Cotati City Council incumbents seek to hold onto seats against challengers

The race for Cotati’s three open City Council seats may lead to more of the same. That’s either a good or bad thing, depending on who you ask in the contest.

The status quo would be welcomed by three incumbents seeking to retain their seats after the Nov. 8 election. They are Susan Harvey, John Dell’Osso and Wendy Skillman.

Each expressed confidence the city is headed in the right direction under their leadership.

“I really feel that Cotati is moving in a very positive direction right now, and having taken part in that as a policymaker, I want to continue that,” said Dell’Osso, a longtime Cotati resident and public information officer for Point Reyes National Seashore seeking his third term in office.

Seeking change, however, are three other candidates: general contractor Jason Goebel, mediator and communications consultant Eris Weaver and licensed contractor George Barich.

Goebel, 42, who has lived in downtown Cotati for more than two decades, said this week he’s “very concerned for this town.” He said the incumbents on the City Council are doing a “good job.”

“But I think I can do it better,” he added.

With a little more than a week before the election, the council race has been relatively low-key, with none of the six candidates reporting taking in campaign contributions, according to county records.

The relative quiet is noteworthy for a city that has tussled over everything from traffic roundabouts to its future growth.

“Everybody’s really mellow,” Goebel said. “No one’s really gunning, which is really odd to me for Cotati politics.”

The local election in 2014 was marked by controversy over Measure G, a 1-cent, nine-year sales tax measure that proponents argued was needed to fund essential services and keep the city afloat. Opponents called such concerns overblown. The measure ultimately was approved.

Cotati’s sales tax of 9.25 percent is now the highest in Sonoma County.

The sales tax revenue comprises about a third of the city’s general fund. The city’s total estimated budget for the coming fiscal year is about $17.8 million, according to City Manager Damien O’Bid.

He said the sales tax revenue allowed the city to keep its police department open and improve services in a number of areas, including adding a police officer and hiring a maintenance worker in public works.

O’Bid said the city also has leveraged sales tax revenue for federal grants to improve city infrastructure, including a $1.1 million grant for work at the city’s gateway at Old Redwood Highway between Highway 116 and La Plaza Park. And the city obtained a $250,000 grant to repave and make safety improvements on downtown streets.

“Pretty much everything we’re doing as a city wouldn’t have been possible if we didn’t have” the sales tax revenue, O’Bid said.

The three City Council incumbents agreed.

“I’m really glad the voters ratified it because it’s helped us with a lot of much-needed improvements around the city,” said Skillman, 48, an attorney seeking her second term in office.

Harvey said with the sales tax revenue and “some belt-tightening,” the city has shown visible signs of economic improvement.

She and the other two incumbents expressed the desire for the city to do even more to attract business to the city, ranging from attracting businesses that cater to local industries, such as the wine industry, to another small hotel in the city for concertgoers at the Green Music Center.

All three incumbents this week voted to approve Cotati Station, which includes a 74-unit apartment complex to be built near the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit authority’s East Cotati Avenue station.

Goebel agreed the city could do more to better its relationships with businesses. However, he said city officials need to rein in spending and bank some of that money in reserves.

He said the current council is spending money “faster than they can make it.”

Barich said city officials are underestimating future expenditures and overinflating current revenue.

“It’s not an honest budget,” he said.

He called for more transparency in the process. He said the city also needs to address its unfunded liabilities for city employee pensions and retiree health care and other benefits.

Barich, 58, won election in 2008 but was recalled the following year after several controversies, including his use of official city stationery to write President Barack Obama criticizing the federal stimulus package as wasteful, fighting with city administrators over his use of the city seal on his personal website and his posting of a picture of himself in black makeup and an Afro wig over the seal, which contains a picture of an Indian chief.

Barich ran unsuccessfully for office again in 2012, coming in third in a field of three candidates.

“I wear the recall as a badge of honor,” he said this week. “That’s the price you pay for doing your job. It has strengthened my resolve to represent the people of Cotati and get us back on a sustainable path to a healthy and growing community.”

Weaver, 57, said she’s running for her first elected office because she wants to apply her skills as a mediator to improve communication between council members and with the public.

She said she’s not running on a “get the buggers out campaign.” She added that some council members have been in office for a while and she believes it’s “good to have a choice.”

You can reach Staff Writer Derek Moore at 707-521-5336 or derek.moore@pressdemocrat.com. ?On Twitter @deadlinederek.