 session of the April 9th 2019 meeting of the city council and this part of the meeting the council will receive public testimony. Thereafter the council members will move to the courtyard conference room for closed session. I would like to now ask our our clerk to please call roll. Thank you Mayor. Council members Crone. Clever. Myers. Brown is currently absent. Matthews. Vice Mayor Cummings. Mayor Watkins. Here. Are there any members of the public who would like to speak to any items listed on closed session and seeing absolutely no one here? I'm gonna assume no. So at this moment we'll adjourn the meeting to our courtyard conference room where our council will now go into its closed session unless we have our city attorney having. Yes I have an announcement. I sent the council a message on Sunday alerting you to an amicus opportunity in a case entitled state of Oregon et al. versus azar and another case entitled essential access health Inc. the azar. This is a legal challenge to new to a new title 10 family planning program that would shift tens of millions of dollars from Planned Parenthood toward faith-based clinics. The reason I'm requesting that you add this as a subsequent need item is that it came to my attention after the agenda was prepared and there's a need to take action by noon today. Okay. So moved. Second. The motion by Council McCrone seconded by myself to add this as a closed session agenda item to today's agenda. Thank you City Attorney Condati. We need a vote. Oh forgive me. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously with Council Member Brown not present. Okay does that conclude your updates? We'll go ahead and adjourn this time. I'd like to welcome you to our 12 30 now 12 40 p.m. session of the April 9th 2019 meeting of the City Council and I would like to ask our clerk to please call the roll. Thank you Mayor. Council Member Crone is absent. Glover? Here. Myers? Here. Brown? Is absent. Matthews? Here. Vice Mayor Cummings? Is absent. Mayor Watkins? Here. If you could please clerk lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. So this is our opportunity to have introduction of new employees. If I could please ask our Water Conservation Manager Toby Goddard to come on up and introduce his employee. Welcome. Hello Toby. Good afternoon Madam Mayor, Council members. Toby Goddard, Water Department. I'm really pleased to introduce Margaret Haddon who is our newest Water Conservation Representative but she goes by Maggie so please call her Maggie. Maggie comes to us from Laverne which is in the San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles County but she came up here to go to the University of California and graduated in 2018 from UCSC with a Bachelor's in Environmental Studies and a minor in Education and she has worked in the UCSC Sustainability Office. She's also interned at the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Exploration Center on various youth education programs. She came to us last year as a temp. We declared a water shortage alert last year and she was helping us with field enforcement of water restrictions. So she first worked with us as a temp and now she's a regular employee with the Water Department. She will be responsible for outreach and education both in the office and in events and online with water waste enforcement, resolution, number of appliance and plumbing fixture rebates and our retrofit ordinance helping us roll out rain barrels and a new home water use report as well as other special projects. I should also note that she's attained already a certification as a water use efficiency practitioner with the California Nevada section of the America Water Works Association and in doing so will help us in the Water Department achieve our mission of providing a safe adequate and reliable water supply for the nearly 100,000 people that we serve from Santa Cruz to Capitola. So in her personal life she does knitting, crocheting, goes to the beach and plays piano. So please help me welcome Maggie to the Water Department. Welcome Maggie. So at this time I'd like to invite Mark Dettel our director of public works to introduce his new employee. Good afternoon Madam Mayor and Council. It's my pleasure to introduce Eli McManus. He's our new solid waste worker. Eli was born in Santa Cruz. He spent seven years in Kauai growing up and then returned and graduated from Santa Cruz High. He currently lives in the county in Alpha 41st Avenue. He has a fiance and a newborn son four months old so that keeps him pretty busy when he's not at work. Work experience he worked for first alarm for two years and another two years in the hotel business. He worked at Best Western on Ocean Street for two years. Graduated from Santa Cruz High and became a certified general mechanic and when he's not working and spending time with his fiance and son he likes fishing for rock cod off his kayak and drawing comics. So please join me in welcoming Eli. Welcome Eli. And last but certainly not least we have our Chief of Police introducing his new employee and or or any please come up and welcome. Thank you. Well Mayor, Council, Deputy Chief of Police, Dan Flippo. It's my pleasure to introduce two of our newest employees that work for our records unit. I'll start with Brianna Cash first. So Brianna is our newest employee just most recently hired. She was born and raised in a small town in Iowa. She went to college twice. She graduated Graceland University with a BA in psychology and then went back to college at Simpson College and graduated with a BA in French and secondary education. She had hopes of being a teacher and then in about 2012 her husband Alex and then moved to the Bay Area. He got a job in the Bay Area and she came out here. At that point she really excelled in some office and administrative skills. She worked for a place called Reliance Metal Center in Union City and she was the ISO administrator and then managed all the company's quality systems and so a lot of that administrative work and duties is really going to pay well for our team at the records in the records unit. She is has been married for seven years. She's really enjoying being closer to the redwoods, the beaches and the coastal communities that we have here in the Santa Cruz area. She likes spending time with her dog which is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Luna. She enjoys playing the guitar. She reads sci-fi and fantasy fiction and loves playing video games and board games. We are really excited to have her on the team. I will let you know she was being recruited by the UCSC for the records job up there and I would want to thank my team and for her for choosing our I think the records family that we have the team we have going really helped win her over and we're glad to have her. All right second but not least this is Andrew. He's kind of a newer employee. He's actually been here for almost three years however it was brought to my attention that we never ever introduced him and so his team pushed him to the forefront and said we're doing this and I'm more than happy to. Andrew was born and raised in Gilroy. He attended San Jose State. He was a security manager for about five years over in San Jose. He wanted to work closer to home. He currently lives in Aptos with his wife Christie. So he applied with us for our records position. He started that like I said about three years ago. He has a 19 month old son Tanner. So he in his off time he enjoys chasing his toddler all around the house. He does enjoy woodworking and working around his house. He's also really lately gotten in some physical fitness activity that's good for all of us. I did ask him what he enjoys most about working at the PD and he really said he enjoys the family atmosphere of the department and we enjoy having him as part of our family. So please join me in welcoming Andrew and I just want to say one thing we haven't for years really introduced any of our police officers that have been hired and I just wanted to say that that's something we can work on. The challenge that we have is a lot of that we're hiring are brand new trainees. They have to go to the academy which is about six months and then they're in about a four to five month in-house internal process that's all our training program. It's all designated by state mandates and so we really don't know if they're a full-time employee for about a year out but I'd be more than happy to you know work on some way because we I want to give you some numbers. I know this is an introduction but real short since 2018 and year to date 2019 we have hired 22 police officers which is an incredible number but before we start high-fiving unfortunately due to retirements people leaving the profession we've lost 21 in the same period. So for an immense amount of work and I want to thank my staff for doing the recruiting and the hiring we're at plus one for now so we're going to keep keep moving forward with that but that's the uh so hopefully we'll have a whole slew of new officers to introduce and get get the community to know them. I also want to take this opportunity if you know good men and women that would like to work at the police department please send them their way and I'd be more and happy to get them into the process and and then on a side note not to bum you out even further but the other struggle we have is right now we have 19 employees that are out on medical injury so with the losses and the turnover that's that's kind of where we're working with our staff but we'll keep at it and we'll maintain positive like I said we'll be introducing more new employees here shortly okay thank you for your time. Thank you. Okay thank you deputy chief and welcome to the new employees um and some of the ones that have been with us for a few years it's nice to meet you. At this time we will have a presentation and I'd like to invite up Rachel Kaufman and Chris Reyes um to talk about the clam chowder fundraiser. You'll want to announce the removal of the first one. And I'd like to also announce that we will not be having a clarity arts presentation this afternoon that has been removed from the agenda. Thank you for the reminder. Rachel. Hi mayor and council my name is Rachel Kaufman I'm recreation superintendent with Parks and Recreation. I also am wearing two hats today because as I am recreation superintendent now I was recreation supervisor for special events and I oversaw the clam chowder cookoff so I'm here for both reasons and I'm also here with Chris Reyes from the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and we just want to highlight the success of this great collaboration of this event. We've been having the clam chowder cookoff for 38 years now and we boast that it's the largest and longest running clam chowder cookoff in the country so Santa Cruz we have some pride in that and um so if Chris wants to come on up and we'll talk about about this event we've had such a success over the years that in 2017 we actually expanded the event to two days and since doing that the the response has just been outstanding and you never know when you make a change to an event you know will this succeed will they come out on two days we're not sure well it surpassed our expectation and now both days are extremely busy Saturdays professional I'm sorry Saturdays amateurs compete Sunday's professionals compete and we get the same amount of crowds the dream in his book it's just been a very successful partnership over the years and so over the last three years that we have done the expansion you know we've averaged about $90,000 of fundraising that this event has brought in which is a really large amount and we really appreciate this collaboration and I also just want to highlight that each year we have about 80 teams compete and they come from all over northern California, Sacramento, Stockton, San Jose and this year with all of these teams coming from all over we even have one from Idaho our very own um Rosie McCann's downtown Santa Cruz won Best Boston this year in a blind judging so it just shows that Santa Cruz has a lot of pride and clam chatter a lot of talent our culinary skills and so it was fun to highlight that for this year so I just want to thank um the San Cruz Beach Boardwalk and give Chris an opportunity to speak as well on this great cooperation. Hi my name is Chris Reyes from the San Cruz Beach Boardwalk just want to say thank you to the parks and rec staff for their support and engagement on this event as Rachel said this has been 38 years next year will be 39 really got started because the city had been doing a chili cookoff in at Harvey West and was looking to do a clam chatter event thought it would work wanted to pair their expertise of running an event like that with our ability to promote and draw people to Santa Cruz and so it was born of that and the first few years that we had it was actually in Neptune's Kingdom we covered the golf course and did all the cooking in there and all the tasting and testing and judging in there and as it got bigger we expanded it and while the faces have changed at the boardwalk and at parks and rec the event continues to grow each year and it's been a big success we're very proud and and happy about the public-private partnership of this event and look forward to continuing it for many years to come hopefully and so we just wanted to say thank you particularly to the parks and rec staff and their team for all the energy and enthusiasm they bring to it because it's been a big success for us as well and something our guests and visitors to Santa Cruz really look forward to so thank you to staff and to your team and thanks to the city for supporting this and we look forward to hopefully many more years of a successful collaboration thank you thank you so much thank you so much for the presentation and for the good work that goes to support our city um so at this moment I just would like to make a few announcements and then we'll move on to our regular agenda so this afternoon we will have overflow seating available in the Tony Hill Room at the Civic Auditorium agenda item 15 which is homelessness and the gateway encampment and the four subsequent items related will begin at a time certain of 4 p.m. Today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television channel 25 and is streaming on the city's website at cityofsantacruz.com Hudson Sanses is our technician for both this afternoon and evening sessions and I would like to thank him for his work all city council members can be emailed at city council at cityofsantacruz.com if you would like to communicate with us about an agenda item we'd like to receive your email by Monday at 5 p.m. before our council meeting this provides us with an opportunity to review your email and include it in the with the rest of our agenda packet please do bear in mind that all items of correspondence with the city and the city council do constitute public records and are generally subject to disclosure upon request by any member of the public accordingly if you have sensitive or private information that you do not wish to be made public you should not include that information in your correspondence our rules of decorum are on the window ledge to my left it's my job to keep the meeting running without disruption and I ask and we ask that you respect your fellow citizens when you're inside and outside of the council chambers so at this time I would like to ask if any of the council members have any statements of disqualification today seeing none are there any additions or deletions to the agenda this afternoon no a brief announcement about oral communications oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not on today's agenda oral communications will occur at or around 7 p.m. this evening I'll look to our city attorney to provide a report on our closed session city attorney at condoning it thank you mayor Watkins members of the city council city council met at 10 30 this morning in closed session prior to the closed session the council added as a subsequent need item a request for amicus support in the case of the state of Oregon versus state of Oregon et al versus azar that was a case filed in Oregon and California challenging new changes to the federal title 10 family planning program that would shift tens of millions of dollars from planned parenthood toward faith-based clinics several cities including new york san francisco los angeles baltimore columbus ohio and chicago are planning to file an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs in that case today and by motion in closed session the council unanimously authorized the city of Santa Cruz to join as an amicus in that matter secondly item a on the closed session agenda this this morning was a conference with legal council existing litigation the case of hatch pomerance versus the city of Santa Cruz et al discussion of that item was deferred until after the close of the evening session this evening secondly the council met with its labor negotiator labor negotiators to discuss labor negotiations with respect to mid managers operating engineers local three supervisors fire management police management and the police officers association and executives council met with and gave direction but there was no reportable action taken there was one item of considering initiation of litigation and two items of significant exposure to litigation there was no reportable action on those items thank you city attorney kandadi so first up is the consent agenda and those are items three through eleven in our agenda packets all items will be acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a council member for further discussion are there any council members who wish to pull any items council member Glover items nine and ten please comes from a brown and just have a question on five and six any other items to be pulled i'll go and pull five and six i'd like to hear more about it so at this time we'll go ahead and see if there are any members of the public that would like to address the council request an item be pulled or speak to any item on our consent agenda with the exception of items pulled by council members which include item five six nine and ten now would be the time to address the council for public comment you'll have two minutes this is for item any item on this consent agenda items three through eleven with the exception of item five six nine and ten which you will have an opportunity to address any of those items separately okay you'll have an opportunity i believe to speak to that item which will be at four p.m. time certain this afternoon your that would be oral communications at seven p.m. oral communications is the time for members of the community to address the council on items that are not on the agenda at seven p.m. so seeing um no members of the public interested in speaking to items three and eleven through eleven on our consent agenda with the exception of item five six nine and ten and we'll go ahead and return back to council for action and or deliberation councilman i'll move the consent agenda with the exceptions of five six nine and ten second so we have a motion by council member matthew second by vice mayor Cummings any further discussion okay all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed okay that passes unanimously okay so the first item we have polled is item number five which we'll go ahead and ask councilmember crown if he had any questions or councilmember brown if they wanted to councilmember brown well i have one question specific to five in relation to six and then my other question relates to both so um we'll go ahead and five and take them all together or i'll start with five so the my question related to item five was the um so my calculation shows that we're looking at about a 13 percent of the total being requested here would go for design development um and then but which is seems high and so i'm just wondering what that just seems high to me if we could get some kind of um report on why those numbers are higher than a standard um percentage for design in a in a bid okay and then the other question i have is related to both um these were non-competitive bids if we could hear just a little bit more about that so the question is for item five in regards to the um the amount do you feel uh Susan oh Susan Nemitz from the library director okay hi Susan Nemitz i'm the director of the santa cruz public libraries um thank you for having me up today we're really excited about the opportunity to move forward with both our branch of 40 and garfield park projects um you know with measure s there were funds set aside for all 10 libraries and we are madly trying to um work through the eight-year time limit on those funds and get all the projects done i know it's unusual for us to request um a non-bid structure to this um but what we've been doing is trying to develop some expertise as we through uh move through the projects across multiple jurisdictions so we can benefit from the strength of that um david tanzo who we're hoping to hire as our owners rep for the city of santa cruz has um done the project in capitola um he's also um done in the past the project in scott's valley um and he has a great familiarity with um both building public libraries and uh projects in the santa cruz community um in terms of abe jason he's an architect from boulder creek and he has been hired on um several projects in the community sorry boulder creek he's from um berkeley sorry be nice if he was from boulder creek he's from berkeley and he has also done public libraries but he's helping us do designs for la selva beach boulder creek um and the live oak original project so we really do believe we can capture that expertise we don't have to start all the way over and move forward with these two projects our hope is to break ground you know these are just remodel projects garfield park it will be modest remodel because they have a decent infrastructure and are ada compliant but brand seforty is a bigger remodel because the building's a lot older we're hoping to have community meetings in may of this year and we're looking at may 15th for um garfield park in may 22nd for brand seforty and um we will send invites to you but we have to get this past first does that answer your question the only other question was with respect to the design the percentage of for the design contract being a little higher than what i understand is standard um i think we got david was arguing to me that it was lower considering the size of the projects and scopes of the project um the smaller the project it tends to be higher design fees is my understanding thank you susan does that answer the questions for council it does and i appreciate um library director being here and also the um knowing when the community meetings are that was a question that i had as well and i'm happy to move the item when it's time okay thank you so much is there any member of the community who would like to address us on item number five on our consent agenda okay seeing them we'll return back then for council action i believe council for crone you were moving item number five so motion by council for crone seconded by council brown for the discussion council just don't want to say how happy i am to see these two projects moving forward and um bringing measure as to our community and i know there are representative friends of the library in the audience as well so i want to thank them for being here absolutely um without further discussion all those in favor please say aye any opposed okay that passes unanimously i'm also ready to move six because she sort of combined her answers that that questions i had so did you get your questions answered as well okay so is there any member of the community who would like to address us on item number six of our consent agenda okay seeing none we'll go ahead and return back to the council so motion by council member crone seconded by council member brown all those in favor please say aye any opposed that two passes unanimously okay so we'll go ahead and move on to item number nine which i believe was pulled by council member clever thank you um i just had a question for director deadl and that was pertaining to the process in which the decision was made for the replacement of the storm drain pipes it looks like there were 5600 linear feet of new six inch 12 inch and 18 inch sanitary sewage and storm drain pipes just curious uh has there been any exploration or conversation around the implementation of any energy generating pipes for our water and sewage systems like they've adopted in say portland for example um i would we've we've looked at it occasionally at the wastewater treatment plant it's probably the only place we've looked at because of the constant flow towards the outfall where we would go out um i don't know if the water departments looked at it in their distribution system we definitely don't look at it in the sanitary sewer on the collection system just because of obstructions and those type of things so that would be the only location i think it would be potentially there um when we last time we looked at it was about three years through three years ago and the technology wasn't quite as reliable as we as we would have liked we're willing to look at it again but at this at that time it was not not there at that point so great yeah that was just um just wanted to know the the timeline associated with that also and if it's been something that we've already been looking at if it's something we've never thought about before or if it's something that we can continue to look at so it sounds like y'all have already been kind of looking at the possibilities of implementation and what are uh when do you plan on potentially looking at it again do we have any more of these projects coming down the pipeline um you know the wastewater treatment plant is an energy uh energy known um or recognized for energy production they product produce about 70 percent of their power based on the methane um presented at the plant and then they also have solar panels to offset some of the some of the electricity that's used um they're constantly innovating the first thing they did is they changed all their lights out to leds which is the most cost effective way and then they reduced their energy use and then um they reduced all their motors um trying to reduce the the load um they will change their um procedures and practices based on the time of use for the energy charges they're on that so um if anybody's going to find the most efficient way to operate that plant i i have very confidence in them um as far as this specific item we'll have to look and see if if the technology's changed um in the last three years and we were happy to look at it again those are all my questions any further questions on this item from council okay any member of the community who would like to address the council on item number nine on our consent agenda okay seeing none we'll return back for action and deliberation council member clever uh i'll move to um accept or adopt kind of consent agenda number nine um just with the the statement that i'd love to see future storm drain and water pipe replacement uh be cross-referenced and look at energy generating pipe technology if possible okay we have a motion by council member lover is there a second second by council member brown any further discussion seeing none all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed okay that passes unanimously as well um item number 10 which is the santa cruise bike share contract amendment amendment and we have claire here yeah claire fleece like transportation planner just available for any questions you have hello um so i was just curious just looking at the contract as it exists right now in section one b2a it specifies around the reimbursement of electricity costs that the vendor shall reimburse city for electrical cost resulting from the charging docks at the minimum rate of five dollars per month per charging dock as of the month that the dock is installed and so on and so forth the city may adjust the electric electricity reimbursement rate at the city's sole discretion with 30 days advance notice from the vendor so just a question i have is can you explain the five dollar per month reimbursement rate that the city is receiving from uber and uh is there a reason that it's a reimbursement instead of uber purchasing the electricity from the city we do not currently have any charging docks installed yet this was in anticipation of installing charging docks so it hasn't come into play yet um it was set up as a reimbursement rate because it's based upon the ability to increase and decrease that number of docks that we have so it's on a per space we know that there's going to be a minimum and it allows for that flexibility to say you can retrofit other existing docks to become charging stations and we have a framework on how to do that and uh just do you know just in general the ridership that the jump program has per month yeah we have around 30 000 per month aggregated since um may of last year when we launched we've had over 250 000 rides 250 000 rides wow um so that's really impressive thank you for getting that set up here just wondering with the fee rate that's associated with the jump bike program which is a dollar for 10 minutes and so on and so forth then they would just based off of those numbers even if everyone was just riding for 10 minutes with 200 000 uh rides that's about 200 000 dollars being generated by uber based off of just these rough calculations i know that they have 30 day passes and all those other kinds of things but just based off of that well I mean or maybe you would have a better idea what would your estimate be of the total money generated by uber since the start of the program um I wouldn't be able to make a guess on that right now uh they are also responsible for all program costs so there's 10 full-time employees that they employ in the city of Santa Cruz they rent a warehouse space in the harvey west neighborhood they purchase all the capital equipment maintain all the capital equipment etc so there's the revenue and there's the expenditure side in terms of revenue because we have a couple different plans we have a pay-as-you-go a monthly a boost low income um and they've also done some promotional I wouldn't be able to come up with a rough number for you totally um I appreciate that and then just the last question um do you know of other cities that have agreement with the uber jump bikes and that have money coming back to the city not that north no okay um I just the reason why I ask is it just you know especially with uber and its background and how much money they're generating just worldwide as a corporation it just seems strange to me that we're allowing them to operate a bike share program in Santa Cruz without seeing any revenue coming back towards the city and especially when we have locally based electric bike companies that we could be supporting and offering that money to support local business so it's just something that continues to rub me in a weird way just with regards to the uh support that we're giving to uber and its political realities and all kinds of other stuff so anyway just bringing that up uh but I appreciate you answering those great questions that's everything hi um thanks for being here so I just have a quick question I know we've talked about in the past and I'm trying to continue the conversation about accountability for users who are leaving jump bikes in obstructing roads walkways etc I'd just like to hear any updates we haven't had any report back on that yeah so this might be a time to hear sure so standard operating procedure is that when the jump team goes out to retrieve bikes either to bring them in for servicing or to bring them in for charging if the bike is parked inappropriately they report it for the previous user to be contacted the previous user is then contacted by jump and if they repeat this behavior then their account will be suspended since we started the program there were a couple warnings in the very beginning as people were getting used to it but we have suspended 120 user accounts and part of that is that that is what the jump team does the other part of it is that any individual can report improperly bikes improperly parked bikes to jump as well by emailing support at jumpbikes.com with the bike number on the back and the time of day jump will then follow the same procedure and notify the previous user most of the time people just need that one nudge to know not to be oblivious about what they're doing most people aren't intentionally thinking I'm going to ruin someone's day by parking this bike in the middle of the sidewalk it's just that lots of times people don't think of people other than themselves so with usually a gentle reminder the behavior has changed and you know the more people that are contacted the better and the more that we can also model good parking behavior at the better the other thing that jumps doing to proactively address it rather than reactively is they're working on a contract with Ecology Action right now to do education encouragement and training in Santa Cruz they should be releasing a calendar of what those events are going to be next month to line up with May's bike month so we're excited about that having Ecology Action already have community ties and connections to the community and being able to delve deeper into that to to partner with jump on education thank you I just have one really quick related it's follow-up to that can I can I if there's any way that we can get a handle on the bike or the bikes that continue to be left on the Laurel Street hill heading up towards mission it's not a location where I personally feel safe to pull over and look at the bike number but it's a location that I have seen jump bikes in the bike way on multiple occasions and it just is a terrible place in addition to all the other obstructions that one seems particularly a safety matter I'll flag that for our ops team thank you we have another question over here I'm going to do council member crone since you haven't had a question then we'll return back to councilman thanks a lot I had a question for the city attorney we talked about maybe people sleeping on the sidewalk and blocking the right of way what can we do to enforce our right of way because this is conservatively 12 people have you know a dozen folks have come forward to in who are wheelchair bound telling me that this is an issue yes and and both the state law and the municipal code provide or prohibit obstructing public rights of way and that has been discussed in the context of homeless encampments the same rules would apply to the parking of jump bikes in a public right of way and that is in order for it to be a sightable offense it has to it has to actually impede the flow of pedestrian or or wheelchair traffic on the public right of way so in other words if it's parked unobtrusively and there's a wide enough path of travel then that would not constitute an obstruction would would are just are the folks who give parking tickets would they be giving tickets for obstruction or would that be a police matter how what do i tell people can i can i tell them to call somebody to you know if they want that person cited for continuing to block you know they leave in the same place all the time called police department um issues about helmets a big issue I noticed um Claire I really appreciate you are getting back to me on um the questions that I posed because they're all from various people who've who've written to me um any statistics on riders under the age of 18 if they wear a helmet can they be eligible to ride we do not track this data they are not eligible uh to ride and uh under any circumstances if under 18 you cannot sign the user agreement if you are under 18 you are not eligible to ride if you're under 18 the education that we put out is if you are a parent do not sign your child up for a jump account if you are a parent and your child has a credit card check their credit card statement if you are a parent do not give your child your jump account login can we um maybe work with ecology action on this as well I mean I 10 kids under the age of 15 passed me all on jump bikes um day before yesterday that is one of the elements included yes it is okay and and also the helmet issue um it would be great to hear about other cities and how they're dealing with any lawsuits against the city uh for either fatalities or severe injuries from not wearing a helmet do you keep up with that or is that I don't California vehicle code does not it's not compulsory to wear a helmet if you are over the age of 18 we always recommend that you wear a helmet jump offers helmet discount programs we're looking at some helmet giveaway programs coming up as well hopefully for the TDM program that we approved will also be purchasing some helmets as incentives that we can give out but more broadly it's not compulsory per vehicle code are there any cities that you know that have laws to the you know any over 18 has to wear a helmet as well not that I know of in the state of california there's some research that is associated with mandatory helmet laws leading to lower bicycle ridership but for the most part again we encourage you to wear a helmet we love your brain do try your best do you have another question yeah um I think we'd spoken before whether I think it was either in this meeting or somewhere else but that there's the intention for the uber jump bike program to expand both in Santa Cruz and then potentially in Watsonville want to clarify if that's true so what's in front of you today is program expansion as part of contract amendment two right um other local jurisdictions ucsc capitol and the county are all exploring the potential to expand as well which um I'm really encouraged by because it would increase mobility options for people who live just outside city limits are in an easy bike ride to city limits to be able to use jump across jurisdictions great um I am