Analysis published · Input open

The Commons

A shared civic home for Sebastopol and West County — bringing the library, gathering space, and community services together under one roof. The financial analysis is now published in full, and the questions it raises are open to you.

What this is

The vision, in one line

"The Commons" is the idea of a single, welcoming civic hub that serves all of West County — not scattered services in aging buildings, but one shared home for the things a community does together.

Four needs sit behind it: a library at half the size every study recommends, a senior center spread across four addresses, a city hall most staff have already moved out of, and a cultural center in the flood zone. Each is hard to fund alone. Together they can be financed, and that is what the analysis below sets out to test.

Why this work was done

This analysis was carried out to discover the opportunities — to find out what is actually possible and what each path would cost — not to make the case for a conclusion someone had already reached. Every figure is published with its source, and the models are open so you can move the assumptions yourself and see what changes.

No site decision has been made. Several questions are still genuinely unresolved, and they are named openly rather than smoothed over. This is the point at which public input and questions are most useful — while the numbers can still change. If something here looks wrong, I would rather hear it now than after a decision.

Where the analysis points

A recommendation, and what could change it

Read this as my working conclusion from the numbers on this page, not as a decision of record. The committee's formal recommendation is due September 15.

The O'Reilly campus is the only option studied that answers all four needs, and the only one that arrives with a way to pay for itself. It opens years sooner than a rebuild and costs roughly half as much.

That is where the numbers point today. Two unresolved questions could move it, and both are worth watching:

  • The rent has no broker opinion behind it. Every O'Reilly figure rests on a placeholder rate of $1.75 a square foot per month.
  • Bond counsel has not ruled on the lease. Tax-exempt borrowing allows only about 10% private business use. The assumed lease is more than four times that. If it does not survive, the City carries roughly $490,000 a year instead of nothing — the option still works, but it stops paying for itself.

Read my full reasoning, including the downsides and what this costs my own family →

The numbers, side by side

What each path costs

The same three options measured the same way. Use the switch to see what happens if bond counsel rules against the lease that carries the O'Reilly loan.

Measure Wait and see Rebuild downtown Buy O'Reilly

Figures follow the model on the financing story page at its default settings — $18.0M all-in for O'Reilly, $32.0M for a downtown rebuild. Move the sliders there and these change; this table is the summary, not the model. Open the full analysis →

Your turn

Questions and input are open

This analysis was done to find the opportunities, and it is genuinely unfinished business. If you see a number that looks wrong, an option that was missed, or a cost nobody has counted, that is worth more to the committee now than after September 15.

  • Ask me directly

    Questions about any figure on these pages, or about how the analysis was put together. This is a conversation, not the public record.
    pcarter@cityofsebastopol.gov

  • For the public record

    Comment that should reach the whole Council and be recorded goes through the official channel — write to the full Council, or speak during public comment at a Council meeting.
    council@cityofsebastopol.gov

Email to me is useful and I read all of it, but it is not a substitute for the official channel. If you want your view formally before the Council, use the Council address or public comment.

Published

The funding work

A community project needs a funding plan before it needs anything else. The financing tool the Commons would most likely rely on is explained in full here.

The funding tool: EIFD

The plain-English explainer on Enhanced Infrastructure Financing Districts — the most promising no-new-tax option, and how the mechanism actually works.

Start here →
The analysis as a presentation

The same seventeen sections you can read in full further down this page, laid out one screen at a time for projecting at a meeting. Same models, same numbers, built to be walked through rather than scrolled.

Open the presentation view →
Everything, in full

The complete financial analysis

What follows is the entire analysis, on this page: every site that was considered, every cost, and the working models. The sliders and switches are live — move them and the charts, totals and payoff years all recalculate.

It runs as seventeen numbered sections. The same material is also available as a full-screen presentation if you would rather read it that way, or project it.

1

By the Creating the Commons finance sub-committee · August 2026

Four needs.
Four opportunities.
Here is the money.

A look at the financial implications for a library, a senior center, a city hall and a cultural center. Every number on the following pages comes from an invoice, an adopted budget line, or a model you can move yourself.

No site decision has been made. This is analysis for the Council and the public, not a recommendation of record.

