A Message From Rachel Hundley

Please take a moment to listen to this message from Rachel. Then share it with your friends in Sonoma!

Rachel Hundley from SVHS Media on Vimeo.

Endorsed by the Sonoma Index Tribune!

“The Index-Tribune recommends Gary Edwards, Ken Brown and Rachel Hundley. In making these endorsements, we looked at what we felt the city council needed in the way of experience, city knowledge, diversity and energy….

“Hundley, a small business owner and attorney, has been in our community for only two years, but she adds a much-needed dimension not only because of her obvious intelligence,small-business and legal acumen, but also because she is from an underrepresented generation in Sonoma.

“Hundley was the most prepared of all of the candidates we interviewed, and impressed us with her high level of understanding of a wide variety of municipal issues, something she has acquired through numerous meetings with city officials and reading many lengthy, reports…. With energy and a strong work ethic, she would bring a pragmatic, common-sense approach to dealing with municipal matters, along with a strong desire to use her intellect to serve the community in the best way possible.”

Read the full editorial here.

John Burns, Publisher, Sonoma Index Tribune

Endorsed by This Week In Sonoma!

“Frankly, Rachel and Gary were no-brainers for me. She is young and energetic and fairly new to the city but wise beyond her years, whip smart, direct, well aware of the seriousness of the position, and seemingly possessed of the analytical and problem-solving skills necessary for the job. Let’s hope she gets elected and sticks around for a while.”

– Jim Levy, This Week In Sonoma

Endorsed by Mayor Tom Rouse, Danny Fay & Sonoma Valley Democrats!

We are proud to announce that Rachel Hundley has been endorsed by Mayor Tom Rouse, local community leader and winery owner Danny Fay, and the Sonoma County Democrats!

“Rachel will add a fresh voice to the City Council and has the skills and dedication to make sound decisions for Sonoma’s future.”

– Mayor Tom Rouse

“Rachel is one of the top young leaders of Sonoma’s future. I’m looking forward to her local dedication and long-term vision for our community.

-Danny Fay, Envolve Winery

Volunteers Needed!

Got a telephone and a few minutes to spare? We are looking for 4-5 people to help call voters to make sure they know about Rachel. We have all of the materials you need, and you can make the calls whenever is most convenient to you between the hours of 9am and 8:30pm. Email rachel@hundleyforsonoma.com or call 707-999-8394 for more information.

Interview With Rachel At Sonoma Valley High School

In August, Rachel sat down with Sonoma Valley High School senior Adam Curry to talk about local government and how the City of Sonoma can address some of the issues on the minds of our students. You can watch this interview, which included city councilmember and fellow candidate Ken Brown.

City Council Candidates from SVHS Media on Vimeo.

Supporting Local Businesses

Maintaining Sonoma’s character, quality of life and property values requires a balanced approach to regulating business. In addition to limiting the kinds of businesses we don’t want, we must support and encourage the kinds of businesses that we do want. I have been out knocking on doors and introducing myself to all of you for the past month, and the one issue upon which everyone seems to agree is supporting local businesses.

Local businesses are the backbone of our economy. Supporting them not only provides tax revue and jobs, it also supports local business owners and employees who are deeply connected to the community and tend to invest in it well beyond their economic interests.

I support regulations that encourage the creation, growth and success of local businesses that provide us with a diverse array of goods and services. I support our Formula Business Ordinance, which helps preserve the unique character of our Historic District and protects existing and future local businesses in that area. I support regulations that preserve our historic architecture and small town aesthetic, as long as they are clearly communicated and applied consistently.

I don’t believe the answer to every problem is a new regulation, and it might be time to overhaul some of our permitting processes and regulations to make them easier to understand and more efficient to implement. Regulations should achieve specific results, be applied objectively, and be enforceable. Owning a business carries enough risk on its own without us adding to the uncertainty.

