 Welcome everyone to this March 24th meeting of the Capitola City Council and I'm going to have us begin with a roll call too, Chloe. Thank you Mayor Story. Council Member Bertrand. Present. Council Member Brooks. Here. Council Member Peterson. Present. Vice Mayor Keiser. Here. Mayor Story. Here. And I'm going to ask Vice Mayor Keiser if she'll lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you Mayor. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you Vice Mayor Keiser. Finally now we could give us an announcement proceeding tonight's meeting. Thank you Mayor. In accordance with California Senate Bill 361, this meeting is not physically open to the public. Council and staff are meeting via Zoom and there are several ways for the public to watch and participate. Thank you for your attention on how to join the meeting using Zoom or using a landline or mobile phone along with how to submit public comment during the meeting tonight is available on our website cityofcapitola.org and on the published meeting agenda. The public can also stream the meeting live watching on our website or on our YouTube channel. As always, the meeting is also cablecast live on Charter Communications Cable TV Channel 8 and is being recorded to be rebroadcast on the following Wednesday at 8am and on Saturday following the first rebroadcast at 1pm on Charter Channel 71 and Comcast Channel 25. Our technician this evening is Cedric. Thank you so much Cedric and thank you Mayor Story. Thank you Chloe and also my thanks to Cedric for getting us on the air this evening. And next we'll go to additions and deletions to the agenda. Are there any? Staff has no changes this evening. I think well that will bring us to presentation. And tonight we have a presentation on Mayor for our day. A youth essay contest. Who's going to present on this for us. I will be Mayor Story. Good evening Mayor Council members. Thank you for this. Recognitions of the present presentation. I'm going to share my screen and make sure that. Everything is working that look on the moderator and. Looks great. Great. I'm going to present for you a mayor for a day, a youth essay contest. Recreation will be hosting this event at the request of council. And I'm here to provide you details as to how that is going to occur and an opportunity to answer any questions. So the city plans to offer this mayor for a day contest. There has been research done in several other cities that have also provided similar events within their community. And this, this event is modeled after a lot of the successes that have occurred in other cities. So there will be two divisions and elementary school or an elementary level and a middle school level. And youth who enter in the contest will be given a guiding prompt. Staff has open suggestions as to what that prompt might be, but a pretty common one that was found in research would be that. If you were a mayor for a day, what action would you take for your city? So staff upon the closing of the deadline for receiving the essay, so we will host on our website. A portal where anybody that enters will be able to complete their information. Parents will sign a waiver as this is a youth contest. And they will enter in their essay. The essay deadline will end and staff will review all the entries and have the option to, we can make a selection. And which mayor or a council designee would select the ultimate winner from kind of the top five that are chosen in each division. Or staff can just review whatever is the choice of the council. And the winners will get an opportunity to meet the mayor or designee and recognize at a council meeting. The timeline for this event, we would be launching it in coordination with the beginning of school of next school year. And communicating to the school district within the city as a way to get the word out that we are posting this. And hopefully there will be teachers that will provide opportunities for students to engage either as part of our lesson or just as part of a communication that this is an opportunity. Ultimately that essay deadline will be September 30 and staff will begin their review phase in order to provide any selection to mayor or council designee. And then October 7, the winners will be announced with the plan that the elementary contest winner would attend a October 13 meeting in order to be recognized for their accomplishing. And then the October 27 council meeting, we would have the middle school winner attend. And then that pretty much is the conclusion of my presentation. I am happy to answer any questions at the time. Council members have questions. Oh, yeah, council member Peterson. Thank you. It's not a question. I just wanted to thank staff for taking the time to put this together. This is something that I was really excited and hoping that we would be able to do is as a means of again getting more young people and engaged in our community in our city. And so I'm really excited to see this move forward. So thank you so much. Council member Bertrand. So they'll get a plaque or a proclamation. I might have just said if you mentioned it. Yeah, the various cities have done both of those as options for research. They've been given proclamations. They have been awarded certificates of an accomplishment at the actual council meeting that they are planning to attend. And we can work with council and city parks for the appropriate recognition. And are we going to go through the official ceremony? Chloe would swear him in as mayor for the day. It could be terribly cool from a kid standpoint. I, I think I will see a research if we can actually do something like that. I went through something like this in San Francisco and it's really cool. And you get recognized. I mean, it's official. Any other questions from council members. Yeah, council member Peterson, did you have your hands filled up or I apologize. Yep. Just forgot to take it down. No, no, no problem. And then, Nikki, I did have a question. The prompt question is going to be if you were mayor what action would you take for your city. And I was just, since it seems this is limited to students in the so called union elements of school district. And I believe we're the only city within that school district. Maybe prompt them to say, what would you do for you? Yeah, we could definitely include that. I think that's great feedback. I did want to leave it open because I, I would imagine that there might be students that live in Capitola that attend private schools or our home school. And I'm hoping that we might get entries in from those students as well. But I do think that it makes a lot of sense that it would be capital instead of city. Yeah, I mean, I'm just thinking, since it's just being kind of a generic city, maybe have them focus upon and learn more about Capitola. It's just my thoughts. And you can take it or leave it. I think it's a great civic participation program for the students. And I, I certainly look forward to reading the essays and hopefully there's another council member that helps me that wants to help me. Selective winner are, I would certainly appreciate that assistance, but I think we all look forward to hearing more about it. Thank you. Let's see the next item is additional material. Do we have any additional materials for this evening? Yes, Mayor Story. We did receive four emails regarding item a the flag request item. Thank you. Thank you. Those will be included for the record. And which will bring us to item five on the agenda for this evening. Just oral communication. This is an opportunity for members of the public to address the council on items that are not on tonight's agenda or on our consent agenda. And if you would like to speak, just raise your zoom prompt. And then you'll be recognized by a moderator. You'll have three minutes to speak. Or you may dial star nine if you're on the phone. Or you may send an email to public comment. That's the, that's that's the US. Very do you know if there's anyone that wishes to speak on public comment. Mayor Story, I do not see any attendees with their hands raised and we do not have any emails or going public comment. Okay. All right, going, going, gone. Then we'll move on now to staff city council coming. We'll begin with other staff coming. I think our public works director has one comment for you guys will update for you this evening. Good evening, mayor and council. I just wanted you may have noticed. We have a portion of noble Gulch along Bay Avenue, cordoned off with some tape and some pylons. Unfortunately, we have developed a small sinkhole there. We will be starting to explore that next week. We'll be giving you a report the next council meeting if we need for the emergency actually need to take. So just wanted to give you a heads up on that. We will be putting orange fencing around it this weekend so nobody can get in there. Steve, I just wanted to ask is that around the, the pipe that goes under the culvert or so we did do an inspection of the large culvert. There it is not part of the large culvert is a drain line that comes off Monterey Avenue and goes under the lawn there and it's about in the middle of the lawn area behind sidewalk there. Okay. Does any other council members have questions on that? None will move on other staff comments. Seeing none. I'll go to council now council member have comments. Yes, council member Peterson. Thank you. I just wanted to take a quick moment to let my fellow council members know. Earlier in the year we became members of the national league of cities as we were already a part of the California league of cities. And I was recently considering looking into what kind of events or educational opportunities that they had to provide. And I just wanted to share with you all that on Wednesday, April 6 at 9am. The national league of cities is having a new member orientation where they will share with the new member cities kind of what they have to offer to us. So you can register for that on their website and I will be participating and I hope you will consider it too if you are able. That's all. Thank you. Any other comments? Yeah, council member brook. Thank you, mayor story. I just wanted to let everyone know that the