2

Four problems as one system — one commons

Each of these is difficult to fund on its own. Together they can be financed.

Library

10,000 sq ft today, and every study recommends roughly double that. On its own: a $24–34M rebuild serving one need.

Senior Center

Programs run across four addresses. On its own: a fundraising campaign and a relocation, likely outside the city.

City Hall

Space is tight, and most staff already work out of Public Works. On its own: a similar capital cost, with no rent to help carry it.

Cultural Center

In the flood zone, with $555,000 of flood and ADA work already adopted. Further flooding remains likely.

Sources: Sonoma County Library Facilities Master Plan (Nov 2023); City Ad Hoc report (May 2024); FY 2026-27 Adopted Budget, CIP 0714-26.03.

3

Every other site we looked at

Five sites were studied before the shortlist. Here is what each offered, and why it did not move forward.

SiteWhat it wasWhy it did not move forward
Rite Aid
218 N Main		Downtown adaptive reuse, 15–20,000 sq ftEither $10M to buy or an estimated $40,000 a month to rent — and a build-out of $5–10M on top of either route. Another buyer moved first.
Calder Creek
or the High Street lot		City-owned property. Downtown civic commons with creek daylightingBrownfield, with large CEQA and environmental concerns, Laguna flooding, and the Coastal Commission in the frame. It also carries the highest civic impact of any option studied, with creek corridors and a creek restoration already under way, which would be a real benefit to the city. Ranges from $40M to $60M, and the longest entitlement path in the study.
Railroad ForestNew construction, ~45,000 sq ft~$25M green-field build, with Laguna flooding, environmental impact and traffic flow all unresolved. A strong option, though slower and more expensive than buying an existing building.
Tow site
332 Petaluma Ave		3,700 sq ft adaptive reuse$1.5M to acquire, but it needs $3–4M minimum in improvements and possibly more — roughly $5M all in, for about a tenth of the space needed. It remains the lowest-cost option, and is best suited as an interim step.
Youth AnnexCity-owned parcelKept for youth programmes. Not treated as saleable or rentable.

Sources: Building the Commons site evaluations 2026; committee comparison matrix. Prices as documented at the time of evaluation and not re-verified since.

4

Option one

Wait and see

Strengths
  • No capital decision required this year.
  • No site controversy.
  • Nothing is disrupted.
Weaknesses
  • The library stays half the recommended size, indefinitely.
  • Four insurance policies, four utility accounts, four maintenance backlogs.
  • The Senior Center continues paying rent without building equity.
Opportunities
  • Pursue grants building by building.
  • Repair each building as needs arise.
Threats
  • One more flood past FEMA's threshold and the Cultural Center must meet full floodplain compliance before any repair.
  • Escalation has already added about $9M to a library rebuild since 2019.
  • Grant windows may close in the meantime.

Waiting carries its own cost. The next page sets it out.

5

What standing still costs

Every line is a paid invoice or an adopted budget item. Nothing here is an estimate.

Sheet total, three city buildings$279,660
− Personnel (follows the people, not the buildings)−$82,642
= Facility cost, three buildings$138,718
+ Library maintenance+$11,000
Every year, to change nothing$149,718

Personnel is excluded on purpose. Staff costs follow the people, so a move would not save them. Leaving them out makes the do-nothing total lower, not higher.

The Cultural Center's $58,300 contribution to operations has been struck from this table. It has not been confirmed as facility-linked rather than programme funding, so it is left out until it can be sourced.

Ten years of it

$2.47M

On invoices and adopted CIP alone. $2.91M if the capital allowance is carried.

At the end of ten years, the city still owns the same four buildings.

Year two alone carries the Cultural Center's adopted $555,000 flood and ADA project. Operating costs escalate 4.5% a year.

Operating costs would not fall to zero at O'Reilly. One roof instead of four makes them smaller, not absent: utilities, insurance, cleaning and repair continue, and deferred maintenance and the adopted CIP follow the services wherever they sit. What this table measures is the difference between the two, and that difference is narrower than the $149,718 total suggests on its own. Timing matters as well. Construction costs rise each year, so the same project generally costs more built later than built sooner.

