Santa Rosa City Council allocates much of its surplus funds after months, but further choices remain

After months of grueling debate the Santa Rosa City Council gave an informal nod to spending all but roughly $10 million of $41.2 million in federal stimulus dollars and the remainder of a massive settlement with utility company PG&E over the 2017 firestorms on a mix of social programs and wildfire resilience.

Council members coalesced around spending on 33 programs that included everything from $300,000 to repair the Asawa Fountain in Old Courthouse Square to innovative programming like a $1 million Universal Basic Income program to provide some of the city’s poorest residents with monthly payments of $400 a month per family for two years.

If the council gives the spending final approval at a pending vote, it will have spent the final $7 million of the $95 million paid out by PG&E in July 2020 as a result of a lawsuit over the devastating and deadly firestorms that killed 24 people and destroyed more than 5,300 homes.

The destination for $10 million of the $34 million the city received from the federal government through President Biden and Congress’s American Rescue Plan Act, a $1.9 trillion stimulus package passed in March, remains undecided.

Future debate appeared likely to focus on whether to spend a large chunk of the money on a city-owned community center in Roseland, or on a request from the Boys & Girls Club of Sonoma-Marin to fund the charity’s construction of a new city-owned facility.

During the months that the City Council debated how it should spend the ARPA money, Congress has now passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that will bring more than $45 billion to California and open up billions of more dollars through new grant programs.

It remains unclear how much money cities like Santa Rosa will get out of that deal.

But council members, on Tuesday, showed a willingness to put money into innovative social programming, even if further debate was still likely.

A $2 million program to assist families with down payments for home ownership, $1.5 million into educational savings accounts for as many as 3,000 children of low-income families, $2.9 million for childcare programming and $2 million for a safe parking program for the city’s homeless were among the social programs that advanced.

The city will also cover its regular homeless services budget for three years with ARPA money, if the council holds to the line it expressed Tuesday night.

The council has spent four grueling study sessions debating how to spend the one-time monies, in large part because of the long list of options created by both elected officials and city staff. Council members spoke ruefully of the long debates that are keeping the dollars locked up in city coffers.

“We have probably spent more time on these one time dollars than we do normally on an entire city budget,” Councilmember John Sawyer said. Even so, Sawyer worried council still didn’t have enough information to make decisions about the ultimate impact of programs like the child saving bonds.

The investment opportunity provided by the large sum of money was “a rare and unique situation that I have to believe is going to require more time and more energy and thoughtfulness and consideration than I have today,” Sawyer said.

But it was time for action, Mayor Chris Rogers argued.

“We know who is impacted by the pandemic and we know how we can make a difference in the community we serve based on not just this conversation but the conversations we have every year on the city’s biggest issues,” he said.

City staff had presented the spending proposals in a study session where the council did not vote on the proposal, but instead indicated to staff which spending items they were ready to vote on at a later meeting.

The spending priorities the council advanced on Tuesday could change before a final vote, and indeed changes appear likely given the extensive debate and competing priorities for different council members.

The unspent $10 million comes from City Council’s direction to staff to rework suggestions for $8.6 million in spending on broadband infrastructure and $1.2 million for COVID-19 testing on city staff.

Council members expressed optimism that new federal funding will go toward broadband, and staff said the Federal Emergency Management Agency was likely to pay for most of the city’s COVID-19 testing.

Roseland, the city’s majority-Latino neighborhood, which has historically been underrepresented and underfunded by city officials, was at the center of much of Tuesday’s discussions.

Council members debated proposals to spend funds on either a city-owned community center or a request from the Boys & Girls Club of Sonoma-Marin, which has been asking for $10 million in ARPA money to build a planned facility on Sebastopol Road, next to a planned housing complex and open air food market.

The Boys & Girls Club is seeking the funding to make up for a philanthropic offer charity officials say was withdrawn by developer Bill Gallaher and his wife Cindy Gallaher.

Council members have questioned the request, with several saying they could not award such a large sum to a private entity without going through a competitive bidding process. Their skepticism remains despite a flood of public comment from Roseland residents and charity supporters who asked for the money, particularly in the wake of a pandemic that has slowed and at times shuttered child care programs and is believed responsible for a nationwide exodus of mothers from the workforce.

Opponents of a cannabis dispensary planned for the former schoolhouse of Roseland Academy rallied to the meeting virtually as well, urging the council to use the money to buy out the property and build a community center there instead of allowing the dispensary.

The dispensary was approved by the Santa Rosa Planning Commission on Sept. 23, but opponents have sought an appeal hearing before City Council.

You can reach Staff Writer Andrew Graham at 707-526-8667 or andrew.graham@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @AndrewGraham88