children's network just recently met. One of the groups that was put together many, many years ago by the county supervisors and we're going to be looking at updating our bylaws. And creating our action items for the 23 year. And so if there's anything that has been on any of your minds about what you're observing in the community in relation to supporting youth and kids in our community. Just please let me know. I'd be more than happy to bring that to the table. And also, I am planning to attend the league of cities events coming up in May, that's May 11 through 13th to discuss upcoming bills that are being proposed and I'm looking at policies that are being revised at the governor's on the governor staff. So, I thought I'd give everyone an update on that. Thank you. All right. Thank you council member brook. Any other council members. Seeing none. I'll go ahead and report out on the moderate. Air boards meeting last Wednesday, March 16. And there was just one item that I wanted to bring to everyone's attention and that is the this year is the AB 2766 grant process. You know, these are grants that come down from auto fees, which are given out to most of the local jurisdictions for the purposes of reducing pollutants and particulars in our air. For example, you know, the, the electric street sleeper that we recently purchased would be an eligible project. And assuming that the timing all goes right, but just didn't want to report on that the outreach that the air board is going to do. Well, they're going to be doing that same to all the local jurisdictions and the deadline is the grant is going to be opened on June 7. So just wanted to make everybody aware of that. Also want to let you know that the, that the arts commission is having its annual retreat. It's the annual, but we missed last year. So it's to come by annual that we're catching up. We're going to have our retreat this Saturday to get together and talk about strategic planning for the arts commission for the coming year. And then also we'll report out on the finance advisory committee that mad last Tuesday, which is from the 15th. And they did approve a recommendation for the council to consider a vacant housing tax. So that includes my report and with that we'll move on now to the consent items. These items will be handled with one vote unless any member of the council would like to pull an item for further discussion. Any request to pull an item. Any questions on the item. If not, is there a motion to approve. I can approve it. Is there a second motion by vice mayor. Second. And a second by council member Peterson. With that, can we have a roll call. Council member Bertrand. I approve. Council member Brooks. Hi. Council member Peterson. Hi. Vice mayor Kaiser. Hi. Your story. Hi. So the consent calendar. Passes unanimously. Which will now bring us to item eight, which is general government and our public hearings. The first item for our consideration this evening is a request to consider a request to fly the. Then blue line flag during national police week in accordance with policy D 18, our flag policy outdoor display of governmental non-governmental flags on city property. The staff recommendation is to deny the request. And I'll ask for a staff report on this agenda item. Thank you. I'll be presenting. So let me get set up here. Okay. Moderator. Are we seeing everything correctly? Yes, it looks great. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you. Mayor story. Yes. So I'll be presenting the flag request item this evening. A little background on the timing. As you may recall, this item was on the agenda for last meeting on March 12. And council did after being asked by the requester approve postponing it to this evening in light of the capitol foundation meeting, which was on March 15. So the capitol public safety and community services foundation held their meeting March 15. The requester presented this flag request to them. There was a motion to recommend that city council approve the request. The motion did fail. There was a six no and five yes vote. So that's kind of what's happened on the interim. The rest of the report is identical to what would have been given on March 12. So a little background of the current flag policy was approved by yourselves. Council in May 2021. And it does include section five non governmental flags, which outlines the process for members of the public to request that the city fly a non governmental flag here at city hall in place of the state flag. On February 2nd, a member of the public did submit a formal request to fly the spin blue line flag here at city hall during national police week, which is this year is May 11th, or 16th. National police week is an annual week that is designed to really honor and acknowledge the police force throughout our country and their families and in particular honor those that may have been killed doing their jobs to protect the community. So the flag in question is pictured here. It is a black and white representation of the American flag with the sixth line. If you're counting going up the flag in blue, and it was designed in 2014 by the company been blue line USA. And the quote here is from that company explaining the imagery. So the black space above I'm I think you can see my mouse up above here represents chaos law and order excuse me piece law and order. Then the space below the line anarchy chaos crime and the thin blue line here representing law enforcement, keeping crime from pervading society. So that is the explanation there and a little more on the flag kind of a pro and cons if you will. Supporters explain that it represents support for law enforcement and is used as a sign of solidarity with the police and other associations and some controversy around it. Are that the design itself may conflict with the United States flag code, which is actually quite long and interesting. But in this case, the flag code does state that the flag United States flag should not have any imagery colors, letters, anything placed upon it. So it is not clear if this conflicts or doesn't conflict, but it is certainly something that has come up several times in researching this. For others, the mentality in the language the thin blue line in general can emphasize an us versus them mentality, which counters the idea of community policing. Thinking of police very separate from those that they're sworn to protect rather than part of that community. And also the flag has been prominently displayed by extremist groups in recent years, in particular at the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally in 2017 and more recently last year, the January 6th insurrection. So all that being said, this is not a judgment on the flag or those that support it or those that do not, it's more just pointing out that this controversy does exist. So with that being said, the recommendation is to deny the request and I am available for any questions. That is my report. Thank you, Council. Council members have questions on the presentation. Council Member Peterson. Thank you. One of my original questions was going to be how the, what's the recommendation of the public safety foundation was I previously sat on that board and I know that the person making the request to to fly this flag specifically asked us to to postpone so that it could go to that body for a recommendation but that was answered in the presentation so that they didn't recommend it. So my other question would be have our POA or police chief weighed in on this have our local law enforcement agencies requested this. Do they recommend it or is there anyone that can speak on that. Did not receive any communication from them. I do know our chief is on the call. So that would be my response. That answers your question. Yeah, chief dally are you available to respond to Council Member Peterson. Yes, yes I am. Good evening, Mayor Story and Council members. I want to thank you for allowing me to speak on this matter. I'd like to start by thanking the applicant to J for recognizing the fine members of the police department and others in the law enforcement. So thank you very much for that. Well, I agree with some of the applicant's points. I, there are some in this in the community to find this this flag offensive and divisive. Our city flagpole represents the community. And as your chief of police, I want to be inclusive and really sensitive to all of all the community needs and concerns. On everyone, our community of fill as if they'll be treated fairly by our police department. And this proposal could be counterproductive to my goal of ensuring the community still protected in value. I feel it presented staff report really reflects the varying viewpoints. And understand that I hope that you still give you the enough information to really make an informed decision. And thank you for your time. Thank you, Chief sally. The other questions from council members. You know, and if I may, you know, as I disclose that our last meeting when we discussed this extension, I am a member of the safety foundation. And to, you know, let the council know that that vote of 65 in opposition to the request. I did not participate in that vote one way or the other. And so I was one abstention and there was actually another extension on that vote. So the full vote is actually five in favor, six opposed and two abstention on the question. So just to give you a full picture of what happened at the safety foundation. Seeing no other questions from council members staff presentation. I think I'm going to take it out to the public now. And this is an opportunity for members of the public to address the council on this item. If you'd like to speak, just raise your hand and assume application. You'll have three minutes to speak. Or you can dial star nine on your telephone. And, or you might also send an email to us. I see that we have one hand up to Larry. Yes, we have TJ. Well, yeah, if you could allow TJ to address the counselor. Can you hear me now? Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. So I'm going to have to raise my hand. I will go back up to the city manager and denial this staff report. And my response to that. And I think I went through most of the issues, but given the fact that there's some information added tonight, I think I need to address those. be stated that it's pretty clear that this flag is not a desecration of the U.S. flag. The American Legion who oversees that has not stated on that because of the black and white stripes, the design, it does not meet the intent of the U.S. flag, which has 13 alternating red and white stripes. So even PolitiFact, not an organization by any means, has said this as well. So I'll lead off with that. And I have a whole other thing to write here, but I think I need to address a couple of things. I also used to be on the foundation. I was the president for two years. And during my tenure, we were able to set up the officer of the year award, which the city now does. We also bought rifles for our capital police officers who didn't the city was not buying them at that time. So I think I spent some time going back with the police trying to support them. And that's what this was supposed to be supporting that cost. There's never meant to be a political issue. Unfortunately, the city manager's office made it this way. And there's a lot of issues out there. I guess I'll go right to the point and jump to the controversial part. First, if we talked about January 6, there was also the progressive flag prominently on display there. So you may want to revisit that policy. If this is what you're basing, it being tied to right wing extremists, I think most of our police officers would take a pinch to that since every police officer I know, even those in Capitola have them on their vehicles or display them. I think it's unfortunate in our time that we've made them feel like they can't even be proud of who they are because of this bias out there against our cops. It's not it's not the cops out there who are doing bad things that intimidate people from coming. It's activist groups who do not like our cops since the defund the police. So I see my time's running down. So I would just ask you to go back, review what I wrote or in the response and support our officers. They I understand I would also say that both the city manager and the police chief voted in that vote at the of the foundation. So the numbers could be different based on who was there. It was a straw poll goes the way I look at it, but I will accept your outcome. I think whatever happens after that, you know, is what the city of Capitola will have to deal with on how you folks are. I was hoping we had some leaders here would stand up and support our cops like you do activist groups within the community. So thank you. And I hope you guys make a good decision. All right. Thank you, TJ. Are there any other members of the public that would like to address the council on this item? Yes, Mayor Story. We have Tyree Ricci. Go ahead. Hello. Can you folks hear me? Yes, Mr. Ricci, we can hear you. Go ahead. Awesome. Thank you for your time. I just want to speak out about this action item. I heard about it this week through a local community member who shared this with me. And as a black male who's also a resident of Capitola, I'm deeply concerned about this issue. I'm just given recent issues we've had around Santa Cruz County as a whole. Also given the recent black lives matter mural being the face and things being lingering with that and also issues of things like racism being addressed as a public health crisis. I think it results in systemic policies when it relates to policing. And also as a black male, unfortunately, as Capitola resident, I have dealt with a lot of issues when it comes to policing. Given last year during the pandemic, I was stopped in profile by Capitola police over an incident that happened at the car wash. It was a gentleman who was light skinned Hispanic male burglarized the car wash. Unfortunately, that was burnt up on 41st Avenue. But unfortunately, I was stopped as a black male and falsely identified as a light skinned Hispanic male. And when I tried to ask why this incident occurred, the officer told me to just shut up. And so I think incidents like that and also other incidents that I've heard as a black male with other black residents around Santa Cruz County. When it relates to policing, it's deeply concerning as well. It's because definitely a lot of folks who black black individuals who commute around Santa Cruz County have this deep systemic fear of commuting as Capitola or through Capitola due to the hyper police presence and hyper hyper attention when it comes to dealing with policing, particularly Capitola PD. And so why I do respect the tradition of honoring those who have been good officers and honoring their, you know, memories and honoring who they are, but also due to systemic hostile climate that we're dealing with right now, I think it's not in the best interest to display the flag given the recent incidents around Santa Cruz County and also around the Black Lives Matter mural being the face. And hopefully I'm hoping that maybe hopefully in the future police can work with organized such as myself and other black leaders around the county to establish this more building and trusting relationship because I feel at this point in time, the relationship is very rocky. And also there's a deep systemic fear as black residents as they commute through Capitola. So I just wanted to express that and thank you for your time. All right. Thank you, Mr. Richie. Any other members of the public wish to address the council on this matter? Mayor Story, I do not see let's see. I do not see any other hands raised from attendees. And any any email come in there? I do not see any email on this topic. Right. So, um, yeah, I kind of pause to see if there was anyone else that wish to speak on this matter. But seeing none, I'm going to bring this now back to the council for deliberation and action. Is there a council member that would like to lead us in this discussion? I see Vice Mayor Kaiser. Thank you. So I will totally agree that I do feel like this is a controversial issue and I don't want it to become a personal thing. I think that I personally support our capital of PD. I rely on them. I trust them implicitly and have called on them many of times and they've shown up day in day. And in that same regard, I appreciate what Chief Daly has come forth with and what the Safety Foundation has decided on in their own vote as well. I my my vote does not have anything to do with where the flag is displayed or who displays it. Whether it was at the Capitol riots or anything like that. It is about our city personally. Anybody can fly the flag who wants to. I think that our PD, if they choose to, should have stickers, have flags, what have you. But I do feel like me personally thinking about our city, I just don't think that it has a place here. And I would love to represent our PD in a different way that is less triggering or less divisive if that's possible. If you know if we could decide on a different maybe different type of federal flag or something that does hold the same weight. That's how I feel. And thank you for listening. And I'm open to hear other council members ideas as well. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor Pizer. Council Member Bertrand. Okay, thank you very much. So first of all, I want to thank the member of the public who spoke earlier. And, you know, this is part of the democracy. People, you know, have ideas and they can bring it to the city council. And if we put it on the agenda, then it gets addressed. And we appreciate that. And individual has also been, I think most of us know, very active member of the community than on some various committees, official committees and such. So, you know, this is an individual who put a lot of thought into this. And I'd like to recommend, excuse me, I'd like to recognize that. Initially, I was sort of not wanting to do it, and then wanting to do it. And, you know, I went back and forth. And the main fulcrum point for me was, what does the police feel about it? Because just like our vice mayor said, we do recognize the role of police in our city. We have a lot of respect for the job that they do. But one caller sort of gives us a brief view on maybe there's other views here too. So you have to wonder, how do we deal with the subject that to some degree, could stir up a bit of controversy that maybe we're not ready to deal with. But when the police, POA decided to be abstained, I guess, from a vote on this. And then after I talked with the police chief, you know, who put a lot of thought into this went for way beyond what I had thought about it. So I appreciate his analysis. And so I sort of would like to go that way and support the police department and the fact that they would like to be on stating in their position on this. To me, also, I like to have individual relationships with the various police that I know in the city, I've done right along side, I feel comfortable talking with all of them. And, you know, I think, in a way, us as city council people, I think that that tells them that we do respect them as part of our city. If we reach out to the individual police, and have conversations, share what we feel about things, listen to what they feel about the city, I think that's the way I've been showing the police in the city how I appreciate them. And to the ones I have had that privilege of those conversations, I think they realize that I do appreciate them. And I don't need to put a flag up to indicate that. So I don't think I'm going to vote for this. