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Community Corner

City - SMART Agreement Not Final Yet

Mayor Jake Mackenzie clarified an earlier story in the PD that there was agreement between the city of Rohnert Park and the SMART board. No formal agreement has yet been reached.

 

As , there is general agreement between the city of Rohnert Park and the SMART board that the official location of the Rohnert Park station should be changed to what mayor calls the “RPX” location, or Rohnert Park Expressway.

But despite that general concurrence, there remains no formal agreement between the two bodies. "There is not a formal agreement yet between the board and the City Council," Mackenzie clarified this afternoon.

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At issue is the letter sent by city manager on Dec. 6 to SMART, which merely restated of the city council’s long-standing support of the move.

“…[U]nless SMART has concluded that there would be noteworthy impacts from a station near Rohnert Park Expressway that might alter the City’s thinking,” reads the letter addressed to SMART general manager Farhad Mansourian, “it is my understanding that the Rohnert Park city Council continues to support relocation.”

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The entire letter is attached to this story as a PDF.

Mackenzie reiterated to Patch today by phone that the City’s support of the relocation, first formalized in an April resolution, remains unchanged. The issue came up at the December SMART board meeting when it became clear that no formal movement had taken place on the SMART side of the equation to agree.

“I will make this an agenda item in the early part of 2012,” Mackenzie said, to reaffirm the city’s support. Then it’s up to the SMART board to schedule a vote on the change, “which could be in the January or February time frame."

The SMART board, of which Mackenzie is a member, has meetings on the third Thursdays of each month, making their next two meetings scheduled for January 19 and February 16, 2012.

The city has already committed to reimburse SMART for the cost of an environmental quality review (CEQA) in the amount of $35,000, with $10,000 coming from a private contribution.

In addition, the letter from Gonzales notes the city’s interest in “attempting to provide SMART with a reimbursement” from potential redevelopment of the former State Farm campus site, “potentially through requirements placed on a future developer.” This would be tied to the costs of station access to vehicular traffic, seen as a potential stumbling block in the station relocation.

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