A New Year’s Message from City Manager Maraskeshia Smith

Greetings and Happy New Year to you, my fellow Santa Rosans, as we step into 2025! As we welcome in the new year, it’s a perfect time to reflect with gratitude on our journey through 2024 and express a heartfelt thanks to those who make our community amazing. With profound gratitude, I look upon the incredible commitment and passion demonstrated by our City’s dedicated workforce, spanning across 16 departments. It’s truly inspiring to witness the tireless efforts of our 1,300+ permanent, part-time, and temporary employees, whose unwavering dedication deserves our applause and heartfelt thanks. You are the backbone of our community: keeping us safe, ensuring our water flows freely, you are the driving force behind housing and economic development, providing critical shelter solutions, as well as safeguarding and enriching our beloved parks and natural spaces. Because of your efforts, the quality of life we enjoy in Santa Rosa continues to thrive. It is your remarkable contributions, along with the support of our engaged community members, that fill me with immense gratitude and hopeful anticipation for the year ahead. 2025 will be a year of progress for the City of Santa Rosa, though not without its challenges. We will continue to pursue City Council’s goals towards a vibrant, sustainable, and responsive city for everyone, while also addressing the City’s structural budget deficit through measured and thoughtful actions. Toward this goal, I am asking for your help through a community survey to gather input on budget priorities, public services, and future City goals. Your responses will be instrumental in guiding decisions on how funds are allocated, ensuring they are used effectively to address the most pressing needs of our community. Visit SRCity.org/CityManager to take the survey in English or Spanish. Or call 707-543-3192 or email Community Engagement at CommunityEngagement@srcity.org for printed copies. As we step into this New Year, let’s embrace the challenges before us with a firm commitment to working together. By joining forces, we’ll continue to chart new goals and seize fresh opportunities. Wishing each of you a year brimming with collaborative progress, shared growth, and unified milestones. Thank you for your vital role in Santa Rosa’s enduring success. Wishing you a Happy New Year, Maraskeshia Smith Santa Rosa City Manager

Let’s celebrate some of our accomplishments...

2024 Accomplishments

Awards – Several City team members and programs received awards and recognition:

• The League of American Bicyclists awarded Santa Rosa with a Silver-level Bicycle Friendly Community designation.
• Howarth Park was named “Best Park” in Sonoma County by the North Bay Bohemian.
• Assemblymember and former Councilmember Chris Rogers was named among North Bay’s Forty Under 40.
• City Manager Maraskeshia Smith earned the International City/County Manager Association’s Credentialed Manager (ICMA-CM) designation.
• Assistant City Manager Daryel Dunston and Recreation & Parks Director Dontè Watson were selected for inclusion in Marquis Who’s Who.
• Mothers Against Drunk Driving named the Santa Rosa Police Department as the “2024 MADD Outstanding Agency of the Year” for outstanding efforts in DUI enforcement.
• Bennett Valley Golf Course was named “Best Golf Course” in Sonoma County by The Press Democrat
• Flannery Banks, Assistant Engineer with the Santa Rosa Water Department, was awarded “Staff of the Year” by the American Public Works Association (APWA).

Funding - The City was the recipient of over $8.5 million in grant funding toward several high profile projects and City initiatives:

• $1 million from Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation & Open Space District for the purchase of the Southeast Greenway property from the State of California.
• $898,000 for Santa Rosa Police Department’s Real Time Crime Center through the Fiscal Year 2023-24 federal Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations Committee bill secured by Congressman Mike Thompson
• $77,000 from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District for implementing new Class IV, two-way protected, bicycle lanes.
• $210,570 in Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block (EECBG) grant funding from the US Department of Energy for development of an Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Plan which will guide development of electric vehicle infrastructure throughout the city.
• $166,000 from the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services to support improved recruitment and retention of a diverse employee base in the Santa Rosa Police Department.
• $1.75 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Safe Streets and Roads for All grant program in coordination with the Sonoma County Transportation Authority to improve roadway safety for bicyclists and pedestrian along the city’s high-injury roadways.
• $2.6 million from All Home, a Bay Area non-profit organization focused on ending homelessness, to help launch the Keep People Housed-Sonoma Pilot Program.
• $1,555,000 from Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation & Open Space District for design and construction of Lower Colgan Creek Neighborhood Park (Phase 5) off Dutton Meadow and Bellevue Avenue.
• $250,000 from the California Officer of Emergency Services State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program to assess the city’s digital infrastructure and mitigate threats.

Infrastructure – It was a great year for delivering long-awaiting projects:

• Construction of the $43.7 million Hearn Avenue Interchange Project got underway after two decades of planning.
• A $2.6 million water and sewer modernization investment in Santa Rosa’s Grace neighborhood was completed.
• One of the final 2017 Tubbs Fire recovery efforts began; the Coffey Park and Fountaingrove Neighborhood Road Disaster Recovery Project will resurface 33 miles of roads damaged by the debris removal mission restoring neighborhood roads
• Restoration of landscaping along Coffey Lane and Fountaingrove Parkway, destroyed by the 2017 Tubbs Fire, was completed.
• City Council approved the Roseland Creek Park Master Plan.
• The City, in coordination with the SE Greenway Partnership, completed the purchase of the 47-acre Southeast Greenway property from the State of California to create a signature central park style amenity for the City of Santa Rosa.
• City Council awarded a $33 million design-build contract for design and construction of Hearn Community Hub, which will feature a new fire station and the Roseland Regional Library Branch.
• The Finley Aquatic Center Spray Ground and Renovation Project was completed, which renovated and resurfaced the pools and added an exciting new spray ground that will open in the Summer 2025.
• Council adopted the Vacant Building and Lot (VBL) Program to reduce the occurrence of residential and non-residential blight in the city.
• Phase II of the Steele Lane Elementary pilot study road diet was launched to improve student and traffic safety through improved bus loading and parent drop-off zones.
• The Redwood Bikeshare Pilot Program was launched in coordination with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit, Sonoma County Transportation Authority and Transportation Authority of Marin, which will result in sharable e-bikes at twelve locations around the city to improve first and last mile access to transit.
• The Roseland pavement maintenance project included a Cape Seal treatment to several roads in the 2017 annexation area.

Housing & Homelessness – The City continues to lead in the development of new housing:

• The Tierra de Rosas mixed-use development celebrated a milestone by breaking ground with the demolition of the former Albertsons shopping center and will ultimately result construction of 100 market rate and 75 affordable housing units
• The Mahonia Glen affordable housing development on Calistoga Road added 99 affordable units for families and individuals, including farmworker households.
• The Stewart Cannery at Railroad Square, added 128 new affordable housing units with affordability ranges between 30%-80% while preserving historic aspects of the early 20th century building elements from the original cannery.
• The Santa Rosa Housing Authority approved $3.1 million in Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) awards for the development and rehabilitation of 170 affordable housing units.

Public Safety – Demonstrating a commitment to community safety:

• Homicides are down 78% from nine (9) in 2023 to two (2) in 2024.
• Ghost gun seizures and general firearm seizures are up 119% and 56%, respectively, despite arrests involving firearms being down 6%.
• Priority 1 call response times for the Santa Rosa Police to respond to emergencies in progress are down 5% improving from 6:55 minutes to 6:34 minutes.
• Homeless related incidents are down 15%.
• Traffic stops are up 6%, traffic citations are up 28% and DUI arrests are down 18% through increased staffing and patrols.
• The City’s Violence Prevention Program initiated a Safe Campus Intervention Program and a Street Outreach and Crisis Response Team to combat youth violence in our schools and neighborhoods.