Sonoma council holds goal-setting retreat; housing, plaza, climate, finance and valley ties rise to top

The Sonoma City Council spent a daylong retreat reviewing 2024 work and shaping draft priorities for 2025, focusing council and staff attention on housing, economic development and financial stability, a parks-and-recreation/plaza revitalization effort, climate mitigation and adaptation, and increased coordination with neighboring unincorporated parts of Sonoma Valley.

City Manager David and facilitator Jen Kavanaugh framed the session as working-level planning rather than final decisions. “This is not a win and done. This is really the first part of this conversation,” facilitator Jen Kavanaugh told the council at the start of the session. Kavanaugh led council members through a public comment period, a review of 2024 accomplishments, and small-group exercises to convert priorities into possible measurable actions.

The retreat was billed as a working session to feed the March budget and to guide staff’s implementation work. City Manager David told the group that staff would use the council’s direction to refine work programs and budgets: “On the housing front, we did not solve housing last year,” he said, adding that staff had focused the past year on capacity building — hiring planners and a new building official — and streamlining processes to prepare for larger projects and the housing element implementation required by state law.

Why it matters

Council members said the exercise is intended to produce a short list of 3–6 prioritized goals that staff can translate into work programs and budget requests. Council and community speakers repeatedly framed housing and workforce housing as the top ongoing problem shaping Sonoma’s future, and many speakers tied other priorities — the downtown plaza,…