Santa Rosa, county reach pact on Roseland annexation

Leaders from Santa Rosa and Sonoma County inked an agreement Thursday calling for the two jurisdictions to work together ensure the 620-acre Roseland neighborhood is successfully annexed into the city.

Santa Rosa Mayor Scott Bartley and county supervisors Shirlee Zane and Efren Carrillo all signed the two page “memorandum of understanding” that pledges cooperation on the effort to make the largest county island officially part of the city.

“I think this is really important because it’s going to set the tone for the next council,” Bartley said.

Zane called the move an important step toward ensuring the underserved area in the city’s southwest receives more equitable services.

“When we address the disparities in one community, we really address the disparities in our whole community,” Zane said.

County officials had originally pressed for the city to pursue a “comprehensive annexation” of all county islands in the city’s southwest area. This would have included the Moorland Avenue neighborhood where 13-year-old Andy Lopez was killed by a sheriff’s deputy while the boy carried an air rifle.

But Santa Rosa officials argued that they only had the resources for the Roseland annexation, agreeing to consider annexations of other smaller islands in the future. The current Roseland annexation process is expected to take three more years, which some have criticized as too slow.

Home to about 6,300 people, Roseland is a dense, ethnically diverse area that became an island of unincorporated county land inside city limits after the city annexed more easily developable property around it, mostly in the 1980s and 1990s.

The city annexed a 300-acre portion of Roseland in 1997. A push in the mid-2000s to finish the job stalled in 2008 when the city and county couldn’t reconcile how to fund the higher cost of police services to the area.

Early last year, after voters rejected district elections that some feel would improve representation for underserved groups, the City Council made the annexation of Roseland a top priority. A subsequent planning grant has promised to speed the process.

City departments are working to estimate the costs of providing city services and infrastructure improvements to Roseland if annexed. It has hired a consultant, Pacific Municipal Consultants, to perform a financial analysis of costs and tax revenues generated by the area.

Those estimates are expected to be released around the beginning of next year, city planner Lisa Kran z said Thursday. The city has also preliminarily selected two consulting teams to help with the outreach efforts to the Roseland community, Kranz said.

The effort is likely to include a steering committee made up of local residents, property owners and business people, as well as meetings with community groups and workshops.

Carrillo said he was pleased to see the city had selected a consultant, Steve Cancian, who knows the neighborhood. He said Cancian helped orchestrate an inclusive community outreach effort that lead to the design of Bayer Farm Neighborhood Park & Gardens.

Burbank Avenue resident Flora Haluzak urged leaders to speed the annexation so it can be clearer for residents which agencies serve them.

“There are three different law enforcement agencies that patrol our street, and I have to remember which one to call,” Haluzak said. “For me it’s a matter of safety.”

But the upcoming election is likely to slow the work of the five-member Joint City/County Annexation Committee. None of the three city members of that committee, Bartley, Councilman Jake Ours and Vice Mayor Robin Swinth, are seeking re-election. Councilwoman Erin Carlstrom recently replaced Ours, and the next mayor will decide who serves next.

While work by staff will continue, that means the committee, whose main charge is to negotiate a cost-sharing agreement for the annexation effort, won’t meet again until next year.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @srcitybeat.