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Bertrand. I'll call on Council Member Peterson at this time. Thank you, Mayor Story. Thank you, staff, and for preparing this report. And thank you for the public comments that we received on this. I want to take a moment first, as one of the first person to make public comments suggested that he would hope that there were leaders who would stand up in their support for police. I first want to take a moment to share my family history and law enforcement. My grandfather worked for Capitol Police Department for 30 years, during which time he launched the dare program and the safe ride home program, and served on the Santa Cruz County Mounted Sheriff's Posse where he did search and rescue efforts. And later work as a detective in the Santa Cruz County Coroner's office after retiring from Capitola PD. He passed away in 2012 due to cancer. But since that time, as PJ mentioned, the city of Capitola has had the Herbroff Law Enforcement Officer of the Year Award, which is named for my grandfather. When he passed the Santa Cruz County Fallen Officer Foundation was extremely gracious in their support of my family. And I've since attended the fundraisers for several years in a row. Along with my grandfather, his son, my uncle, and several of my great uncles have also served in law enforcement. Back when my grandfather worked for Capitola PD, there was another officer, Sam Ull Murray, who worked for Capitola PD that we knew was Uncle Sam. So despite the fact that he wasn't actually related to us, we stay in touch with his family still. Others in my family are retired or still active, one now teaching new officers at a police academy. And along with police, there are several military service members, firefighters, medical providers and other first responders in my family. I respect them for all of their service in the face of all sorts of danger. They have always taught me that law enforcement and others that work in the community should should be held to the utmost of standards above all in setting a good example. And I have so much respect for our Capitola PD in particular for their exemplary service and the example that they set in our community. Oh, apologies. I believe in supporting our law enforcement. My dog has a lot to say about this as well. I believe in supporting our law enforcement and certainly currently sit on the county's criminal justice council and previously sat on the public safety and community service foundation board, where I worked to fundraise and organize their classic car show, national night out golf tournament and other activities in support of our police. I strive to support and promote causes in a way that encourage others to join. And while that is not always possible, I certainly take all measure measures to try to make it so. I would hope that the original intent of the thin blue line flag was a good face effort to show support for our law enforcement. And I find it unfortunate that it has been appropriated by by white nationalist groups and others against the Black Lives Matter movement. But that being said, because it has been inappropriately lined with groups and causes that seek to divide and alienate those in our community, I find it difficult to believe that flying this flag would encourage others to join us in our support of the police as much as it would cause them to further withdraw from such support. And ultimately, I feel that displaying this particular flag would make the jobs of our peace our police department harder and not easier. I've continued to research additional methods to provide visible public support. And I hope that a compromise can eventually be reached that will allow us to meet our common goal of supporting police in a way that encourages others to feel invited to do the same. If, in fact, the main goal of this proposal is visible public support for our police, there's more than one way to accomplish that. And I'd like to encourage our city staff to use our social media newsletters and other means of public communication and outreach to share the support of our police department during the national police week. With all of that being said, I am not prepared to support the presentation of this particular flag and I am prepared to support the staff recommendation to deny the request. Now second. Was that a motion, Council Member Peterson? Sure. Yes, and that was seconded by Council Member Brooks. So we have a motion on the table. Did you want to speak to that motion, Council Member Brooks? You know, I'll just say a couple of words. It is really my honor and a privilege to sit next to all of you who are true leaders in our community. And I'm talking about our council members here who support our police. And I see the work that we do and I know what we do to support them. So I just wanted to make that statement that I am really proud of the work we've done. My last year as mayor, I worked incredibly hard on working through one of the worst years I've seen or have been part of in the violence against people in our community. And it really triggered a lot of change in our community. And I'm so proud of the work we've done and how far we've come as a council and a community together in light of all of those things. And so I really appreciate Tyree speaking up today and being here to reflect on his experiences and that we still have a lot of work ahead of us. So I am honored to be to have seconded that motion with Council Member Peterson because what she said is true. We value our police. This is not a matter of that. Unfortunately, this flag is not inclusive and does not allow for all people to feel welcome. And so I again appreciate all of our police officers and what they do and thank all of you for your courage in moving forward in your leadership tonight. All right. Thank you, Council Member Brooks. Before I call for a roll call vote on the motion, I think, I mean, all of you have been very eloquent on the matter. I'll try not to repeat the same thing that I've already been said. But I wanted to thank T.J. and I also wanted to thank Mr. Ritchie for bringing forth the two sides of this issue and we have had to deal with in our society. Because what I hear from both of them is an appreciation of our police force. And the purpose of T.J. bringing forth this request was to show support with the police department. And however, I'm not convinced that this is the way to show that support or the only way to show that support. You know, particularly when, you know, we have not heard from the P.O.A. about what they feel that they would need to feel support. Because, I mean, we can sit here all night and say how we support the police. But unless we're actually responding to their articulated needs and requests, then, you know, it's, you know, really difficult to do. And at the same time, we have the Chief of Police, which is the leader of our police department, recommending against displaying this particular flag. And in my view, the best way that we can show support for the police is to respect and support the recommendations of the leader. Because I suspect that, and as he articulated, the reasons why are because this goes against our policy of community policing. And, you know, we need to be, you know, reaching out to all members of the community and letting them know that, you know, we are inclusive and we treat everybody fairly. And I just wanted to also recognize the distinction between flying this particular flag and the pride flag. Because that has been kind of thrown out in just a position. If you did one, why not do the other? And I just want to recognize, I mean, to me it's the issue of community policing. This flag and this symbol, the pride flag and the symbol does not represent any particular department of our local government. And particularly the police department, whereas this flag is meant to represent the police department who are here to enforce the laws and ordinances of our community. And so, to me, that's a major distinction between flying the pride flag and flying the thin blue line flag by the police department. I don't think it's in keeping with our goals of community policing. And so, and I think that all that has been reflected by the discussions that I've heard at various levels. We know it's a, it's the entire topic is the visit. So, I think that the best way that we can maybe stop this division but at the same time continue to show support for our police department. And at every instance where if they may be disrespected or not treated fairly, we should stand up and refuse that and counter that in every way we can. And so, and I would say a better way to support our local police department is for everyone to sign up for the POA mail list and make a donation to the POA. And so, and also to speak on the, if I may, on the flag code, I will say I agree with T.J. that this particular thin blue line flag is not a violation of the flag code because technically it is not a United States flag and therefore doesn't run afoul of the U.S. statute concerning the flag code. So, with that, well, I would like, I mean, I would also hope that we could come back or maybe even agree on a different flag. I mean, the staff has recommended the in memoriam flag, which is the, you know, official flag of the National Association or excuse me, the National Law Enforcement Office's Memorial Fund. And that may be an acceptable alternative to the thin blue line flag. So, with that, I'll ask Chloe to conduct a roll call vote. Council Member Bertrand. I agree with the staff recommendation. Okay, perhaps I should clarify the motion and the second is for staff recommendations to deny the request. Okay. Yeah, thank you. I'll call for the vote again. Thank you. Council Member Bertrand. So, I agree with the staff recommendation. Thank you. I vote's fine. Council Member Brooks. Aye. Council Member Peterson. Aye. Vice Mayor Keiser. Aye. Mayor Story. Aye. That motion passes unanimously and that motion is to deny the flag request. So, with that, we'll move on to the next item this evening, which is item 8B, which is the Addiction Moratorium on Housing with Key Funding. The recommended action is to receive the report and direct staff to repurpose the remaining $105,000 in CDBG, fund for rental assistance. Kate, are you going to present to us on this item? Yes. Good evening, Mayor Story and Good Evening Council. First, I'd like to check with Larry and make sure you can hear me okay and that my presentation is visible. All is good. Okay, thank you. This evening, I'm going to present an update as requested on eviction moratorium and housing as key funding. So, I'm going to first go over a brief history on this matter. So, back in March 16, 2020, Governor Newsom signed Executive Order N2820, which permitted local governments to enact eviction moratoriums to protect tenants from eviction for non-payment of rent through May of 2020. On