Sources: FY24-25 paid invoices, three city buildings; FY 2026-27 Adopted Budget facility detail; CIP 0714-26.03. Ten-year totals recomputed after the $58,300 line was removed, on the same escalation basis as the earlier draft.

6

Option two

Rebuild downtown

Strengths
  • Keeps the library in the core, which the community has consistently asked for.
  • A real feasibility study already exists.
  • A donor base already exists.
Weaknesses
  • Solves one of the four needs.
  • No rental income and no tax increment to help carry it.
  • Several years of construction on an occupied site.
Opportunities
  • State Library construction programmes.
  • A capital campaign with twenty years of goodwill behind it.
Threats
  • Parking on that block is unpriced and unresolved.
  • Escalation keeps running while the money is raised.
  • About $2.0M a year of debt service, competing with other General Fund priorities.
7

The LANTERN estimate, and what it buys today

Alameida Architecture, May 2019 — the only fully costed library scheme anywhere in the record.

2019 estimatethe LANTERN scheme as drawn$25.1M
Honest range, lowphased or partial completion$24M
Honest range, highfull scheme, escalated to 2026$34M

We budget $24M. The range is $24M to $34M, and the spread reflects how much of the 2019 scheme gets built rather than uncertainty about prices. Carrying $24M splits the difference on completion and gives the City a figure it can plan against.

Why the top moved. Bay Area construction escalation ran 6–10% a year through 2021–23. Comparables: Half Moon Bay, 22,000 sq ft for $36M in 2018. Walnut Creek, 30,250 sq ft for $33M in 2012. Santa Cruz's downtown branch is the closest current regional comparable, and a sourced figure should be added here before it is quoted.

What $25.1M bought: 21,600 sq ft over two storeys — a net gain of 11,600. Expanded reading room, children's and teen zones, meeting rooms, staff areas, rooftop solar, new steel frame. $1,164 per square foot, all in.

Parking.

No parking count and no parking cost appears in the 2019 study, or in any City document for this site. The committee's site review recorded parking on this block as a crisis.

Also not included, and each one unpriced

  • Interim library space through several years of construction.
  • CEQA, public bidding and prevailing wage.
  • The Senior Center, City Hall and Cultural Center, which are three of the four needs.

Two questions for the committee: does the 2019 scheme still meet parking requirements, and how is that work funded?

Verify the LANTERN costs. This is an action item for the committee. The May 2019 Alameida estimate is the only fully costed library scheme in the record, and it has not been re-priced since — neither the scope, the unit rates, nor the escalation applied here. Before any figure on this page is carried into a budget, a cost estimator should re-base the estimate against current bid results.

Plan D

A partial rebuild

Refurbish and partially expand the existing library rather than replace it. It has not been costed anywhere in the record. It is also the option most likely to bring a rebuild within the $24M budget, so it deserves a place alongside the three above, and a real estimate.

Source: Alameida Architecture, Expansion Feasibility Study (May 2019) — $25,142,400 over 21,600 SF. Escalation band from Bay Area cost index history 2019–2026. The $24M–$34M range is the sub-committee's own working band, not a figure from the 2019 study.

8

Option three

Buy the O'Reilly campus

Strengths
  • One purchase houses all four needs.
  • Rental income carries a large portion of the loan from year one.
  • Built in 2001 — occupiable almost immediately.
Weaknesses
  • It is not downtown. Walking, biking and transit access from the core are weaker.
  • Transit and the corridor would need upgrading to serve the site well, which is a capital cost in its own right.
  • Roof replacement is a near-term cost.
  • The city takes on the responsibilities of a commercial landlord.
Opportunities
  • The tax increment district — now formed — retires the debt years early.
  • Selling City Hall puts that site back on the tax roll.
  • Grant-eligible resilience upgrades.
Threats
  • Tax-exempt borrowing limits private business use to roughly 10%, and leasing 40,000 sq ft may exceed it. Bond counsel has not yet ruled.
  • The rent assumption has no written broker opinion behind it.
  • The opportunity depends on a willing seller at current pricing.
9

What a square foot costs

All-in cost divided by the finished square footage each option delivers. Lower is better.