Housing For Our Workforce, Young Professionals & Seniors

With a recent vote by the Council on August 18 to retain and enforce Sonoma’s strict limitations on vacation rentals, and a joint study session on September 3 to hear the results of a recent housing study conducted in connection with the upcoming amendment to housing element, housing is a hot issue.

It is important to have residents from across the spectrum of our community living inside the city. A recent study showed 90% of the people working in Sonoma do not live in Sonoma. This echoes the concerns I’ve heard from parents who wonder if their children will be able to live here after they graduate college. We must create new affordable housing opportunities and protect our existing affordable housing stock.

Although undeveloped land is scarce, we should incentivize and assist the development of affordable housing. We should stay informed about affordable housing grants. We are all familiar with the empty lot on the corner of Broadway and Clay Street. As the result of recent litigation, a pool of redevelopment funds is going to be dispersed. We should work with the county, who now owns the land, to create affordable housing that fits into our city.

We can protect our existing affordable housing by strengthening our mobile home rent control ordinance and make it harder to close these communities and displace their residents. We can protect our already limited rental housing market by enforcing our stringent limitations on vacation rentals. Sonoma is best served by homes that are filled with people who live here and invest in our community. We should also legalize the development of “Junior Suites” in single family homes where owners have rooms to spare and want a source of rental income.

Minimum Wage

I support the City Council’s recent vote to commission a study of the effect of raising the minimum wage in Sonoma. We owe it to our workforce to explore this issue thoroughly.

Other local governments in the North Bay have tackled this issue in recent years resulting in minimum wage increases anywhere from $10.15 to $12.53, with implementation ranging from immediate to over the course of several years. That being said, all of these cities are at least ten times as big as Sonoma, and it is hard to predict what the effect would be on our existing and future businesses. We need the study results before we can make an informed decision on this issue.

From a logistics standpoint, establishing a local minimum wage would require Sonoma to operate as its own Department of Labor. Our current city staff does not have the expertise or manpower to serve this function, and we need to determine how feasible it is to create and operate this new agency.

Additionally, I am concerned about the effect of raising the minimum wage on teenagers entering the workforce. With a higher minimum wage, an employer will always choose the more experienced person over someone looking for their first job. I am also concerned about the effect on new businesses that already have a tough time getting financing.

It might be possible to craft a local wage ordinance that addresses these and other concerns, but the City Council must have all of the information first.

My Comments At The Recent City Council Meeting

At a recent city council meeting, the Council discussed a proposal to commission a study of the effects of raising the minimum wage on the City of Sonoma. The Council voted 3-2 to move forward with the study. Here are the comments I made to the Council.

There has been a lot of conversation this year about raising the minimum wage at the federal, state and local level, and I am glad Sonoma is being proactive and talking about this now. Thank you Councilmember Barbose for putting it on tonight’s agenda.

This is a complex issue for the council and the voters to tackle, because most of the discussion and research out there is on the state and federal levels, and we have a number of unique factors to consider since we are a small city.

Because there are so many perspectives to consider, I would like to see the city host a series of public forums, inviting workers, business owners – particularly Sonoma-based small business owners, and Living Wage advocates to come together to talk about the potential effects of raising our minimum wage at the local level.

I know this is only the first of many public conversations about this issue, but in my own research, I know I would like to answer questions like:

1. Is this decision best made by the city council or directly by the voters?
2. What should be our target increase and what will be the timeline?
3. Which jobs will be most affected? Where do those employees live? Where do they spend their money? Would an increase in their wages enable them to move into the city and spend their money here?
4. How would tips or benefits be considered?
5. Would a tiered approach better achieve our community goals? Would we make a distinction based on the number of employees? How would we ensure teens can still get entry-level jobs?
6. How would an increase affect residents hoping to start new businesses in Sonoma? How can we support our Sonoma-based small businesses that are already competing against higher capitalized chains and online competitors?

