POLICY WATCH – December 2025
In This Issue
Message from CEO
Areas of NBLC Influence & Impact 2025
Why is Homelessness Such a Tough Problem?
Where to Donate to Help the Homeless
DIY Economic Forecast- just for fun
Members in the News
As we close out 2025, from all of us at North Bay Leadership Council, I want to take a moment to wish you and your families a very happy holiday season. This time of year, offers a welcome opportunity to reflect on the progress we’ve made together and to express my sincere gratitude for the commitment, leadership, and partnerships that make the North Bay Leadership Council’s work possible.
In this issue of Policy Watch, we highlight areas of influence and impact from the past year, including our leadership on transportation, workforce housing, childcare, climate resilience, and healthier communities. You’ll also find a thoughtful look at why homelessness remains such a complex challenge, along with ways to support local organizations making a difference. To round out the issue, we include a “just for fun” DIY economic outlook that invites you to reflect on the signals shaping the year ahead.
As we look forward to 2026, NBLC will continue to focus on advancing policies that strengthen the North Bay’s economy, support employers and workers, and build more resilient communities. We look forward to deepening our partnerships, elevating the employer voice, and engaging in important conversations in the year ahead.
May the holiday season offer time for reflection, renewal, and connection as we look ahead to the new year.
Best Regards,
Joanne
NBLC Areas of Influence and Impact 2025
1. Leadership on Transportation
This work strengthens mobility for employees and reduces congestion across the North Bay.
· Successful approval of the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge pilot to remove the bike lane during commute days, enabling a new emergency/commute lane, with long-term potential for an HOV lane.
· Successful SMART signature gathering campaign to renew the sales tax; nearly 72,000 signatures submitted for the 2026 ballot measure. Both Sonoma and Marin Register of Voters (ROV) qualified the signatures, moving the initiative into the next phase.
· Successful passage of an AB 697, which will keep the work for the near-term construction on SR 37 moving forward. The bill allowed for the incidental take of certain protected species for SR 37 project. Without the bill, the project would experience massive delays. NBLC also successfully advocated for millions of dollars in State grants to support this work.
2. Leadership on Workforce Housing
By driving solutions that increase housing supply and affordability, NBLC helps ensure that employers can attract and retain the workforce they need, reduces pressures caused by long commutes, and strengthens the overall competitiveness of the North Bay.
· NBLC continues to be an active participant as a steering committee member in the formation of a new housing coalition called Call Marin Home, a coalition designed to unite Marin’s leading organizations around systemic solutions to our housing crisis. This convening is organized to assess next-step strategies for advancing housing production, preservation and protections, including potential countywide funding mechanisms and stronger coordination among housing advocates in the North Bay.
· Successful approval of the Oak Hill Workforce Housing project. NBLC supported financing innovations for Oak Hill Workforce project which ultimately received unanimous approval from the Marin County Board of Supervisors
· Supported Generation Housing’s right size impact fees in Sonoma County and celebrated the release of the Annual Sonoma County State of Housing Report.
· Successful passage of CEQA streamlining legislation in strong partnership with the Bay Area Council and Santa Rosa Yimby. Expansion of pro-housing legislation and local zoning reforms aimed at accelerating production, streamlining approvals, and reducing the cost burden on builders.
3. Strengthening the North Bay Economy & Business Climate
Policy changes in this focus area help maintain a stable and competitive economy in the North Bay.
· Participated in an economic learning exchange with Marin County leadership to San Luis Obispo. The county is embarking on an Economic Strategy Vitality (EVS) plan and this trip was focused on bringing back best practices for regional economic strategy development in Marin
· NBLC serves on the California Stewardship Network, 21st Century Alliance, and CA FWD and advocated for economic resilience at state and regional level and worked in collaboration with other employer-oriented groups to support the business community and economy at the state and regional level.
· NBLC partners with the heads of the business organizations in Marin County and Sonoma County to exchange ideas about creating jobs and improving the local economy and meet with County Administrators and other elected officials.
· Co-produced four Business Edge Briefings in partnership with Dominican University’s Institute of Leadership Studies.
· NBLC continues to collaborate with New California Coalition and other businesses groups to remove obstacles causing businesses to leave the Bay Area including the North Bay and elect more moderates to the state legislature that are more business-friendly.
4. Prioritizing Childcare & Healthy Children
Affordable, reliable childcare remains essential to employer productivity and employee retention.
· NBLC took a leadership role in exploring how new investments and policy reforms could stabilize the childcare sector, in Marin by ensuring a stable workforce and to increase access to affordable childcare so that children are ready to enter school and learn.
5. Building Climate Resiliency & Wildfire Preparedness
These efforts protect businesses, employees, and critical regional assets.
· Joined the Wildfire Solutions Coalition, elevating the employer perspective in statewide wildfire-risk reduction strategies.
· Advocated for Proposition 4 climate resilience appropriations, pushing to expedite funding for sea level rise, wildfire, drought, and flood resilience projects.
· Successful passage of SB 72, state legislation to strengthen long-term water supply planning in the state.
6. Promoting Healthier Communities
Healthy communities are foundational to a strong workforce and thriving economy. Healthcare sector is not only a social driver, but also an economic driver in the North Bay.
· NBLC continues to serve as an active member in Healthy Marin Partnership (HMP) -a multi-sector and multi-disciplinary collaborative that strives to advance health equity through joint efforts. The Health Workforce Initiative an activity is focused on equitable career pathways in nursing, mental health, and medical assistant advancement.