O'Reilly campus90,258 sq ft confirmed · $12–23M $133–$255/sf
Rebuild downtowncommittee basis · 20–30,000 sq ft $433–$1,000/sf
LANTERN scheme, all-inAlameida 2019 · 21,600 sq ft $1,164/sf

Buying a building that already exists is cheaper per square foot than building a new one, because the concrete, steel, roof, wiring and parking lot were paid for in 2001.

Sources: LoopNet listings for 1003, 1005 and 1007 Gravenstein Hwy N; Keegan & Coppin brochure; Alameida Architecture (2019). The downtown range is the committee's construction-cost basis; the LANTERN row is the study's own all-in basis — they are not the same measure and are shown separately for that reason.

10

How long until the doors open

From a Council decision to people walking in.

Buy the O'Reilly campus20 months
Rebuild downtown5–8 years
Wait and seeno end date

A rebuild finishes somewhere between 2031 and 2034. The O'Reilly option opens in 2028.
That difference of three to six years matters to the residents waiting to use these services.

11

O'Reilly — move the levers

Rent and increment set against what the loan costs each year. Every setting below is an assumption, not a commitment.

All-in project cost — $18.0M
Leased area — 40,000 sq ft
44% of the 90,258 sq ft campus
Rent — $1.75 per sq ft per month
$655,200 net in year one
Gifts, grants & campaign — $3.0M
Amount borrowed
$11.0M
Yearly payment
$666,594
Year-one shortfall
$0
Loan cleared
Year 15
Rent from leased space EIFD increment Still to cover Yearly payment

Loan: IBank ISRF 4.39%, 30 years, level payment with every surplus dollar applied to principal. Rent income is the leased area times the rate set above, less 22% for vacancy and operating cost, rising 2.5% a year. Both are sliders: the default is 40,000 sq ft of the 90,258 sq ft campus at $1.75, which is $840,000 gross and $655,200 net in year one. The rate is a placeholder pending a written broker opinion, and either slider can go to zero. The private-use line is the one to watch. Tax-exempt borrowing allows roughly 10% private business use — about 9,000 sq ft here — and the default lease is more than four times that. Space is a rule of thumb rather than the legal test, which turns on the financed portion and the revenue from it, and bond counsel has not ruled. If the borrowing has to be taxable the rate rises and every figure on this page moves with it. Year 1 = FY2028-29.

12

Three levers, three outcomes

The same model at three settings. These follow the sliders on the previous page.

All three start from the same base: an all-in cost of $18.0M, $11.0M borrowed, and $666,594 a year in debt service at the current settings. Each lever moves from that same starting point, so the columns below are directly comparable.

The first two levers change what the city borrows. The third changes when the debt ends.

13

The district passed. The question is where the increment goes

Rent covers the payments. The increment can retire the debt early, if it is directed here.

Rent alone, increment used elsewhere

FY2048-49

Loan cleared in year 21. Interest paid: $6.7M.

Rent covers the scheduled payment and little more. The loan runs most of its full term.

Rent plus the increment, redeployed here

FY2042-43

Loan cleared in year 15. Interest paid: $4.7M.

The increment saves $2.0M in interest, and continues producing revenue after the debt is retired.

What the district can and cannot do. It cannot buy the building, because it does not accumulate $18M quickly enough. What it does well is repayment: rent carries the early years while the increment is still small, and the increment then retires the debt early. Formation is already complete, so the question before the committee is where the increment is directed — to the Commons, or to other priorities. These two boxes follow the sliders on page 11.

EIFD increment reconstructed from the district model's published anchors. At the default settings this reproduces the analysis of record — year 15 with the increment redeployed here, year 21 without. An earlier draft quoted year 17 and year 27; those figures came from a 1%-a-year rent escalation rather than the 2.5% used here and throughout this page.

14

Downtown — move the same levers

Ticking a box with no figure behind it does not change the total. The chart shows where those gaps are.

Escalation 2019 → 2026 — +25%
Further years to a start — 0 years

Moves it up

Moves it down

All-in project cost
$32.0M
Yearly debt service
$1,963,486
2019 estimate Adds to the cost Takes it away Ticked, no figure entered

The budget basis. The sub-committee carries $24M as the budgeted number for a downtown library rebuild, against an honest range of $24M–$34M — see page 7. The model above opens at +25% escalation with the adopted Cultural Center line ticked, which lands at about $32M. That is the figure the side-by-side on the next page uses, so the comparison with an $18M O'Reilly refurbish is like for like.