just uh concerned with that and the length of time of these contracts that we as a city are setting the example for our fellow county members to break deals with or enter into deals with uber that is not seeing revenue coming back into the cities so is it possible in these contract negotiations or in the expansion to then request five cents per ride or something nominal small to be able to come back to the city so that we can see some form of positive revenue generation from the bike show program that's not something in front of you today but that is something that I can inquire about it's not something that we negotiated in the preliminary contract or was offered in any of the rfp responses that we got from the seven separate firms that responded to our bike share rfps is it so and I'll and you so I just to clarify in the seven rfps that you received or responses to the rfps I guess none of them had any uh revenue coming back to the city correct and who are those bike programs oh um social bicycles zagster b-cycle buigan cycle hop lattice and one from spain whose name is escaping me impressive off the top of the head and are any of those local companies b-cycle had partnered with a local bike shop epicenter cycles who was a trek dealer and even with our local preferences in bidding they did not they were not the first or second choice thank you okay well thank you claire i'm glad that it was brought up in terms of the youth ridership because sometimes i to see youth or people doubled up and at one point i think i saw somebody tripled up on a jump bike so it's nice to know that they're working on some education outreach efforts um and then also just really highlighting that um how it really is this great alignment between um this effort with our climate action plan in terms of some of the rewards that we receive from um those goals being met so if there aren't any further questions from council we'll go ahead and open it up to the community for any questions and um return for action so this is item number uh 10 on our consent agenda are there any members of the community who would like to address the council on this item okay and you will be given a two minutes afternoon my name is a lucha kino uh i have two points the first one is concerns the um the proposed amendment that is before you it has an internal discrepancy that i would like to you to focus on and put aside and at the bottom of page eight beginning of nine in section two point two point two it states that on launch date and thereafter there shall be no less than 25 stations in the bike share program exhibit e she's on page 21 exhibit e however lists all the encroachment permits in all of the stations and there is a list that numbers 23 sites so the contract says there shall be a minimum of 25 no less than 25 and the list is only 23 i'm very concerned about this for the possibility that you approve a contract that does not have a complete list and somebody either at the staff level or at the uber level sneaks in some additional locations as you know i and my neighbors who use west cliff drive have a lot of concerns about this program it has been very successful but it has created it has changed west cliff drive and sidewalk into a parking lot for these bicycles and i'm concerned about having more stations that feed directly onto west cliff drive other stations elsewhere are perfectly fine program works well otherwise but the the bicycles blocking west cliff drive are a major problem if you recall we asked you to delete the bicycle station at woodrow and west cliff drive you to to action your time is up your time is up thank you please delete it okay any other member of the community who would like to address us on item number 10 okay you'll be given two minutes uh i had a chance to look at a couple of the towers at the rental stations and the two that i looked at particularly don't say anything about under 18 not being allowed to ride and it seems like that that should be on the towers because people i do see them reading and because it says nothing they're left to believe it's fine so i'd like to see that addressed thank you thank you any other members of the community who would like to address us okay mayor council my name is clayton markel oddly this came up short notice for me i'd actually written a letter to council concerning not so much the program but the parking specifically i have the same concerns i have a little bit of concern that we are putting yet another hub in when no one seems to use the thing i live half a block from one they've been abandoned in front of my house i have the same questions what is the city doing to try and get uber and jump to enforce their policies they used to have language ubd charged at 25 feet that's since been removed they give you when i call the station i've called in i don't know how many bicycles i get the same spiel there's been language problems i had to call three times to get some bikes out day after that more bikes parked there the contract we have is the only leverage that the city has to get them to enforce this they claim to it they claim to educate i asked them today no we get them an email okay it doesn't seem to be having much effect i don't feel i should have to police the users of these bikes and this company degets them to comply with their own regulations it's stated plainly and i have concerns about city liability for when those doubled up teens youth on the way here i saw two bikes kids must have been 12 or 14 called in two bikes that were illegally parked just on bay street please review this contract before you decide to approve the expansion take a look at what we are this is our only leverage i'm asking you as a representative i don't know how many people who can't make it today please look at that please get them to do a little more perhaps return that $25 fee that they'll listen to i walked home one night from the council meeting almost tripped over a bike parked in the middle of sidewalk hello and thank you for the opportunity to speak to this issue i would like to echo the words of the gentleman who spoke before me as i have encountered these bikes left abandoned in awkward situations whether along the sidewalk of the going up the hill along the river um in our neighborhood i i do think that before going further with confirming any future contract this example that you suggested drew clever that the bikes would provide some income for the city could also provide therefore for some independent youth rangers who would be circulating and and participate in community and supporting safer electric bike riding etc i think the bike itself is a great idea it can minimize traffic problems but i've been cut off by them i've had them zoom out in front of me out of the blue not looking where they're going or using pedestrian walks and so i think there's their hazards involved as well as benefits just like to have you reflect on that thank you okay thank you are there any other members of the community who would like to address this on item number 10 of our consent agenda okay seeing none we'll go ahead and return back i'll be for i'd like to see if clear if you have any kind of response to the sort of the question that was raised regarding the contract um or any clarification you'd like to offer um i'm guessing you might have some questions for claire i'll let you lead and then i'll follow okay count that yeah um so the three things that i heard and maybe council member crone heard some other ones as well was the 25 dollar impact per parking fee is that still something that's being enforced as far as i know that still stands okay um and uh would you be able to confirm that for us i can double okay that would be great um and then uh to your knowledge is there posting of 18 and over language on the station towers um i will go check as well i i believe there is i might be wrong it's in the user agreement as well okay um and then uh just could you speak to the incorrect listing of site locations per the gentleman's statement about the 25 23 discrepancy yeah so the only ones listed in the encroachment permit are locations that required an encroachment permit not all of required an encroachment permit so the 25 active stations could be the 23 that required encroachments and two that don't correct uh is there a way that we could specify that so that we don't get forced through the contract into the establishment of encroachment permits in places where we weren't intending to do them similar to i just don't want to end up like we are in the Verizon debacle where we're forced to give encroachment permits city attorney kandadi did you have a response to that yeah um i don't read the contract as providing an opening for for uber or jump to install stations at other public rights away without an encroachment permit we would have a very good tools at our disposal to prevent that from happening so yeah then i would uh be you know what some things i'd love to see incorporated in the language then is to make sure that there is clear confirmation that there is a $25 improper parking fee that will be assessed on people after their first warning is issued to them also to ensure that there is language uh restricting the use of bikes to people over the age of 18 or 18 and over on all station towers as well as uh just language i'm not sure we're working with the city attorney or whether it's a moot point but to make sure that those site locations and the discrepancies between the mandatory amount that need to be operational and the ones listed as the permit areas are clearly defined as to what that means and how it can be implemented okay sounds like those were all okay pretty consistent with uh things that you were going to further explore is from my understanding okay is there any other discussion council around well just as a follow-up to mr jaquino's point so we didn't we don't see the woodrow and west cliff location here because i'm guessing it doesn't require an encroachment permit that one has been suspended but what is its disposition as of now so you don't see that there because you did not grant it an encroachment permit so it is removed from the list and if at some future time we were to add another location in the right of way another item would have to come before you as with today with adding loud nelson when we have a resolution that's adding an additional site to the encroachment permit so yes that absolutely would happen at any time vice mayor given the fact that uber has the technology to identify when a bike goes outside of the city limits is there any way or i would just ask if there's the possibility of exploring whether or not we can actually have designated parking spaces in town so that we can avoid having um bikes left on sidewalks because it sounds like for members of the community this is a big issue and if they have the technology to be able to detect if a bike goes outside of city limits my understanding would be they could probably have the technology designed to where they can identify certain parking spaces that are specific for the bikes in town it's pretty close but not with within the reliability of gps we couldn't get to like a specifically where a station location is one of the benefits of dockless bike share and why we went with this model as opposed to a dock based bike share as you would think of city bike in new york or other heavy infrastructure bike share systems is that the flexibility is what leads us to having the high ridership numbers that we have so there are benefits and trade-offs the benefit is high ridership incredible mobility for people being able to get truly from door to door the trade-off to that is that there are a lot of growing pains with teaching people how to park bikes appropriately and working through that to get to a place where people are 100% of the time parking appropriately if there was a desire to go to only a station-based model i would first caution against that i think it would harm the utility of the system and second i would say that we would likely need to double the number of station locations that we have right now and as you remember going through the siting process that was not the easiest process it was rather difficult to find locations that were acceptable that minimized impacts to parking in neighborhoods and that people found acceptable and we with the number of stations we have right now in the projected expansion in number of bikes we would not be able to accommodate that projected number of bikes with the number of stations we have at this time all right so now would be the time for action and deliver okay this contract amendment if we put it off until our next meeting to get some answers to the questions that have been raised how much would that affect the contract it would just slow down adding bikes to the streets that's yeah because i do this too many too many people are coming forward and i think that this is a great program in fact i rode around about 10 miles the other day on a jump bike so i don't want to see this program negatively impacted or get people angry at it because right now we have a lot of people who are pro jump bike and there's a growing number who are anti who probably albeit never ride the bike but it's being put in there in the right of way so often that it seems to me we need to figure this out sooner than later how are we going to stop this because just on my way here i saw three you know in the in the public right of way um i don't know if you have any suggestions or ideas short of not approving this and coming back to us how we can work on the complaints address the complaints we're hearing from folks about bikes being left because i want the program to work so what i've heard so far are three things the first is to double check and make sure that we are assessing a $25 fee for bikes that are parked inappropriately the first time is a warning the second time is a fee and then subsequently it's a suspension so that's that's one tool and if we get more aggressive on that and even remove the warning that could be another tool the second is children under the age of 18 who should not be riding and i will repeat did not sign your child up for a bike membership so that's another thing and addressing that through education i think that will be covered through the partnership with ecology action especially because the college action has so many school-based programs and already has so many contacts with the school system and parents the other part to parking i think will be covered both by assessment of fees as well as the education component that's coming up additionally jump is going to be putting hang tags similar to luggage tags on every single one of the bikes they're going to be kind of annoying because when you're riding around they're going to be flapping but what it's going to say is here's how you park appropriately so the annoying is a it's a feature not a bug to really alert people to that so that'll be rolling out in may as part of may is bike month may is a time that we're having our one-year anniversary of rolling out the jump bike program and i think those things that we're doing are going to continue to move us in the right direction and i'm just i heard that portland gets 25 cents a ride i don't know if that's true or not but could you maybe get back to the council and investigate to see if there's cities that are they're actually getting a fee per for each ride that takes place i can check in and see i believe that portland is the bike town system which has a nike sponsorship and everything is branded nike that's explicitly what we took out of the contract today was any opportunity for outside sponsorships so it's it's likely a different funding model than what we have but i'm happy to look into that i appreciate that you took that out to the branding model okay councillor brown thank you for the three-point summary of the questions and concerns raised i would just make sure that um we've covered the question or response to the question of whether or not um must be 18 and over to ride as a very clearly marked on the the towers signage yes signage yeah i'll follow up on that today councilor matthews we do have a motion before us now don't we we do not oh well i'm frankly prepared to go ahead and move um the motion before us in both components because i think you have given us a clear indication that there is a consequence there will be increased education and physical notification on the parking issue on the underage instructions um parking bikes on the sidewalks um i agree with all these concerns that others have mentioned and i think there's been a steady effort to make improvements on those and many of the issues raised kids doubled up on bikes and not riding helmets that happens on non-jump bike riders as well we all know that and cutting in front of people and everything um but personally i i think this is a great program um it continues to improve um i would like to see it move forward and particularly the location in front of lab nelson center is great that's a high demand area so i'm prepared to move the item before us uh requesting specific information on the issues that have been raised by council members here i'll go ahead and second any further discussion council member final question was would be that what would it take for our parking people to be able to cite the jump bikes that are in the right of ways that how would that happen i don't know the answer to that but i can follow up on that i appreciate that thanks council member glover i'm just doing a quick scan of the document for the um let me get the the document that was provided with regards to the contract amendments and just doing a quick scan and word search under fee there's nothing in there about the twenty five dollar fee assessment but there is conversations about one dollar ridership fee fifteen dollar membership fee so at this point i would not be ready to move forward on supporting the contract as it's written because it does not specify the twenty five dollar uh in the language specifically is there a reason why it's not in there it's contained in the user agreement so it's but it's not in our contract correct and it hasn't been we didn't remove it is there a reason why it wasn't included in the contract just not something that we had no didn't come up covered in the user agreement thank you okay all right so all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed aye that passes with council member brown matthews vice mayor comings mires and myself in support council member crone and glover voting against thank you claire okay that is going to conclude our consent agenda we'll go ahead and move on to item number twelve which is um sorry excuse me a presentation by mike fairy a senior planner on the um public hearing around amendment to title 24 uh zoning ordinance around small guiding policy for small celled wireless telecommunications facilities it's a very long title i'll let you further explain in your presentation good afternoon mayor and council members i'm lee butler the planning director and just wanted to briefly provide a little bit of context on this the council's heard a number of wireless communications items recently and has provided direction to the staff to explore how we can maintain a maximum amount of local control over these applications and at the same time we have federal and state requirements that we are attempting to comply with and so the provisions before you today are an attempt to balance those two objectives of making sure that we're providing you with opportunities to comply with the the federal and state requirements in relation to design guidelines and in relation to the shot clocks which are the time that we take to process these applications and so with that i'll turn it over to our senior planner mike fairy good afternoon mayor council members um section 704 of the telecommunication reform act of 1996 has this language no state or local government may regulate the placement construction or modification of personal wireless service facilities on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions to the extent that such facilities comply with the FCC limitations so in practice what that means is when we get an application for one of these facilities we require a california registered electrical engineer to provide a report and at that point of the process they have modeled the potential output of rf emissions from the facility and it's based on the type of antenna that they use the topography the nearby buildings that sort of thing and they estimate what the rf emissions would be so at that point we're in a design permit process in the planning or in the zoning section of the ordinance when we go into the actual building part of that and they construct it we require each of those carriers to come back within 45 days of firing up their system and they physically go out and measure the rf emissions to confirm that they are close to or similar to what was modeled and i think in 90 percent of the cases or 95 percent of the cases all of these facilities that i've seen in the last 25 years have been less than one percent of what the federal government allows in terms of rf emissions um in september of 2018 the FCC adopted a declaratory ruling and third report in order in the matter of accelerating wireless broadband deployment by removing barriers to infrastructure and so as the title kind of indicates of they've basically tied our hands when it comes to the deployment of these facilities and we're restricted at this point to the aesthetics of what a facility can look like in response to that we came up with these design recommendations and guidelines that will become a policy approved by the city council it won't be part of the ordinance so it can be amended rather simply versus an ordinance amendment the design guidelines address antenna preferences equipment preferences site location preferences and height limitations they'll also they're designed to comply with the FCC ruling we did get a letter from an attorney a couple days ago representing verizon and that had he had some concerns about the proposed guidelines and we got a response back this morning that i hope you guys got a chance to read from the city attorney's office that basically says that they feel pretty comfortable with the design guidelines as we've proposed them the final thing about those guidelines as part of that FCC ruling required that those be published and available to the carriers by april 15th of this year so we kind of were on a very quick timeline to get this to you the planning commission reviewed both the zoning ordinance amendments and those guidelines on march 14th at that hearing we had 15 people that spoke with concerns about taking it out of the zoning ordinance the entitlement process most all of the concerns were based on the health effects of rf emissions we did have one speaker that spoke in favor of the project and was not concerned about the health effects the commission made a minor change to the zoning ordinance amendments and that was just to clearly say that the design of these new facilities that were going to occur in the right of way had to follow the adopted standards and guideline policies for small cell facilities so that was a zoning ordinance amendment and then they amended a section in the design regulations that had a minimum five foot 500 foot separation in residential zone districts between the facilities and the planning commission extended that to a 1500 foot separation so that's in the design guidelines so here's a quick slideshow of all this recent legislation so in september the FCC adopted this new ruling it was published in october and it went into effect on january 13th of this year and the primary impact that we have is it came along with these shot clock and i'll talk about that a second the shot clock changes so the new rulings have new standards and limitations for what we can ask for the new deadlines the shot clocks that i just mentioned limits on the amount of fees and rents that a city can charge new standards for aesthetic requirements and basically i think it boils down to you can't require them to have more than aesthetic treatment than other carriers than new standards for spacing and under grounding so the shot clock business is almost shocking for us because we're used to the state permit streamlining acts limitations which gives you quite a bit of time when you're working with somebody these new shot clocks are 60 days you've got 60 days from when the application is submitted to when the city makes a determination and that's for a carrier that puts a new facility on an existing utility pole let's say it's a 90 day limitation if they're going to pull a utility pole out and replace it or put in a brand new utility pole with their facility on top currently the way that we operate is that you've got to go through the planning approval process first the title 24 the zoning ordinance get those entitlements approved and then you'd go to the department of public works combined it's taking approximately 180 to 270 days for these carriers to go through that process and it's now going to be required to be a 60 or 90 day process so we're pretty convinced that it's going to be impossible to meet the shot clock deadlines what happens if you don't meet those deadlines is that the project is deemed approved if we don't have the design standards published by the 15th they can design anything that they want and if we don't decide within the shot clock limitations that application will be deemed approved so what we're trying to do until about three weeks ago we were going to present the new public works section 1538 of their code that's going to regulate these facilities we wanted to show you that at the same time that the zoning ordinance amendments came to you but it got a little more complicated on the public works side we're currently working with the city attorney public works and planning staff to try to fine-tune this new process that public works will have and basically today what we're hoping is that we can get the design guidelines approved you can either continue the zoning ordinance amendments that we've got until we're ready to come back with 1538 the public works ordinance that are going to take over the small cell development where you can approve both today and we can hold the second reading of the zoning ordinance amendments until the public works amendments come back to you for a second reading and i know that's complicated but that just cropped up like three weeks ago i did get a i did mention the letter that i got from paul all britain and the city attorney's response other than that i haven't had any phone calls from the members of the public and i wanted to show you the rest of these pictures i'm sorry i spaced out um so the aesthetic guidelines uh need to be reasonable non-discriminatory objective and published in advance and again that's by april 15th and the purpose of this is to prevent installations that look like this and these are pretty typical for the last seven or eight years maybe and i think this was all in the city of san francisco you've got an antenna that's out on an arm that comes off the utility pole and then it's got the switching equipment a pg and e meter they're all painted different colors they're rusting there's wires hanging all over the place um this is another example where they have outrigger arms coming off uh the panel antennas are directional they're aimed up and down the street and down below you've got all of this switching equipment a big pg and e meter a lot of times when they do an installation like this they'll leave coils of wire so that if they come back to remodel in the future they'll have the wire right there available and they'll have big coils just stored on the poles so all of our design criteria that we've got in front of you today is aimed at having facilities that kind of come out cleaner looking um to me they're obviously still a cell site but um aesthetically they're a lot more pleasing than the previous pictures that we showed so that is the presentation i'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have are there any questions from council members at this time council micron just thinking about um reading the minutes from the last meeting uh and there's going to be some research being done by the by may 14th um does this what's been in front of us if it passes does it have to come back to us again or no the zoning ordinance amendments that we're proposing today would have to come back for a second reading would they be able to come back at may 14th when we absolutely okay i just want to make sure and and the whole notion uh and i i would just like to hear from folks talk about the aesthetics and placement of equipment that that's i think what the focus might be about even though i'm extremely sympathetic to health issues but if you could include something about your thoughts on aesthetics and the placement of the equipment okay are there any questions from the council at this time okay we'll go ahead and open it up to the public i received a request for additional time on behalf of an organization emg aware and i believe um satya orian is going to be representing or speaking on behalf of this organization you've been granted additional time for three up to three minutes please come ahead thank you um mayor watkins and city council um i i think the ordinance is good but there's a number of changes that i think are very important first of all i'm i'm very concerned that the public process has been completely removed um that it does not seem right that the only thing left to us will be appeal to the council which would cost and we can't afford to pay for appeals so my suggestion as an alternative to that would be um public hearings with the planning commission now i hear you talking about the shot clocks but i've also seen some some comments on that that these are not legally binding that there are suggestions that they're procedural um i think public process is extremely important and we can't be bullied by the telecoms we have to have public process or we have to have the fees waived for appeal we have to have the right of the public to speak um another important piece that i'd like to see added which was from the monorail ordinance they have the wording that they use um for denial of incomplete applications which also helps with the shot clock immediate denial if any portion of a submitted application is incomplete or deemed unacceptable the application will be denied without prejudice the shot clock will be terminated and the application disqualified the applicant may submit a new application with the necessary accompanying fees to restart the shot clock and and the approval process so i think we should consider adding that and also the thank you to the the planning commission for the 1500 foot minimum spacing i think that should be also amended to be in all zones not just residential um and and for a verification of that Verizon Zone CEO we have this on video Lowell McAdam he verified that 5G does not need to be line of sight and will easily travel 2000 feet or more so there's no reason why they need to be in any zone less than 1500 feet um i would also like there to be um immediate i didn't see the public notification in there i'm sure it is but immediate public notification of everyone within the 300 foot radius of proposed installations and also immediate posting on the city's website so people can know that these installations are going in just to just to go back to public process i know there's something in there about an applicant sponsored public hearing and you know while this is great for letting people know what's going on it's not valuable public process thank you it's propaganda thank you all right so this is for item number 12 for any member of the community who would like to address the council on this item you'll have up to two minutes to speak hi my name is sylvia skeffich i'm a doctor of chiropractic i live within the city limits on kayuga street and i've been here many times before and given comments on the looks and the height of the polls and i've lost my argument each time and i'm disappointed by that but i'm here as a person and even though i know the validity of health effects isn't going to go very far i'm speaking as an electromagnetically sensitive person to the point where i would call it handicapped i would call it handicapped um so i'm also a health food nut and i will eat healthy food only my neighbor can eat as many cheez-its and hostess cupcakes as he wants but no matter how much the industry supports him to do that i am not forced to live that lifestyle or have that kind of ill health effect myself however if that very same neighbor wants his streaming and the industry supports him to have that i am forced to undergo the health effects that i feel when i'm exposed to that kind of radiation which is heartbeat irregularity muscle aches and pains head pressure head pains hot flashes sounds in my head and nausea none of which i have when i'm outside of the ambient field none of them so i'm just here to state that and i'm also here to say that as i might go get a designation as a handicap because then the public writes a passage i am afraid i'm not going to be able to use the public right as a handicapped person and i know that there is ways to get designated as that electrically magnetically sensitive handicap and i might use that in the future to fight that my right of passage is impeded and i won't have to leave the room now because this room is highly uncomfortable for me thank you okay next please oh dear i'm really grateful to hear um Dr Skeffich's presentation but i'm also really saddened by it i too suffer extreme consequences and have noticed how my body has changed just being in here even with the fans you know the radiation in my head the palpitations in my heart and i have no problem speaking publicly i've spoken many times to the county and also before you all by the way i did vote for each of you and so i really want you to hear what i have to say about this um you know i i i understand that we're caught in a catch 22 with the um FCC regulations the old rules that were imposed way back in the day when there was a deal i think believe during the clinton administration's rule a deal between Verizon and yeah okay sorry oceans um my point is there is now a current um debate here within our own nation within our own state and within other cities and countries around the world about the health risks of this technology now i won't say that i don't ever use this technology it's brilliant but do we need more and more and more the next new device and do we need it imposed on us everywhere all the time i suffer from this technology i use it i have a cell phone i use it in emergencies or as needed but i i also am seeing young people uh walking crossing streets without even looking where they're going because they're in devices with the recent brain trauma i was told not to use any devices it's more than a year and a half and i'm still hypersensitive to all of this i'd just like to conclude with 30 seconds please no i'm sorry i i am pretty consistent with the time so everybody has an equal voice but you're welcome to leave your comments and or email us your comments so your time i just think that the um testimony of the county health officer is really important to look at as well okay from 2012 your time is up thank you next speaker you'll have up to two minutes please hello um thanks for all the work you folks do you really have you have a lot going on don't you anyway my name is uh riko baker i'm a vietnam veteran and i'm strongly affected by electromagnetic fields partially because of the jobs that i had uh in the navy i want to emphasize two points first a state legislature that's us is not subject to federal direction this was made exceptionally clear by the court case new york versus united states in 1992 section 188 and i quote the federal government may not compel the states to enact or administer a federal regulatory program it is uncontestable that the constitution established a system of dual sovereignty the federal government was granted by the states only discreet enumerated powers in article one number eight and this was made extra clear by the tenth amendment the constitution ensured that the various state governments would remain accountable to its citizens there is a separation into two spheres state and federal just like the separation of powers in the three branches of the federal government this principle was made clear by madison in the federal papers number 39 and 51 for example so the two points are number one on one hand we have the importance of maintaining the separation of powers as mandated by the constitution on the other hand we have this rogue federal agency the FCC meant to protect the citizens but now captured or commandeered by the communication corporations themselves this is called having the fox guard the henhouse in general we do not like to deal with messy lawsuits but it is a matter of being true to our oaths we did take oaths to defend the constitution thank you thank you very much thank you joanne well felt 4g 5g um there is a african prover that says if you go fast go alone if you want to go far go together it is said 4g will take our health and sense of well-being 5g and ours will uh put us in the millimeter frequent millimeter wave frequencies and will make our brains disoriented in days of millimeter wave frequencies we may be can have permanent brain damage a society of dementia perhaps we won't be able to care for our families nor ourselves the credible scientists say 5g will destroy most living organisms on earth and including humans and the earth belongs to all of us not just those that have created the 5g agenda we must speak the truth here our lives depend on it as we speak elon must elon must ceo of tesla the electric car company an owner of space x is in the process of putting 12 000 satellites to be millimeter wave frequencies to earth he has already put up five of these