I look forward to speaking with the experts out there who have been studying this issue for some time. I also look forward to meeting and talking to workers who would benefit, as well as local business owners who would be affected. Other local governments in the North Bay have tackled this issue in recent years resulting in minimum wage increases anywhere from $10.15 to $12.53, with implementation ranging from immediate to over the course of several years.

There is a lot to learn and talk about, but I look forward to seeing where this conversation might take us.

Additional Information

Here is some background information I gathered about other local minimum wage increases in the Bay Area.

San Jose – A voter-approved measure in late 2012 raised the minimum wage to $10.00 with an annual cost-of-living increase. Today, the minimum wage in San Jose is $10.15.

Berkley – Berkley City Council voted unanimously in June 2014 to approve an increase in the minimum wage to $12.53 over the next two years. The first increase to $10.00 will take effect October 1 of this year. Next October, it will increase to $11.00. In October of 2016, it will then be increased to $12.53. This was the compromise reached after a proposal was made for a $15.00 minimum wage with an annual cost of living adjustment plus paid vacation and sick leave.

Oakland – Oakland City Council voted against a gradual increase in the minimum and is letting voters decide in a November ballot measure whether the minimum wage should be raised to $12.25 starting March 1 of next year. An alternative plan had been proposed by two councilmembers that would have raised the minimum wage for larger businesses starting in October 2015 and would have given small businesses longer time to comply. That plan was voted down.

Richmond – Initially, the issue of raising the minimum wage was going to be decided by voters in a ballot measure. The Richmond City Council voted in March 2014 to raise the minimum wage to $12.30 by 2017.

San Francisco – Currently $10.74. This fall, voters will decide whether to raise the minimum wage to $15.00.

Under current legislation, the statewide minimum wage will increase to $10.00 on January 1, 2016. Senate Bill 935 would raise the statewide minimum wage to $11.00 on January 1, 2015, $12.00 on January 1, 2016, $13.00 on January 1, 2017 and then starting January 1, 2018, the minimum wage will be indexed to the Consumer Price Index.

Water Supply & Security

Water is, without a doubt, the most pressing issue for the City of Sonoma. With the ongoing drought, conservation is critical — but that is not all we must do. Below are a few thoughts relating to water usual in Sonoma. If you would like to discuss this issue in greater detail, please email me at rachel@hundleyforsonoma.com.

First, I support our Public Works Department under the leadership of Public Works Director and City Engineer Dan Takasugi. This year, our Public Works Department will:

• Complete a new well project next to Field of Dreams, which will increase the amount of water sourced within the city from 7 to 12%
• Update our City Water Structure Rate, which will encourage conservation through a tiered rate system
• Start groundwater banking to recharge our aquifers during the low-use winter season
• Update our Urban Water Management Plan to build a pipeline to provide recycled water for irrigation at Sonoma Valley High School

Going forward, we need to continue to curb our greatest water use: outdoor irrigation. Recently, California’s Water Resources Control Board issued an edict declaring a Stage II drought emergency. As discussed at the most recent city council meeting, lawn irrigation in Sonoma is going to be limited to two nights a week, as mandated by the edict. The Council felt this restriction did not go far enough because it did not limit how much water could be used during the specified irrigation nights.

We also need to develop an infrastructure to provide recycled water for the irrigation of public and commercial property. The City is already planning to do this for Sonoma Valley High School, and we should explore other opportunities to expand this infrastructure, which should include irrigating The Plaza (and if that is not possible, we should build a well so that fluoride-treated water from the Russian River is not used to irrigate our parks).

We should also support and incentivize the installation and use of rain water catchment systems and greywater systems.

To decrease our dependency on the Russian River pipeline, we should pursue additional well projects, while also monitoring the health of our aquifers. Next week, our state legislators will vote on a bill that will enable and require the monitoring of groundwater use. We should continue to explore ways to recharge our aquifers.

Lastly, we should work with the County and State to ensure the Russian River pipeline is maintained, our aquifers used responsibly, and Sonoma will benefit from any newly available sources of water.

What ideas do you have?