One line that cannot be ticked. Rental income: $0 — a 21,600 sq ft library has no leasable space; the whole building is the library.

Base: Alameida Architecture (May 2019), $25,142,400. Cultural Center figure is adopted CIP 0714-26.03. Debt service at 4.5% over 30 years. Items shown unpriced have no figure in any City, County or consultant document reviewed — they are named rather than estimated, and shown in gold on the chart so that a ticked box with no figure stays visible.

15

Side by side

Apples to apples: a downtown rebuild at about $32M against an O'Reilly refurbish at about $18M. Both models sit at whatever you have set them to — move the levers on page 11 or 14 and these move with them.

O'Reilly campusRebuild downtown

What $10M would buy

O'Reilly 50,143 sq ft
Downtown 6,261 sq ft

These are not the same measure and should not be quoted as if they were. The O'Reilly rate is the cost of buying a finished building constructed in 2001. The downtown rate is the cost of designing and building new space today. The difference between them is real and worth making, provided it is described that way.

O'Reilly: $666,594 a year, with rent carrying a large portion of it and the increment retiring the debt early, and all four needs addressed.
Downtown: $1,963,486 a year from the General Fund, with no rent line and no increment, and three of the four needs still to address.

O'Reilly square footage is the confirmed campus total of 90,258 sq ft. Downtown is the 21,600 sq ft of the Alameida scheme. Rent of $1.75/sq ft/month remains a placeholder pending a written broker opinion, and the private-use question on tax-exempt debt remains unresolved — both would change the O'Reilly column.

16

What we still do not know

Open, and material

  • The rent. $1.75 a square foot is a placeholder. A written broker opinion has not been obtained, and every O'Reilly figure here rests on it.
  • Private use and tax-exempt debt. Leasing 40,000 sq ft may breach the 10% private-business-use limit and make the borrowing taxable. Bond counsel has not ruled.
  • Parking downtown. Unpriced, on a block the committee's site review called a parking crisis.
  • The LANTERN costs. Unverified since May 2019. The $24M–$34M range rests on an estimate that has not been re-priced.
  • Plan D. A partial rebuild has not been costed, and it may be the most direct route to a $24M budget.

What would settle them

  • A broker opinion of rent, in writing.
  • A bond counsel memo on private use.
  • A cost estimator's re-basing of the 2019 library estimate, and a first number for the partial rebuild.
  • A measured floor plan before any partner is promised a room.
  • Surplus Land Act review before any city property is disposed of.

No site decision has been made. The committee recommendation is due September 15.

Creating the Commons finance sub-committee · August 2026. Every figure on these pages traces to a named source or is marked as an assumption you can move yourself.

17

A note on geography

Sebastopol is a linear city

Every argument on the pages above assumes a shape for this town. It is worth setting out what that shape is, because it affects what we mean by downtown.

One street, end to end

Sebastopol is not built around a square. It is built along a line. Highway 116 comes in from the north as Gravenstein Highway, becomes Main Street through the middle of town, and leaves to the south as Petaluma Avenue. Bodega Avenue — Highway 12 — crosses it and runs west into the county and on to the coast. Almost everything this town does happens within a few hundred feet of one of those two roads.

What we call downtown is a node on that line: the busiest one, with the most frontage and the most history. It is not the geometric centre of the town, and the street layout does not radiate from it.

Every one of the nine sites on the map below sits on the spine, or within a block of it. No shortlist could have done otherwise, because the corridor is where the town is.

What that means for this decision

First, distance here is measured along the corridor, not as a radius. The choice is not between downtown and somewhere else. It is between two points on the same road, about 1.1 miles apart.

Second, the library's catchment is not the downtown blocks. It is west county, and west county arrives along Bodega Avenue. For most of the people who use it, the trip is already a drive down Highway 12 — either way.