September 30, 2020, the residential eviction protections were extended, but also included at that time was that the state restricted the powers of local government to impose prohibitions on evictions. And then there were additional extensions through March 31, 2020. So, I just really want to stress that our power to extend the eviction moratorium went away on September 30, 2020, related to the COVID-19 pandemic. So, in response to that, there's been a lot going on over the past couple of weeks on regarding the Housing is Key Rental Assistance Program. So, the Rental Assistance, Housing is Key Rental Assistance Program, the highlights of the application, this went into effect just a little over a year ago, and it would cover up to 100% of unpaid rent and utilities for qualifying households. It's a state program, the state took away the abilities for local governments to do their own rental assistance. So, it would cover 100% of unpaid rent and utilities, and then to qualify, residents have to be, have to have fallen behind on their rent due to COVID-19, and they also have to qualify in terms of income levels, and they must be below 80% of the area median income, but they're giving priority to those households that are very low income, and that's below 30% of AMI. The goals remain the same, the goal is to fund all active applications. The HCD is currently has requests into the Treasury Department for more funding, and then, notice went out last week informing the cities that we can only, the rental assistance program is closing on March 31st, and that cities may only fund rental assistance beyond March 31st, 2022. So, from April 1st forward. Next, I'm going to give you an update on what the statistics are for the county and Capitola, but just really want you to understand that if we were to do a rental assistance program, we could not go back for the past two years. It's only forward from May 1st forward, because there's, at the state level, there's always the concern of duplication of benefits of one household getting their rent paid twice by two different entities. So, within the county of Santa Cruz, these numbers have changed slightly since my staff report was published. Over the past week, I think I've had been involved in a half-dozen meetings on this topic, because it's quickly changing and there's a lot of concern out there. So, county of Santa Cruz, the total applicants that came in through the state program was 3,407. Households served is 1,400 and pending applications just shy of 2,000 households. The average assistance is a little above 10,000 for each household. So, in the initial applications, the county received 55 million dollars in requests for funding. The funding allocated has increased over time. At this point, there's 34 million dollars that have been allocated to our county. The funds from that allocation that have been paid out, 16 million. So, there is remaining funds within the county at this time of 18 million and those will be going out to applicants. So, how does the city of Capitola fall into these numbers? So, Capitola, we have 113 applicants. The households that have been served at this time is 50. We have pending applications for 63 households and our average assistance is a little bit higher than what we saw county-wide at 14,000. So, the 63 households that are pending, they fall into three categories. There's 26 of those are in this bucket of irregularity review and that means when their application was being reviewed, there was something wrong with the application that just in the review there were questions of could there was a possibility of the household like two households doubling up or having the same address but maybe different unit numbers. They have to do further investigation, potential fraud and then those items within this bucket, they may be denied by the state at this point because there's just there's something that's not adding up within the application. Not saying that they all will be denied but they're reviewing those cases. The 34 case manager review outreach, these are under review by the state and there's something in the application that's missing information either from the tenant or the landlord when there's also the possibility that the applicant has moved and is no longer following up on the emails that are sent to them or in contact with the state program. So once the outstanding information is received these 34 case manager review outreach cases if they get the information that they're waiting for the case will move forward in the system. There's also three of those 63 which are now moving ahead so they those were probably case manager review they got the information they needed and now they're moving ahead. So this week there have been multiple meetings with the county of Santa Cruz and also the other cities within our county. The county has announced a half a million dollars for case management legal services. This will be case management working with applicants who are waiting funding and helping them get through the process in order to get kind of higher on the list of the state and hopefully funding as soon as possible. The county is also the services that they're providing within the with this half a million dollars will be available to capitol the residents so they can reach out to the county and will be able to utilize these services and then we as city as the city are continuing to work with the county on next steps and I had mentioned that we have the ability to look at rental assistance beyond starting April 1st 2022 and in discussions with the county and our city partners we really want to if we head down that path make sure that it's meaningful follow-up support after April 1st two years after the pandemic we're at a point that our economy has opened up there are jobs available just really making sure that any rental assistance that we do provide is meaningful and supportive for our residents so for our next steps as the city we'll inform residents of the county's strategies and resources to minimize formal evictions we'll also be tracking the state rental assistance program until final allocation funds are depleted be hopefully our numbers increase of those households that are funded and then we also have some money in our CDBG CARES Act funds a hundred and five thousand dollars for that we can consider for unfunded households once the state program ends so we really want to see where the state program is going as I said they haven't even made it halfway through the funding that's been allocated for the county of Santa Cruz once we see that that money has been allocated we'd like to further the discussion of how to utilize the one hundred and five thousand dollars of CDBG CARES Act funds tonight my recommendation has been modified slightly since my staff report due to the new information that's been coming up in these meetings so we're recommending that you direct staff to track the housing is key program and work with the county to coordinate on eviction protection and prevention to return to the city council for a discussion on repurposing the remaining one hundred and five thousand dollars in CDBG CB funds once we have more information and then also in response to the eviction moratorium authorizing the mayor to send a letter of support to the state to extend the eviction moratorium to residents with active housing is key application so with that I'm available for any questions council member for trans you're on you're still on mute council member for trans again keep getting put off me but anyway so I just thank you Katie for the presentation I appreciate it it answered some of my questions about why there's difficulties in moving forward in being that we lost our control to extend programs in this regard so that clears that up and I also appreciate that monies CBG grant monies have been found and maybe we could figure out how to use those best to help people in the city so I appreciate that that's great um so my question is it seems like there's some management difficulties here in terms of trying to make sure that the people getting the money still need the money and that the whole thing also that's one point and also the idea that some of these grants aren't going forward because of a variety of issues and and that's concerning for me and um so in regards to the second point do we have adequate staff report or is just because like you said there's attempts to reach the individuals and you know there's only so much you can do if they don't I mean can you characterize what's going on and in that that second point of mind sure we've been hearing um from our regional partners that there really has been a disconnect um between the administration with the administration of this grant of these funds so the the half a million dollars that is um that the county is going to be providing is specific to administrative funds to actually to help with these case management one on one in getting these applications through and also um accountability and making sure that we're getting better reporting from the state of the applications as they go through the system so that really you've uh hit the nail on the head it is an administrative problem that um with additional resources for our community um for our local non-profits it'll really help us strengthen our um ability to get these cases through the state process thank you okay and um if we figure out a way to handle our cvdg funds will this be through the city's efforts or are we going to have to dovetail with that administrative process that may or may not be functional to our liking so any cvdg funds that we utilize will have to benefit capitol residents and they will have to have a tie back to impact from from the pandemic so um i wasn't i'm not prepared to give you a recommendation yet on what we think is the most beneficial way in which to help our residents until we get more information that the money will go towards our residents can be tied to the pandemic thank you questions from other council members seeing none um kiti i did have a question about um party representation was that the county was um developing strategies to minimize eviction um what are some of those strategies and