· Ongoing participation in the Bay Area Jobs First Collaborative- Sector Investments. The Bay Area Jobs First Collaborative’s latest sector activation update focused on healthcare, recognizing it as a true community anchor with strong health-wealth multiplier effects, while also noting significant uncertainty driven by potential Medi-Cal cuts, public policy shifts, and impacts on immigrant communities. Despite constrained resources, stakeholders emphasized that workforce development remains essential and that CA Jobs First must prioritize funding to support and implement healthcare sector activities across the region. This is especially critical in the North Bay.
Why is Homelessness Such a Touch Problem?
Homelessness remains one of the most visible and complex challenges facing our communities and one that directly affects economic vitality, workforce stability, public health systems, and regional community well being. In this Future of Where article, by Bill Fulton, he examines why homelessness has proven so difficult to solve, tracing the issue beyond individual circumstances to long-standing structural decisions around housing, land use, mental health care, and public investment.
Fulton admits he is no expert “on homelessness, which is a complicated and multifaceted issue. And there are several reasons why it has expanded and morphed in such horrifying ways, and why it is such a difficult problem to solve. First and foremost is the tragedy of drug addiction, most recently fentanyl. But not every drug addict is homeless, and not every homeless person is an addict, at least not at first. So, it seems to me that there are at least two other reasons why the problem is so bad and so persistent”. He writes, “drug addition is part of it. But as a society we also failed in the promises we made to those displaced by both urban sprawl and mental health deinstitutionalization”
He believes: “The first, quite obviously, is the change in how we deal with people who have mental health problems. In the days before rampant homelessness, the mentally ill were warehoused in state-run institutions. Whatever you think of how institutionalized mental patients were treated in those days (think of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest), the end of the institutionalization era in the 1970s is one of the roots of today’s homelessness crisis. The idea was that people with mental health issues should live in the least restrictive setting possible in the community, close to services they needed on an outpatient basis. This didn’t exactly work out, because it required an enormous investment in ongoing services by state and county governments, which always found it was too easy to cut the budget.
But if you’re going to place people in the community, there has to be a place for them to live, and this is the second root of the problem. People on the edge had always lived in very modest dwellings, often SRO (single-room occupancy) hotels which even the local YMCA typically had. But at the very same time that mental patients were being released from institutions, low-end dwellings were being torn down as part of the federal urban renewal program. They were supposed to be replaced, but in most cases they weren’t. So, in many cities, the residences that people were supposed to live in when they were “outpatiented” no longer existed.”
He explains, “today we see two competing philosophies about how to deal with the homeless that emerge from the two roots of the problem. The first is the “Housing First” philosophy, which argues that you have to find places for homeless people to live before you can effectively deal with their other problems. This is the philosophy embraced by California and many other states. The second is the opposite idea that you have to treat people first before they can successfully live on their own, which may require re-institutionalization. This is the philosophy embraced by the Trump Administration.”
Fulton self describes himself as someone “trained to focus on the built environment rather than social services, so he tends to be a “Housing Firster”. He believes that “the best way to end homelessness is to build more housing. (This is especially true for the episodically homeless – people who are just in financial trouble and don’t have addiction or mental health problems.) I also tend to be a cynic about the treatment-first crowd, because anecdotally it seems to me that it is often promoted by those who also don’t want more housing in their neighborhoods, especially for the homeless. At the same time, it seems to me that housing and treatment must go together.”
Where to Donate to Help the Homeless
If you want to help the unhoused and other people in need, here are some good local charities to consider:
Catholic Charities of Northwest California
Here’s a link to other Sonoma County organizations: Link
Link to Marin County organizations: Link
DIY Economic Outlook- 10 Questions to Ask Yourself
This past year was full of rapid change and economic uncertainty. As we head into 2026 amid continued unpredictability, more people are taking forecasting into their own hands. Rather than relying solely on broad national models, this DIY economic forecast encourages readers to reflect on local trends in their neighborhoods, their own spending behavior, and everyday market signals to better understand what lies ahead for jobs, prices, and growth in our own backyards.
Jonathan Lansner; a business columnist for the Southern California News Group writes, “‘Tis the season for forecasting. If your answers are joyous, it’s more likely 2026 will be good for your wallet.
Conversely, if they reveal some Scrooge-like negativity, those answers signal a dour year ahead.
And if your replies are a mix of good news and bad vibes, you seem to be torn about the future. Welcome to the club!”
Members in the News
NBLC’s CEO Weighs in on Richmond-San Rafael Bridge Toll Booths Slated for Removal
“I think it’s a game-changer for those commuters using the bridge daily to get to work in Marin,” said Joanne Webster, chief executive officer of the North Bay Leadership Council.
Catholic Charities Weighs in on $4.2 Million in Sonoma County Homeless Housing Fund Threatened Under Trump Policies
Detailed in a 128-page notice from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Trump’s new vision for homeless housing aid slashes funds for long-term supportive housing programs and shifts billions of dollars to more restrictive, transitional housing programs.
Canal Alliance Weighs in on San Rafael’s purchase of a Site for New Park in ‘Once in a Lifetime’ Deal
After two decades of wishful planning, San Rafael is set to give its isolated Canal neighborhood something it has long needed: a new park that could become a gateway to the larger community.
Kaiser Permanente in Santa Rosa Displays Segment of national AIDS Memorial Quilt as Globe Poised to Mark World AIDS Day
The segment of the AIDS Quilt is now on display in one of the medical office buildings at the Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa Medical Center complex.
The SMART Initiative Is Officially on Track for the Ballot!
Thanks to the incredible hard work and dedication, the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) is on track to be on the ballot.
Petaluma River Park Makes the San Francisco Chronicle's Top 15 of The Bay Area’s Best-Kept Secrets
Culture Critic Peter Hartlaub featured the park in the San Francisco Chronicle cover story: Top 15 of the Bay Area’s Best-Kept Secrets.