The following ran in the Sonoma West on Sunday, Oct. 30, 2008
Editor: This upcoming City Council election may decide the fate of our town for the next 50 years.
Fourteen years ago Sebastopol Tomorrow helped to elect a city council that voted to protect the unique small town character of our city against the pressures that would lead to more sprawl, more traffic, and more expensive housing.
Our town and City Council succeeded in writing a General Plan that moderates our town’s growth, that protects the existing levels of traffic from getting worse, and that helps to make our downtown more pedestrian friendly. We fought to build the town square, to provide more affordable housing, and to establish an urban growth boundary to control sprawl.
Now with the Northeast Area Plan proposal, Sebastopol faces a momentous decision about whether or not to undo many of these protections.
This plan would eliminate our growth controls and allow hundreds of additional housing units in the new area, right up to the edge of our Laguna Preserve. The view looking back at the City from the Laguna Preserve would be the backside of high-rise buildings that would block our connection to this natural resource. The people who live in this new housing would likely commute to jobs outside the City because the proposed plan provides for few viable employment opportunities.
The proposed Northeast Area Plan envisions 8,100 additional car trips daily through our downtown. This would increase downtown traffic dramatically, with the likelihood that commuters would drive through residential neighborhoods to avoid long waits at traffic lights.
The proposal would allow new commercial building projects equal to the total amount now existing in the City and would allow four-story high-rise apartments to be built on ten-foot fill in the 100-year floodplain, an area that has experienced flooding every 5 to 10 years in recent history.
Some existing local businesses could fail. Twenty-three small businesses now in the redevelopment area would likely be forced out because of the increased rents.
This doesn’t have to happen. We can stop this proposed Northeast Area Plan by electing City Council candidates who will vote against it and work for a reasonable downtown plan.
Guy Wilson is the only city council candidate who stands unequivocally against the current version of the Northeast Area Plan. He agrees with our vision of a friendly, sustainable small town.
Guy Wilson favors measured, moderate, downtown growth that will be a part of the existing downtown. He advocates, “prudent planning, not formula driven projects that are out of scale with our town.” Guy has lots of other ideas for Sebastopol that you can see on his website at electguy.org.
Guy Wilson is strongly committed to Sebastopol. His family has lived in Sebastopol for 20 years. He has served as a Trustee of the Sebastopol Union School District since 2004, a youth sports coach for 15 years and President of Tri-School Soccer for 4 years. He is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Hastings College of the Law and a civil attorney with 24 years’ legal experience.
If Guy Wilson is elected, there will be a City Council majority against the proposed Northeast Area Plan and for a plan in scale with our community.
If you share Sebastopol Tomorrow’s vision of small town Sebastopol, cast your vote for Guy Wilson.
- John Kramer, Sarah Gurney, Una Glass, Pam Neuberg, Jude Kreissman, David Bacigalupi, Sheila Signer, Steve Petrarca, Kevin and Rebecca Dwan, Kathy Oetinger, Julie Sicaud, Will Riggan, Annie Deichmann, Richard and Brenda Nichols