that we would be basically working with them in that endeavor yeah so they're really they're putting together um they're strengthening their administrative teams and working with local nonprofits um community bridges uh cab and and there and some legal assistance there's different nonprofits that have been helping um that have been helping to get applicants through the system but also bringing in legal aid so to work on mediation rather than evictions in the courts so really um strengthening our admin um abilities to help you know individual households case by case okay thank you any other seeing no other questions from council members i will um see if members of the public would like to speak on this item um if you would um raise your um hand in the zoom application or you can dial star nine um and you'll um be given three minutes to speak you can also send an email to public comment at ci.cappesola.ca.us um larry looks like we have one hand uh yes mayor stirrer we have carlos yes carlos and go ahead please hi uh everyone um cappitola uh council members um um my name is uh uh carlos um i'm a copper leader and then uh for the last couple years we've been uh organizing uh webinars uh by and soon uh to help uh applicants uh i mean tenants uh swap okay app they can apply to the program uh houses ski um so the total um uh numbers is uh like two thousand uh families um with help with uh partner with uh community bridges and uh and cap um and uh we trying to ask you if you willing to provide legal services services uh to these families to uh helping get evicted um and then because they're still waiting for um their funds uh so they can get paid uh their rent uh we've been hearing some stories from families that they already um they have been um probable to find uh apartment or housing because uh that's a lot of um um they ask they're asking for um a lot of money for for their deposit and uh in a copa uh copa recommends you if you consider it using funds for security deposits or people get evicted and um thank you for offering city city funds to help these uh families they uh this is going to be set after the march 31st seeing families living in the cars with the child you know uh those uh stories uh that we've been hearing in these meetings uh we meet we meet uh every monday six thirty uh but in zoom um copa leaders uh local copa leaders and and and we invited all supervisors and we in touch with them and they know um that we asking for help for these families and thank you all thank you for having me yeah thank you carlos um for speaking up and for your work um with copa um are there any other members of the family are like that uh of the public um families are on my mind now that would like to speak to the council your story i do not see any other attendees wishing to speak on this and we have not received any email emails okay i will um pose out the the public comment fortune of on this item and i will bring it back to the council members for uh other deliberation and action council member britain you know i have a follow-up question of katie because of what carlos spoke about um isn't it true or city has a program to help with um security causes such we do we have an emergency rental assistance program for um when someone's had a change of circumstance and needs assistance with rental assistance and we also have a security deposit program to send and so we've passed the budget to include enough funding for that going back to what we normally need i guess yeah i think we've kept our budget at the same level um but it's it's been sufficient for the past few years so okay we should reach out to copa um okay thanks um i'm prepared to make a motion if if uh others have comments i'll be glad to wait i i think if you have emotions there's a council member britain which will go ahead and present it and uh let's see if we get a second okay i didn't memorize the uh the foil that you put up katie yeah you want to put up your yeah there we go yeah thank you very much i'd like to move the um following three items staff recommendations one track the housing is key program and work with county to coordinate and eviction protection prevention number two return to city council for a discussion on repurposing the remaining $105,000 in cbdg cv funds one staff has more information and three authorize the mayor to send a layer of support to the state to extend the eviction monitoring to residents with active housing is key application that's my motion there's that i can second that hey there's um second by um i believe that was my my snare kaiser thank you um so um is there further discussion on the motion um i i didn't want to ask katie uh carlos asked part of this presentation he asked the position b would could um provide legal services but um you know the first part of that motion working with the county the county is going to coordinate the provision of legal services to potentially um evicted um renters that's correct that is correct the county is providing those services with the half a million dollars if there's a need there for more funding it's something i could bring back to you um regarding cvdg funds but we do want to learn more first okay thank you um council members btran did you have your um end up again for another comment yes mayor um so as you know i'm on the senior advisory board part of the senior council in san jacuzzi san veneto counties and part of the one of the programs is to provide legal assistance in terms of what carlos talked about um evictions uh rent negotiations and a whole variety of things it's a small group but that's what they're uh tasked to do so that's through the senior services um you may not know about because it's uh generally addressing senior issues but it's basically for anyone okay thank you any other comments seeing none i'm not slowly can we have a roll call vote councilmember bertrand i agree hi councilmember peterson hi vice mayor keiser hi mayor story hi the motion passes unanimously um which will bring us to um item 8c which is to discuss possibilities for returning to in person city council meeting the recommended action is to provide directions to staff regarding city council along with the planning commission and all advisory bodies conducting virtual in person or hybrid meeting we begin with a staff presentation that's all right go ahead chloe thank you um mayor story one moment i'll get you there are we seeing everything yes chloe it works fine thank you okay thank you so much mayor and council i am going to be presenting different options on how to conduct city council meetings moving forward and we'll start with a very brief quick overview of kind of the status of COVID-19 at this moment as you're all aware things change very quickly so this is not meant to be the end all be all report just kind of a check in where we are now um in san jose county the current case rate is a little above 12 per 100 000 which is slightly higher than the average throughout the state as you are probably seeing in the news a sub variant of omicron has been identified the united kingdom uh has experienced a secondary surge secondary to the original omicron search that we did see here uh so far in new york there has been a 26 increase over the last couple weeks in case counts but it doesn't seem that they're mirroring the exponential growth that was seen in the united kingdom so honestly i don't know to say if that's good news or not i don't we don't know everything but that's the situation as it is uh some good news here about um our very local case counts you'll see from march 20th to 24th our um active cases did go down um so we're currently at 546 here in the county so that's an overview because of course the reason we are holding virtual meetings is because of the pandemic so a little background you may remember early in the pandemic an executive order from the governor is what allowed us to have these virtual meetings now we are doing so under assembly bill 361 i mentioned it at the start of every meeting and that does allow um cities to hold virtual meetings and it amends the brown act as long as certain things have taken place uh two of those is council adopting findings every 30 days and that there is still a governor declared state of emergency in place so you also may have um been hearing uh near the end of last year there was a different assembly bill 339 that requires large cities to allow for remote public attendance during in-person public meetings however just be aware uh the city of capitol is not subject to that bill uh we are much much below um the size requirement so it's background uh and i just want to say i recognize that some of this may be confusing and we've tried to make it as clear as possible so if you have questions please let me know and i'll do what i can to be clear uh this is kind of laying out the basic three options for council to attend meetings moving forward so first virtual attendance much as you're doing now of exactly identical is what we're what we're doing currently the hybrid option would be some council remote using zoom and some in person that would be the same as with the public in person and virtual and then the third option coming back in person all of council here in chambers i wouldn't be all alone uh and that is that is possible now based on orders and rules and maybe some safety precautions based on cope it so those are the three kind of frameworks we're going to be talking about another layer to consider um although not required uh the the size is 250 000 to to require remote public access to meetings there are two different ways that staff has identified that council could direct us to allow for remote public testimony so that the public could be engaged and involved while not physically present uh the first which currently is is available is through email uh the oral communications and public comments can be emailed in this is possible regardless of having a hybrid or an in-person council meeting it allows for public participation and uh as you've we've been doing today it's it's fairly smooth it's not a problem for staff or for council to make that accommodation for zoom uh remote public testimony especially um if there's a hybrid