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San Anselmo council weighs outside DEIB evaluation as draft General Plan 2045 is introduced
Summary
Staff introduced the draft General Plan 2045 and timeline; council debated whether to commission a $10,000–$17,000 outside evaluation on diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB). Supporters asked for substantive policy recommendations; opponents warned a targeted review could open broad rework and delay adoption.
Town staff and consultants presented the draft General Plan 2045 and asked council whether it wanted a third-party evaluation focused on diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB).
The draft plan covers nine elements — land use, open space and conservation, sustainability and climate resilience, economic vitality, circulation, parks and facilities, safety, noise and a previously adopted housing element — and includes an implementation matrix with prioritized actions for the first five years. Staff said the final draft and an Environmental Impact Report were scheduled for a June release, with potential adoption in late 2026, but that adding an external DEIB review could delay the schedule by two to three months.
Community development staff framed the proposed review as an evaluation of whether the draft plan had sufficiently embedded DEIB into text, actions and implementation. Staff noted three proposals were solicited, with price estimates of $10,000 to $17,000 and an approximate one-month review period.
Council members split on the value and scope of an outside review. Supporters argued that while DEIB language was woven through many chapters, the draft action table contained relatively few explicit DEIB actions and that an expert review could add substantive, implementable policies rather than mere wording changes. One council member said an appropriate evaluation should "make substantive policy recommendations where DEIB is not appropriately reflected in the actions and policies" and acknowledged this could derail the timeline if the exercise required broad policy changes.
Opponents cautioned the general plan advisory committee and numerous town committees had already been engaged across many elements for more than a year. One council member called the proposal an "end run" by a subset of stakeholders and warned that commissioning a single-subject review risked prompting other committees to request additional rework across disparate plan areas.
Public commenters who had served on advisory committees urged an independent look. Robin Beard, a GPAC participant, said the plan's text had raised expectations but that the action matrix produced only a single explicit DEIB action and urged a focused addendum or parallel evaluation to identify specific, implementable measures.
Council direction: The town discussed vendor proposals and whether to proceed. Some members supported selecting the broadest-scope consultant proposal (noted in the discussion as the Justice Collective) if the council wanted a thorough, cross-cutting review; others preferred to proceed to EIR release and adoption with committee follow-up. Staff advised the council that any evaluator's findings would be presented to council and the council could then direct GPAC or other boards to incorporate recommended changes.
No final procurement decision was recorded at the meeting; staff were directed to continue outreach and return with more details on the scope, costs and schedule when the council was prepared to make a binding decision.