Third, and in tension with the first two: linear does not mean walkable. A mile along the spine is a short drive but a long walk, and the pedestrian and cycling experience on that stretch is the weakest part of the corridor. Improving it is a capital cost the City carries whichever site it chooses, and it is listed in the weaknesses on page 8.

Laguna de Santa Rosa Downtown a node on the line, not a centre ← Bodega Ave · Hwy 12 to west county and the coast ↑ Gravenstein Hwy N · Hwy 116 to Forestville, Guerneville, the river Petaluma Ave · Gravenstein Hwy S ↓ to Cotati and Petaluma about 1.1 miles 1 mile N 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 O'Reilly campus

1 O'Reilly campus — the leading option   2 Library & City Hall   3 Senior Center, 167 N High

4 The Legacy craft store   5 Cultural Center, 390 Morris   6 Rite Aid — ruled out

7 Calder Creek   8 Railroad Forest   9 Tow site, 332 Petaluma

Distances computed from geocoded coordinates. The map is schematic and roughly to scale. It is not a survey, and the road geometry is simplified to show the corridor and where each option sits on it. Creating the Commons finance sub-committee · August 2026.

My take

Why I support this, and what it costs me

I have spent nine months on this — thinking it through, discussing it with a lot of people, debating the options, and losing a fair amount of sleep along the way. Having that time is part of the job, and I have been lucky to have it.

It would not be fair to hand you a slide deck and expect you to take in over an hour what took me the better part of a year. Closing that gap is my responsibility, not yours. There is no reason anyone should have to arrive already carrying nine months of context, and if this does not make sense yet, that means I have more explaining to do.

So I would rather over-explain than under-explain. I come at this from a systems point of view, and what follows is the whole picture as I see it, including the parts that count against it.

Quickly, on putting it to a vote

  • A vote is not out of the question, and I would not oppose one on principle.
  • Elections cost a lot of money and take a lot of time. The practical risk is that while we run one, the O'Reilly building sells or the terms change, the Senior Center moves on, and the vote becomes moot.
  • The financing as modeled does not require a bond or a ballot measure. That is structure, not an attempt to go around anyone.
  • What I would rather do is put the case in front of people in detail, take the criticism, take the time, and adjust. That is what the August 28 session is for. And after the city votes on September 15 to do due diligence, there is still plenty of time to dig in and help the whole city understand the choices, and why now.

Why the city would own the building and lease part of it

  • The city would own it, and the city carries the risk.
  • The building is larger than our own needs, and leasing the surplus is what keeps the General Fund impact small.
  • Expertise is a legitimate question. The answer has to be a long-term anchor lease negotiated by people who do this for a living, with property management contracted out. We can contract that work to a professional firm, and probably should.

What doing nothing costs us

This is the biggest motivator for me, and for the city's finances. Sebastopol is good at doing nothing, and every year we do nothing it costs more to do the same thing. Not just inflation more. Extra more.

  • We will spend over $400,000 on a mold issue and nearly drain our building emergency fund. We are negotiating with the Library JPA to cover some of it, but we will still end up roughly $200,000 out of pocket, with no library for about six months. I think there is a fairly high probability something like this happens again, and it could just as easily be City Hall or the Senior Center.
  • We are putting roughly $550,000 into the Morris Street Community Cultural Center, still repairing from the last flood. There is a looming El Niño, and even if this winter comes out fine, the Laguna will almost certainly flood again. That building will be hard to insure and hard to raise private improvement money for.
  • City Hall is jammed. We have constant scheduling conflicts for ordinary staff work, negotiations, committee meetings and builder meetings.
  • The Senior Center is the most serious need. Membership growth has them turning people away, with classes spread across town. Most members drive or get rides.
  • City Hall and the library do not meet current seismic or Library JPA ADA standards. Any new build or significant remodel triggers those requirements.
  • We seriously explored numerous other buildings over the past three years for the Senior Center. If it does not go to O'Reilly, it needs at least $2 million to move somewhere out of town. Some value from its current building could go toward that, but genuinely viable alternatives are scarce.

