Business climate at center stage in Cloverdale council race

Economic development has been the mantra in Cloverdale for years, but attracting companies and jobs to Sonoma County’s northernmost city has not been easy.

In the lead-up to Tuesday’s City Council election, five candidates going for three seats offer differing viewpoints on whether the city can do a better job of rolling out the welcome mat for new businesses and helping them cut through the red tape of zoning and permits.

“We’ve been talking economic development the last eight years. No one seems to be doing anything,” said Michele Winterbottom, the former Cloverdale city clerk making her first run for a City Council seat.

She and political newcomer Jude Gibson-Byers are running as a slate of sorts, sharing signs and a point of view that the city needs to do better at removing roadblocks for businesses.

“We need to acquire new business in town. We desperately need a new tax base. We need to make it easier for new business to come in rather than harder,” Gibson-Byers said.

The incumbents, Joe Palla and Carol Russell, say it’s easy to describe the problem, but not so simple to achieve results.

Both list a strong local economy and a “business friendly” City Hall in their top priorities.

But they say there have been larger forces at work.

“We went through a long, very severe, greatest recession our country has ever faced,” Palla said. “We’re rebounding as a nation out of it. Cloverdale is not rebounding as fast.”

Palla noted that one of the challenges for the town of 8,600 is less sales tax revenue and bed taxes due to fewer businesses and hotels compared to other cities.

Palla and Russell point to some signs of improvements in town in the form of new business and restaurants. Bear Republic Brewing Co. is expanding and, through an innovative public-private partnership, will help improve the city’s well production and water supply. A card lock fuel and trucking facility has been approved.

Gus Wolter, a former three-time mayor and retired banker, is hoping to make a comeback after losing a bid for re-election two years ago. An opening for him was created when incumbent Mike Maacks chose not to run for re-election.

Wolter also says the city needs to be more proactive in attracting new business. Like Winterbottom and Gibson-Byers, he faults city officials for not doing a better job of easing zoning restrictions to enable two retailers, including a Dollar store, to relocate in a vacant downtown storefront.

“Both were turned down because it was zoned office-residential,” he said of the building formerly occupied by a Curves women’s gym.

Wolter said he would like to see more focus on tourism because businesses aren’t relocating to Cloverdale.

The problem, he said, is “Cloverdale is too far away from Santa Rosa, too far away from the mainstream, for businesses to come up here.”

He said that the hospitality industry in Cloverdale should form a tourism improvement district funded through a self-imposed tax to use for promotion purposes, similar to what Healdsburg does. An extra 2 percent tax added to the existing 10 percent bed tax would generate about $5,500 a year, which, although modest, would be a start, he said.

One tax all the candidates support is Measure O. The proposal on Tuesday’s ballot would reinstate a utility tax that lapsed eight years ago. It would assess a 3 percent tax on city utility bills and cost the average household about $122 a year.

The tax would raise approximately $375,000 annually for the city’s general fund and would apply to electric, gas, telephone and cable TV bills and also include cellphones. It would expire in eight years.

Palla said it is needed because there is only so much the city can do with limited staffing and funding, noting the workforce has been whittled down from 52 employees to 39 employees over the past eight years. And without the new revenue, he said more staffing cuts would be inevitable in the next few years.

“It’s very important we have a source of money that is not going to be taken away,” Russell said. “We’ve had too much of that happen with the state and feds.”

But Gibson-B yers would like to reopen the discussion of whether the lion’s share of the money from Measure O should go to the Police Department, or instead for things like “parks and lights.”

Winterbottom said she would also like to see the City Council be more transparent and conduct more of its finance and budget discussions in full session rather than in subcommittees. She said committees double and triple the work of city staffers who have to prepare agendas and minutes.

The two newcomers say they would offer a fresh perspective if elected, though the incumbents say experience is more important.

“A lot of people are telling me they want a different City Council. They want a choice,” Gibson-Byers said.

Wolter disagrees. “For the most part, folks in Cloverdale are happy with City Hall and the current City Council,” he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Clark Mason at 521-5214 or clark.mason@pressdemocrat.com.