Santa Rosa City Council directs PG&E money toward Coffey Park, Fountaingrove

The Santa Rosa City Council settled quickly on how to spend most of the remaining money from a legal settlement with the electrical utility PG&E over the 2017 firestorms, but how city leaders would use $34.2 million in federal stimulus money was less clear by the end of a Tuesday night council meeting.

Repairing sidewalks, streets, and city parks in the Fountaingrove and Coffey Park neighborhoods will cost around $20 million, according to city officials, leaving $7 million yet to be allocated. The electrical utility paid the city $95 million in a settlement for its role in the 2017 fires that devastated Fountaingrove and Coffey Park, among other parts of the region.

Dozens of Coffey Park residents delivered more than an hour and a half of phoned-in testimony, calling on the council to finish rebuilding that neighborhood before any PG&E settlement money went to other uses.

In a February round of divvying up settlement money, the council put $40 million into the city’s reserve fund. It also allocated $10 million to a new library in Roseland and $10 million for affordable housing.

As proposed by city staff and endorsed by all the council members at Tuesday’s study session, the city would next spend $6 million on sidewalks and other repairs along Hopper Avenue, $7 million on residential street repairs and another $7 million on landscaping in Fountaingrove and six public parks.

The council will take a final vote on the spending proposals at a later meeting.

Potential uses for the federal stimulus money were more varied, with council members proposing enough different options to spark a warning from interim city manager Jeff Kolin.

“The list is longer and more expensive than we have funds to totally address,“ Kolin said.

Based on council members’ suggestions before Tuesday’s meeting, staff provided a proposed breakdown for spending the $34.2 million, of which the city has received half with another half slated for next year.

The breakdown included more than $5 million going to homeless assistance, $1.7 million going to services for low income families and expanded recreation opportunities and another $2.9 million toward a utility bill assistance program, a jobs program and a universal basic income pilot program.

A number of council members on Tuesday directed staff to study further those more innovative policy proposals, several of which were pushed by Mayor Chris Rogers in an op-ed in The Press Democrat over the weekend.

Among the proposals Rogers expounded on was a “baby bond” savings program — a publicly funded investment account for the children of poor families that is designed to close generational wealth gaps — and a universal basic income program.

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