The CAB helps the City of Santa Rosa connect with the public to have a voice in decisions that impact their lives and build a stronger community.

• The CAB serves to develop recommendations to greatly increase citizen and neighborhood participation and responsibility as citizens.
• The City Charter requires the CAB to advise the City Council on:
  • Public Safety issues;
  • Capital Improvement priorities;
  • Involvement plans for development issues; and
  • Recommendations on public improvement funds that are allocated by the City Council.
• Through their Strategic Plan, the CAB is working to strengthen the organization and structure of the CAB, to utilize best practices to engage the community, and to increase awareness of the CAB in the community. Objectives include:
  • Implementing Neighborfest;
  • Developing a Citizens Engagement Academy;
  • Engaging neighborhoods through proactively attending neighborhood group/association meetings and building relationships;
  • Developing informational materials such as a flyer and talking points, that describe what the CAB is and what they do for use by the community, prospective members, and City Council; and
  • Developing an onboarding process and mentoring program for new members.

The CAB meets the 4th Wednesday of every month, except when otherwise noticed. Meetings begin at 6:00 p.m. and are held in the City’s Chamber Building, located at 637 1st Street, Santa Rosa.

There are 14 members of the Community Advisory Board; seven (7) area appointment members and seven (7) at-large members. Each City Council Member appoints one area representative and one at-large representative. Currently, the seven CAB areas are based on predetermined boundaries. View the CAB MAP.

The ideal CAB member would be:

• Engaged in their community, and with a large community network.
• Passionate about citizen engagement and community outreach.
• Able to both convey community concerns to city officials, and effectively disseminate information to the public.
• Available to participate in monthly Board and subcommittee meetings, and available to participate in community events (e.g. Wednesday Night Market, Neighborfest, etc.).

The City of Santa Rosa’s Capital Improvement Program (CIP) is a five-year financial plan for the maintenance and expansion of the public infrastructure (e.g. City facilities, buildings, parks, streets, etc.). The CIP identifies public infrastructure improvements that are needed, provides a design and construction schedule, and identifies funding for these projects.

The City Council, through the City Charter and associated Resolutions, assigned the CAB the role of obtaining public feedback on CIP priorities. Through meetings and community events, the CAB encourages Santa Rosa residents the vote on their top five (5) infrastructure project priorities for the upcoming year. This feedback is presented to the City Council during the City’s budget season.

Community engagement is the process by which people, government, and organizations (the community) work together collaboratively to create and realize sustainable visions for their community’s future. For governments and organizations, it is about working with and listening to, communities to build long-term relationships and develop meaningful solutions to complex issues.

Another way to describe community engagement is through decision-making: everyone who is impacted by an issue in the community should have a say in how it is resolved. Community engagement holds the promise that public participation can influence decisions that affect the provisions of services, future visions, and sustainability of our communities.

Source: Hussey, Sally (2019). What is Community Engagement? Bang the Table: https://www.bangthetable.com/what-is-community-engagement/