On a seemingly perfect day in Santa Rosa, visitors hadn't a care in the world. High above, blue skies--- not a storm cloud on the horizon, and yet, in a conference room off-campus from Santa Rosa City Hall, we found worried faces.
"Has Santa Rosa ever faced anything like this?" we asked Mayor Chris Coursey.
"No. Never. No city has." In Santa Rosa, stress from last fall's firestorm has come home to roost on the city budget. Santa Rosa needs to cut $14.5 million dollars -- almost ten percent.
Fire left the city's reserve fund severely depleted. "I don't think we should be hurting the economy to build the reserve fund today," said City Council member Julie Coombs. "Build the economy. Then the fund."
Like many cities, Santa Rosa already faced financial stress due to rising employee costs, their health care, and retirement. Those are 80 percent of the problem, according to Mayor Coursey. "We had planned to address them in the last year. We got sidetracked by the fire."