satellites 8 000 more satellites are planned by other companies for a total of 20 000 satellites to beam millimeter wave frequencies on us on earth this is weaponized frequencies used by the military also elon must is involved at the california-based company called neuro link i highly recommend you you google neuro like brain neuro link in developing his brain mesh that has a radio frequency chip he wants to install this mesh via the carotid artery which will migrate up into our brains so that the radio frequency chip will connect to robots this is a form of transhumanism and the future looks bleak unless we come together as a group preserve our earth and humans stopping 5g is excuse me ma'am to our survival with gratitude thank you and thank you okay i'm quoting harry v layman a lawyer specializing in engineering and scientific proof cases uh set he's had a seven years focus on dna breakage from data mod modulated rf he served with president reagan um he is urging the senate to suspend its approval of a national close proximity microwave radiating system underlying 5g and if 4g 5g goes in he says there could be massive data hacking would allow foreign powers to track the day-to-day details of virtually all human life in us including location and movement of military assets and personnel thereby national security impairment includes the ability to see inside buildings as well um and this creates severe civil liberties personal privacy impairments from ubiquitous surveillance never previously experienced in the united states so i'm trying to give you some other things in the health effects to work with uh ems is recognized by the american disabilities association a da public utilities may not incommode anyone in the public right of way there's going to be a lot of problems here as people are claiming disabilities and doctors are signing off on these so you know lawsuits usually come to mind um we can't become a fascist city or county and not allow public process on these issues um we elected the supervisors in the the county clerks here everyone here has been elected by the people and the planning committees too um so it's important that the people who elect you get to have some say in process not just a few wealthy elite people thank you thank you next speaker please hi i'm glenn chase i'm a university professor in environmental economics i'm an expert in environmental toxins i worked with this city on the light brown apple moth and i was instrumental in stopping that program it was a category three toxin i want to read something from google insurance companies call wireless radiation electromagnetic insurer loyals of london has excluded any coverage for injury resulting directly or indirectly from electromagnetic radiation people know who loyals of london is here's a statement from verizon on their annual report to the securities exchange commission our wireless business also faces personal injury and consumer class action lawsuits relating to alleged health effects of radio frequency transmitters which they're putting on your polls we may be required to pay significant awards or settlements so they're re disclosing to the securities exchange commission not to you or to the public i want to then read nationwide's insurance policy on a premier business owners liability coverage form every insurance company including loyals of london who they all follow has excluded coverage liability coverage from any electromagnetic which is wireless radiation and they include the electromagnetic in this exclude asbestos electromagnetic lead or radon so what i would suggest to you is get in their way as best as you can check every vendor and equipment that goes up in this city is required to have insurance ask them for the insurance on their equipment and the other thing is is the attorney read that the telecommunication act as long as it comes within FCC regulations for for environmental i didn't hear them saying it comes within FCC regulations of the risk that insurance companies will not take so they're going to take it and if you put it on your polls you're assuming the liability okay next speaker thank you i'll have up to two minutes hello i'm rabia barkins and i want to thank the council for the changes they've made in the or ordinance so far i would like the to ask the council to deny telecom permits if the ADA compliance is not met fully and to ask to expand the ad language to read all wireless facilities applications permits and approvals shall be accepted issues and issued only if a full compliance with the ADA section 504 of the rehabilitation act of 1973 as amended the fair housing act california government code 11135 an all applicable state and federal disability or discrimination laws there are real health concerns with three four and five g microwave radiation i'm a health practitioner i know about the science i know about the biochemical changes in the body the nih and us toxicology institute did a 25 million dollar study showing clear evidence that microwave radiation causes cancer based on biological changes in the body so it's not just thermal heat changes as the 1996 telecom act says i propose the city of crannet santa cruz is not fully aware of all the possible health side effects for themselves and the residents and i want to put special attention on the ADA plan there is an important ruling by the california supreme court t-mobile versus san francisco the supreme court supports city governments to take power to regulate placement of self facilities we know that any 4g facilities will be eventually also 5g facilities with much higher microwave power and more hazards your time is up thank you before our next speaker continues i'd like to get a sense of how many people in the audience are interested in speaking to this item okay i will go ahead and we have a presentation at 230 i believe if you could please line up to my left and stand in line we'll have up to two minutes but with a conclusion of public comment at 230 for our presentation and award ceremony so please hello my name is tammy downlay i've been in the area since 1975 i always had incredible health in early 2000 when they started deploying all the cell phone towers and some a quarter mile from my house i severe insomnia and watch it go from 2g to 3 to 4 i mean it's been so hard just to be in this room like the other speaker said is like all the charts horrific and i feel for all of you and i hope you do the right thing to protect our community because we i don't believe we'll have one if you get these 5g towers everybody that's weak pregnant the children it's going to be horrific it's already bad so i pray that you do the right thing i'll let other people speak thank you thank you very much good afternoon i'm brett guillard um i think council member crone made a good point in saying we should speak to the aesthetics just because of the crazy laws so i'm going to go out on a limb and say that i think all 5g antennas are hideous no matter what they look like and i'm serious because you know if i see a nuclear power plant it doesn't matter what it looks like i'm afraid of nuclear power i cringe it makes me uncomfortable to see nuclear power plants and 5g i i'm not aware that i'm sensitive but i've heard very convincingly that other people are and i will be frightened when i see those 5g antennas i'm very proud to live in a sanctuary city sanctuary means we keep our people safe not only from immigration authorities but also from the fcc and from corporations deploying 5g technology that is untested unnecessary and probably dangerous we should not become guinea pigs we resist ice we can resist the fcc please keep us safe thank you i'm kerry and i'm in the same category as many people here i am sensitive i worked in electronics for 25 years and i have a master's degree and i understand quantum physics this is a hell quantum physics type of equipment it's a laser it's cold laser it uses diodes and when i turn it on you can see that there's something coming out you can see that if you put this right up in in your face it might do your main blind you the cell phone this is fda approved for inflammation and pain which is what i get being around cell phone emitters of any sort and or even dirty electricity or internet that's inside wi-fi i get that causes me inflammation and pain and oxidative stress which basically makes me sick and in a lot of pain and i suffer because of that with these tools technology can be used to benefit persons but it can also be overused or inappropriately used to harm people places and things every living thing is in jeopardy from microwave radiation it's just a different kind of radiation the sun is dangerous if you get a blister as a child you can have cancer as an adult because it takes that long to work the new technology however has sped up these same kinds of damage it doesn't feel like you're getting any damage but you are and it will come out now this is not to be played with and the profits are on the table for the corporations next speaker please hello folks um i'm varvara paisis i've lived in santa cruz county about most of my life and i just recently retired from the university library um this is my first time speaking in front of the city council so it's great to see all of your faces and thank you for listening um i'm here today because we are at a critical juncture and i want to encourage you to be bold and to stand up for our future one professor calls 5g the stupidest idea in the history of the world another research scientist calls 5g the most dangerous idea since the atom bomb but it's even more dangerous because it's going to be deployed worldwide the numerous negative health effects of 5g have been extensively documented less yet this technology will not be tested for safety before being installed in our communities until these tests are done i would like to see a full moratorium on small cell technology on ugly small cell technology 5g will negatively affect all life forms at the cellular level humans plants insects animals and microbes today we are here later discussing the homeless yet with thousands of small cell units mounted on our neighborhood telephone poles we will no longer be safe in our own homes nor restful in our own beds we cannot opt out as individuals families or households we are concerned about climate change yet but with 5g thank you your time is up thank you very much okay our next speaker hi my name is gary scofill i'd like to read an international appeal appeal to stop 5g on earth and in science this was addressed to the UN who uh world health organization EU council of european governments of all nations we the underside scientists doctors environmental organizations in citizens by the way 64 000 signatories from 168 countries urgently call for a halt to the deployment of 5g wireless network including 5g from space satellites 5g will massively increase exposure to radio frequency radiation on top of the 2g 3g 4g networks for telecommunications already in place rf radiation has been proven harmful to humans in the environment the deployment of 5g constitutes in an experiment on humanity and the environment that is defined as a crime under international law from the nuremberg trials telecommunications company worldwide with the support of governments are poised within the next two years to roll out the fifth generation wireless network this is said to deliver what is acknowledged to be an unprecedented social change on a global scale what is not widely acknowledged is that this is will also result result in unprecedented environmental change on a global scale despite widespread denial the evidence that radio frequency radiation is harmful to life is already or overwhelming in 2015 215 scientists from 41 countries uh based on 10 000 studies peer-reviewed scientific studies demonstrate harm to human health from radiation alternate the altered gene expression altered stem cell development cancers cognitive impairment dna damage miscarriage sperm damage learning and memory deficits into children increase autism recently an mit scientists extrapolated that one in two children by the year 2025 will have autism this will only exacerbate that issue um and okay thank you very much thank you hello city council steve codcanon uh fifth generation Santa Cruz and i i just don't know if i could add to that but i would like to speak on the more romantic and metaphysical the FCC or anybody or any company can't possibly harm human life and that of the children and the unborn children my god if we were on the street and an adult was harming a small child we were the intervene to some extent they might say i'm the parent the child is out of control if they did irreparable harm to that child we would go through a process we would call the police we might in rare cases intervene we're at the point where we have to intervene so regardless of the technology as explained by the attorney uh this protocol we're going too far it's it's it's becoming it's a state of war hopefully it's one we can talk about and we're losing the ability to speak publicly the jeffrey uh the uh supervisor from wassenville he had to get involved they wanted to put a cell tower right in their little community right in the middle because it would bring profit it was defeated and he said it is unfair for the common man to have to go up against these corporations this proposal uh on 12 there's some way to drag our feet now in up in the bay area there's an attorney advising city council and the people run the stuff the lawsuits that are going to come in are going to be in the millions towards the billions so we may postpone this we're going to get nailed i'm going to probably join in them well i have to agree with steve we've reached the point where we have to intervene we have been completely hypnotized by this technology people have been sucked into severe addiction to their devices and they've created the impression that there's an unsatiable demand for ever increasing bandwidth how do you feel now do you feel much more fulfilled than you felt 15 20 years ago when these devices did not exist and yet there are thousands of studies which are completely ignored by the legislative community and and buried by the corporations which show the manifold harms of these frequencies and these wave forms the wi-fi frequencies are pulse modulated they come in little pulses and those pulses are much more deadly than the frequencies themselves they do affect us down to the cellular level they interfere with our nervous system they block biological processes in the body as amply documented by martin paul who's the man who said that 5g is the stupidest idea in human history there are many people now who are putting out articles to the effect that this is an extinction level event but we're already being harmed by 3g and 4g we are in a situation where we have to change the way we're going we're being forced into this by federal regulations which as the gentleman earlier argued okay your time is up thank you i'll be setting that up i'm here to talk about real science we'll go ahead and oh do you want to start the timer two minutes you there um i'm here to talk about real science real math and i have an example here um wtf is not what you think it is it's what wireless technology facilities which is a blanket term for every kind of cell tower 5g um let's go through simple math exercise on why wtf 5g is going to save many many lives um and i'm just going to give you one example self-driving cars not medical not all the other things uh the key about 5g is latency latency is the amount of time it takes for a digital device to react current cell technology is 60 milliseconds right now so you know your cell phone your 5g 4g lte has a 60 millisecond latency time what does that mean in terms of a car driving at 60 miles an hour that car will travel five feet in 60 milliseconds that's not enough um latency not short enough latency to avoid hitting up pedestrian obstacles and so forth 5g on the other hand one millisecond latency what happens in one millisecond at 60 miles an hour that car travels you can it'll only go one inch what that means those self-driving cars takes over from us humans who have drunk drinking distracted no more no more pedestrian deaths no more car accidents on 17 think of the lives saved with the simple you know this this new generation technology it's all in the math and it's all in the technology everything else you've heard so far is pseudoscience on red you know hearsay the birds falling out of the sky in the Netherlands which has turned out to be a hoax and so forth i urge you to really focus on the this next industrial the next phase in our industrial revolution which is 5g and this is just one example real example real math real science things good afternoon i'm scott ram there there has to be other jurisdictions states cities counties that are suing the FCC and i think that you guys should join in on that because this is ridiculous that all this is being forced down our throats without any any recourse whatsoever uh i mean i use the technology but i still think that there's a way there must be ways to do it that'll be safer i mean we we have a lot of very intelligent people in this country and and to go steam rolling ahead with this without looking for a safer way to do it seems ridiculous to me the other thing is on your aesthetics or uh whatever of these towers there there should also be something in there to prevent birds from landing on them or landing near them because they can get fried and or you know have uh cognitive damage done to them for being too close to the the towers for too long and as my understanding of this is that we're not talking about just radio frequencies it's a certain type of radio frequency called microwaves and that cooks food and so you know what are we cooking our brains with these microwaves and are we is this you know an experiment to like lessen the population of the world so that uh the rulers can then have more control over what who's left thank you and you'll be our you'll be our last speaker on this item feel free you'll have up to two minutes i'm walking slowly because i have a sprained ankle i'm in a boot and boy are we being booted around by the telecom industry big time taking the word of the telecom industry about the safety of this technology is like and we just have an example is like believing big tobacco about the safety of their cigarettes the evidence is overwhelming to the contrary i'd like to remind you that no person no child no fetus has consented to 24 seven bodily microwave trespass from 4g 5g or any of it we do not consent to this known harm being forced upon our bodies and elected representatives need to be defending and protecting the public from harm this is a toxic trespass issue it's a corporate rule issue if you saw the dvd i gave you or seen the Verizon promotional videos about how 5g penetrates walls and goes into your house if you have somebody trespassing into your house you could call the police but here they can trespass with harmful radiation and that's supposed to be all right somebody called this a telecom tower tsunami or telecom tower blitzkrieg and i looked up blitzkrieg warfare sudden warfare overwhelming like disaster thank you this needs to be halting and i'm going to give you copies you're welcome to give copies i'm going to give you copies of the 5g appeal okay stop this your time is that please sign on to them okay so now it's um i'm going to go ahead and conclude public comment we have a 230 presentation at this time we've concluded public comment but you're welcome to leave your comments here with our city clerk we have an an opportunity to recognize some of our outstanding volunteers in the community and um they are enjoying a reception uh in our courtyard conference uh courtyard area at this time i'm used to saying courtyard conference room we'll go ahead and have we'll go ahead and have we've excuse me excuse me go ahead pause i'm going to ask that you please keep your your comments down we had an opportunity to hear from the public at this time we're going to go ahead and take a pause on this item we'll return back for action in just a moment but we're going to have a moment to recognize some of our outstanding volunteers um we'll go ahead one second one second just don't where there are other people waiting to speak i think the older woman in the front i've concluded public comment at this time on the item they're welcome to submit comments at a future time okay so we're going to order i would like to make a motion that we have two more people who are waiting uh in the front row to speak or one was in the front row one was in the back row there's two more people to speak on the last item they're waiting in line they weren't able to stand up during the whole time second and okay there's a motion to extend public comment all those in favor please say aye aye opposed no okay so that passes with councilmember crone glover brown and vice mayor Cummings in support uh Myers uh Matthews and myself against if we could since this has been extended and there's two additional people that were granted to speak i would say one minute but i will um were you one of the two top the two people that were granted to speak i'll go ahead before we get started will you go ahead and let the folks in the courtyard know that we won't be joining them at this time but they're welcome to come in at the thereafter for the presentation they can have the two additional speakers can have up to two minutes okay my name is Breanna Garcia um i've only lived in this community 14 years i think or 15 years but anyway um just being in this room again for me is very difficult my heart's been racing i know my blood pressure goes up i went outside to my car i felt much better i think this is i'm i'm i'm i'm afraid i'm afraid for the children i'm afraid for the old people i'm afraid for myself i'm afraid for the animals for the bees what are we going to eat if we have no bees i mean this is very serious and i think it's i hope somebody because people spoke spoke very eloquently today i was really impressed i learned a lot and i'm really concerned about due process like can't don't we have any power are we just going to lay down it's just like a holocaust and maybe people you know you guys believe it or not but it's true and this is getting crazy it's like on the level of you know genetically modified foods and other things like that this really matters you know we need to be able to think lately i can't remember you know what i can't remember anything you know it's like i can't find my words what's going on you know and i have a cell phone and i have a like a shield on it but i actually honestly my heart i missed the time before cell phones i missed the time before this this technology when we were connected and it's really we're not going to go back that way but we really need to resist the federal government we're a sanctuary city and i know there's a way around this and what's up with one month this is coming this crazy all right so thank you very much for giving me this time i know you extended thank you governments and organizations that ban are worn against wireless technology 1993 environmental protection agency the FCC's exposure standards are seriously flawed 1993 food and drug administration FCC rules do not address the issue of long-term chronic exposure to our f-fields 1993 national institute for occupational safety and health the FCC standard is inadequate because it's based on only one dominant mechanism adverse health effects caused by body heating 1994 amateur radio relay league bio effects committee the FCC standard does not protect against non-thermal effects UK department of education in 2000 children under 16 should not use cell phones except in an emergency 2002 interdisciplinary society for environmental medicine 3000 physicians in Germany recommends burning cell phones banning cell phone used by children and banning cell phones and cordless phones in preschools schools hospitals nursing homes events halls public buildings and vehicles 2003 american bird conservancy and forest conservation council brought a lawsuit against the FCC because millions of migratory birds were being disoriented by microwave radiation and crashing into cell towers 2004 international association of firefighters opposes communications antennae on fire stations 2005 solstice austria's public health department okay your time is up okay okay you'll be our last speaker all right thank you thank you for listening thank you for extending my name is nan schweiger and i have just very brief please look at what dr jack cruise a neurosurgeon has to say about 5g it will shred us please go to youtube go to the internet jack cruise 5g please listen to this brain surgeon it busts our dna you want strokes forget about cancer strokes aneurysms this is coming this is no joke they're circumventing the constitution with us please stop it thank you so we will uh conclude public comment we'll go ahead and take a pause for our um presentation and recognition of our outstanding volunteers no come in here now 230 is someone did someone we'll take that's great everybody smile all your dogs wonderful hello okay welcome um we'll go ahead and get started so we're now on item number 13 which is um an opportunity for our uh city council and community to recognize some of our outstanding volunteers who are at this time filling our chambers so welcome to you all um i'll just briefly make a few comments and we'll move forward with some of the recognitions um so national volunteer week is about inspiring recognizing and encouraging people to seek out imaginative ways to engage in their communities it is about demonstrating to the nation that by working together we have the fortitude to meet our challenges and accomplish our goals the cities are volunteers who give their time and their commitment to the city of santa cruz are outstanding examples of what can be accomplished when people care about their communities and so today we have an opportunity and privilege to recognize some of the finest of these volunteers so laura please uh proceed with your comments i want to thank the city council members for helping us recognizing our outstanding volunteers in the past year over 1500 volunteers have given their time talents and commitment to our community it is a privilege to acknowledge the outstanding city serve heroes who work to make our local lives better and improve our community i'd like to introduce karen delaney the executive executive director of the volunteer center and my boss who will help me hand out the awards and um i'll call out the name and i will apologize for saying people's names wrong because i do every year no matter how much i practice um and when i call out your name if you would come up and the council member will read the award and then karen will will give you the award so our first uh outstanding volunteer today is abby young abby is the founding member of the first firewise neighborhood group in sanikers county firewise is a nationally recognized program that was developed to create greater resiliency within neighborhoods for the impacts of wildland fires abby and the firewise group have increased awareness of the tasks necessary to reduce fire risks and enhance emergency preparedness but even more importantly has taken action in the form of vegetation management in the prospect heights neighborhood abby has served our community making sanikers safer and inspiring other volunteers to do the same thank you and our tails to tails volunteers and um i'm not going to try to read everybody's name so if our tails to tails volunteers would come up and maybe introduce yourselves my voice isn't going to last a long time come up to them just come up to the mic introduce yourself shila dean our line but more importantly mazy i'm phil kipnis and this is nana nana is one of our wonderful volunteer um poodles i am kipnis and i've got the other standard poodle miha norma sacks and schnauzer cooper i'm lexie and this is isekya roe Shapiro and maxine thank you very much for doing that i love that i have this one for one thing my daughter's first word was this is a true story woof woof and also um when we did the manager s campaign for the santa cruise public libraries this tails tails program was one of the poster children is such an appealing program throughout all our branches so thank you so with that tails to tails is the volunteer program in which community members and their dogs meet with children and parents every week to listen to the children read and encourage them it takes commitment to support this weekly program and the children and parents count on it this kind of support has been proven to increase children's reading confidence and skill plus who doesn't love to snuggle up to a cuddly dog so thank you to all all the volunteers who share their time and their dogs and who has more fun everybody does thank you alise soto so alise dedicated her summer to volunteering at super camp our camp that hosts 35 and six years old over three months alise gave 200 hours of her time to this program she facilitated games and projects for the children and always displayed patience energy and kindness and as a former camp counselor i would say how wonderful it is that you are doing this work for our community so thank you very much julia bates congratulations julia julia volunteered at beach camp running and assisting many activities she took the initiative to teach water safety to the 30 campers enrolled in beach camp julia strengths include leadership responsibility creativity and energy and over three months she volunteered julia helped to make beach camp a great success so thank you for everything all martin was going to be running a little late i don't think he's here yet so we'll hold off on him and hopefully he'll get here before we finish so helen waller helen waller helen waller teaches line dancing three times a week at the downtown senior center she's responsible for the growth of the beginner class which has upwards to 30 individuals per session helen's positive and patient attitude has made her a beloved member of the senior center team helen waller thank you judy cob judy cob helped lead our land lines line dancing classes twice a week for over 15 years judy is an outstanding volunteer and has helped to build community for local seniors by organizing extra events and meals thank you judy ian d wall dillon jim carher and joice he can come up jim was not able to come today so joice is accepting the award for him and i'd like to bring up my volunteers too because uh this ward come on up senator volunteers so this was specifically meant for jim but i'll extend it to all of you but actually you could speak for the entire group exactly yeah so i'm going to extend it to everyone but this fall the san accrues police department engaged a team of trained citizens volunteers to assist the department in non-enforcement duties this team has been instrumental in creating the volunteers in policing program as well as the you are not alone program and the vacation check program these members have always been willing to help and complete tasks in a timely and organized fashion they've invested hundreds of hours in the volunteer policing programs have inspired and mentored many other volunteers their work and dedication helped to make Santa Cruz a safer and stronger community and so i'd like to thank you all for your volunteer work and your commitment to this community it really has been a delight to watch this program get out the ground it's just an an outstanding program and very exciting to have it happening in our community uh richard hodge i'm uh very excited to read about richard hodge who actually is my neighbor and uh and uh hi richard and richard is a retired judge and has provided legal support for the city's work with county of santa cruz water advisory commission on soquel creek water rights adjudication implementation what that means in normal language is that mr hodge is helping us understand how to keep water in the creek for both used by people and by uh by the environment his significant experience with california water law he has experienced significant experience with california water law and has made significant contributions towards advancing a focus on the protection of environmental and human uses of water to the state's residents fisheries and overall environmental quality his intellect experience and willingness to engage in this community effort pro bono has been very helpful in strategizing on this important issue so thank you very much and phoenix reberto and i'll read his is nobody got assigned to that one because i didn't know he was coming so i'm really pleased he's here phoenix was the only volunteer at junior x camp this past year who demonstrated consistent involvement phoenix showed great dedication and a true interest in working with children phoenix is flexible and engaging and always had a great worth work ethic during the 300 hours of volunteer service he gave i know paul did not make it he showed us always here he's parking his bike okay oh there he is there he is so we're back to paul martin paul martin and helpers well we all know paul martin in his passion for keeping santa cruz graffiti free but what you didn't know is how far he's willing to go literally jennifer young the graffiti abatement coordinator reported witnessing paul painting over a retaining wall on highway 17 near los gatos on sunday oh possibly dangerous and not recommended this example of his work shows paul's incredible determination and commitment to keeping the highway clean and welcoming for our visitors and residents paul has donated tens of thousands of work hours over 14 years to this goal thank you paul keep up with the good work please join me in honoring paul martin and his 14 years of extraordinary service yeah you're on you're on tv there you go okay thank you council members for participating in this award this is always such a joy to do and i'm really glad to be able to bring you something fun today so i'm glad you're here for it before we end though i would like to acknowledge the contributions of the following city staff who has served as mentors and guides for these volunteers we really do have a lot of outstanding staff who've given their time and attention to volunteers and we have a really strong volunteer program because of it so um i'd like to say thank jill baits and collin harrick uh mate rotis uh mike godsey steve gomez and myl hicks robert acosta maria campa kelly mercer labo leslie kealy and nola noah dowling john bombachi jay guavara and jennifer young and this year i get to thank new people the santa cruz police chief mills he started this incredible program and joice uh blotchke and beth thurman and officer mc bride chris berry and the santa cruz fire department had a volunteer they recognized this year so uh jason hyduke uh denise finch and tiffany wise west and i really want to give a special thank you to our new parks and rector director tony elliot and superintendent of parks travis beck they are really committed to growing the volunteer program in parks and rec and are getting an adopted park program started and um we're gonna see a lot of exciting things happen in the next year with parks and rec so once again thank you very much i just want to say thank you to all the outstanding volunteers the staff the volunteer center it's really a pleasure to honor all your work and recognize you so thank you for being here have a wonderful day okay we'll go ahead and i'll go ahead and bring us back at this point um we're going to go ahead and return to item number 12 on our agenda which will um involve the um action and deliberation portion of the agenda items so we'll go ahead and return back for a council action and deliberation council member brown thank you so i um i did want to follow up on a i have a couple of questions related to this item and also follow up to the motion that i made at our previous meeting to confirm that we'll be hearing back um on may 14th is that correct that's what we're shooting to our okay um great so um with respect so some of the issues that were raised by members of the audience i'd like to follow up on right now um with respect to uh elimination of the public hearing process i understand that is related to the need to address this shot clock question but i am interested in um consideration of uh a fee waiver for council appeals for for these um uh encroachment permits in the future i am just wondering if staff has anything to say about that i just want to express my interest in and looking at that for our discussion but is there anything that you um it's a cost recovery um the appeal fee is is already low and in terms of cost recovery taking an appeal to the city council is quite a bit of work but it's it's ultimately your choice just given the fact that we're eliminating the potential for the public to weigh in um in other arenas in terms of the public hearing process what what we are thinking is putting the um the public process on the applicant and requiring that they have a community meeting and that they conduct a notification process and they post the site just pretty much the same that we do except that it'll be their responsibility and it'll be one of their application submittal requirements that they've completed that does that include 300 foot radius notification public notification currently it's matching what we uh what we have in the zoning ordinance so it's 300 foot notification of postcards and posting the site the responsibility would be on the applicant to they'd have to conduct that prior to submitting an application to us is there any remedy in the case that the applicant does not comply with those requirements it would be an incomplete application so it would be considered an incomplete application okay with respect to the question around denial of incomplete applications um that was raised by the um member of the public I am just wondering if that is something that we could consider looking at the language for Monterey