MEMORANDUM
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| DATE: |
September 28, 1995
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| TO: |
MAYORS AND COUNCIL
MEMBERS WORKING GROUP |
| FROM: |
PLANNING DIRECTORS OF
SONOMA COUNTY |
| SUBJECT: |
SONOMA COUNTY SUBREGIONAL
PLANNING PILOT PROJECT |
It is with great pleasure and enthusiasm that the Planning Directors of the
nine cities and the county present this working draft of the Sonoma County
Subregional Issues and Policies Report to the Mayors and Council Members
Working Group. This draft represents many hours of discussion identifying key
issues in Sonoma County's future and compiling and comparing General Plan
Policies of all the jurisdictions relating to these issues. We hope our efforts
will enable you to establish consensus on approaches to subregional planning
and the appropriate directions on which the cities and county should
collaborate.
This pilot program, financed by the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG),
is both ambitious and limited. It is ambitious by virtue of its innovative
approach to identify consensus points on important subregional issues. It is
limited since its objective is to deal only with items upon which a true
consensus can be reached and defer those about which there is disagreement. It
is also limited by the schedule of reporting to the full Mayors and Council
Members Committee by its November 9th meeting. The Planning Directors, ABAG
staff, a consulting planner and a facilitator are all prepared to help you
address this program. Our suggestion is that you schedule two October meetings
to review and refine this report, perhaps October 12th and 25th.
We would like to express our appreciation for your willingness to assume the
leadership role in this important program and look forward to working with you
to completion.
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Joe Heckel, Cloverdale
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Wayne Goldberg, Santa
Rosa
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Dennis Dorch, Cotati
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Richard Spitler,
Sebastopol
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Betsi Lewitter,
Healdsburg
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Mike Moore, Sonoma
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Pamela Tuft, Petaluma
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Dave Woltering,
Windsor
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Paul Skanchy, Rohnert
Park
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Jeremy Graves, Sonoma
County
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November 6, 1995
TO THE GENERAL MEMBERSHIP OF THE
SONOMA COUNTY MAYORS' AND COUNCILMEMBERS' ASSOCIATION
Ladies and Gentlemen:
About a year ago, a number of members of the Mayors' and Councilmembers'
Association began meeting monthly in Santa Rosa to informally discuss issues
common to all of our jurisdictions and Sonoma County as a whole. We have since
become known as the Mayors' and Councilmembers' Working Group, and our meetings
provide a congenial forum for open dialogue on matters of mutual interest and
concern. Early on in the process of our formation, the Working Group developed
a list of discussion topics for future agendas that to no one's surprise
focused on the many planning issues confronting us all: urban form,
transportation, resource conservation, economic development and housing. As we
began to talk about these issues, we were approached by the City and County
Planning Directors with a grant proposal from the Association of Bay Area
Governments (ABAG) to develop a consensus-based, non-binding subregional
(meaning Sonoma County) policy document that addressed many of the topics on
our list.
It is now our pleasure to present to the
general membership of the Mayors' an Councilmembers' Association the first
revision of Sonoma County Subregion Issues and Policies. This document is the
culmination of an exciting, unprecedented and truly cooperative effort by all
of the jurisdictions in the County to organize and establish a comprehensive
policy direction on significant countywide planning issues. All of you have had
the opportunity to review and express your support (or lack thereof) of the
policy recommendations contained in the earlier "working draft" of
Sonoma County Subregion Issues and Policies. Your response in support of the
vast majority of the policy recommendations was overwhelming. Only two of the
policies in the entire working draft were deleted due to lack of support; and
the twenty-three policies that fell into the category of "Would
Consider" were further refined by the Working Group at meetings on October
19 and 26 until consensus was reached on acceptable language for each one.
We hope that in the coming weeks, each
city council and the board of supervisors will review this draft in depth,
discuss its policy recommendations in public session, and pass on its
respective priorities for implementation, as well as any suggested revisions,
to its representatives on the Working Group. Working Group members are looking
forward to the challenge of continuing to work with each jurisdiction to shape
this document into a functional policy guide and implementation program that
has the formal support and broad acceptance of all the cities and the county.
Sincerely,
The Mayors' and Councilmembers' Working Group
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