Why the north side of town matters here

  • Activating that area brings sales tax and new property tax, which is the part of the budget that can actually grow. The Lucky/Redwood shopping center needs to work harder for the city than it does today. What it could become is genuinely open — more active retail, housing, or some mix of the two — and that is a conversation with the owners and the neighborhood, not a call I would make for them. Parking lots are not economically productive — and yes, I am not a fan of parking minimums. That said, cars passing through are the largest contributors to our shops, not walkable residents, so we do need parking. Our city as an island can't survive on its own given we don't have a huge revenue generator like wine bottling, natural foods production, or tech.
  • O'Reilly sits on the West County Trail, which connects us to Graton and Forestville. Those unincorporated towns are part of Sebastopol's economy and community through schools, events and sports.
  • The County is helping through the EIFD, and as currently planned would match infrastructure spending dollar for dollar. That agreement is in process, not signed, and I will say so every time I bring it up.
  • If new housing comes as infill near Ragle, we need to think hard about what walkability looks like on that side of town.

The downsides

  • It reduces walkability for people who live in the city center. That is real and I am not going to argue people out of it. My family will experience it.
  • The city takes on landlord obligations it does not have today, and the model depends on landing a strong anchor tenant. That work can be outsourced to a professional management firm, with the cost of the service built into the rents.
  • The roof is near the end of its life and is a real cost — though we can go after grants for solar and batteries, which would add to the resilience of the property.
  • What happens to the current downtown civic site becomes an open question. We have thought about it and canvassed outside developers. It will take rezoning, which I think is due in this city anyway.

My family lives blocks from downtown. Our kids were at Sunridge. The early release day routine of library, Minecraft and yogurt is exactly the thing many of our friends rely on.

A move away from downtown is not in my family's favor, and I know it is not in the favor of families close to us. I support it because the alternative is not the status quo. The alternative is spending money on aging buildings that still will not solve the space problem, and the Senior Center leaving town.

On the after school piece, it may be worth asking the church by Ives, which runs a teen center now, whether they could serve a younger age group. I would like to explore that seriously.

Why I support it anyway

  • Everything doubles. The library, the Senior Center, all of it gets twice the space — and it is ADA, it has modern connectivity, it has light. I want to be in an awesome library. I want it to look like libraries I have had in my life, and it already looks like a great space to read and be in.
  • It really creates a multigenerational campus. Parents can grab a coffee and work, grandparents can socialize, kids can play or hang out, and Analy kids can find a private space.
  • I can see there being cowork and incubator space.
  • Childcare almost certainly will be there — two preschools are very interested and want to be part of it.
  • The Legacy craft store can be there.
  • Modern offices for city staff will help morale, and we get better meeting space.
  • It activates the north end economy and our connection to Graton and Forestville. Can you imagine biking the West County Trail to the library? And the trail improvement at Occidental Road and the old Union 76 station is in the works.
  • My opinion only: thinning the parking stress to the north will help traffic, not add to it. The number of cars going from the city center just because of the library will not match the number of cars from the north that no longer enter the core intersection. That traffic never really benefited business — it only hurt it, because the center feels more hectic and not like a place you want to be.
  • I support this for the Senior Center. Our senior population is growing fast, and it is really struggling in place.
  • This is instant. There is no long build debate, no architect, no scope creep. It is what it is, and fit-outs are not nearly in the same financial ballpark as remodels or new builds. The Roseland Library still isn't done. I just can't see Sebastopol ever having the capacity to go into a remodel or build scenario. Sebastopol will just stay — which I understand can be okay — but if the library can look really new, how cool is that?
Follow it at the source

The official record, and the press

None of this replaces the City's own material. These are the primary sources, so you can check anything on this page against them.

City of Sebastopol Sebastopol Commons — the committee page The official page: the nine committee members, the timeline from September 2025 through August 2026, and the meeting calendar. Meeting record Building the Commons: community engagement meeting Held Thursday, August 13, 2026 at the O'Reilly buildings, 1003 Gravenstein Highway North — in the building itself. Sebastopol Times Plans move forward for the community hub known as the Sebastopol Commons Laura Hagar Rush, April 21, 2026 — coverage of the committee's SWOT analysis of the six sites under consideration.
Before September 15

The questions are still open

The committee's recommendation is due September 15. Until then the numbers can still move, and the most useful thing you can send is a question about one of them.

Read the full analysis Email me a question