County um with I don't know if it's Monterey City or County but with the Monterey ordinance in our report back for May 14th on other jurisdictions that are looking at ways to um maintain some some jurisdiction of our um in the way we make decisions around these encroachment permits so can we include refer that to yeah okay if we have do you need a motion should I include that in motion okay um well then I have another question fine I'll just make the motion and we'll carry on from there okay so I would um so I mean I think that we you know at the last uh council meeting I made some statements about having an interest in pursuing legal action with the FCC if there are other jurisdictions doing that um and also looking at other um other measures that local jurisdictions have taken so that report is coming back to us I'm now hearing on May 14th with that in mind um I would move that we introduce for publication in ordinance amending section 24.12.1400 of the Santa Cruz Municipal Code as um recommended by staff with um the uh with one change that um we um we extend the 1500 foot minimum spacing to all zones rather than just residential zones I think that seems to be a reasonable um and allowable um if we did that uh us cells wouldn't be able to locate within the city that's okay with me but I apparently it's not okay with the FCC so okay so it will so we'll leave it with specifically for residential how does Petaluma can I ask a question then as uh now I'm interrupting my own motion how does Petaluma do that does anybody know here how is it that Petaluma has that kind of minimum I have a 300 foot restriction from residential is that the one 1500 foot I'm according to a member of the public 1500 foot minimum spacing in all zones I don't know hold on a second anything about Petaluma maybe if we could we is are you concluding your motion and then we'll have um I was going to make now I've got on it so it's turning into another question I was going to make the motion but it's another question I will second the motion for purpose of discussion then we can modify it yeah with the 1500 spacing in commercial zones which is we have a motion by councilmember brown with a second by councilmember Matthews with further discussion at this time okay please were you going to respond I was just going to say that in quickly huddling I'm not sure that we have a good answer for the Petaluma ordinance at this point but it's certainly something that we can look into and bring back to you at the May 14th meeting okay but we're at the moment just we're so we're including it for residential and commercial because what we heard was uh it would prohibit any further installations and I got stopped in motion by staff saying that we can't do that in commercial zones but we can do it in residential so I just wanted to clarify what is that that was what I heard it's a 1500 foot separation in residential zone districts between towers that's what we're recommending we had originally recommended a 500 foot separation and the planning commission changed that to 1500 between towers I understand that I'm just saying I was trying to include commercial as well I was interrupted mid-motion by staff saying that's not possible so I'm but now we haven't received clarification on whether or not it is possible I can continue with the motion including commercial and then when we hear back we can make amendments as needed so I would like to extend that to all zones pending report okay so we have a withdrawal of the second by councilmember mathews and a councilmember motion councilmember brown's motion um was to adopt the recommendation with the modification to extend the um proximity footage essentially that is currently outlined to apply to residential zones to all zones including commercial is that accurate yes okay and that's a seconded by councilmember Glover do you have a comment as well I have a comment and a motion so if we wanted to finish this motion first and then I can go on to my next one it has to do with some statements that were made during public comment with regards to the notion of quote real science and the next stage of our industrial revolution also looking at some decisions other municipalities have made in the face of the pressure put on by the FCC so if we want to just move forward with councilmember brown brown's motion I'd love to make a statement and a motion after that we could do that or you could potentially have an amendment to the motion uh okay well we can go that way that works um I just don't want to wipe sure we'll see if councilmember brown's into it um so to address the issue of real science uh in an article in news week dated on may 19th 2018 entitled radiation from cell phones wi-fi is herding the birds and the bees 5g may make it worse there was an analysis done by eclipse an EU funded review body dedicated to policy that makes an impact on biodiversity and ecosystems it looked at over 97 studies on how electromagnetic radiation may affect the environment and concluded that this radiation could indeed pose a potential risk to bird and insect orientation and plant health so as a local community that prides ourselves in our pollinator species and monarchs I think it's something that we should be especially concerned about if there is even the slightest hint through research that it does negatively impact birds and pollinators since we are a marine community and we are uh some a place for nesting monarchs also with regards to the uh power or decisions that we can make as an a body the portland city council just voted unanimously to demand the federal communications commission update its research on health and environmental impacts of the 5g radio frequency wireless emissions and it also calls on the FCC to make that research publicly available in addition to that it also focuses on uh 2017 appeal to the european union by 180 scientists and doctors from 36 different countries for the european union to place a moratorium on the 5g rollout across europe until potential hazards for human health and the environment have been fully investigated by scientists independent from industry also in those statements the commissioner likened the telecommunications companies to tobacco and gun industries that obfuscate health issues instead of trying to understand them something that was brought forward to was that this is the next stage of our industrial revolution the last time i checked the last stage of our industrial revolution less that's with climate change and that was uh refuted by industry it was called pseudoscience it was said it wasn't real and now we're facing the very real reality that we are facing climate change due to fossil fuel industries and our irresponsible way of dealing with the environment so there's plenty of president and research to support the potential downfall or downsides of 5g so i appreciate the language that councilmember brown put forward i would make or suggest a friendly amendment to that language that we um pause there for a second i would make an amendment to that motion or an addition that we would withhold our decision on the implementation and installment of the cell tower while demanding of the federal communication commission update its research on the health and environmental impacts of 5g radio frequencies and emissions and for the FCC to make the results of that research publicly available before you make our decision you please give i have a response so i um absolutely in agreement with your the point you're trying to get out here i just want to emphasize that the recommendation here is not about installation of a particular tower this is about our own cell standards and guidelines so it's not specifically responding to 5g and i think that the place to have that conversation and to support your intent is at our may 14th meaning when we have a broader discussion about what local jurisdiction jurisdictions can do both to protect themselves from you know the FCC and also potentially challenge the FCC on the decisions that we're being forced to to make so i think that's where it would be appropriate to to do that if that's okay yeah then i'll just withdraw the amendment and make that as a statement to help uh our colleagues better understand the importance of the separation of these cell towers and as we move forward into May 14th for them to be able to do research on that on their own okay maybe it can bring that back for the conversation on the 14th did you have a comment i'm sorry i just yes i just i mean i understand the motion and i think the council can introduce the ordinance um with that amendment to also include commercial or industrial property as well the concern i have is that i i understood um sir ferry to say that if we did include a prohibition on uh or a 1500 foot limitation on uh commercial property that that would effectively preclude the placement of structures in the city and if that's the case then um i do think we would run afoul of the federal regulations what i would recommend is go ahead and introduce it as you want but i'll ask direct staff to report back on the implications of that and the enforceability of an ordinance if it runs afoul of FCC regulations and if if i may for clarification if it does would that then make the next reading a first reading to make that change or could be yes and is it anticipated that it would is that your i suspect it will you suspect a recommendation to reintroduce without that but i want to research it i also want to have a chance to look into the petaluma issue i mean it it occurs to me that that the ability to impose additional distance requirements could be the result of topography or geo or geography so that needs to be analyzed and so um you know i i'd like to have an opportunity to confer with staff and my office um Stephanie Hall is here she's been doing the lines share the work on this with the planning department and and report back to the council and council member brown i had misunderstood you i thought you were asking for a 15 hood 1500 foot setback from commercial zone districts and that's what i thought um would eliminate the possibility of all sight and if you're just talking about keeping poles in residential and commercial zone districts 1500 feet apart i think i think we could probably work with that that's what i was asking okay i misunderstood matthews that was my reason for withdrawing the second of misunderstanding that was happening there so that's fine and um if that's apparently not an issue my suggestion was sometimes there's a um we introduced two versions so we don't have to go back and have a you know start over with another first reading and given the time constraint i just put that out as a suggestion well we're looking at the design guidelines and that's a policy that's not the ordinance amendment okay so the design guidelines can be modified they don't have to be read a second time okay that's right in ordinance super fine with the one motion okay so we have a motion by council member brown seconded by council member glover further conversation will be forthcoming in may uh council member carm um what what is the appeal fee uh that that that if you appeal this what would to the city council what would that what would the fee be if it was a discretionary permit in the planning department at 600 and some change i'm not sure what the appeal fee is in public works well josh bangerd senior civil engineer public works um so we're still working on our ordinance with city attorney's office uh as far as the appeal is what i understand from and um i leave this part to the attorneys but from why i understand all actions by the council are appealable to the council at some point but i don't not i do not know that so by just by that alone would seem to me that any action that the city takes on behalf of the council can come back to the council now the practical aspect of that with the shot clock i can't comment on that really i mean but it seems like at the very least it could come and make themselves heard if if there were appeals in that way thank you um last other question is if it went to the planning commission mic what would um how would that how would that inhibit the process um members of the public seem to see think that was a good idea for that there'd be a public hearing and that it go to the planning commission from when they submit their application materials to when we get to the public hearing is typically about four months so we would be way way beyond a shot clock restriction so would you take as a friendly amendment since that was that that's unlike a lot of other appeals that we do um waive the fee for um for city council appeals yes okay with the second accepted okay so there was a friendly amendment to waive appeals yeah here there was a friendly amendment to waive the appeal fee if it were to come before the city council did you um staff have additional insights to this looks that there's some conversation did you have additional concerns or insights i was just going to comment that the ordinance that's in front of you eliminates the planning process and so there would be no appeal because there's no process it's the public works process that is forthcoming that would remain in effect and so that's what the the public works department is working with the attorneys on and so the the suggestion that there be an appeal for the appeal fee be waived for what's in front of you right now there is no process this this would be eliminating that planning process in favor of a public works process so so there isn't an appeal for the planning process that is is now pushed into the the public works realm that makes sense if the conversation could happen at a different time in regards to how the appeal process right how how the application may be heard by the council would be as part of the public works discussion chapter the new chapter 15.38 that's referenced in this is what would identify that application process it would be outside of the planning process to help meet the shot clock requirements we could hold that amendment that the amended i still would like to keep it in there and but but consider it when it comes up when we are talking about the public works policy since it's inapplicable to this essentially process it's just not on the agenda for today we'll get we'll be hearing about this in some may some may sometime soon sometimes soon yes we're working on we're working on all this and and to the point being made is theirs is an internal planning process ours we'll have to issue per actual physical permits for for the work to can take place so that's probably the right place for it all right okay withdraw okay so we um have a motion in a second all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed okay that passes unanimously okay so we'll move along to item number 14 on our agenda and i will invite my colleagues who may be interested in saying a few words this was their presentation for item number 13 item number 13 was the volunteer recognition presentation awards which we took a break in our original thing so we're on to item 14 item 14 is the city of Santa Cruz's commitment for civility and a proclamation joining the initiative to revive civility and it was an item cosigned by council members and before i read some of the elements of our proclamation i'll invite my colleagues to say a few words if interested answer matthews yes i was approached by members of the community with this concept who gave me some references to national organizations pursuing this idea and it's an i an idea that has been well received and welcomed across the political spectrum i think going from national politics down to online communications wherever we look the decline of an attempt at civil conversation communication listening and and discussion has really taken a hit and so i was very happy to approach the mayor with this idea and council member comings and this seems like it should be pretty straightforward and it's simply a proclamation declaring our commitment as a community and reaching out to the broader community to keep this goal and to strive to reach this in in all our discussions it does not bar having strong passionate feelings but just that we will get further and achieve more by by trying to communicate in a civil way and i should say this is endorsed by a very wide range of organizations including a national institute for civil discourse and the goldman school of public policy at uc berkeley so with that it's pretty simple i bring it forward i hope it gets unanimous support by the council and the community vice mayor yeah i would just like to add that i mean we've been dealing with a lot of very controversial topics this year some items that have been very concerning to our community and that we're trying to address in the best way possible throughout the national political sphere as well there's been a lot of tension and many people in the community have felt like that tension has even been kind of infiltrating into the way we engage as a community and and i've wanted to sign on to this as well because even with correspondence as council member matthews mentioned even down to digital correspondence the way that people from the community engage with us can sometimes feel disrespectful and not in a way that's very constructive and so i think that it's something that we should all remember that we're all trying to do the best for our community and the only way that we're going to achieve that is if we're able to actually communicate our feelings with one another in a way that's respectful and so i was very happy when i was approached to sign on to this and hope that we can move forward in a way where we can work towards solutions to our problems rather than point fingers at one another thank you um um council member guver did you oh absolutely yes thank you i appreciate it so i was really elated actually to see this item on the agenda we haven't had an opportunity to talk in depth about the concept of civility since a conflict which has yet to be resolved was brought to the community's attention here in the city council chambers back in february since then i've had the time to think and reflect on the concept of civility politics conflict resolution and more importantly reconciliation after all my work outside of the city council is focused on nonviolent conflict reconciliation so with that lens while i support the proclamation it seems a bit strange to me for us to be having this discussion with such an obvious chasm that exists between those that sit on this body i call it a chasm because it's much more than merely a divide it feels like there's almost a complete disconnect and in that sense of being disconnected there is seemingly very little desire or drive to address it or reconcile it or to move forward and i only say that because the requests to reconcile uh and resolve the situation have gone unanswered and without action it's been about two months since our february 12th meeting and besides a half day session of talking about our political goals with no mention of conflict or reconciliation there's been nothing that even resembles an attempt to bring this body together in real unity but i'll say it again i support this proclamation but i do find it strange for it to come now it seems in some ways rather inappropriate and i say that not to suggest that a pledge to civility isn't appropriate because i think we can all agree that civility is important but it made me start even to ask myself what is civility does civility mean being nice doesn't mean not disagreeing and ultimately the real question is when does disagreement become uncivil as it turns out the history of the concept of civility is deep and intricate and even more interesting is the history of civility talk and how it's been used as a political tool i was listened and listened to a great ted talk by a researcher named teresa bijan and her analysis of civility she covered a lot about the history of civility and how it grew out of the conflict between religious groups in the 17th century when they needed to find a way to dehumanize and discredit those who did not agree with their religious beliefs or we could look at the history of colonization and the rationale used by mainstream anthropologists to say that other cultures were uncivilized and therefore it was okay to invade conquer and take over their lands but bijan draws a distinction between the modern concept of civility and civility talk as a political tool i agree that civility is precious but i think it's time when we start talking about civility to also realize that civility is something that makes our disagreements tolerable it when people talk about civility a lot of times it can be used to stigmatize or make people who disagree with that person look like the bad individual it was a tactic used to silence civil war protesters and even in these chambers the call for civility has resulted in people consistently being cut off at the podium instead of being able to finish their last sentence many researchers and journalists suggest that instead of healing our division civility talk is making the problem worse that's not to say that we shouldn't be emphasizing and encouraging respectful conversation but what makes a conversation civil in our agenda report it says that quote the effect of this trend referring to the lack of civility is to discourage honest and open communication divide our communities and make it harder to work together on the challenges we face and quote i would argue that this is exactly the situation we're in right now on this body with the way that these issues have been handled instead of having to make the effort to talk to each other there has been this awkward pass to allow us to speak past each other or to each or at each other rather here is more support for the argument that i'm talking about in a paper titled democracy civility and the dangers of niceness where political scientist ian ward points out that an ethic of generalized niceness can actually be in many circumstances a mean by which citizens conform to the requirements of unjust social arrangements jane schmidt a local organizer with black lives matter says that civility is actually used to shut down discussion and is often a way to tone police the folks that don't have the power and new york columnist jelani cob tweeted that civility is the cowards favorite tool as when uh necessary because when necessary jesus flipped tables so let's talk about civility as far as what does civility mean it doesn't always mean being nice or palatable or always landing in the middle it doesn't mean standing by and passing by what you feel is morally and ethically right does it mean it doesn't mean accepting what the power structure doles out or does it mean holding people accountable avoiding double speak and addressing issues head on and with courage we're going to talk about homelessness later and three people on this body have proposed that we shut down a community of people with no alternative options for real shelter would you call that civil are we allowing or how about the allowing of the displacement of our low and very low income people artists museum or musicians nurses teachers union workers people of color all of these vital groups that bring diversity and life to our city are being pushed out because of our inability or our unwillingness to establish anything that even resembles real protections for rentals is that civil to me the many researchers and to many researchers civility and morals obligate us to dive deep interrogate and identify what it means to keep what dr king called a positive piece and not uphold a negative piece civility goes beyond being nice it's not because being nice as bhaj says is not telling people what you think about their ideas that you disagree with civility means speaking your mind but to your opponent's face not behind their back it means not pulling all of your punches but not landing all of your punches at the same time and civility is courage so i hope that we can move forward passing this proclamation and not just talk the talk but actually walk the walk as elected officials here in santa cruz thank you i will just um say a few words so i will um just say uh just in addition to the the co-signers of the item that you know as electeds of our local government we have the obligation and responsibility to express civility and to lead in that way and that our community is observing as you are here in our chambers but so are our children and we can't help but acknowledge that there is a different tone at the national level and there are different that tone has infiltrated into local communities as well i will just read the proclamation and each of the council members will receive a copy of the proclamation as well but for the communities uh their benefit as well as those who may be listening at home so the mayors proclamation on civility whereas the erosion of civility in recent years has had an increasingly damaging effect on our communities and nation dividing people from one another fanning distrust and fear and undermining our public institutions and sense of well-being and whereas civil discourse is the free and respectful exchange of differing ideas in a way that respects and affirms all persons while hearing their perspectives and whereas listening to each other seeking understanding across differences and exercising civility assists in the process of working together and rebuilding trust fostering respect among various groups and helping us forge solutions to our most pressing challenges and whereas community members should feel safe and respected while expressing their opinions as well as exploring views outside of their own and whereas heated rhetoric and resistance to collaboration hinder our ability to solve the challenges confronting our community society and nation and whereas civility discourages the use of rudeness, ridicule insults and threatening behavior that undermines the open exchange of ideas and whereas sharing our personal hopes dreams fears and lived experience can help us understand what unites us over what divides us strengthening a sense of shared value so needed by our country and community and whereas civility improves our sense of well-being restores trust among individuals and institutions and encourages us to participate in building strong communities now and for the future now therefore I Martin Watkins mayor of the city of Santa Cruz do hereby endorse the commitment of civility on behalf of the city of Santa Cruz and proclaim the week of April 5th through April 12th 2019 as a week of conversation and encourage all citizens to support civility by listening respectfully to people who have different views avoiding language or communication that is insulting and derogatory to others and supporting efforts to work together across ideological political or other lines that may otherwise divide us so that is the mayor's proclamation on civility I will see if other council members have any comments or if any member of the of the public would like to address us on this item this is item number 14 and you could come forward you'll have two minutes to speak and please line up to my left if you're interested in speaking please good afternoon um this is sort of a weird thing because normally the mayor's proclamations are just part of the of the agenda and they're not discussed or brought before the public or for a vote of the council it's just a proclamation that the mayor makes so i'm kind of wondering why we're we're voting you know there's a vote on a mayor's proclamation and my take on this is that there's also people have the first amendment right to free speech and so whether or not that speech is civil is not a matter of interpretation it's a matter of they have the right to say whatever they want to say because that's what our constitution guarantees so whatever it is that this proclamation is trying to do it should not impinge on people's right to free speech that the people's right to free speech to supersede anything that this proclamation is trying to do thank you all right my name is Elise and this is really interesting because a couple of meetings ago i believe it was the special meeting on march 19th late at night i got very angry because i feel i've been witnessing obstruction of the city council procedures and i feel that a lot of the things that have been happening to obstruct a progressive new council from actually being able to set new policy that is actually progressive has been done very civilly behind the scenes and i can also say that i remember a certain council member here who's a landlord downtown was able to get a very beloved priest he was an Episcopal priest in one of the churches nearby removed from his office because he was serving teen soup teen mothers was done very civilly and that person had to leave their posts so what i'm just saying is first of all this this word civil um it's non-actionable what is civil depends on what your opinion is what class you come from what ideas you hold about what's maybe fair play or polite procedure well i just want to say that in my many years of travel into being apart and trying to understand people of different races and classes i've come to understand that my notions coming from very white upper class suburb in new jersey were extremely limited about what civility is and i had to learn that people who are very so-called polite and dignified people who respected the law were doing things that first appeared to me to be uncivil so what i'm saying is first of all i'm sorry that i lost my temper that night but mostly i'm sorry because it hurts me as chris crone said to me it probably was over the top but please don't pass this un unactionable item it's a way for the upper classes to squelch free speech and behavior that they basically don't like i'm norah hawkman and bonnie if we could get the picture of wtf off of this screen that'd be great i know but i'm looking at it and i want to say those three little letters out loud about this item i just don't understand why this is a discussion in the public sphere uh it it certainly wasn't a discussion when members of the minority were in the majority and were distinctly uncivil to the majority so stop this nonsense you know in the 70s we marched angrily for abortion rights we're still marching women began marching for our rights again five years ago african americans and people of color are still marching and they have since the civil war so when you talk about being civil we're living with a mayor that doesn't let people get to the end of their sentence and that is distinctly uncivil this is just a goofy waste of time next speaker okay pretend like you've just met me for the first time so um this is a little exercise in civility so i'm wondering if you can uh repeat back to me after i'm done speaking what i said okay i'm just asking you to try it so in the interest of um not criminalizing homeless people and not making a situation worse my question is um has gravel been dropped at the old river street shelter site where there was a shelter for 80 people second to that question is when pause the time is it possible to create i'm gonna pause the time really quick we're on item number 14 which is um a motion to endorse the mayor it's okay i'm using it as an example you'll have an opportunity oh you're okay yeah okay sorry thank you for letting me finish thanks i understand it's really hard for you to keep it all together okay i didn't i didn't appreciate being interrupted and i'm going to walk away because i didn't appreciate being interrupted thank you okay next speaker well i'll just remind the community that will have a chance we have a chance to hear every person individually whether we agree or disagree with each other they will be given their two minutes of time or the allotted time that will be consistent that i will um ensure that's consistent for equity of voice and um please be respectful and allow each individual person to speak before us without interruption whether or not you agree with them or disagree with them and you'll have up to two minutes thank you um when i saw the agenda and i saw this item i thought oh wow how timely um uh that the recently funded $30,000 funded by your this council here tenant sanctuary organization uh was holding a um tenant counseling and as you recall when a couple months ago i came and spoke against it saying it was kind of a bad look for the city given the content the the constituents of the uh organization but hey you know okay it was passed so i thought why don't i go see what um our $30,000 is buying and offer my 33 years as a landlord uh in Santa Cruz over a hundred tenants a lot of knowledge of um landlord-tenant relations and so forth and offer my assistance and see how i can be of help uh let me just play this video and this is what happened Sunday morning all right you're not welcome very i'm sorry well we're gonna have to have this we're gonna go to the city and we're gonna have a discussion about this you're welcome to do that but this is you said it's funded by the city correct yes or no the program is and so therefore it's a public event not open to you that's all i need to explain why okay i don't think it all came out essentially i was blocked from entering by one of the uh one of the members of this tenant sanctuary so again our our tenants here in this town they really deserve better you know just look at the just look at the web page for project Sentinel for instance and see the services and see the you know the uh balance and so forth they have you want to talk about civility i would start with maybe reviewing the funding and maybe putting it out for a bid again perhaps for something a more civil organization thank you and if i could get a sense of who would like to address the council on this item okay okay great and if you are please do line up to my left okay you'll have up to two minutes okay um i just wanted to talk about uh my personal experience with the civility of the city of satyr crews uh i've been hunted by the police for trying to sleep in my vehicle survive being forced to uh say lose my vehicle and end up sleeping in people's door steps um the the anti homeless laws that have been passed all over california not just here are completely uncivil by any means of humanity like if you have any humanity at all in your heart you would know this is true um there are a lot of laws that are still in a place that are completely uncivil so i mean really like look in the mirror like what are what are we doing like what what is this room doing to address this i think that all anti homeless laws should be abolished uh if you take people's rights away to like go say find their own spot to be safe then you end up with tent cities that are completely like jumped up because people are trying to you know find strength in each other to to to fight harassment um ultimately the a lot of the power that's been given to the police here need to be taken away a lot of the laws that target homelessness all they do is perpetuate it by putting the homeless further in debt um that's completely uncivil so that's all i have to say thank you hi my name is melissa free baron um yeah so what civility means to me you know it's interesting to hear certain members of this council talk about civility when uh they don't give it themselves at meetings civility is you know a choice right to engage in dialogue with people who might not understand as much as you understand they might not be at your level of engaging in certain issues and it is possible to be a progressive and be compassionate and be a renter and not want to walk down the street with your daughter as a single mom and have someone ride by on your stolen bike or have them flash your penis you know to them in front of the grocery store surrounded by trash or have needles dropped on the beach it is possible to be all these things to be a public servant to be a nurse to deliver Narcan to addicts that are odine to also believe that our parks should be for the elderly and children and for people to run their dogs for people to enjoy all the open spaces it is possible to be all these things and i find it really distressing that to be anti enabling of a certain group to be lumped into this category of non-compassionate and someone who doesn't understand the issues and someone who isn't capable of actually dialoguing solutions you know many of us in the community work in these positions tending to people on a daily basis and we understand what it means to be civil ethics as a nurse you treat everybody the same that doesn't that classes everything class gender race it is possible to be all these things wrapped up into one and just to confirm so i have a accurate understanding of who's interested in speaking to item number 14 okay so mr. Norris jule will be our last speaker on this item go right ahead i'd like to say that uh for our town to dictate policies upon a population and then call the resistance to uncivil is not good for a healthy community the reason we allow uncivil discord is so we do not have uncivil actions as a means of expression thank you hello um i lived in santa cruz for 15 years i visit my family periodically my sister's been raising three children here for the last 18 years her rent started at $1400 and now it's $2,800 not civil um also it's an incredibly wealthy town i had a client here who complained about the streets not being repaired i'm complaining about not having a bricks and mortar place for more people who need the darn you know good living facility and so i have an image that maybe we'll get across to people can you see it it says people over profit so whatever middle class is dwindling here to where it's upper middle class and the rest just really poor and then of course the homeless what has happened and what is going on with the budget in santa cruz who owns santa cruz hello you probably all know me already my name is elliot i'll keep this short i think this entire item on the agenda is a huge waste of time because calling for civility isn't going to change people's minds who are pissed off