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The Rohnert Park farmers market held at City Center Plaza, June 18, 2010. (PD file)
By JEREMY HAY
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
A veteran fire official, a banker, a planning commissioner and the mayor say they will be candidates in Rohnert Park’s November City Council elections.
Jack Rosevear, fire commander at the city’s public safety department, and Amy Ahanotu, a Redwood Credit Union branch manager, are among four who say they will run for two seats that are open for election. Both will be first-time candidates.
The seats they are running to fill are held by Mayor Pam Stafford, who said she will be a candidate, and Councilwoman Amie Breeze, who has not said whether she will run.
John Borba, chairman of the city’s planning commission, said he will make another play for the voters’ favor. He ran for the council in 2008 when three seats were contested, finishing fourth by 216 votes.
“If I hadn’t come close I probably wouldn’t run again,” said Borba, 49, an attorney. “I’m not running against any particular councilmember; I think I have something to offer that could be good for the future of our town.”
The major issues facing the city, he said, “continue to be the balance between the fiscal dilemma we’re all in, plus we have to continue to provide excellent services to people.”
Councilmembers will be steering a city in tough fiscal straits, though that has been eased by the recent passage of a half-cent sales tax measure that more than halved the city’s deficit.
Still, the deficit stands at $1.5 million, even after a year when the city cut nearly $6 million from the general fund by eliminating 34 positions, furloughs, cutting amenities including some city swimming pools, and slashing services such as park maintenance.
“I think it’s going to be a vigorous debate over the future of Rohnert Park and how one maintains a healthy community,” said Brian Sobel, a political consultant.
“Rohnert Park is very much at a crossroads financially,” Sobel said. “The citizens have to decide whether the current council has the people in place to take them to the next level, that level being one of financial security.”
Stafford, 61, a fitness trainer who has been a councilwoman since 2006 and mayor since November, said the city is now in the right track.
“I think that we’re starting to turn some things around here and I’d like to stick around and see some good things happen,” she said.
Rosevear, 50, who said he is retiring in August after two years as the city’s fire commander, said the council needs to broaden its focus.
“The city has been hell bent on making cuts and has not been focused on finding new revenue,” he said. A 15-year resident of the city, he said he also was motivated to run in part by his experience as an employee of the city.
“Based on the level of frustration I have felt as a taxpayer and now as an employee, I feel compelled to run … and help get the city back on track,” said Rosevear, who before joining the city was deputy chief fire marshal for the county’s Fire and Emergency Services Office.
Ahanotu said an often fractious council is something that needs to be addressed so that the city can move forward.
“We need to start to bring city council together,” said Ahanotu, 52, who also is chairman of the board of directors of the Rohnert Park Chamber of Commerce.
“I understand that there are different opinions and that’s good, but we need to start putting those opinions together and start to solve our pressing right now,” he said.
He said that as a banker, “I think I’m positioned to provide the leadership required to get RP in the right direction. What does Rohnert Park need the most? Leadership. Leadership that can work together … and produce results.”
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I hope the RRPOA doesn’t support Rosevear. Seems like they would because he’s a firefighter and because he supports spending buckets of money the city does not have manning fire stations and buying wild fire equipment to protect the miniscule “wildland interface.”
That his own position with the city is unnecessary and that the Public Safety department is the biggest drain on city finances, I think that disqualifies him from having any credibility when promising to straighten out city finances. I did see a letter from him in the local paper slamming leadership in Rohnert Park – which translated means his ideas have been rejected already.
If Rosevear is elected I fear we’ll have to tolerate even more sirens blaring through Rohnert Park at all hours. You already have an ambulance, a fire truck, a police car, a backup officer, a police supervisor, a fire sergeant, and sometimes even an ambulance supervisor vehicle all speeding through residential streets to come to the aid of someone with a bloody nose — all ignoring the code 3 policy routinely.
Not voting for Rosevear is a vote for quiet neighborhoods and not spending money you don’t have on stuff you don’t need.
GOOD. We will have choices.
Given the ridiculous nonsensical behavior of the Rohnert Park City Council during the recent budget crisis and the musical-chairs circus at the City Manager’s office, I intend to NOT vote for ANY standing City Council member who seeks re-election. So Stafford: you’ve lost my vote already.
Now that the city’s sales tax increase has passed, the City Council is back to its “business-as-usual” blasé. It’s as though nothing has changed. They just go on spending money. OUR money. They can’t seem to figure out ways to get more business into the city, and that their revenues will follow. Maybe they figure they can just tax the citizens more, and get rid of more city employees, more city services when the inevitable money shortage comes back to bite them again in the behind.
So remember the Dishonorable Five: Breeze, Belforte, Callinan, MacKenzie, Stafford. DON’T vote for ANY of them when they come up for re-election.