HISTORY OF CONCERNED CITIZENS FOR SANTA ROSA

The Early Days 

Early in 1986 several people met at the home of former Judge Dick Day to discuss the difficulty they all felt dealing with the City Council of Santa Rosa, and what they wanted to do about it.  There was general agreement that the Council was not responsive to the concerns of ordinary citizens, and not representative of the population of Santa Rosa.  In the mid-1980¹s, record numbers of building permits for housing were allocated, and there were two major sewage spills into the Russian River by the subregional system that the San Rosa Council controlled.

A Town Hall meeting was suggested.  Guy Conner offered to be the point person for the meeting, and thanks to the good graces of Reverend Martin Miller-Hessel, the Knox Presbyterian Church was made available.  Guy submitted a letter to the Press Democrat, inviting people to the meeting.

The response was overwhelming.  Nearly 150 people made up a standing-room-only crowd, and voiced their frustrations with the city. Phone calls continued to come in for weeks.  A second meeting was held to form an organization, at which time the organization¹s name was selected, and committees were formed. A conscious decision was made to be Concerned Citizens FOR, not OF Santa Rosa, because of interest from many people who didn¹t live in city limits but were aware of Santa Rosa¹s impact on the whole county.

CCSR's Work

Beginning in 1988, CCSR was involved in each City Council election; locating candidates who shared our values, and working to help elect them.  We aided in electing Pat Wiggins (now State Senator Wiggins), Jim Pedgrift, Bill Knight, Maureen Casey, Noreen Evans (now Assemblywoman Evans), Marsha Vas Dupre, Steve Rabinowitsh, Susan Gorin and Veronica Jacobi.  Members have worked to locate community people to be appointed to city boards and commissions, which sometimes served as training grounds for candidacy for City Council.

Starting in 1989, CCSR began its push for a Growth Management ordinance, after  doing survey of citizen attitudes about the effects of growth which showed nearly 70% were dissatisfied with the city¹s growth rate.  Eventually, in 1992,  CCSR participated in drawing up, and lobbied for passage of the Growth Management Ordinance which is still in force, with some modifications. A companion ordinance, the Housing Allocation Ordinance was enacted to help meet affordable housing needs.  In 1990 CCSR worked with City Council to put on the ballot a measure to limit expansion of the City¹s urban growth boundary (UGB).  This served as an interim measure until voters passed overwhelmingly in 1996 a CCSR-supported 20 year UGB.

With CCSR¹s help members have influenced important city matters, such as downtown development, the enacting of an Open Space and Agricultural Preservation District, Santa Rosa Creek preservation. We have participated in each General Plan update, and in the two review processes of the city¹s charter.

The Future 

The failing of CCSR in recent years has been in not actively building our organization and not carrying out the community issues education that was intended in the early years This website is part of an effort to correct that failing, and we encourage you to join us in keeping Santa Rosa a great place to live.