and want to act uncivially however you define it i think that this section of the agenda is a waste of time because people are going to be as civil as they're going to be and if they do choose to be uncivil depending on how they do it whether you're talking about a very nice police officer or a very angry vegan they're going to find a way to justify it and federal law will generally usually back them up because according to federal law i can flip you all off right now if i want i can flip off all the police officers here i can flip off the children that's my right if we care about those which apparently some people don't rights and laws the systematic violence of of the city council city manager's office city attorney's office against the most unfortunate people in our community is not civil we have decades of incivility against the most marginalized people in our community we even bring up proposals at city council that are not civil that will be on the next agenda item that we falsely accuse people as at the beginning of sessions about sexism just because their agenda item has is not allowed to be on the agenda that's not civil there you know as the thousands of people continue to flow on to the streets of our country you're going to see civil unrest and that is largely as a result of intentional policies by bodies like this across the united states so you're darn lucky that it's not more uncivil considering how brutal the policies of this city are against thousands of people living on our streets or trying to survive in this city that is not civil attacking children and in their cars and towing their homes away so that they get to live in a doorway and come to food not bombs and try to find out where there's a shelter and then only to find that there is no such shelter that is uncivil and that's the type of uncivilness that i think that this council and you know who you are should consider it's it's i'm just shocked that there isn't people storming the city council in total anger at the constant arrest and harassment and violence and improper jailing and lack of ability to find housing i miss em okay so we have we have three additional speakers and after the last speaker which is there on my left which will be you carol we'll go ahead and close this item in return for um action another speaker sorry um yeah i think that would be civil to allow everyone who wants to speak to be able to speak and for a reasonable amount of time um that often isn't the case at city council it's been less and less the case over the years we should be having three minutes not two minutes at least that was a tradition but i mean even these are really token amounts of time you really need a different kind of dialogue with the community i mean i was impressed with the dialogue that council member a Glover had the other day with 70 people in the depot park area he wasn't talking to his friends some of them perhaps where he was talking to people who were critical of what he was doing and he was dealing with that in responding to that i think that's important that's what to me is important now you might say civility is really kind of um it's an affectation of the upper class the upper class wants the lower class to be civil and quiet in its poverty and in the differential between privileges and wealth that they have because otherwise they'd have to put them down now we see that happening at city council with a police officer standing aside keeping an eye on the decorum of the this particular body the real issue is power if people have more power then you can have real civility real civility you can have for example agendas should not be made in secret they should be made in a public process here in this chamber a week before perhaps the council meeting not two weeks before not in a way that excludes the majority that was voted on in this election from actually making the agenda which is what mayor Watkins has done with the collusion of the city manager and other members of this council so i think if you want civility unless you're calling for submissiveness which may be what really is the agenda item i would say to this audience don't be submissive whatever your perspective assert yourselves thank you i'm glad the issue of civility came up i think there's two sides to almost everything that comes before a body like this and uh you need to somehow engage people on both sides whether it's the email or coming here and talking and whatnot you don't find real solutions that you know kind of balanced and people accepting of the government if they aren't um if you don't find solutions and you polarized and so i think that people uh that don't have an opportunity to do that we have civil government we can go to vote we can go to precincts and canvass and knock on every door in town and get out the vote to me that's kind of the last statement in the civil government is that we can vote for what we want you know there have been times when we have to protest in this country to get noticed i support that but usually the vote in the end that civilized governments you know dictate the change over time and you will be our last speaker hi um i tried to stifle myself but i couldn't i want to commend you on your bringing up civility i think it's essential i go to a lot of these meetings i went to drew glovers meeting the other night i went to the housing meeting i come to all the city meetings that i can come to we have some tough tough problems that we have to solve we are all in this together if you are afraid to express yourself in a meeting because you think you're going to get snapped at or hissed or booed or yelled down which i've had all of those things happen to me when i was just trying to say what about this or what about that how are we ever going to come to any solutions if people are afraid to speak people being afraid to speak is a function of how they expect to be treated if they expect to be treated rudely they're probably going to not talk so we have to be civil to one another civil doesn't mean rolling over it means not yelling it means actively listening to one another it means trying to have an open mind that's civil thank you for insisting on it we won't get anywhere without it thank you okay so that concludes public comment for this item item number 14 at vice mayor Cummings it's been a motion to endorse the mayor's proclamation declaring a commitment for civility in the city of Santa Cruz and join the initiative to revive civility okay i'll second that so we have a motion by vice mayor Cummings seconded by councilmember mires councilmember brown just a quick comment trying to speak directly to the matter at hand i think we've had some wide-ranging discussion about what civil how it's determined i'm just going to say what we all know is that civility is is a subjective right it's subjectively assessed by individuals and groups there's nothing we can do about that as an abstract notion that yes we should all be civil and and treat each other with respect i absolutely agree i'm going to support the motion but i do think that it's it's worth reminding ourselves that again civility is subjective so whether or not we believe that expressions of discontent and and robust political debate is civil or not that's up to us as individuals and i think it's all of our responsibilities to comport ourselves with respect for others in those conversations i'll leave it at that and thank you um for the comment yeah just um so i appreciate the comments made by the people of the community really wonderful to hear the spectrum of perspectives on civility and the topics and the application of it while i mentioned in my initial statement that i do support the proclamation i do just want to go on the record and say that i hope that it's not used to squelch or restrict the speech of people as we move forward and if it does we may have to revisit it but either way uh just wanted to make that statement all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed okay that passes unanimously we have a four o'clock item on homelessness we're going to take a five minute break and we'll reconvene here in about five minutes to begin that item item number 15 tony hill room um and as a reminder the order will be presentations followed by questions from the council we will then take public comment on item number 15 and all of its components and then return to the council for deliberation in action i'll also just briefly remind um the the community and the council of our conduct for city business which includes to be respectful to engage in open and honest communication to be honest and truthful address difficult issues find areas of common ground to be open to different perspectives to keep an open mind to give the benefit of the doubt to role model good leadership and to be considered of each other's time it's my job as the uh presider of this meeting to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to participate participate in uh government in a way that is respectful and open for everyone so i'll ask that you please um maintain quiet while we go through the process and when your turn to speak is um available to you then we will ensure that you have your opportunity to speak without disruption um if there is disruption and i notice that from an individual i will give a warning and if it is repeated i will ask that individual to leave um at this time we'll go ahead and see if we can move right into our agenda and i'll invite up our staff to briefly open the item i'll just remind the community that we'll have an opportunity to hear from you all and now it's the opportunity for our staff to briefly open the item before we have individual presentations okay i'll just do a really great introduction so you'll recall that at your last council meeting um as uh as part of the uh public uh oral communications towards the the end of the meeting the council provided uh some direction with respect to agendizing an item with respect to uh lot 24 reconsideration and other homeless related agenda items so uh that is what is before you so staff went ahead and agendized that and then in addition to that we have some other items that are being brought forward by council members and that's items 15.2 and 15.3 and then in addition the city attorney has some recommendations as well which is items 15.4 so i think the intent now is to go through and uh updates on each one of those items good afternoon mayor and city council members myself chief hydrook and city attorney kandadi are going to provide very brief presentations on their current conditions at the camp an update on progress to open 1220 river street and then current anticipated litigation that we are in the process of reviewing so i'll call upon chief hydrook to come up and provide an update on conditions at the camp mayor council jason hydrook fired chief um and so i was asked to give some conditions on the camp and i'm really going to focus on the public safety and some of the life hazards that we have there since november 1st until today we've had 75 calls for service to the camp which is an unusual clustering of calls within the city we've had nine fire calls some of which even though they're term fire calls they were people driving by and seeing an open bonfire or smoke and so that we we got called we've had three fires that have resulted in total destruction of a tent we've had people that have been transported to burn units because of that we've also had 59 calls for service for medical calls and to my knowledge we've had five fatalities that are associated with the camp some of those are have some concurrent health issues in addition to drug use which is not i mean the cause will come from the corner it's not going to come from the fire department but our concerns for the camp have nothing to do with homelessness or the fact that the camp is there it's the manner in which people are there and the structures that are there we have had a number of fires that have not spread from one tent to the other and i attribute that more to the weather and being wet than the construction of the structures that are there and they're spacing and one of my concerns is that we don't have a specific code for recreational tents we generally don't get engaged with the tent structure until it's 400 square square feet or more and then we require that that tent has the membrane is treated and so that it won't support open flame it'll smolder and a number of the tents down there people are trying to create shelter anyway they can but they are all creating a hazard for themselves as well as the community that they're within because they don't have construction materials it will inhibit flame they don't have working smoke detectors they don't have sprinklers systems that we would require in any residential you know sleeping compartment a number of the tents are covered with blue tarps which in my opinion are solid that are hydrocarbon they have no flame resistive qualities whatsoever and they are connected from one end of the tent or the encampment to the other without any separation in between so that if we did have a fire you could expect it would stay within those compartments there in addition because of the congestion that we have down there we also I have concerns about people's ability to remove themselves at night in the smoke in a high stress situation there's no clear pathways my recommendation if we were going to do any kind of management of this tent would to have clear separation between aggregate groups of tents anything more than 700 square feet would require a 12 foot break in between not only for the ability to exit into access for medical causes which we do but also to prevent flame spread from one end of the the camp to the other and again this these are codes that we have within the adopted fire code that are based on real events and we apply them regardless of your economic status regardless of whether it's a business or a residence and it's when we issue a permit and in this case we've not issued a permit and we're seeing with the weather drying up that this has become a greater potential and usually for us our mechanism other than finding people or holding them to a standard when they build it is we evacuate or red tag a building and we deny you the access or the use of that structure until you bring it up to code and in this situation based on the condition of the people that we have there that mechanism has been removed on a lot of different levels both politically as well as legally with Martin versus Boise that we to to enact safety life safety standards in that area we would have to remove people from where they are to create that separation and I don't know of a good way to pick who gets to stay and who gets to go but it'd be my recommendation that we create those separations within those tents not just for the people that impacted or living within those structures but also for the aggregate community that they potentially can impact all the fires that have occurred have been human caused whether they are intentional or unintentional and we have tried to work with the camp about standards for what you should and should not do with an intent compressed gases are being used for cooking and heating but a compressed gas inside of a tent structure is an affixient as well as an ignition source open flame devices whether they're being used in candles whether they're being used for smoking whether they're being used for cooking inside of a tent that is high piled is you know a recipe for disaster and so we've put those out there this is what you should not do within your structure this is what you should not do within your tent and we're continuing to have issues with that so my recommendation is even if we can't get to the point where this is closed or moved that any homeless encampment or any you know encampment where people are using recreational tents as a full-time living facility that we enact some standards regardless of how they feel about it for their best interest for the community's best interest so that we don't have a fire where we have a fatality or a significant injury to that person who caused the fire but we also don't have a significant injury or a fatality to someone who's adjacent who had nothing to do with that event who chose not to smoke who chose not to have an open flame device they were merely there and so trying to prevent that the impact to the individual as well as to the community questions do any of the council members have questions for our fire chief maybe you said this but how many recorded fires have we had there at the camp since in five months since November 1st we've had nine responses for fires within there i would say three of them were actual fire events probably what you would term a fire but we've also had a number of open burning barbecues warming fires that we were called on but they weren't a significant fire in the sense that they weren't destroying a tent or causing injury thank you thank you any other questions council member matthews and then vice mayor yes you mentioned you felt there was a need to enact standards is that something that would be done administratively by your department potentially but again the mechanism for enacting these standards is removing people from where they are to create those spaces and so there's we have some conflict here between trying to recognize that we have people who have shelter and how they have that shelter is not safe and in order to enact those standards we are going to have to remove people from that place i guess those are two different things developing standards and then enacting them is and again we don't have direct standard for recreational tents that is something a little bit outside the purview we do have the overarching opinion of the fire department that can be imposed and we have some some codes that we can use for tent structures that were not necessarily designed for habitation that have separation with that specific code that wouldn't be developed it would be enacted vice mayor coming has there been any attempt to get the residents at the camp to or work with them to create spacing between the tents and what's been the outcome of that if there has been we've we've enacted we've had some meetings with the camp council they've been very receptive to to meeting the problem has been that no one wants to displace their tent in order to create that spacing and a lot of the material that is there is while might provide shelter it does not provide a any any degree of life safety as far as how it's constructed and how it will react to fire that's where mires i i know at one point there was pallets i think brought in and i'm just curious about whether those are still there or where what what the static status is of those there's a lot of pallets there's pallets that have been used as both material to get off the ground because of wet weather and there's also pallets that have been erected as walls or you know to string you know waterproof material over so there's a lot of wooden pallets in the in the encampment so there's a lot of flammable material it sounds like and as we get in to try or whether it will okay thank you councilmember glover thank you so thank you for your work in getting all of this fire safety stuff under control at least with the recommendations and thank you for meeting with the camp council because it's great to have that representation and interaction with the fire department i've had a chance to meet with them semi-regularly also and one of the things that they mentioned where i met with them last time was their interest in being involved in the cleanup and reorganizing process so just in your opinion if we did identify an additional transitional encampment location to move a proportion of that camp would it be feasible to work alongside the people in that are remaining in the camp to set up the structures and separate them so they don't have to be completely removed to be able to do that but can participate in the process of cleaning yes but i would say that the final say over what lanes would be opened up and what would be removed would need to be held to the experts and not necessarily the residents even though they have strong opinions about it and again most of these codes and these recommendations are based on events that have occurred and coming up with best practices for how to prevent it from reoccurring in the future and i think most people you know they're experienced with a fire in their home and their neighborhood and the wildland is pretty limited to television to maybe a singular event whereas those of us in the profession this is a day in and day out thing and so our experience and what we consider to be dangerous or to consider to be safe i would take that recommendation over someone's desire to remand in place i agree i have a quick question and i'm not sure if you know that most recent information in terms of some of the public health challenges that have come about along with some of the rodent infestation challenges so dr leff wrote a letter recommending closure based on the you know potential for the outbreak of disease i don't have the latest numbers for the types of diseases i do know that we had one case of wound botulism that may or may not have been associated with the camp even though that person had been at the camp we do have rodent control right now in place for trapping they have caught some some rodents but probably not all of them and because of the layout of the of the the tents and with the lifting up of the tents off the ground on the pallets there's a lot of habitat for rodents there and so there is that potential for disease spread not only because the rodents are there and the people are there but because of the proximity and the number of people on the occupant load that is within that camp thank you all right any additional questions for fire chief martin okay it's going to say uh Susie is going to speak next on 1220 river street okay thank you thank you and i should have introduced myself Susie O'Hara assistant to the city manager and um as you can tell from chief hyduke's discussion it's an ever-evolving situation out there and even as the weather gets drier and warmer we have additional considerations that we must make um i wanted to give a brief update on the progress to 1220 river street and also just reorient the council to this process it really is um i would say a three-pronged effort on behalf of the county the salvation army in the city to get that program up and running and as we have been moving towards an april 17th opening date um issues have arisen that have caused us to think about how to be most effective and not only opening the program but thinking about how to most effectively engage with folks at the ross camp and ensure that they understand what that program is providing and and understand how best to transition folks into that program so as a brief update um 1220 um is in the process of contract negotiate not contract negotiations but contract execution between the county and the salvation army that um contract will be brought to the board of supervisors on the 16th of april at this point i did just get an update from captain herald at the salvation army they're really poised to open they have been diligently working on staffing as you can imagine with their third program finding adequate staffing to a supported 24-hour program has been challenging so and we you know we are in a at a point of kind of reaching capacity in our community for delivering these types of services so i think that's a different conversation for the council to consider as we think about ongoing needs for staffing for any kind of homeless sheltering operation they have been working very diligently in staffing i do believe that um they are poised to open very close to the 17th the additional prong to that is the city's responsibility so that program will provide shuttle in and shuttle out service and that shuttle service will be provided by the city so we are in the process of hiring shuttle drivers and ensuring that we have adequate capacity to deliver the same level of um shuttle service that we had for the river street camp um we put out a call for applications about three weeks ago um we have received about six applications for shuttle drivers um that is a very limited number of folks um for the time commitment that it's required um ensuring that folks are adequately trained in conflict resolution trauma informed care kind of understand the whole scope of responsibility that we have as you can imagine for instance we have an uber driver that applied this is a very different type of program and really trying to orient folks to the responsibilities of a shuttle driver for a homeless shelter is something that we're taking very seriously so with that in mind we are yes poised to open um we the infrastructure is there my thanks to um mike hopper and public works and all of the other city employees that have really moved quickly including meg and bunch to ensure that the infrastructure is out there and ready so we are we are poised to open I do believe that we need some flexibility to ensure that when we are ready to close the Ross encampment that we take really deliberate and thoughtful time to think about how to transition folks most cooperatively and effectively into the 1220 program and so with that in mind um I do think we need to in the discussion later after public comment really think about an appropriate timing to move forward with not only the closure of the camp but also opening of the river street camp thank you thank you for your report um how many folks do we hope we'll be able to live at the 1220 river street so I I think there should be room for about 60 to 80 people that's individual tents or 60 80 total maybe two in a tent there are 60 individual tent sites of which we are going to reserve 10 for double occupancy thank you any other questions for Susie at the same council member matthews and then just to confirm that would not be the only resource available to people no no so right so the really the intention around the closure of the Ross streak the Ross camp and thinking about maximizing our shelter resources is look across the county and to best understand the bed capacity that we have available I mean the river street camp or 1220 is deliberately built to accommodate our Ross campers and we're really focused on transitioning as many folks from the Ross camp to 1220 as we possibly can those two programs are really tied together from that perspective we also have 60 beds at the vfw we have 40 bed 40 to 50 beds at laurel street there are beds in Watsonville there's beds at the Pajaro shelter there's beds at the afc satellite program and so what we really what's really incumbent upon us to do now is think about how to maximize those shelter options and then also provide additional layers of service for folks there are folks that would might qualify for an sle or residential treatment program there's folks that might qualify for a mental health bed there's folks that might be interested in obtaining a homeward bound ticket so it's really necessary to think about the entire wraparound level of services for folks and not really focus on just one program although i will say that 1220 river street was really built to accommodate folks at the at the Ross street camp thank you councilmember clever and vice-american thank you just for anyone that may not be up to date on that can you just describe the setup of the 1220 site and how that'll run yeah so it's going to run very similarly to the previous river street camp so we expect with a 24 seven program that folks will be able to stay there during the day it will have the shuttle in and shuttle out program that shuttle service runs nearly every hour so there was multiple opportunities to come and go from the camp it'll be fully staffed with managers deputy manager and at least two site monitors per shift three shifts per day a day a swing and a night shift there will be security that's provided by the city of Santa Cruz to ensure that there is kind of a look at the neighborhood and making sure that there's harmony with the neighborhood in terms of the program there will be one meal per day that's provided by the Salvation Army that will be a dinner program and so very very similar to the river street camp the Salvation Army runs their programs slightly differently in that when people come in people are searched although there is an amnesty program so if there is anything that folks are worried about having in their possession it is a no questions asked amnesty program there's an amnesty box so there is potential to leave things that might otherwise be a barrier for folks to entry thank you for the describe and thank you for all the work in putting this together the reason i was asking the setup also was first of the people could know but also you'd mentioned that it was specifically designed for the Ross campers but from my experience and speaking with the people over there the the the structure that you just described is not what they are interested in moving into so i'm just there's a little disconnect there just based off of if it was specifically designed for the Ross campers and then the other question what another one i guess is is there a reason that we haven't explored the transitional encampment model that i brought for that is less expensive and or incorporates nonprofits and smaller populations of paid staff members so i believe this council has discussed transitional campments over the last five weeks so i do believe that those have been considered i will mention i think that the the what i am talking about in terms of those two programs being connected is really about accommodating the number of beds access to shelter and barriers to shelter is individualized so suggesting that the Ross camp or even the camp council might not find the 1220 program be suitable actually does not consider the entire membership of the camp and so i think it's important to ensure that we actually have individual conversations with each and every camper out there to understand their barriers yeah absolutely is there but um so just back to that transitional encampment question uh is it's been discussed within this body and the language and structure has been proposed and to my understanding approved for implementation so i'm just confused why we're not exploring that model at the 1220 river street side i don't believe it has been approved by the council so we're waiting on the on the ordinance language to come back in for final adoption or where are we in that process because i'm a little confused that was what that whole push was initially was to create transitional encampment models that are available to be used in here as we went over the language we talked about the ordinance stuff and that's what my understanding was when we moved forward uh which is why i was a little confused when we were talking about a safe sleeping program at depot park because the transitional encampments are data driven and more beneficial so maybe you could answer that as i understand council uh discussed uh what approach to take uh and chose to move forward with a safe sleep zone uh type of program as opposed to a transitional encampment at at the depot parking lot that was a direction that council took instead of the what you're suggesting a transitional encampment approach and again since then then council took action on march 26 to bring this item back for reconsideration so that's where we're at with respect to so with respect to the transition encampment there's really no no work being done on that as the council you know directed that we focus on uh something else right this is my confusion can i can i add to that actually the transitional encampment discussion has been approved in in the form of a project charter and so um much of what you described in terms of the efficacy in terms of citing um the ordinance changes that were recommended as part of your original 11 point plan all of that was wrapped up into the project charter and that project charter his process is moving forward um with the expectation that we would come back um late summer early fall to um continue on that with that conversation as to um the types of transitional encampments that might be effective in this community after a stakeholder engagement process um in terms of citing the types of programs um and then also how they kind of fit into the larger scope of shelter feasibility that we are looking into over the coming months it just seems strange to me can can you let me know how much the 1220 site under this model will cost to implement i don't have that figure in front of me i mean that's pretty relevant uh just i'm just saying with regards to us to be able to make the the county holds the contract i believe it's on the order of about 75 thousand dollars a month okay and then can we just get a quick reminder of how much money we received from the state uh to address emergency homeless issues and how much of that is still left to implement for emergency shelter options i.e sleeping programs and transitional encampments uh the total is 11.6 million the only amount that is left is i believe 1.6 million dollars for the purpose of phase two a navigation center and so where's the funding for 1220 going to be coming from that's coming from heap it's already been it's already been allocated okay um okay and i'm just gonna this is my last thing and because the whole point of transitional encampments and the reason why i keep saying it is because they're cost effective so they cost tremendously less amounts of money and we can do it with partnerships with nonprofits so i implore this body if we're waiting on a project charter to come back to implement transitional encampments we should expedite that process so that we can implement transitional encampments to solve our shelter issue because right now with all of this 75 thousand i really appreciate all the work but 75 thousand dollars a month to run a program for 60 people is the definition of bureaucratic waste of money like we could do so much more with 75 thousand dollars so i'm just gonna say to the body i think that we should be doing transitional encampments so um it's a different response i just i i do appreciate that the the discussion was turned back to the council so it's a response it's the re excuse me pause for a second yeah if i could please keep your voices down we'll have an opportunity for public comment on this item at this time we're hearing from our staff so it's the responsibility of staff to move forward with direction from the majority of the council with the vote um that has happened over the last several meetings including moving forward with 1220 with salvation army that was direction from the council including the the uh the project charter for transitional encampments that was a recommendation of the council including moving forward with the safe sleeping and and um storage zone that was a recommendation of the council so our responsibility is to continue to move forward with that direction if the council has a will to change that that's the responsibility of the council i'll just remind you or remind the council and the community that part of the river street uh concepts came from the two by two conversation when originally uh moving forward with the closure of the camp too so that's also what was sort of the impetus of that as a proposal okay vice mayor Cummings and then uh council member Myers just curious um what information has been gathered and compiled on the current population at the river street camp at the raw street camp yeah so we have so Megan and I have been working pretty diligently on trying to get information from um the camp council so i think it was two or three weeks ago maybe three weeks ago that we um worked with the camp council to um pass out surveys and that was really the intention of that was to understand how many people were there what their barriers to entry into shelter was in addition to um essentially with the types of programs that we have available um how do people feel like they might fit into those types of programs getting too much of what council member glever is talking about unfortunately we didn't receive any surveys back so we are in the process of trying to think about other ways to get to that information it is very critical that we understand the needs out there um so we will continue to work with the camp council to try to get to that information any other questions for Susie I'm sorry council member Myers did you have a question and then council member yeah um do we how do we certify that an organization or an agency is um basically capable of running any of these facilities do we have any kind of licensing do we look at any kinds of professional qualifications do we understand whether people are even trained in first aid do we have any idea who could run these facilities you just said that we have reached our community is at capacity for providing services we don't have any more service providers is basically what i've heard so how are we going to establish transitional encampments if we're already maxed out and how are we going to take care of people we've had five people die in this camp five people one just this week a young woman that was 20 to 30 years old that is not okay this is not we're not fooling around anymore folks people are dying in that camp do we understand this and this is not about having transitional encampments run by people who are not licensed to do this you have to get not if you're going to be taking care of by a government agency that is our job our job is to make sure that people are our public is safe and the people who are under our guidance are safe so until i see some way that we are able to provide all of this this assisted go ahead and go ahead and then i'd really like to make sure i'd really like to make sure all right all right all right i'm gonna go ahead and stop me somewhere else anyway i'm just going to remind the community i'll remind the okay we're going to go ahead and take a recess