ALL AMERICA CITY AWARD

 Santa Rosa - An All America City

The All-America City Award is the oldest and most respected community recognition program in the nation. The year 2007 marks the 58th anniversary of the award that recognizes communities whose citizens' work together to identify and tackle community-wide challenges.

Each year, only ten cities are selected as All-America Cities by the National Civic League, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization founded in 1894 to strengthen citizen democracy by transforming democratic institutions. These communities exemplify the true American spirit at work. Their citizens are actively committed to ensuring that their community is a safe nurturing place to live. All-America cities symbolize the spirit of grassroots democracy and community problem-solving.

For a community to be named an All-America City, it must be able to demonstrate successful resolution of community issues through collaborative efforts. Award winning criteria include active citizen involvement, effective and efficient government performance, maximized local philanthropic and volunteer resources, a strong capacity for cooperation and consensus building, community vision and pride, inter-group relations, community information sharing, and inter-community cooperation. Santa Rosa was one of 10 communities to earn the 2007 All-America City award title. 

A short video clip of Santa Rosa - 2007 All-America City Award - Click here!

Santa Rosa was recognized for its community-wide response to a tough community-wide issue, gang violence. In 2003, the City of Santa Rosa aggressively moved into action to address this growing problem. The city began with public outreach and education on the growing issue. Staff and policy leaders traveled to other cities to learn from their programs. The Mayor's Gang Prevention Task Force was established as a part of a community-wide effort to confront gang issues and the risk to youth. Then, in 2004, a quarter-cent public safety sales tax measure (Measure O) was placed on the ballot. Again the community responded by passing the tax measure by 73% generating revenue for Police, Fire, and a strong Gang Prevention and Intervention effort.