Roseland annexation committee to meet

The first public meeting of the committee exploring the annexation of Roseland takes place at Santa Rosa City Hall on Thursday morning.

The meeting of the Joint City/County Roseland Annexation Committee will be held at 10:30 a.m. in the mayor's conference room in the city manager's office.

The committee is made up of three members of the City Council - Mayor Scott Bartley, Jake Ours and Vice Mayor Robin Swinth - as well as supervisors Shirlee Zane and Efren Carrillo.

The group's first order of business is to give an overview of the annexation timeline, something that has already generated controversy.

The process proposed by the city envisions the full annexation of the county island in southwest Santa Rosa taking nearly four years. Carrillo has called that timeline too slow and pushed for it to be accomplished in closer to 18 months.

The other order of business is to identify what issues should be tackled at its next meeting.

The committee has been formed for the city and the county to hash out one key element of the annexation process - who will pay for it.

The cost of providing policing services and public infrastructure in the low-income unincorporated area will cost tens of millions of dollars, and previous negotiations between the city and the county have stalled over how to share the costs.