Amie Windsor-Press Democrat
Jul 29, 2025
The public works department’s three-year contract expired on June 30, 2025
For the second time in six weeks, unionized Rohnert Park public works employees have packed the City Council chambers in a show of force to ask for raises equitable with other city departments and more affordable health care.
“We are asking for fairness,” David Valencia, a utility services representative and member of the Service Employees International Union 1021 labor negotiating team, told the council during its July 22 meeting. “We are asking for a 3% raise. That would only cost the city $141,000 in ongoing money.”
The public works department’s three-year contract expired on June 30, 2025. The two parties last met on June 10, 2025, according to city records.
Citing those dates, union members said the talks are at a stalemate. But City Manager Marcela Piedra said Tuesday that the city’s “labor negotiators are still meeting and negotiating with SEIU.”
The department includes utilities and streets workers, mechanics and parks maintenance personnel. The department employs just over 50 people, including some 46 SEIU 1021 members.
This is not the first time the city and its labor unions have struggled with a contract. In 2009 and 2011 ― both times when the city was in a budget deficit ― negotiations between the city and two labor unions, SEIU 1021 and the union representing public safety workers, were particularly grueling.
In his appeal to the council, Valencia cited the public safety department’s most recent raise of 3%, which went into effect July 1, 2024. That raise was part of a four-year contract signed June 8, 2021. It gave public safety employees a 2.5% raise during years two and three, followed by a 3% raise in year four.
A four-year contract for SEIU public works employees was signed June 22, 2021. Employees were given a 3.8% raise upon signing, followed by a 2.7%, 2% and 1.5% each subsequent year.
“We are not asking for anything more than what public safety received from this very council,” he said.
Travis Balzarini, regional vice president for SEIU 1021, said he was confused about the city council’s refusal to provide a wage increase, noting that the council had “budgeted conservatively every year and yet you still come and say, ‘There’s no money for you.’”
While the city has approved healthy budgets in the past, the council was only able to balance its 2025-26 budget by relying on $3.2 million of casino supplemental funds the city receives from Graton Rancheria.
To ensure continued fiscal conservancy, Rohnert Park implemented a citywide hiring freeze “to reduce personnel costs and save moving that can be used to fund” next year’s budget, according to city budget documents.
But Martin Avela, a fleet supervisor, said the result of that move means already stretched public works employees “are wearing more hats and doing more with less.”
According to the budget, the department is managing more than 100 long-term projects heading into the next fiscal year.
The department is also responsible for maintaining more than 113 miles of water lines and 106 miles of sewer lines, 101 miles of streets and 12 miles of bike paths.
On the parks and recreation side, department crews maintain 185 acres of parkland, five community recreation centers, three pools, a sports recreation center and Spreckles Performing Arts Center.
“The average government mechanic has about 75 pieces of equipment. We are at 156 pieces of equipment per mechanic,” Avela said.
An employee with the city for 18 years, he explained that employee morale is dropping, as the city’s maintenance crew no longer has a break room “because it was turned into office cubicles for growing administrative staff. Meanwhile our break room has been moved into the warehouse.”