meeting and some people are here in person some are participating over zoom there are some technology challenges at the moment so keep that in mind and we'll we're going to actually discuss that in its own slide here so technology considerations to think about um in particular having zoom for remote public testimony and for council participation a hybrid meeting in the short term staff can make that happen there would be someone operating a zoom meeting and a standalone camera the the slight negative is that that would not create an integrated official community television broadcast it would be a very different um visual while watching at home on television than watching the zoom or watching a live stream so that could be a little clunky however the cost is um is easy to accommodate and staff could do that if we're so directed in the longer term integrating that broadcast and having an identified staff person to moderate the zoom meeting and could be a contractor the cost is really unknown i know that some upgrades and other um things would be necessary so if that's something council is interested in pursuing there'll be a very different conversation so all of that being said if council is to return for in-person meeting there are several common sense measures that we can take that that are very um they're kind of not as time consuming and they're they're easy to do such as leaving the doors open having airflow recommending people wear masks when they're not speaking uh having the community room available as an overflow room for the public so that people are spread out those are things that we can absolutely do um at any point when in-person if in-person meetings are to resume and other restrictions can also be considered if council wishes that would be requiring masking requiring vaccinations or limiting their room occupancy for the meetings so these are possible it's up to council to decide if some of those may counteract the benefits of being in person or not they are available to you so this chart was in the staff report and is really kind of i'm considering this a um choose your own adventure buffet of options for how and when and if you want to come back in person remaining virtual a hybrid lots of different considerations here in this column and can be pretty much mixed and matched based on what council wishes to do so i'm going to leave that up and you know you're more than welcome to discuss and share with staff what your desire is and i'm available for questions and and to help clarify if if i can so that is the presentation thank you so much other questions on chloe's presentation health member brek thank you mayor story um chloe for for clarification when i'm thinking about the hybrid model um in the previous slide it said something about whether we would need cctv or something like that and we're just not sure what that would look like or what the cost is is that correct tell me i'm just trying to remember the the cctv is so that it can play live on our social media and like on the tv i'm just trying to remember what it's for it's been so long i'm not remembering what it's exactly all for um in in terms of what we need what do we need to be a successful hybrid model um is my question sure so i can respond briefly and then if our moderator wants to jump in i welcome him to do that because he's our technology uh genius but i would say yes community television is there's someone physically here and he's controlling what is shown on community television so that people at home can watch the meeting live currently because we're using zoom the visual that's being streamed online through youtube and on our website is actually the zoom meeting and that is what leary um our moderator is controlling so if we're doing both and there's more people than just me here in the room it gets messy and there's sound quality issues it can it can work but longer term i think there's some technology requirements so that cctv would be pushing things out um virtually and i'm going to stop speaking because i don't want to say anything wrong about that no that actually makes complete sense we're we're not quite there yet we need it and and the other cities in our county are doing are utilizing this kind of hybrid model with all of this new technology from what i understand is that accurately the county is doing it and Watsonville is doing it as well so my understanding so we have someone to lean on a little bit yeah Watsonville is going through renovations and is on their way there they haven't debuted that yet but they they certainly have gone through the motions of figuring that out and i believe there are other organizations as well that we could communicate with and just as a reminder to myself i believe this is one of the um goals that we were talking about earlier on or maybe it was mayor's story who's goals was to bring us back at least in person um within within reason but we didn't set a budget right um in terms of putting money towards this yet have we correct i believe that would if if desired that would be part of the budget workshops that are coming up i believe start of in may okay and my last question is do we have any idea on how long something like that could take to set up that i'm going to lean on our moderator for the answer yes mayor story uh councilman Brooks um so we've actually started that process it was part of a uh the mid-year we added some funding from peg to upgrade the city council chambers that includes cameras as well as the infrastructure to to kind of do this what we're doing streaming live unfortunately we are running into some supply issues um it is we i don't have a solid date but the equipment's been ordered um and as soon as it's ordered they're going to come in and do the installation that technology will allow us to kind of what we're talking about kind of integrate both the zoom as well as the in-person meeting into kind of one frame um for people to see as well as participate in um the bigger thing i think um fully mentioned is that we have to figure out how we're going to moderate that meeting that when we get to that point the technology you know we've we've confirmed that it has those capabilities built in um but you know once we move forward the budgeting may end up being mainly for um either have community television who does do this for other agencies to moderate these meetings or to have a staff person moderate it so that way we can make sure that the people you know in in the hybrid mode you know get a very similar experience to the meeting that the people in in person do because right now is i think what collie pointed out if we were to just kind of come in with a camera it would be a very different experience for those folks but um okay so we don't know how long it could take and at this point he said he the kind pinged out a couple times to the the uh the the company and they're looking they're hoping the end of may to get the equipment in and then it's then it's a couple it's not a very long install they'll be able to get it installed pretty quickly but of course you know that's they don't have a they don't have a big state okay um i i'm sorry i there is one more question that comes to mind when we when we use the term hybrid are we envisioning hybrid um we that's for the audience to participate but are we talking about council members as well i've seen like the county has some supervisors in person and there's like a trade-off i i'm not sure that staff has really gotten into the weeds but when you use that term are you also including council members in that model or suggesting so yes and i just would add that remains the case and and a possible as long as we're following ab 361 so we're not prohibited from allowing remote hybrid participation of the public however when it comes to council we do need to have other things in place like adopting the resolution with the findings every 30 days and having the governor emergency state of emergency declared so so as long as that's happening which seems to be the case then yes hybrid for for all okay those are all my questions thank you so much any other council members have questions seeing none um oh yeah i had a question about in the written staff report um it makes reference to whether we would want to set some sort of trigger metric as to based on covid case counts when we would come back um and i was just um since we've been following pretty much the county public health directive um if we moving forward just continue to use that um and as long as they don't mandate um you know in indoor gathering um in terms of mandatory masks or mandatory vaccination um couldn't we just rely on the county health to guide our implementation clarify my understanding of what you've asked um absolutely we would be following county health regarding if council were to return in person and we were to have public hear the types of um recommendations regarding having the doors open and and recommending masks and then those um pieces of your question regarding the metric to trigger returning i think that would be something council would establish uh my understanding is there's no um you're not prohibited from returning now based on anything from county health does that answer your question yeah i i i believe so and i'm just responding to page the top of page 64 and the written staff report where that suggests or says one option is that we may want to establish our own case rate match metric um and i was just i guess what i was posing uh could we just continue to rely on the county public health instead of trying to um you know become a burst on um you know the the public health questions and um and um and and and trying to set particular numbers um ourselves and just rely on the county um you know direction you certainly can rely on the county direction i would be surprised at this point if the county came out with new restrictions on indoor gatherings they didn't implement any restrictions on indoor gatherings during the omicron surge so um certainly relying on the county if there was a county restriction on indoor gatherings we would follow it um the option to create a metric was simply to put it out there if council didn't want to pick a