Healdsburg Library Commissioner Andy Elkind gave his annual report to the council, stressing that the county library system is doing well.
Katie Edgar, the City’s finance director, reviewed the results of a community survey on budget priorities. The survey showed mixed results, with wide swings in participants’ preferences for increased or decreased spending in various departments. A key theme was resident’s desire for “more” services and programs.
Edgar also focused on affordable housing, the Community Services Department and street repairs, as a prelude to a special budget meeting on May 11.
In the housing category, Edgar reviewed a base funding level for housing programs of about $1.5 million a year, plus grant funds.
In Community Services, Edgar described a complex department funded primarily by Transient Occupancy Taxes (the hotel tax). Expense categories range from insurance to utilities, from vehicle maintenance to events and recreation programs, from landscape and park maintenance to operating the senior center and other community resources.
Street repairs are a perennial concern in a city that has streets ranging in age from less than a year to more than a century. As is often the case, the need exceeds available funds. Public Works Director Larry Zimmer told the council his team is evaluating the best use of funds for the next fiscal year. The presentation described a potential for $58.7 million in capital improvement streets projects over the next five years, with $4.5 million allocated for the next fiscal year.
Healdsburg Police Chief Matt Jenkins presented a report on Automated License Plate Reader cameras. The police department began using cameras in 2018 for parking enforcement and added 10 more cameras in 2023.
Jenkins told the council that in a line-by-line review of data access logs, he discovered gaps in the system that allowed out-of-state agencies to perform “lookups” of Healdsburg camera data in 2023. Jenkins contacted the camera supplier (Flock Safety) and those access gaps were eliminated.
To prevent future issues, Jenkins has instituted more audits and controls. He told the council there is no evidence that information was obtained from searches of Healdsburg’s network by unauthorized agencies, including DHS or ICE.
The council meeting concluded with two key steps forward on the SMART Station Area Plan. The council approved a $1.13 million contract with Opticos Design Inc. to manage a two-year process to study future uses of an area of a half-mile radius around the proposed train station, which includes the area south of Memorial Bridge and a large section of the older part of downtown.
A second item was for the council to appoint a 15-member Community Advisory Committee to ensure a strong community voice in the Station Area Plan process.
The City Council next meets on May 4, at 6pm, 401 Grove St., healdsburg.gov/zoom.