if we can't continue on with our meeting so i'm going to remind the community that you'll have an opportunity to address the council during public comment right now is the opportunity for us to have questions of our staff to share our perspectives of our our proposals and then to hear from you at that time we'll have an opportunity to hear from you if there is disruption i will have us recess and we'll try again and if it continues to happen we'll continue to do the same if we're unable to reach a conclusion tonight then that is how it goes unfortunately so i appreciate in advance your respect and ability to withhold your comments until the appropriate time which will be during public comment okay do you want to further your question i apologize for the pointed question that i'm asking but i'm just curious whether or not we have any way of evaluating the capacity and if you could just speak to a little bit more of that i'd appreciate it thanks absolutely and i'll give some additional context when we when we were in the process of trying to open river street camp um we found no available nonprofit to run that program and that was for a myriad of reasons um the the length of time for instance that we're planning on having the program open the ability to recruit on behalf of our of our nonprofit providers to do that type of work for a short period of time for instance um different value systems on behalf of our nonprofit organizations in terms of what emergency shelter actually is and how to accommodate the population that we're needing to serve um that caused the city to move forward with running the river street camp on our own um we also gained a ton of information through that process this go around um in research of transitional encampments in research around um contracting methods and who what kind of nonprofit NGOs you would be looking for you need nonprofits that have government related experience you need nonprofits that can um think about um the fiscal risk all of the responsibilities that an organization might be taking on to serve this population we have a very small number of nonprofits in our community that can meet these expectations and we have found um from both the city and the county that through our conversations around who might be able to run these types of programs the list is very short very short and for folks that um let me go back um to meet the demands that we have that are ever evolving that are crisis in in level um that is something that our community is having a hard time meeting those expectations and so I I will say with any um contract we have a procurement process we have a contract process that requires many different levels of professional um responsibilities um that is across the organization in terms of our contract um methods and processes um that it would be no different for this um we would expect to do an rfp and see what kind of responses we would get um and then go from there and just real quick one last question the so I know working with state grants I do a lot of that professionally um there's usually quite a lot of restrictions in terms of how funds are spent is there any within our grant contracts do we have a requirement for any kind of certain kind of service qualifications or anything like that for this kind of thing well absolutely and with the heap heap and cash funds it's even more stringent um but yeah I mean in performance metrics um what our expectations would be in terms of um measuring what success looks like and also having kind of those contracts um stipulations really spelled out absolutely that would be part of the process thank you okay so we'll have a few more questions for Susie and we'll have more opportunity for um discussion later so I uh we'll go to councilmer crone and then council member brown and then council member clever council member crone questions for Susie yeah thank you um did we have a letter uh from the ACLU this this week um threatening litigation if we close this camp do you see a role Susie for the ACLU and their uh real juggernaut of of of of resources that they could bring to bear on something like this in a way that the city and the ACLU can work together on an issue such as homelessness so after my presentation uh the city attorney is going to be talking about this subject so um I'm happy to provide my perspective on that but I do think um generally speaking it is incumbent upon the city to bring in um a diverse cross section of stakeholders into this conversation and I think the ACLU would fit into that as well thank you and the question of course I have for uh Martín Bernal it says that uh I guess in your um letter to the community you said there were 100 uh folks living at the Ross camp how did you determine that um that was the best estimate that we got from our fire department from when they went out and evaluated the site so that's just an estimate based on you know staff out at the site when they've done inspections so we haven't taken a census or uh you know as as um Susie pointed out no evaluations or there have been attempts as she described there have been attempts as she described yes but but it has not been successful in the letter we have says there's could be up to over 200 people um at that camp thank you mayor okay council member brown question for Susie I'll pass thanks do you have additional question yeah just two quick ones um thank you for doing the outreach to remind you to please keep your voices down so that we can uh hear uh council member Glover at this time thank you uh thanks for doing the outreach to the non-profits in the faith communities it's really important um can you just describe the outreach process to specifically churches and faith communities with regards to the establishment of transitional encampments yeah so we held a community-based meeting um probably I don't know three or four weeks ago it felt like five minutes ago um actually had a significant significant number of uh non I'm sorry faith-based programs um come to the meeting it was highly interactive um really trying to describe um both transitional encampments and safe sleeping programs I will say the outcome of that meeting was quite positive there is a lot of faith-based organizations who are interested in being a part of the solution although they really need more information about what is being asked of them and they also um you know really want to be a part of dialogue as to all types of different solutions I mean I think our faith-based partners um have volunteer um you know uh volunteers that outnumber probably a lot of our different sectors in our community that are really interested in helping with the issue around homelessness so whether that being um food drives or blanket drives or the whole kind of spectrum of different in kind resources that a faith-based community can provide I think they are poised to offer that however um during that process we really wanted to get to a question of um is one of our local churches interested in siting and or operating a transitional encampment and folks just didn't really have enough information at that time to be able to say yes to that so I'm just uh be as clear as possible you're saying that there are people and organizations like churches that have expressed interest but are just waiting on additional information for the potentiality of siting on their property or running a transitional encampment I would say that they're interested in dialoguing across all different kinds of solutions I think there's a lot of fear about encampments in general as we've seen I don't think our faith-based partners um have any less challenges around what it means to cite a transitional encampment on their property or in their neighborhood than any of our neighbor organizations I think it's really about getting more information as to the program model and how it would be run and really thinking about um how it would be um kind of harmonious with the neighborhood and so would you maybe be able to get me a list of the faith-based organizations or the organizations in general that were present in that meeting I'd love to see that great and then just the last thing you mentioned that there was something that came up in the conversation that helped you to identify a difference in values could you expand on that a little bit more on what you mean with nonprofit organizations yeah yeah so I um you know it's we have a number of nonprofit organizations that have boards of directors that are helping to guide the vision and direction of those organizations each of those organizations are working to solve homelessness in different ways and as we work with these nonprofit partners we must try to balance our needs with their program delivery and what they are intending to do and I would say that as it relates to even the type of shelter that they are comfortable in in providing different barriers are are identified through that process and so trying to get to a conclusion as to we need a certain type of program that meets these these needs and removes these barriers that is a different conversation with every nonprofit that we have in this community and some some are flexible and some are not very flexible thank you thank you susie okay at this time we'll turn it over to our city attorney for a brief update from him on anticipated litigation yes um first of all in response to council member crone's question we did receive a letter yesterday from it was jointly signed by the ACLU of northern california and the national law center on homelessness and poverty and what the letter essentially does is it points out as we've already discussed at some length the martin versus boise decision and and it asserts that the planned closure of the ross encampment in the manner that the council has previously directed would likely run afoul of the eighth amendment and fourteenth amendment principles discussed in the martin case have to say having it takes issue with a number of different items first of all with the city staff's assessment of the number of overnight occupants in the encampment with the adequacy of both the number of alternative shelter options that the city has identified and the adequacy of the of the shelter options based on the standards enunciated in the martin case just as an example um in the martin case there's a statement that says we hold that so long as there is a greater number of homeless individuals in a jurisdiction than the number of available beds in shelters the jurisdiction cannot prosecute homeless individuals for involuntarily sitting lying sleeping etc in public that is as long as there is no option of sleeping indoors the government cannot criminalize indigent homeless people for sleeping outdoors and the point that's made in the acle letter is that an alternative transitional encampment in tents and sleeping bags in their view doesn't meet the standard of being beds indoors i think different language in the martin decision suggests that that's an overreaching reading of the martin case but there are ambiguities in the the decision as well um they take issue with the plan to have shuttle in shuttle out services i think some of the information that that appears to be assumed by the authors of the letter are that cities only identified one alternative site for the ross camp residents to relocate i think susie has spoken to a number of different options for potentially relocating the campers or the occupants the letter also however offers to enter into a dialogue to discuss the issues it also takes issue with the draft standard operating procedures that are included in your packet for your consideration this afternoon but doesn't really give specific comments on that but i look at it as an invitation to open a dialogue it doesn't expressly threaten to to file suit but certainly at least implicitly does if the aclu proceeds that the city is going in a manner that's inconsistent with the martin case i will also add that yesterday i received an email communication from someone who's apparently one of the occupants of the encampment indicating that a lawsuit was being filed against the city seeking an injunction or preliminary injunction to enjoin the closure of the ross camp and i received a packet of documents just a few minutes ago that appears to be a file stamped complaint for injunctive and declaratory relief that cites to a from appears to be the same folks that communicated with me by email yesterday okay we'll go ahead and i'll go ahead and remind the community one more time that we're going to have an opportunity to hear from you at this time we're having an opportunity for staff question and presentation obviously i fully agree that the martin versus poise decision constrains the manner in which the city can proceed to to close the ross camp i don't think it it precludes the city from doing so but i think we have to be careful and that's one of the reasons why i've proposed a set of standard operating procedures to to guide that process like i said the martin decision has some ambiguities and it raises some questions and whether or not i've touched all the bases or have proposed something that a court would would endorse under the standards set forth and martin i can't be certain of that but i've done my best to provide a reasonable proposal for the council's consideration thank you mr kandadi are there any questions from council members for our city attorney kandadi the vice mayor coming you mentioned there's constraints around our ability to close the camp can you kind of elaborate on that like what are some of those constraints well first of all we have to be able to offer alternative shelter options we have to provide a process for allowing or assisting the occupants to preserve and and relocate their belongings we have to give advance notice before moving forward with the enclosure or with the closure to the extent that there's property left or that people don't have the ability to relocate all of their belongings we anticipate storing that information or storing that property and making it available to individuals who claim it and we have an obligation under existing state law to maintain that property for at least 90 days under the civil code so all of those procedures are built into the standard operating document that you have like i said the aclu takes issue with some aspects of it you know i think it's worth having a dialogue with aclu to see if we can sort those things out okay thank you uh councilmember meyers then councilmember crone can you clarify if we offer shelter for someone what are the bounds around that is there a length of time is there a location is there do we have any way of understanding i i just heard our staff let us know that there's a number of of potential shelters throughout the county does it need to be within a block does it need to be i'm just curious if you have any guidance or idea or basically guidance or thoughts on that i think the martin case definitely stands for the notion that there has to be real alternative shelter space available okay i'm going to go ahead and say that that's a warning i i've heard you speak out many times at this point um you will have your opportunity to speak to the council during public comment as everybody else here in the chambers bill as well so please refrain from making comments and if you do again i will respectfully ask you to leave the chambers okay please proceed yes the um the constraints that the court looked at in the martin case one specifically involved uh shelter space but that required participation in religious activities of the court found under the establishment clause that not um force someone to stay uh in a in a shelter situation that required participation in really religious activities to someone who um who didn't believe in in those activities the other had to do with um the length of time that a person could stay in the shelter so uh one of the shelters that one of the shelters that the the court looked at only allowed occupants to stay there for a short period of time and then they would have to leave so um so that's one question that's raised the court does not um do a good job of explaining specifically what constitutes an adequate shelter space um and i expect that that issue will evolve in the courts over the coming months and probably years um but but it does indicate that a temporary shelter is uh adequate for purposes of of closing the encampment it doesn't have to be for unlimited duration i also don't accept the principle that the alternative shelter location has to be completely barrier free for instance i don't think that um the court would uh would require that um the shelter space allow illegal activity to occur um or allow uh activity that's so disruptive that other uh occupants of the shelter can't peaceably enjoy um the shelter space so so i don't accept the notion that it has to be without any barriers but i think there are limitations on the barriers that can be um that can be placed upon access to the shelter additional question council member question thank you um when you say um we have to uh provide alternative shelter options i i think the point in time uh study said there's over two thousand homeless people in santa cruz does that mean we have to provide shelter for two thousand people um yeah it was pointed out that the two thousand figures actually countywide i've heard the number more like um 1200 or thereabouts and not all of those people are living under the stars some are sleeping in vehicles some are couch surfing um the martin case isn't clear on that point at the one you know the broad holding is that so long as there are more homeless people in the community then there are available shelter beds indoors that um the ordinance prohibiting camping on public property is unenforceable against homeless people but it goes on to say our holding does not cover individuals who do have access to adequate temporary shelter whether they whether because they have the means to pay for it or because it is realistically available to them for free but who choose not to use it i think in order to implement the martin decision in a practical way you have to be able to say to an individual who's on public property you have an alternative to camping here therefore you have to leave um i don't think that a court would say that you can never enforce an ordinance that prohibits camping on public property for someone who would simply have to avail themselves of available shelter space um i also think that the martin case doesn't stand for the notion that an ordinance prohibiting camping on public property is enforceable against homeless people under all circumstances for instance the city could declare certain areas of the city where camping is prohibited uh and and not prohibited other locations um so that there are areas of the city that are available shelter or at least available places for people to shelter themselves in the city um but not the i don't i don't read it as it's a free-for-all for you know open camping in all city parks and public property thank you another question for council for a city attorney i just want i had a follow-up question on that so if we so we've tried identifying areas throughout the city for example and many neighborhoods have have you know come out in opposition of any type of camping area been in there um going into the neighborhoods and so my question is without having available shelter space um and identifying areas for camping where does that leave the city in terms of enforcing any kind of laws around um restricted restricting camping and camping bands the problem is under the current circumstances based on the martin decision are ordinance that prohibits camping on public property throughout the city is unenforceable and so that's why the police department has um administratively taken the position that it will not enforce uh 636 violation citations at the present time um which in my view is is a temporary remedy only and uh ultimately we need policy direction from the city council to amend our ordinance to make it more consistent with the martin case one more question yeah one more question um and how does that relate to other laws that um that make homelessness illegal so the answer to that question is that the martin decision is couched in very broad terms under the eighth amendment to apply to the situation where a person is cited for violating an ordinance that they can't help but chew uh that they can't help but violate due to their personal circumstances um and and how far that goes is uncertain under the case law but the martin decision did cite a united states supreme court called uh vau powell versus texas in which the supreme court looked at and it was a plurality opinion so it wasn't a majority decision but it but it examined the specifically the issue of alcoholism and being drunk in public and said you know obviously a homeless person who is drunk in public has no choice but to be drunk in public um because they're an alcoholic um it didn't go so far as to say that an ordinance prohibiting being drunk in public is unenforceable against a homeless person um but that is one way to interpret the not the martin decision itself but its legal import as it is interpreted by other courts and i expect that courts will be looking at that question question for mr gandadi and that pertains to uh i think i don't know if this was the language that vice mayor coming was looking for but that laws that disproportionately impact people experiencing homelessness because that was part of the uh 11 point plan that was referred to earlier in the meeting but that was a 90 day turnaround time for that data so like another 30 days hopefully we'll be able to see the the results of the different laws like smoking loitering camping urinating all that kind of stuff correct well yes those those types of laws tend to have a disproportionate effect on homeless people um obviously alcoholics who have homes to go to can get drunk at home right um those alcoholics don't have that option okay thank you okay so that i believe concludes the updates from staff regarding this item um this is a sort of a somewhat unique and i'd say a little bit different kind of complex sort of approach so what i want to um do is ask uh for just sort of a brief summary of the two individual council sponsored items that are before us now and then i've received a number of requests for some presentations for public comments so we will have some extensive public comment on this topic and then an opportunity to revisit in more detail the the two proposals before us council member brown just a question your intention is to have the public speak once to all of 15.2 and 15.3 so what we'll do is and i'll just sort of uh so what we'll all do is so for 15.2 is an item sponsored by myself uh council member mires and council member mathews um 15.3 is a subsequent item uh sponsored by council member brown and vice mayor comings um i'll just briefly say and then i'll turn it over to my colleagues to briefly make their comments on our item that you know over the past um i think five meetings or so we've had extensive conversation and suggestions around solutions and i think what we have before us are two potential pathways and i just recognize that this is evolving it's complex it's um really difficult social challenges that we have before us public health challenges that we have before us people's lives and um you know and there's a there's a level of gravity to that and i hundred percent recognize that part of our jobs um as as leaders who are elected is to make sometimes tough decisions given the information we have at the time even how even if it's not clear and i think what we have before us is an opportunity for us to choose two different pathways so i'll go ahead and um just sort of preface it that way um turn it to my colleagues to just maybe make a few brief comments about the item and then uh and then to uh council member uh brown and and vice mayor coming to make a few brief comments about your item um and then we could potentially open up to questions for uh a short bit but then allows some public comment so we can return for action and deliberation just a point of order if if there's three items um would you and people can't comment on each one but i mean council members will be able to um would you be willing to give folks three minutes on each thing one that's one minute per item if you go 9.2 9.3 9.4 instead of two minutes i will um allow for three minutes for the numerous organizations that are speaking on behalf of a number of folks um i will allow that my the process i will um pursue is to allow any individual who would like to make a brief comment to come first in one minute um and they can self select in that way them to have the presentations and then to reduce it to two minutes for um other folks that would be the process that i would just make a motion then because there's three items three clear items and we're only giving them one minute per item that we give each person who comes to the podium uh the opportunity to speak up to three minutes then i suppose that you would probably want to incorporate in your motion some sort of modification to our oral communications time which could that would likely impede into that time and or would you suggest that we pause at 7 p.m. for oral communications yes no we're not this is not an opportunity for us to hear from you this is not we'll have a chance to hear from you thank you you can make a moment you can make a motion if you like make a motion for for three minutes if there's a second second okay so there's a motion to have every individual who wants to speak up to three minutes is that correct yes pause for oral communication at seven o'clock and to pause for oral communications at seven o'clock to allow for that to happen okay motion by councilmember crone seconded by um councilmember glover yeah um i know that typically we've been providing folks with the opportunity for one minute and above um and so i wonder if that's in order to make sure that we get through all the people who want to speak if we if sticking to that model might be a better opportunity if there are people who want to speak for three minutes um you know i think that we did have an opportunity for people to call in and or to uh write the mayor and request extra time and so i do think that um in the essence of time it would be good for us to you know sticks to that model because oftentimes it seems like a lot of folks um want to get their their point across in the minute we have a huge turnout for that these days and so i don't know if it's necessary that we have three minutes at this point in time councilmember brown and then councilmember matthews can we can we maintain that model and give people who want three minutes three minutes but they have to wait of course as per your the model that you've established which i think works but so people who want to speak for a minute can self-select speak first and others who want more time given the complexity of the issue i i am inclined to give people a little bit more time here and we got a lot to sort through um and people are here and interested in weighing in and they're going to be weighing in on a variety of of items but but i think we can still get to the one minute for some people okay uh councilmember matthews there's obviously a huge number of people who want to speak on this i think the motion on the floor is for everyone to have three minutes is that correct have i understood that's correct um but i incorporated the friendly amendment from councilmember brown that if folks who want to speak first um can go for one minute if they want to choose to speak for just one minute and those who want to wait can wait and speak for three minutes um my own feeling is there's a great deal of overlap between these suggestions and people um i prefer giving the advanced or the expanded time to those groups representative groups who contacted in advance giving the quick one minute giving others two minutes for the package of item 15 uh issues because we are also going to need a good deal of time i believe to deal with this ourselves but that still gives everyone a chance but i think um i would prefer that three minutes for a group one minute quick comments for those who want to do it and two minutes for the remainder that is still going to really tax and the interest of time motion to call the question okay so all those in favor please say i i any opposed no no okay so that passes i believe with councilmember brown vice mayor Cummings councilmember crone and councilmember glover in support of modifying public comment time okay just for clarification that that's still going with a one-minute model don't allow people one minute that's how i that's how i do it but if you want to change that you've voted to change that so that's what this there you have it that's incorporated into it okay so we'll go ahead and move on to the two different proposals that are before us under five point two and five i mean i'm sorry excuse me 15.2 and 15.3 um 15.2 was an item to um resend lot 24 approval for sleep safe sleeping to revise the ross camp closure plan and to form a community and expert panel on homelessness that item was brought before the council today by myself councilmember matthews and councilmember mires we'll go ahead and have a few brief kind of comments to sort of overview of the item and i'll turn to to do that okay thanks and i think everyone in this room appreciates the changing landscape of these issues and the complexity so given that i want to just explain that the item that we will be bringing forward has some modifications to what has appeared in the printed agenda it's it's largely the same but with some modifications so i just want to explain after we've had all the public commentary and questions and comments from council members what we'll be bringing forward as a modification will be largely along these lines and i should say i wanted to put this on the floor now so people knew about it so the first element would be rescinding the council's prior approval of lot 24 as a safe sleeping and camping site and not pursue further campgrounds in city neighborhoods and parks so that would be the first one the second the second item which called in the printed agenda calls for confirming the april 17th closure date of the ross camp with alternative shelter needs to be met given information that we've received in the intervening time both about legal issues that have been raised and the delay in availability of the 1220 river street camp that language would be changed to the following motion to postpone consideration of the closure of the gateway encampment and opening of the 1220 river street program until the april 23rd meeting to allow further evaluation and consideration of anticipated litigation so it would it would not confirm the april 17th closure date as written in the printed agenda it would defer consideration of what to do about the gateway encampment and scheduling in the opening of 1220 river until our next meeting because as you have all heard stuff has been flying at us and there's a great deal of ambiguity there's interest in speaking with aclu and other parties so that's that's what the revised amendment will be the item as it appears in the printed agenda calls for forming an ad hoc expert council on homelessness with representatives in various subject categories to advise the council on policy and in talking with people listening to the community and trying to see what would be actually most helpful at this point in time that language is going to be changed to the following form a community advisory committee on homelessness to evolve the scope and membership of this community advisory committee to focus on three stages community education and engagement developing short-term solutions and longer-term policy work and that would still include representatives from various areas of expertise that touch on homelessness and there is we can discuss when we get back to the longer discussion amplify a bit on that how that committee would be structured but anyway i just i want to put that out there it's somewhat different than the item that appeared in the printed agenda councilmember mayers i'll defer my time to councilmember Cummings okay if you would like to take a moment to briefly introduce your recommendation 15.3 whatever i'll just go first so given the urgent need for alternative sleeping areas in order to meet shelter requirements to close the current camp in compliance with martin versus boy's decision after the march 19th city council meeting the two by two committee meeting had been working on this the assumption that the safe sleeping program was going to come online on march 26 the city council voted to agendize a motion to rescind the decision to turn parking lot 24 into a safe site for sleeping and camping the city reached out to the county in an effort to set up a meeting with the two by two committee prior to today's city council meeting which was set for last monday april first on the evening of sunday march 31st an email was sent out to cancel the homeless two by two committee meeting and no meeting was scheduled with the two by two committee to discuss how we were going to move forward with providing alternative shelters after the decision had been made to not use lot 24 and given that we had no opportunity to meet and discuss what kinds of alternatives we would be able to utilize in order to meet the needs of sheltering people who are at the camp councilmember brown and i decided that we would recommend what we have proposed today we were hoping to receive and get the community to receive an update on the city county joint action plan for emergency shelter provision and encampment management including efforts to identify locations and resources for permanent year-round shelter and navigation and day services and we were also directing staff to develop and implement an interim site management plan for the gateway encampment consistent with the measures outlined in the report that we provided and including cleanup site sleeping space layout installation of additional hygiene and security measures ongoing and interim operations management with the management plan to go into effect no later than the opening of the river street campground we proposed this because we understood that if we weren't going to have alternatives online that we would need to do something and at the point in time where we have not been able to identify sites within the community it seemed that it would be best if we were to try to recommend and work with staff to get a plan for managing the current site as it is and to have that coincide with when 1220 came online and as we know we had an additional proposal from other council members and I think that ultimately what we're trying to do is see if that there are alternatives that we can bring online to meet the needs of the community in addition to that as we've been provided with new information regarding the legal challenges we have around martin versus boysy I think that we are still hoping to stick with this model and then discuss this further after we hear from the public and I want to let council member brown providing it for the comments thank you I think I think vice mayor comments has well summarized the rationale and content of what we're proposing here I would just make a couple of related comments one I actually don't believe that these are completely mutually exclusive or diverging proposals competing proposals I think there are elements of them that we should be looking at and considering we did not include them the motion to rescind lot 24 because we understood that to be already coming to us based upon a motion that was made at the previous council meeting so it wasn't that we weren't wanting to include that for example secondly I think the discussion about community advisory committee is not mutually exclusive with rationalizing the gateway encampment on a temporary on an interim basis really what's a question here is are we going to vote on a date to close the Roth camp or not and even that seems to be for the moment potentially off the table so I just want to say that that's that's I don't I see I think that we should be able to talk about all of these and figure out where the council has agreement and where we don't when the time comes I'll ask that we consider these as individual items but I'll get there after we hear from the public so I'd like to do that. Mr. Congatti? I just want to make sure we keep in mind that the draft SOPs are also part of the discussion public has an opportunity to comment on and you had previously addressed that I don't think I need to go over it again because I touched upon it at the introductory remarks okay so at this time I think it'd be appropriate to open up to public comment knowing that we'll have an opportunity for further council action and deliberation so what we'll go ahead and do is allow for any individual who is interested in speaking to the council in one minute to come forward and be given an opportunity to speak first once we conclude from hearing from folks who are interested in addressing the council in the one minute time frame we'll go ahead and open it up to the groups who requested additional time you will have your three minutes and then any other individual thereafter can also have up to three minutes to address the council you want to speak for three minutes you got to wait behind everybody else that's correct so any member who's interested in speaking the any member who's interested in speaking to the council in one minute please come forward and we'll go ahead and hear from you okay you'll have up to one minute sorry hi um go ahead and go ahead and pause the time this is a line for any interested individual who would like to address the council in one minute please line up to my left you can stay there if you're interested in speaking to the council for one minute please make your way up forward to my left in some way and we'll be given your time before we come I'm