fixed date maybe pick a certain case target but that's completely at your discretion okay all right thank you um any other um let's be council questions i'm seeing none um i'll ask if members of the public at this time um would like to join us over zoom and um contribute to this uh discussion you notice any emails larry uh mayor sorry i don't see any attendees and um we have not received any email from the public okay well i'll bring it back um to the body um for further discussion and um seeing the will of the council anybody like to speak on the matter yes uh does nobody want to come back um council member burr no no um you know a few days ago a few weeks ago i would have said yeah let you know things were looking well and there wasn't talk of a new variance and i felt really confident and um and i think that just is a reflection of our time there's moments where i feel confident and that it's a safe place for people to gather and for us to all be together again and then something else happens um and so under i i actually i'm really happy that the governor put into place this um this allowance through 2024 um i really appreciate mayor's stories intent of trying to bring us back and and building a system that allows us to do so um all my questions earlier in regards to hybrid um i think our uh were were because i was leaning towards going look at creating a space where we can return with a hybrid model um i don't see that it doesn't sound like that's going to happen in the next month or so and and quite honestly i'm i'm comfortable with that because of the talks with the new variance the uncertainty and still um and there's also an element of inclusiveness you know there are some people who would like to participate but are worried or they have um people who they might be worried about and don't want to be be out in public yet and so there's just a lot of different layers to this onion that i don't think we've i've figured out and so i don't really want to press or force um anyone's hand in this so i'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on suggesting we add some more funding to getting chambers um uh updated so that we are prepared for a hybrid model and in several months perhaps um in the summer um it sounds like end of may june and then i think we're not in session in june i can't remember which month but that might give us enough time we'll be prepared to to come back as in a hybrid model um and then we can evaluate if that's actually a good idea or not depending on the variance so um those are my thoughts and ideas is to um put some more funding behind um getting the technology updated to to move in that direction yeah thank you um council member pierson thank you i just want to support uh what council member brooks just said i think i'm also concerned about um returning fully at this time but the idea of um putting some funding behind updating our chambers to allow for hybrid meetings um once we determine that we're ready for it i think it's a great idea um and i'm wondering if um if that's something that i can't remember when our next budget discussion is going to be and i don't know if staff can can um refresh my memory we'll be releasing the budget in the beginning of may then we'll be kicking off budget hearings so if you wanted us to look into the cost to set up the chambers for high quality hybrid meetings we could do that and then present those figures to you in the budget okay thank you was that what you were suggesting council member brooks yeah i mean i yeah yes i think that gives us time that allows us to be proactive we're doing we're we're talking about coming back um so i think we are we're we're doing it all that we can at this time great yeah i think that's um i think that's a smart way to move forward so i just wanted to express um my support for the comments that council woman brooks that made council member we're trans well thank you very much mayor um first off thank you for staff uh as larry said um they're planning to upgrade the equipment so if any need arises and that potential will be able to meet it um even if we don't need uh covid protection i think um the ability to get people involved you know because they don't have to come to the meeting room i think is well worth it hopefully we'll be able to broaden our involvement in the city because of those kinds of technology advances um pretty much what council woman brooks said i i agree with um do things now so we're prepared um but i have one other question and um that you know i didn't hear anything about what staff feels about going hybrid and um as far as i'm concerned that that's an individual uh decision if we're hybrid staff doesn't want to come in it's totally fine with me they do want to come in it's totally fine with me also i don't feel whatever way we choose uh but there's any pressure in any shape or form for staff to all show up in the back of the room um i respect their individual uh decisions in this regard um as whether they feel it's proper for their family and themselves i just wanted to make that statement in um that's it thanks and um actually um i think what you said you to as far as i'm concerned you can put that in the form of emotion it looks pretty good to me as a matter of fact i believe staff is just looking for um direction from us okay direction yeah i'll go along with the that's direction yeah and i feel like we're maybe moving towards some sort of consensus um on that direction so are there any other council members that have comments and and uh yes vice mayor crisis thank you yeah i just kind of want to echo what councilwoman brook said um i do feel like while we're all probably kind of feeling more someone's normalcy as we move forward there is sort of that like looming factor of something else could happen um i'm sure other people in the community as well not just a staff or council probably feel that too um so i i would love to see us uh be inclusive and be able to move forward in a safe manner and then kind of inch our way towards more of an in person type of thing but doing it in a timely fashion that is comfortable for everybody that's involved um and you know from my side of it too not to mention like the convenience factor um i don't know maybe a lot of people are still working from home and things like that i however do not so it does provide me personally with a a little bit more wiggle room within my schedule and if i'm joining a meeting from home rather than going out into the public and doing something like that too so just putting that out there but i i think if we can direct staff to make things more feasible moving forward technology wise and something that works for all of us that would be awesome thank you all right um thank you vice mayor tagi so um you know i guess i'm you know trying to sum up our direction to staff at the site we are asking that the staff research the cost of a um of a fully integrated uh you know zoom and ctv um hybrid meeting uh so to speak um and also um if you could provide us with a timeline on uh getting that installed tested and making sure it runs because i think it's important that that you know we have a quality presentation you know when we're up and running um because i've seen in other meetings um attempts to do um kind of a hybrid meeting on the shoestring and it just turned down to be a disaster so i think we should take the time to do it right get that information um that would also give us some time and instead of maybe picking a hard date right now to go back watch it a little bit um longer um and um once we have all that information um we can then uh pick a date of when we can go live in person because you know i i think that that's going to be the expectation and um and you know the mandate that we um you know be live in person um now you know in terms of staff i just i consider that a matter of the city manager's discretion um and part of this role in managing his staff as to how they may want to participate and so um and um and i don't you know uh jamie there may also need to be some policies and guidelines that we may need to consider and you know and implement um moving forward so to kind of help us um with a framework you know make sure that everything runs smoothly um and everybody has um you know an opportunity to participate so did i um i see councilman lebrouk's hand went is this a good time to ask for new chairs as well i'm just going to throw that out there for chambers updating chambers i guess new chairs put that into the technology budget um there you go that's part of your own when we actually do come back you know i'm not kidding either i know that someone needs to be sure to make it follow the direction um so does anyway did i mean like that uh you didn't want to have anything to add or wanted to collect um you know my kind of summation of where we may be at this time seeing none i think um we have directions jamie you think you have adequate direction at this time to kind of move us forward and i do i do we'll research the cost to a high quality hybrid meeting uh see what's technology the timing of the technology that we've already gotten and if we need other things we'll identify that those costs in the budget and then we'll figure out a timeline for when it'll all be done and we'll figure out how we go back all right that's your point about the policies is a good one actually uh something i need to think a little bit about is it could be new issues that we're going to want to confront ahead of time rather than dealing with them after the fact right and you know i mean some of these may just kind of come up we may not be able to anticipate all of them but as many as we can possibly try to get in front of i i think it will be helpful as we transition to a brave new world to a brave old world so okay anything else on this item um going on and i believe i i believe i did go out to the public on on this item um already so um so with that that brings us to item nine which is adjournment um thank you for everyone thank thank you staff thank you council for um you know conducting the city's business um and as i always end be sure to be kind to yourself and be kind to others thank you everyone and good night