Sonoma council approves safety-element contract amid public calls to use KLD SAFE evacuation study

The Sonoma City Council on May 7 unanimously approved a consent-calendar contract addendum for the General Plan safety element after public comment urged the city to account for an earlier KLD “SAFE” evacuation study and to broaden the consultant scope.

Supporters of the KLD SAFE study and other residents said the proposed scope and budget for the city’s selected consultant may not produce an evacuation analysis as comprehensive as the community needs. They urged the council to consider KLD’s earlier work and to clarify whether the contract includes weekend-event scenarios and an explicit wildfire-event identification task.

The concerns came during public comment before the council voted on the consent calendar. Bean Anderson, who helped commission the SAFE study, said the KLD team had already mapped roads and evacuation issues across Sonoma Valley and told the city it could expand that work to include the Town of Sonoma. Norman Gilroy of Sonoma Valley Next 100 said roughly $80,000 in privately raised funds already supported the valley study and urged the city to coordinate so the city’s effort would join, not duplicate, valley-level work.

City staff told the council all comments received on the General Plan materials are logged on the city’s General Plan website and would be considered as the draft safety element language is produced. A staff response during the meeting said the safety element work is being incorporated into the General Plan process and that the firm being hired will work as part of that process. The staff reply also noted the county has a draft study that will be evaluated and incorporated where appropriate.

Speakers pressed specific items in the published consultant proposal. One commenter asked about an “Optional Task 1.2” that would bring in wildfire-risk experts to identify the most likely wildfire events and shape evacuation scenarios; the commenter said it was unclear whether that optional task was in scope or excluded. Another concern raised was that the current scope explicitly excludes weekend-event scenarios, despite high weekend visitation for some local events.

Council briefly discussed procurement and scope—staff confirmed the safety-element work is part of the broader General Plan contract and that data from county efforts will be considered. The council then approved the consent calendar by roll call. Council member Gurney, Vice Mayor Wallander, Council member Ding, Council member Low and Mayor Patricia Farrar Rivas all voted in the affirmative; the motion carried unanimously.

The approval advances the General Plan safety-element work but leaves open questions the public asked the council to clarify: whether the city will incorporate the KLD SAFE study or solicit a separate bid from KLD, whether the optional wildfire-risk task will be included, and whether the analysis will account for high-traffic weekend-event evacuations. City staff said comments will continue to be collected during the draft-review and EIR stages of the General Plan process.

Votes at a glance: Consent calendar (includes Safety Element contract addendum) — approved unanimously (5–0).