going to go ahead and wait until we have an opportunity so that the individual who is going to be speaking to us can be heard so if you can please keep your comments down okay we'll go if you could please keep your voices down all conversation in the chambers can please stop at this point we have an opportunity to hear from the community and you're welcome to go forward please okay thank you I just want to make two quick points one is that um I became aware this week through talking to Ryan Coonerty that there already is a safe parking space program available and he sent me a flyer and I think it would be awesome if I know it's not your responsibility to tell the community what the county is doing but I think it might alleviate some of the stress and angst we all feel and the responsibility that we feel that we're the only ones doing anything so I was happy to hear that there are 15 churches with all these parking spaces and they're potentially available for referral which is awesome and then secondly because I'm a little neurotic and I like to count things I tallied the letters again there were 477 pages of letters um 324 in support of Myers Watkins and Matthew's proposal which represents 80 percent of the letters received are in support of your proposal thank you thank you next speaker up to one minute I just want to get a little clarification on lot 24 go ahead unlock 24 have you taken it off the table or you're still considering it it was a little confusing how you guys worded it go ahead and pause this talk I'll just clarify for the community that right now we have various proposals we have not taken any specific action on lot 24 that will be one of the actions that we will we will revisit after we hear from the community okay thank you councilmember and if I could just add I believe there's general agreement on that appears that there's no I would agree with that okay next speaker and you'll have up to one minute as a public servant and someone who provides nursing care under federal lawsuit I find it galling that you guys are still going to keep studying the issue and keep a camp open where bodies are piling up on yours and the county's watches you are sending a team out of there of non-medical people to hand out thousands of needles one who is a fake nurse who used to work for the city of Santa Cruz who it is unlawful in the state of california to represent yourself as a medical professional I find it disturbing that you are so uneducated about the issues you need to talk to people who know what is going on mr. Glover I have never seen any data that you propose for transitional encampments where is the data your own city staff has no surveys to even identify the people or their needs at camp Ross this is unacceptable thank you I have a quick comment question this is a huge problem we're a small community have you reached out to federal and state agencies such as FEMA and the National Guard for assistance in either planning logistics financial help might be something to look into if you haven't next speaker you'll have up to one minute my name is Dave Willis I just want to say do something it's time and it's way past time for all this talking do something take action you yourself have said people are dying how dire how serious is that I mean it was a lady up here she was talking about $75,000 a month what does that mean is that a thousand dollars a person a night that's crazy money so you asked her a dollar amount she don't have that information and you asked her a couple other things she don't have that information she goes to a meeting and don't have material if I come to you I'm coming like this I'm saying he's carrying too much check her work who's doing her who's checking what she does don't just rely on what she's saying you all are smart smarter smart people do something now on that time for talk that was 30 years ago show us something I just hope that the city council will not close the Ross camp until another long-term solution for the homeless in Santa Cruz has been approved it makes no sense to deny homeless people a place to sleep at night or to be in community with others we all live in Santa Cruz and we need to treat everyone with kindness and respect no matter what their circumstances are none of us know when we may become homeless because of the high costs of housing loss of a job a medical crisis or a local climate disaster thank you I would just ask whatever action that the council takes that they do still encourage the enforcement of at least some of the laws that we have specifically the drug laws I'm very concerned about the current state of affairs with needles in the town it's not a needle exchange it's a needle giveaway needles need to have inherent value and it should be a one-for-one exchange if it was that way we wouldn't see so many washing up on the beaches in our pathways and in parks thank you hello coral broon in Santa Cruz I live at the tannery I do believe I'm the only one here now that would have any comment I mean speaking about it and I'm fine with the Ross camp where it is if it's to be there there are concerns about what the city said they would do they would modify some of the where the porta potties are and I know that's probably difficult but when people have to cross through there that's one of the things that if it's going to be a long-term proposal that maybe that it would be better that neighbors could you feel like they could access it and they could walk through or they could pass by there instead of avoiding it completely and having more hatred I'm not sure but I'm trying to be civil and I know that's about emotion so it's really the hardest thing I've done today thank you hi I'm Frank Desimone I've been in Santa Cruz since 1974 I'm about to move out because we can't take it anymore I live on market street I'm part of the grants grant street park neighborhood and our concern is going to be if you do close the Ross or gateway encampment then is the grant park and other parks are they going to be invaded that's a very big concern of ours but mostly mostly we're concerned about crime that's what's going on and it needs to be addressed and the police need to be able to do their job the da has to do their job you have to have facilities to house these people they're criminals the criminals need to be addressed that's what's putting a bad mark on all these homeless folks it's the criminals all right hi my name is Megan before I had a kid I used to prepare my speeches for city council I have a phd and I have a really good job her father was diagnosed with schizophrenia earlier last year and lost his job and we are both currently homeless me my daughter and her father and so I just want to make a point that not all homeless people are drug addicts or criminals I think there are criminals at the top of our elite political system and I'm hoping that this political system and figure out a way to actually say you know what if I have a house and a roof over my head I'm gonna take some time to be grateful and less time thinking how awful people are that don't have those same privileges and so thank you very much for the time and also this is not going to go away you guys are in the tech central you guys are busing people from Silicon Valley to come enjoy the pretty shores here and you're going to have to figure out if you're going to displace the people can you give something in place of what they had that is dignified thank you hi I'm Cynthia with Santa Cruz tenants and I just wanted to talk about getting a lot of letters from homeless constituents and tenants it's you're elected and you're to represent people who don't have a lot of power and they're not going to be the ones that are going to send you a thousand letters and they didn't have a million dollar program organizing them throughout the anti-measure m campaign that left them with a great organization like the landed folks in the town so it is your responsibility to represent those people without a lot of letters and so I appreciate when you go and speak with them directly because that is how you will be communicated with by the people who elected you students are busy they're doing finals or they're on break and they're not sitting writing letters to the city council but they elected you too so please don't worry about all the letters piling up are any additional members of the community who would like to address the council in one minute okay I believe that you would be next if you're in line if you can please line up to my left go ahead I'll do my best to keep this one minute um so I was at the encampment a little over a month ago for the first time and as a side note I felt safer there than I did in the area that I live downtown which is about a few blocks from the police station um a member of the encampment spoke with me there um who has a lot of connections within the encampment at that time a while ago he estimated those at a minimum 90 people there since then as you're well aware the encampment has greatly increased in size likely exponentially and um his current estimate is closer to about 100 145 and I know this has been a lot of discussion on to we don't have an accurate census and stuff like that and that's something that needs to be prioritized but at the same time even though it is difficult because people are coming and going we absolutely need to make sure that there are enough adequate shelter beds before we do um any sort of eviction of the Ross camp for reasons that have been not only moral reasons but also legal reasons which have already been brought up regarding the ACLU um hinted legal threat etc we can't afford again for both a moral reason and a legal monetary reason to not have it next speaker please well I'm gonna go ahead and okay that's a warning and if you have an outburst your book well the next I am managing the meeting if you don't agree with me you don't get to do it I'm gonna you'll have your time if you want to wait for the three minutes that's how it's going next next outburst and I'm going to go ahead and ask you to leave respectfully please you have one minute I um live in the oceanview park neighborhood um I understand it's a very complex issue involves real people and their lives but I like the proposal that you guys have made to study the issue with an expert panel I think the the issues are complex and need to be looked at but we also have to I think take a look at everything in the community are we maximizing our I understand we're having a sales tax revenue shortfall what are we doing to you know make sure downtown is thriving at its utmost what are we doing to help these people who have you know who are out there I understand that but I agree with the Myers Watkins Matthews motion to take care of the community as a whole and then address these issues as you can thank you thank you next speaker most people and most people in static I'm sorry please go ahead and I don't I can't see who that is or else I'd be giving you a warming warning please keep your voices down if there's one more outburst I'm going to pause the meeting we'll take a break and we'll reconvene in five minutes so we'll go ahead and hear from you with your time anybody who's interested in speaking will be given their time you if you're interested in speaking in one minute you can speak now after that we'll go ahead and open it up for anybody interested in speaking for three minutes please most folks in Santa Cruz are working right now that the hardworking citizens they don't have time to come to this meeting I actually quit my job because I'm so upset about the way things are going now I encourage all you folks most of the people in Santa Cruz don't know who you are because they're too busy working they don't get to watch the tv shows go out and talk to the average citizen wherever you go don't tell them you're a city council member okay because everywhere I go people are upset that we've got all these tents let's move them moving to river street as a temporary basis we want to help these people but not at the expense of the hardworking business owners and citizens of Santa Cruz Miss Myers Matthews and one other person seems to have a common sense solution where we're not penalizing the hardworking people of Santa Cruz and I guarantee you it's more than 80 percent that are not in favor of opening up parks and homeless encampments don't work the head of the Obama administration homeless experts says they don't work thank you thank you hi my name is Danny I grew up here speaking strongly in support of Justin and Sandy's proposal as exciting as it would be to get to be part of the developing case law to have Santa Cruz be part of that developing case law around the criminalization of homeless people I don't think that's the role we want to play I think we need to play the role of figuring out how we like look at something like an unsanctioned encampment and make it work for people I don't think bulldozers are going to solve homelessness I don't think bulldozers are an acceptable solution to people dying in that camp and I'm really excited to see the city council focus its resources on figuring out what it looks like to engage with the people there figure out what they want and figure out how to make that place a safe dignifying place for them to sleep thanks my name is Lee Broca and I can do this in a minute the last time I saw council council member Matthews we talked about healing the community and bringing people together I see promulade displayed on the desk an equal sign my father is gay I understand that but I hope for you that equal sign means equality for everybody and that includes the homeless people there have been a lot of words spoken here and I read an old deference to the city attorney I read from the appellate decision martin v voisey and in this decision they say there will be no further appeals the next stop is the supreme court the panel held that cruel and unusual punishment clause of the 8th amendment precluded the enforcement of a statute prohibiting sleeping outside against homeless individuals no means access to alternative shuttle the panel held as long as there's no option for sleeping indoors I'm going to go ahead and ask that you the government cannot criminalize indigent homeless people for sleeping outdoors we're going to go ahead and have you conclude your comments you had an opportunity to say okay okay so we have a well we have an opportunity for we're going to go ahead and take a five-minute break we're going to have a five-minute break and we'll reconvene in five minutes from now yep five-minute break reconvene our council meeting we are on item number 15 and we have concluded the one-minute time for any interested community member who wanted to address the council briefly in one minute now would be the time for group organizations who reached out in advance to address the council on behalf of the organization that they represent I've received a number of requests from various groups the first being from mr. Norris representing Huff you'll be given three minutes I'd prefer that we go through the group organizations now this would be now the time for group organizations as somebody who's okay so you will go you will conclude after the last of the three of the group organizations before we open it up for general community okay so Lynn Renshaw representing Santa Cruz together was the second organization I heard from and you will have up to three minutes to address the council I'll go ahead and remind the community before we begin that I anticipate that you can maintain quiet so that we can allow each individual to be heard when they are at the podium without disruption and that could go for folks that you agree with and disagree with that everybody has an opportunity to address us to be given their time I try to be very consistent on equity of voice in that regard for the three minutes or two minutes or whatever that may be that they have and want to remind you to adhere to that if there is a disruption and you have already been warned and you continue to disrupt I will ask that you leave the chambers if you have not been warned and I noticed that you are disrupting the proceeding and the individual's ability to speak I will give you a warning and if it continues the second time I will ask that you please leave okay so this time Ms. Renshaw please speak you have up to three minutes okay Lynn Renshaw Santa Cruz together com homelessness is a serious and complicated problem requiring compassion very substantial resources and sophistication are also necessary in recent council meetings there is a pattern of voting on a single possible solution late at night with perhaps 10 minutes of discussion this process yields rushed flawed ill conceived and frankly outrageous proposals like putting a homeless camp by a soccer field used by 1500 kids or the original proposal to potentially locate the Ross campers next to westlake elementary school or council member glivers proposal to put the camp on the soccer field see any public health risks there this council process is inadequate we support mayor Watkins council member Myers and Matthew's proposal to slow down study best practices for ending homelessness and compare costs and likely outcomes we also support the council proposal for no new homeless encampments particularly not in neighborhoods by schools children and families the council's yes vote for an encampment at depot soccer field was outrageous it outraged thousands of people suddenly feeling threatened by potential public health safety and environmental risks of further sanctioned encampments the map of potential encampment locations in neighborhoods put thousands on high alert people are watching this vote the united states interagency of homelessness caution cities against sanctioned encampments quote creating these environments may make it look and feel like the community is taking action to end homelessness on the surface people stay staying within such settings are still unsheltered still living outside and remain homeless and oftentimes these settings are not providing them with a truly safe healthy and secure environment unquote the united states agency further finds that camps are expensive hard to manage and maintain and difficult difficult to close even if intended as temporary please take time to find a better solution a few questions how much per person per month did the river streak encampment cost would it be better to invest that amount in permanent brick and mortar shelters for lower long-term costs is there a million dollars in the city budget to run an encampment next year in our city's homeless policy please balance the impacts on 65 000 citizens against the desires of 100 Ross campers please balance the input of all those communicating to you here today against those who cannot be here to speak due to work please listen to the community before proceeding with ill-conceived inadequately vetted and rushed land-use decisions please represent all 65 000 thank you our next um i'd like to now invite up rafael sonanfield who would be speaking on behalf of friends of depot park and you'll have up to three minutes yes i'm here on behalf of friends of depot park to urge the city to rescind the current plan for lot 24 today i started friends of depot park to give a voice to people in my neighborhood who are shocked by the way the city rushed through a plan for a shelter program without involving input from the community or providing clear answers to questions about how the program would be operated my goal from the beginning was has been to improve the processes around how these decisions get made community engagement should be a core value of governance especially when making policies on divisive issues without the community being included in the process the city is playing with fire people fear what they don't understand to quote the great philosopher yoda fear leads to anger anger leads to hate and hate leads to suffering we need to move forward together as a community today we have an opportunity to forge away forward from the gridlock on the issues of sheltering our our unhoused community councilmember matthew's plans uh calling for no transitional encampment will most certainly result in a lawsuit being filed against the city and a temporary injunction being issued preventing any immediate action being taken to close the ross camp assuming the city prevails it still has the legal responsibility to offer a shelter or alternative public space to people evicted from sleeping on public property there will be new movements to occupy other public properties without a sanctioned shelter management plan and we will be having a new conversation about how to close a new unsanctioned camp and where to send those people in short order the vice mayor has proposed a plan calling for the ross camp to be replaced with a managed transitional encampment but the proposal hasn't addressed the timing of when this plan would be implemented and as currently written could result in further delayed action passing this plan would clarify how the city intends to deal with the direct issue of the ross camp but is currently a narrow proposal that doesn't directly address meeting the needs of the surrounding community neither plan addresses how the city will continue to meet its obligation to allow public sleeping places or offer adequate shelter if a group of people takes unilateral action to occupy public property the vfw and salvation army are set to close in june as is the river street camp which is going to be relocated in the end of june the crisis we're facing as a result of a nationwide systematic issue unaffordable housing drug epidemics and lack of mental health care we must maintain public safety for all while focusing on finding long-term solutions with county state and federal government we encourage you to create a proactive framework to tackle both short-term and long-term issues uh to to solve short-term and long-term issues or else we'll be stuck in a cycle of poor outcomes hostile relations between the community at large and homeless people and limited progress i'd also like to add that in the spirit of unity i am personally supporting as co-author of the statement that phil posner with conscience and action is making next thank you i will invite up now keith mchenry with food not bombs to speak on behalf of the organization food not bombs yes thank you um i am first of all the the moving a camp to depot park i think it was intentionally designed by staff and having sat here and watched it to generate as much opposition to solutions to homelessness as possible and that's what we have seen um then um there's i i know that food not bombs was never approached about managing a like participating in a self-managed um camp and some of our volunteers actually have lived and cooked at such camps in seattle and have former residents of those camps many years ago and have a direct experience so it was in fact um in 1989 food not bombs participated in a self-managed camp of about 400 people in front of city hall in san francisco where we provided food their meeting sanitation and the only reason it was closed because of people objected to seeing homeless people or internally displaced people in their community and we were forced out with riot police now that lack the reason that the night circuit court of appeal upheld the the eighth amendment which is a eighth amendment is cruel and an unusual punishment is because that is exactly what it is it is cruel and unusual punishment and uh so these the thing i really urge the community to consider is that these are humans these are people the stories of how maybe somebody ends up being injured on the job for instance a acquaintance of ours who sadly died of stage 4 cancer um uh and and then big ending up on pain medicine that he can't get off because there's no way there's no access to treatment in this community i spend the try i try to get somebody to to call janice you've got to call like in my experience 60 days in a row you miss one day the 60 day starts up again so the same people that are opposed to ross camp opposed to camps anywhere are also opposed to the siting of drug treatment centers um you know dr leff explains that he gets funding for mental health and drug treatment in this community but the same people that come out to demand that there be no campsites that we get rid of the homeless and so on are the same people that stand in the way of these solutions and so the a beautiful thing would be if the city council all of us started to consider these people our relatives our neighbors our friends people with real lives and real stories and not dehumanize them thank you i'd like to now invite up uh phil posner representing conscious in action thank you mayor first of all i want to thank uh rafael for uh his collaboration in this comment my the statement that took also involves uh half food not bombs we are individuals and while co constituencies do not always agree philosophically we are here because we are united in our belief that the city and county of santa cruz has an obligation to provide sanctioned safe shelter for the unhoused both day and night we recognize that there are currently some important public health safety issues at the ross camp that must be addressed many of those who live at the ross camp that many are there because they have nowhere nowhere else that provides them a sense of security solidarity and community therefore we are here to urge the city of santa cruz and the county to comply with and put into action the following set of principles and you have this document handed out to you one that compassion for the unhoused members of our community be prioritized in any action taken by the city and county in that context we ask that they take all necessary actions to obtain and provide sustainable funding for homeless services to develop and execute evidence-based policies that improve outcomes for homeless people by seeking financial and legislative support from philanthropic organizations businesses and governmental bodies and to develop and execute homelessness related policies that meet the needs and improve the well-being of the community at large two that should the city council decide to establish a temporary managed shelter program at the site of the existing ross camp necessitating eviction of the site's current residents for two days to clean up site sleeping space layout installation of additional hygiene shelter and security matters and water service the city shall only take such action if and when they provide reasonable notice and offer lodging vouchers or other immediate shelter opportunities to all of the ross camp residents a week prior to the beginning of the proposed two-day improvement period three that adequate shelter space be defined as the physical space provided to shelter persons both day at night night and day with without unwarranted harassment or unnecessary inconveniences committed by the police or their representatives four that the city be required to name and provide adequate shelter space to persons who are being accused of sleeping on public property or cited for sleeping on public property five that the city and county form a permanent homeless program oversight committee made up of experts including homeless advocates well i didn't get to finish but you had the statement thank you thanks mayor thank you i will invite micah posner representing Santa Cruz for bernie at this time the difference between bernie sanders and the status quo democratic party is that the status quo democratic party tries to make things better within the context of the way that institutions normally run bernie sanders and we progressives say that if the normal way of doing things is not working then we have to do things differently i find it ironic that us blue state people are always turning up our noses at the red state people but here in Santa Cruz we have one of the worst human rights abuses in the country by visiting cruel and unusual punishment on two percent of our population on a regular basis as defined by the constitution the united states um we i heard council member miers assert that it's responsibility of our city to take care of all of our citizens with and without homes and i totally agree with that but let's be clear that this conversation is happening in a context is the council aware that people before camp ross people without homes were dying in the bushes and on residential streets the fact that people died at camp ross is meaningless unless you look at how many other people died before there was camp ross it's the same thing with the it's the same thing with the police calls yeah with hundreds of people you're gonna have police calls how many less police calls do we have from my neighborhood and all the other neighborhoods because the people are now at camp ross some people say that they don't want homeless encampments that they don't work what about the fact that we have hundreds of homeless encampments already before camp ross which we don't have a choice to say we don't like homeless encampments our choice is to say how can we make the situation a little incrementally better that's the only choice we have so status quo democrats they care about people but when they're faced with serious institutional barriers they just give up they say this is too ugly i can't deal with this the progressive side of the democrat party takes responsibility for people no matter what we figure out a way to change the way things happen so as to avoid putting cruel and unusual punishment on people and violating the institution the santa cruz branch of the bernie sanders campaign supports 15.3 we support justin comings and sandy brown and their proposal and we're proud we helped get them elected now i'm speaking as an ex-council member for the last few seconds i want to say i don't really like the phenomenon of homelessness either and this might not be popular but i don't really like the way camp ross looks or how it feels but i think it's incrementally better than the way things were before camp ross and i appreciate that the council is actually looking at not being denial and looking at at making it slightly better still so here's what i think you should do i think you should open the river street camp you should take the barbed wire off the fence to make it a little bit less appealing a little bit more appealing excuse me and when you do open it you should close camp ross for a couple days to make it safer and reorganize it and and get rid of the rats and all that um i know that's a hard choice because camp ross is never going to be a wonderful place but it's a real choice it takes responsibility for what's really happening and tries to make it a little better thank you thank you i'd like to invite up bodhi um toke um ton him representing grant street park neighbors is bodhi here okay um i'm not seeing bodhi here so we'll go ahead and return to mr norris representing huff as our final organization speaking so there's not enough room in the 1220 river street for the people in the ross camp and during a cleanup or at any other time so what you really need are auxiliary camps for camp ross as it's currently situated and it's the community that really has to help with this because i don't think this council has um the will or the cohesion to do it uh at the present time in particularly sense it's not the council that's going to be doing it it's the staff and that's what worries me because it's the staff and city manager martin brunel that has the real power in these situations so for example this new standard operating procedure that's going to be used to remove public nuisances that's the fourth provision that you're going to be looking at has a nice way of essentially walking around the boy's versus martin decision which says something to the effect of we can force you to move even though we have no place for you to move to because we're cleaning up because it's a public health problem uh because uh we hope to have some spaces as uh oh harrow went on at great length about hoping to have this and that so i i think you need to add to the standard operating procedure some safeguards for the people who are in the ross camp and elsewhere in other encampments so long as there are insufficient temporary shelters or shelters that are not realistically available to indigents homeless individuals the city shall not issue citations to make arrests for involuntarily sitting lying or sleeping in public places is how it reads now i would suggest you add or change well add the additional language and as long as there are insufficient temporary shelters or shelters that are not realistically available ross camp residents will work with city officials in place rather than vacating the camp to facilitate cleanup activity in the camp unless there is a specific voluntary offer for a person to go to a place and they want to go there no resident shall be forced to exit the camp unless she or he is offered and accepted has accepted adequate available indoor shelter or an outdoor shelter if they prefer that no ticketing or nor forcible remover removal will happen unless and until there is a finding by the city council not the city manager the city council that adequate indoor shelter exists for the general homeless population of Santa Cruz including but not limited to the ross camp as required by the Boise decision please i would urge a council member to make this motion and to pass it thank you that concludes the approved organization speaking on behalf of numerous people at this point we'll no i don't have any other notices what was what's your excuse alicia cool i do okay you're well yeah i do think so i do believe i recall i've seen that and yes okay so miss cool you're welcome to speak for three minutes on behalf i might not actually even need three minutes but um i have some serious concerns obviously um a lot of people know who i am my name's alicia cool i've been working with the ross camp i'm the ross camp liaison i've been the one in several meetings um going over what the cleanup might look like i was told by megan bunch that any cleanup would actually be done with the ross camp people where they are and that it would be perhaps done by parks and rec with the help of the fire chief and that everybody there would be able to stay where they are and work together in order to address help health and safety issues and so for the past several weeks as i was talking with megan the fire chief came out there that's been my understanding and only recently has it been proposed that everybody needs to leave to get that done so i do think that it can be done with everybody staying in place uh we filed a lawsuit this morning for the preliminary injunction and it does have an underlined lawsuit we're very concerned with the way things have gone um we don't trust you at this point to make the right decision um we're a little leery about the way things have been going one thing's proposed one week it's taken off the table the next week we still have people out there that are concerned they have anxiety every time you guys you know switch back and forth with these decisions i have a concern that you're proposing a homeless committee but miss walkins you're the person that's going to nominate the people on that committee no one has approached me and asked me you know doing all of these things if i would be able to help you in any of this because i think i can i have about 50 people that are prepared to go to a another encampment keith mchenry has offered to be the nonprofit that you're looking for i could be the director it doesn't have to be me but i do want to make sure that it doesn't turn into a fema camp looking situation with barb wire um like we currently have uh 12 20 will not accommodate everybody at the ross camp in order to shut it down that's a very small place that will probably only house about 50 people that's what it's slated for it's not actually scheduled to be open april 17th there are a lot of barriers to that so i don't think that will be the opening day the safe parking program afc safe parking program they only have five participating churches not 12 five and all those spaces are not even being used i do have a concern about how much money they got to do that to offer you know parking for overnight everybody has to leave by seven i have a concern over 75 000 being the river i can work with less than that you guys aren't even giving me a chance i've got people ready to go i've got a nonprofit we have a lawsuit now so i'm turning it over to you guys and i'm hoping that you guys will make a really good decision both legally ethically and civilly okay i'd like to get a sense of who is interested in addressing the council and and speaking to us on this item remaining in the audience here okay at a certain point you'll want to line up to my left and you will be given up to three minutes norahawkman 30 years i have been working on this 30 years ago with sherry conable and with my mom bernice belton i outlived them both i'm sorry to say and the issue has outlived them both you have over complicated a very simple process you now have put profoundly homeless people in total uh simpatico with housed community members and that really is neither group trusts you homeless folks have proven it by not responding with a single survey people in neighborhoods have responded by saying they don't want their neighborhood degraded some people actually came to this hearing counting the number of homeless people let's say 400 or 1200 and compared it to the 65 000 other people that work and have businesses and i submit to you council that we would never say that about african americans we would never say that about gay lesbian bisexual and transgender people we would never compare percentages of populations and determine whether or not we're then going to serve people get out of the way of this just get out of the way you need a group of people that camp outside that don't want to be held down you need them to participate in their own governance and you don't get there from here with all this other bullshit that was uncivil but that's what it is it is bullshit it's a whole bunch of remind you that it's important to maintain decorum that we have children that are either watching and some are potentially in the audience and to please keep your language okay go ahead continue please i get my time now am i back on the clock so you know keep it simple get people off the ground get their heads covered in the rain and inclement weather and allow them to participate in some aspect of self-governance there are plenty of people in this community that want to help you are not those people and you have proved it by dartboarding neighborhoods and scaring the heck out of community members that their neighborhood might be next you have proved it by scaring homeless folks that they're going to be confined into some kind of a camp which is fairly disgusting to me i'll just leave it at that you can imagine why i think that's really frightening so you need to just get out of the way hi davin brooder boy i don't envy you right now babysitting is tough so there's a lot of press coverage much of it inaccurate regarding the ruling from the ninth circuit court of appeals e.g. martin versus boise the majority stated quote naturally our holding does not cover individuals who do have access to adequate temporary shelter whether because they have the means to pay for it or because it is realistically available to them for them for free but who choose not to use it nor do we suggest that a jurisdiction with insufficient shelter can can never criminalize the act of sleeping outside even where shelter is unavailable and ordinance prohibiting sitting lying or sleeping outside at particular times or in particular locations might well be constitutionally permissible end quote they paraphrase it in short the ninth circuit did not just grant homeless people the unlimited right to camp or sleep anywhere they like at any time nor did it bind local cities hands in removing homeless people from public places in the interest of public health and welfare welfare or in preventing homeless people from setting up tents mr. kandadi said that a week or two ago damn near verbatim that that ruling there you are that ruling relates to sleeping not camping it says you can't criminalize someone for sleeping okay you can't ticket them doesn't say you can't ticket them for setting up a freaking of tool shed in a camp over there why do they have the right to do that why don't i have the right to do that i spent seven years with a needle in my arm on streets here homeless in and out of prison i got lucky i was able to pull myself out of that i'm now a contributing member of society i got a few years under my belt i'm lucky i've got a job i'm lucky i've got a home that i bust my ass for pardon my sorry that to provide for my wife and myself i have grandkids that want to walk down the street to the boardwalk without having to step on a needle or have to go to the other side of me because they're scared of that person that's doing whatever they might be doing in the bush or hanging from the tree or literally building a tree fort next to the road why are the 200 plus mostly drug addicted criminals at ross camp more important than our community is i have no problems with homeless people i've been there i have no problems with addicts i've been there i am one but when i was doing it it wasn't okay it's not okay now where's the county and everything that's going on right now where is it demand that the county do their share and if they're helping tell us we don't hear that from anybody we don't hear from the county and we don't hear from you guys we have a vague reference of the two by two but we don't get anything from them agendize one of those meetings so that we can know what's going on okay thank you darling if i had been speaking uh earlier after phil posner i would have simply said in my one minute i want to associate myself in every way to phil's uh rabbi phil posner's statement uh since i'm here now i'll do that and also simply say that what we decide almost everyone in this room makes up our mind in the the liberty uh and the comfort of homes uh i can't think of more than maybe a handful of people who really do want to live in the woods and probably if they want to live in the woods most of those people would be live responsibly as stewards of the woods setting those folks aside i don't think there's a single one here uh at the deus nor out here in the in the in the community that would say the ros camp is the ideal of human community nor where i would prefer to live but your job is to put yourselves in the position where that's the last shred the last piece of earth where you have that you can hold on to where you can uh pitch your tent eat the rain from falling on your head and anybody that lives with your child or other adult you until you put yourself in that position and and recognize they are there only because they have no other place to be this is they are doing the job of the first job of every organism on this planet and that is to survive put yourself in that in their place in that person's place it's the last place if you can improve on that i am confident that you will that you are their immunity of last resort do it i'm confident you can hello city council thanks for hearing us my name is christie bitner i wrote out what i was going to try and say today and i feel like there's so many things to respond to i'm glad that we're starting to see some is this better if i talk like there i can even hear myself better i'm glad that you're starting to break up the and modify the motions they're set in bunches that you know it's hard to say we agree with all of it and don't agree with all some of it i would like to see the lot 24 rescinded um i wholly uh support the motion to establish a subcommittee to address these issues and hope this committee will work very hard to maximize public outreach and transparency um someone else also addressed the composition of this it stated that the the mayor will decide who's on that committee i hope it's a really um that when the committee is formed that the community as a whole feels like it's got a good representation of all of the parties because otherwise it's you know we're going to have the same thing all over again it also needs to have a lot of public outreach i think um that the current sometimes quite polarized arguments have been badly inflamed by the shotgun approach that we've been taking i'm disappointed to hear people blaming it all on the government um a good portion of you just started in january um some of you have been around a little longer you know what i see and what i feel is that there's um good faith well i hope it's good faith efforts there's a lot of efforts being put forward to try and come up with real solutions um i hear a lot of compassion a lot of you know trying to do it the problem is it's just not always clear what the right way is and as much as we can all reach out and start to renew our faith in each other in real conversation that's what dialogue is about starting out speeches with uh you know everybody's a bigot um i know that comes from frustration but it's not going to enhance the dialogue um as far as what i support here i'm sympathetic that many people are struggling with basic expenses in this economy um their statistics about you know how many go fund me accounts are set up just to cover medical costs you know the it really had the whole number of people without homes without shelter is exploding and i so i support um government resources it's both money and space and energy going to help people in need but it does need to be balanced with the needs and concerns of all citizens okay your time is three thank you next hello my name is michael spadafora the first time i came down here to talk to you guys about this was the middle of november i've been talking to you guys about this over and over again met with several of you different city council members city manager i met with supervisors question i have for the city attorney is what is the definition of camping right we have that we have those people camping they've been there for five months and they haven't left the city has not done anything i'm one of the business owners at gateway plaza the city has not done anything for the employees or the business owners of that center they haven't done anything for the owners of that center the owners that center built that levy the owners that center built the intersection all the way down to san lorenzo lumber they put together a whole project and what is the city council and what does the city do for us nothing we don't get extra officers we don't get a command vehicle the command vehicle is there for six hours a week maybe right you guys haven't done anything so maybe you haven't cleaned up our parking lot you haven't cleaned up the graffiti that we have to deal with every day since for the past five months every day i have to deal with my staff members having to kick somebody out of my store i've had to deal with the security guard got beat up the other day just like they said somebody died at the camp the other day there was a drug bus guy had fifteen hundred dollars worth of cash plus 350 hits of heroin plus meth i don't know if you guys saw that right so the the criminals and the drug addicts are ruining it for the other people there that need a place to live right and you guys aren't doing anything to help minimize the impact that that center has we built a fence it was a 15 thousand dollar fence every time it's cut it's a thousand dollars to fix it nobody city hasn't done anything me out of my own pocket my sales are i've lost tens of thousands of dollars in sales and i've had to pull thousands of dollars out of my pocket to pay my rent right because this is all impact i had the attorney that was representing these people kicked me out of my try kicking me out of my store the other day because he didn't like what i was talking about when i was saying all the impact that the center has i had one of the one of the people that just sued sued you guys say that oh the security guards at ross are just there for looks there's security guards at ross there's security guards at xfinity there's security guards at chipotle um security our security guard got beat up the other day he can't work for i don't know how long to his off workers comp i mean what have you guys done nothing right give us some protection if you guys want to keep that there you guys need to do something for the people there for the customers our parking lots of mess you got street team that cleans up the levy you got street teams that clean up felker street right the people at felker street don't like to walk over there the people to tannery don't like to walk over there when is it the people that are working right the ones that don't want to become homeless when are you guys going to do something for us because i can't keep pulling money out of my pocket to pay for this you have up to three minutes mayor council uh first i'd like to apologize to uh a council person uh mires earlier uh and also the city manager i i don't i don't hold the city that you people responsible in fact the council you're representative of the community you're not like the government you're representative of us so i don't i don't expect that blood is on our hands as a city but and yet what happened last year in the benchlands two women died in that camp before the city took ownership and cleaned it out and put lines and then two more people died after so we have five deaths now in this encampment i'm not saying blood is on our hands but but these deaths occurred on our watch so when you say we want to hold these uh transitional encampments or any nonprofit to to a very high bar we're not actually taking our responsibility for what's already occurred and what's already occurred is is is what the city's been up to and when i say the city i do say the city manager's office and i think we are doing a lot of policy by city management it's really really bizarre how this is working in fact uh drew brought the issue up when did we actually say we're not go divert away from transitional encampments i'm going to remind you you actually didn't 60 minutes before that early march meeting i was told in a city manager's office and they got their their knives into me they they got their blows that's why i'm a little rough on the city manager these days because they got their their licks in but they just decided to switch immediately to that red herring out in uh the park parking lot 24 they were never going to put a camp there they knew it they know how to see descent so but in that meeting uh you were told we're not recommending transitional encamps and we everyone diverted but let's be clear transitional encampments and and rent control and things like that these are actually what four of you have been voted to be to do so you have a new policy a new uh thing you're bringing forth it says no encampments in in parks or in the city but i want to actually encourage four of you to stand up now for transitional encampments get it back on the front burner because this is what i don't i'm not talking about a large the larger problem of homelessness or or that encampment what we are trying to do is stand for something that's highly successful all over the northwest in fact i have data right here that shows that people leave transitional encampments in the northwest into permanent housing way better than they did last year at the at the Ross camp and i'm gonna give you that data it's puffery so we're the city manager in the city manager's office is really doing a lion's share of this work and we're bringing these motions forth it's amazing how much we're going into it but i i just say now is the time to do something healing healing from the inside out transitional encampments are not expensive it's not a ridiculous thing um somebody's talking behind you uh it's it's far better than the Ross camp and i encourage you to stand up and make that stand now transitional encampment city council thank you hi i'm Garrett where i wish i'd known i had three minutes i wrote more stuff you know but uh you know your job is simple it you have two jobs that you may think you have other jobs but you really don't and you have the job to enforce with force if necessary the respect for individual sovereign rights of everyone every single person a child that picks up a needle everybody that you know the people of victims of crimes the whole thing as well as homeless and but i don't know how many rights they actually have they have pretty much in ali bill rights and freedom i don't know what all the rights they got um anyway um i'll just read this i guess homeless is a national problem that cannot be solved by a small city i assure you every single person wants needs and is willing to pay something for fewer homeless to be here nobody wants more all future homeless services must be located outside the city otherwise you invite a greater permanent plague of the homeless that will be on your hands forever there are reasons our burden is crazy higher than elsewhere including the many mistakes that have been made you should look to eliminate all of them and not make more the city is a dump for the county's homeless don't make it a permanent bigger dump you are being suckered by the county to become so the other cities are laughing at you now to be fair i'm going to take the other side i will take the opposite side of some of the council and explaining apanze scheme theory i call the economy of the poor which is the idea that everybody can live off the government while the government lives off of everyone the economy of the poor is the suckling of dependent resources from outside the city into the city justified by the presence of ever more poor and homeless it functions on a balance of trade drawing money into the city by using poor and homeless a one-way trade producing a fixed size pie divided equally i cite the 51 million dollar medicow bill for injection infections drawing state money into the county we provide the drug addicts if you work it out that's 50 000 per homeless the equivalent tax base equivalent of five to ten property taxpayers that's some homeless gold balance of trade welfare is their contribution more sick homeless more medical money big money i cite the city's 1300 section eight housing vouchers which obviously if you could crank that number up to five or six thousand would be a lot more money coming in from the fed's welfare system who's more productive somebody who draws a good size freebie check for nothing or some slob who works 40 hours a week i say the dependent one with more vouchers even if we didn't have enough poor to qualify i'm sure plenty of poor would come from far away to grab any unused ones now you need advertising to invite more homeless here and there's no better than a block long homeless encampment at the intersection of three major highways and unless it was a two block long encampment i'm not sure food not bombs couldn't do a better job of homeless advertising by their grandstanding feeding at the boardwalk instead of drawing new homeless here at water street now you need to get the planning department to create a new zoning thank you for your time my name is live i'm a member of our community just want to say thank you everyone for coming today to quote my trusted peer in future as uc president of uc berkeley when you serve marginalized marginalized targeted communities you can serve everybody the reverse is not true it is our differences that make us such a strong and dynamic force when we come together to create a dialogue where those differences are celebrated we can truly represent a divine responsible democracy my heart is heavy for my community i ask you where your heart is when you consider the livelihood of these people who reside in the ross camp whose heart do you hold in yours it is my belief that everybody deserves the right to be responsible for themselves everybody deserves the right to a ton autonomy in their body their spirit and their community and i hope and i plead that you share this belief these people i've heard referred to as criminals today are sincerely insightful valuable members of santa cruz their voice represents a knowledge and understanding that we may never know i remind you today that violence systemically enforced perpetuates violence i want to note that too drug addiction is not a criminal act it's a medical and mental health issue it needs to be regarded as such if you want an expert panel for insight as to how to move forward ask the members of this community the people who are living this reality the people who are out surviving in the face of unjust policing and exploitive gentrification these are the real experts please inquire them thank you hi my name is linda i've been here for quite a few city council meetings and i have to say i think all of you in my eyes are growing and you're opening your minds to the different members of the community i can see that i'm an apartment manager and i manage about 26 apartments and one of the sites where the neighborhoods where was targeted for potentially moving the homeless camp with my apartments are near there and if i were in your shoes and i don't know enough about everything i would be in favor of the measure to try to get a lot of professionals to understand how best to handle it because i think that you know if there's 1200 homeless here if i do believe you could parse them out some and help them in a less divisive way for example we were talking here about opening up drug treatment centers or mental health you know going out and surveying the folks and i heard that mentioned earlier and see who needs mental help or you know there's a need for homeless shelters for you know a person that's affected by domestic violence there's all kinds of reasons to help the homeless but you have to understand from our side too not non-homeless or the homeless non-criminal in my apartments i don't have experience on the streets but in my apartments one day somebody just came in there and they had a switchblade coming at one of my tenants they didn't even know them they were just went into the apartment and i put myself in between that person and the switchblade there's been so many crimes there every time they go up on the levy to go ride their bicycles or whatnot we had MS-13 there and they put graffiti on our building every day i had paint buckets going out to paint them until they had the raid and now we don't have that problem thank goodness so the Ross camp is here you wouldn't believe how the crime has gone down where we live it moved over there i go to pro build to buy something and the managers have got a guy cornered because he's got a flat bar he stole somebody used a flat bar on one of our apartments and broke in i know what the flat bar tool is for one day it was at Ross and there was a guy checking all the doors on all the cars to see which one was open to steal from and i can't afford security at our apartments we're going to be put out of business if you know if a camp comes in near where we are could the city pay probably the 200 000 i'd have to pay to give security to my tenants and me i've been really terrified i really have and i thank you miss kelly i both live and work in the downtown area um i am so compassionate towards homeless people and those that are hard up and need a helping hand and we have a lot of resources for those people already in place um i feel like i'm speaking on behalf of the people who are opposing the Ross camp and lot 24 when i say it's bigger than homelessness and our issue is not homelessness our issue is the criminality that it goes along with it and it's not it's not the homeless the homeless veteran that is sleeping quietly in a corner it's the heroin addict that is committing property crimes and violent crimes against our citizens it makes us afraid to go outside makes me afraid to park my car on the street makes me afraid to walk to work in the morning and that is unacceptable and i know that it is not your job duty to enforce our laws and it's not you as the prosecutors to stop giving them plea bargains and to take things charges away when they're in the courthouse but that has to change because the people five overdose deaths are you going to tell me there's not criminal activity happening there do you overdose on the legal drugs you do yeah bigger issues here though and it i understand it is not just your job i'm asking for you guys to work with our law enforcement and with our attorneys to effectively punish people who are breaking our laws and to help protect those of us that are not because it's this town is going in the wrong direction and it's unfair for the those of us that work really hard to stay here thank you hello council members my name is fass and i mean martin versus boys he's very clear and i just want to say for the record it's really sad that in our progressive community of santa crs that it took a federal ruling for us to not be able to kick people out when they're sleeping on the streets i just think that's really sad we're facing a morality crisis right i understand and i hear a lot of people here who are talking about drug addiction or talking about you know people stealing stuff and people acting violently and i let's not forget that these people are disproportionately advantaged by a system that continues to criminalize them the moment that you don't have a house and you don't have resources and you don't have mental health services and drug rehabilitation services you'll be looked on as a criminal forever you will become eventually become a felon you won't be able to apply for jobs you won't be able to find housing so these people aren't inherently bad people and i think to perpetuate that stereotype is just incredibly dehumanizing i think we need to understand that these people don't have services and i understand that mental health and drug rehabilitation are things that the county is supposed to provide i understand that and you as a city have one basic job and that is to provide shelter for these people and the ross camp you know has problems and i understand that and we can do things to solve those problems but evicting those people are only going to exacerbate that issue it's going to move the drug the drug problem it's going to move violence and it's going to cause these people to become even more aggressive and you're going to disperse that out into the community again this deadline is set for next week do we have enough beds to to put these people in i don't think so um so we need to hold off i think justin and sandi's proposal is the only clear clear common sense proposal that we need right now we need to take time we need to find the right solutions but kicking these people out so hastily is not the right solution so please support justin and sandi's proposal please have some compassion thank you hi my name is Veronica Hamilton i'm a graduate student at ucsc and so i work in this community i also study legislative debates about social class issues and so that's why i felt compelled to talk today and and so i want to talk a little bit about issues of dehumanization and and also neoliberal values of hard work and whose work is hard work and so as somebody who goes to the ross camp once a week to help pass out supplies to our fellow human beings i want to remind people that uh when we refer to these communities as criminal and as drug addicts even if we think that we were once part of that community even if um our we think our businesses or maybe compromised by their existence and our compassion toward them that they remain human beings and um and so when we talk about civility and public discourse or political discourse i think it's also really important to police ourselves on the ways that we dehumanize others and so if you're going to cut off the mic for people who say bullshit i think you should also cut off the mic for people who dehumanize those that work at the ross camp i also want to make another point about the issue of business owners over in that area um i feel really concerned about the equivocation of their profits and these people's livelihoods and i'd like to um just make it heard in this space that the money that comes out of their pocket is not as important as people's livelihoods and that's important to our community that we remember that thank you hello city council my name is bradley jinn four years ago i moved here to santa cruz and fell in love with the city i ask you and my fellow santa cruzians in discussing the ross camp what message are we trying to send here what are we trying to tell the world is this a city which does not welcome the most downtrodden the most marginalized the most impoverished of our community in closing the ross camp without recourse for its residents we will be telling the world that we are a cruel unwelcoming city we would be saying that we don't care about the people who need our help most is this what we want to tell our children no i implore you not to destroy the last bit of structure and safety that these people have left help the homeless help the city have compassion do i get two or three minutes three okay three minutes okay great um my name is elise kasby and i just want to start by saying i would really pause for a second oh sorry let's see it thanks it was going oh it was okay sorry i just want to say i would like to be able to support sandy brown and justin comings um proposal it's probably the best of all of them but i i'm sorry to say it does not go far enough for me um first of all i don't know when you say consistent with the measures outlined in this report what report i'm not sure what report you're referring to and at the end when it says no later than the opening of the river street campground i'm afraid that the river street campground it does not go far enough um in the way that i'm hearing it be presented um the also 15.4 i'm really worried about this standard operating procedures for vacating homeless encampments that contain significant health and safety or nuisance conditions i just have to say that i won't talk very much about how i became homeless through a very pernicious type of domestic violence because it's still too difficult for me to talk about how my family that i raised when my mother had multiple sclerosis including my brother who's developmentally disabled was ripped for me just totally ripped for me and i raised them i can't even begin to talk about this but i used to walk the streets of berkeley every single night and i was there because my therapist was so rank and unethical and she for eight years did not believe me i can't tell you the damage that was done to my life and i resented so much for people to be described in the way we're describing it and i'm sorry miss matthews but my understanding of your record on homeless people is that it is deplorable and i don't think donna knows this or i don't think she would be aligning herself with you you've been really bigoted about your treatment of the homeless i think i can say that legally and that's my right to say that can we pause for one sec i'd like to ask that you address the entire council um so you're telling me i can't address a political person incited on the council specifically because of their political behavior over the last 20 years that's not my right i would like to ask that we we address the item and then let you address the entire do i have the right to do that uh mr kandadi on homelessness and how mean synthia matthews has been toward homeless people decade after decade and she keeps coming back but i just want to go back to this the ross camp is about people trying to survive uh i used to walk the streets of berkeley thinking if i could just find a place under the bush to sleep at surviving and i want you to know that i'm finding this debate to be really sad just like the sellout of the democratic party of our people across this nation and it is because of them that we have donald trump who is a despot who will not voluntarily leave office and i think any democrats that are on the city council need to step up and serve all the people in this town and for once serve the homeless keep the camp let's get some real available beds for them speaker you'll have up to three minutes excuse me i i'm gonna go ahead you can this is a demographic okay this is homelessness that's what that is those five people asa anesthesia asa died of cancer he would have died anyways no matter what nobody said five over does okay my father was electrocuted i walked 800 miles okay to take his ashes to shasta there were days that passed when the demons came all i could do is put my head down and when my head came back up i didn't know where i was that happened to me one time i looked up and there was a boardwalk so three years have passed and for all intents and purposes you folks are my friends and family i don't like all of you y'all don't like me but you all pride yourself on being a small town and yet you act like big city in this argument of the value versus the worth of things my name is Jeremiah now minimize me now objectify me you go down to that Ross camp or excuse me Santa Cruz 1865 there's little gardens there there's people that you give them a shovel they built their house on elevations there's art there there's science is there it may be so impotent as to be so small if you people make it any smaller may not exist at all but people don't come here except to get away from the lies Santa Cruz is not really the real world not really you know i'm just saying that when you lose your abstraction your logic and your rationality will always suffer okay those are just different forms of insanity okay and who is anybody to tell me different my name is Jeremiah i have what is your homelessness problem we need to give everybody name tags and the people talk to their shoes a bluetooth earpiece you know you're gonna profile me because i'm standing in a parking lot or i'm carrying a trash bag i dig through your trashes i know more about a lot of you than you know about me you know this is my home all of Santa Cruz you're my brothers and sisters you know in my mind i'm thinking hey i'm gonna say something great i'm gonna say something good but you know what what you all are doing is quoting i'm not a statistic okay i was in the river street camp you take a group of marginalized people and you march into the edge of town and put them in a enclosed area okay where where was the shade it was just on the other side right now we're trying to plant trees and whose shade we will never rest in folks okay we can't even wave at each other you don't even look at me now i understand my man of science some of that's maybe no worse than an allergic reaction like when some people shed their cockroaches okay but you will look at me and you will address me as Jeremiah and i'll address you as whatever you wish to be called even if i don't like you and i'm sorry to the business owners but what you need to do is a sense of community okay people crave structure inherently what is out of Africa what is any migration in history homeless people everyone in here is descended from a homeless person thank you my name is Jeremiah i am Santa Cruz you know my name is Randy and uh i've been in Santa Cruz off and on for about 16 years and this monstrosity that you guys are doing about the camps the Ross Camp it's criminal i used to work at a self-sustaining uh 10 city up in Seattle 10 city 3 10 city 4 Nicholsville they were all self-containing it does work yeah there's going to be a drug problem anywhere there's going to be homeless everywhere but you could say that we're criminal that we have to move on the biggest criminals that i see is our city of Santa Cruz because they're making people leave getting ill and dying my uncle died because your city parking officials decided to shred his tent shred his his sleeping bag in the middle of winter that's the true criminal so if this monstrosity that you're trying to do is criminal uh just think about it instead of killing lives save lives that's all i have to say before we get you start before we get on to the next speaker for this item right now we're approaching seven o'clock and seven o'clock is the time when we have oral communications and that is for an item that is not on our council agenda is there any member of the community who is here to speak to the council that is on an item not on our agenda okay so we have please keep your hands up okay so we'll go ahead and um hear your uh if you could please line up to my left and you will have up to two minutes to address the council on an item that is not on today's agenda after we conclude oral communications we will resume public comment for up to two minutes good evening i'm scott graham um what i'd like to address is the agenda and i've said a number of you uh can we please have quiet excuse me please quiet while you okay please proceed i've said a number of you the um berkeley representation of how they do their agenda and although we don't need to do it exactly the way they do we need a clear process here where council members can get things put on the agenda right now it seems like this whole process is a little muddy and it's really unclear and how items get agendized and so i think that there needs to be a discussion and a clear way for council members to get things put on the agenda in a reasonable amount of time right now things get denied and are not agendized at all so it'd be really uh helpful if there was some sort of conversation on how we can do this and make it a clear way not some obscure uh you know muddied thing where well you can't do it this way but it doesn't have to happen that way no we got to have a clear choice in how things get agendized thank you next speaker council this is tangential um so i i have a an office right at the footbridge at falker street and people usually elderly are always complaining that that footbridge is far too dark at night has he sort of like really dimmy dim lights and so it's uh difficult guess what has occurred i mean maybe the city manager knows about this maybe you've heard about it for the last week all of the lights on that bridge the big street light over the camp the running lights all the way under the levy towards tannery have been completely blacked out it's dark outside at night it's so dangerous so you take that camp it has a big led light over all this time uh and now it's totally pitch black it's actually shocking that you can't get across that bridge without bumping into people so imagine that can't and i don't know if anybody has heard about this but every night it's been a week it's completely blacked out and the people from the tannery they were you know they were upset with the and had made a lot of requests but now you can't even get under that bridge it's completely black so i i hope that uh somebody does something about it every time i crossed i'm like oh i i i should be writing but this is is tangential because this is like we say uh we care about this encampment and those people but what happens when something is so dark like that uh in the morning it is ridiculously uh it's upheaval and uh you know people do really uh dumb things and in very dark and so i hope we can get on that really quickly just wanted the council to be aware that the foot that felker foot street bridge has no lights there's no light over the encampment and uh all the way the running of the uh uh levy path under the highway one bridge blacked out currently that's atrocious okay next speaker for oral communications items that are not on today's agenda good evening i'm brett garrett and i'm here to talk about public banks i'm speaking tonight on behalf of our local group people for public banking and it's part of the california public banking alliance we urge the city of santa cruz to enact a resolution to support public banking and specifically to endorse california legislation ab 857 which will create a legal framework for local public banks ab 857 was introduced by david chou of san francisco and miguel santiago of los angeles our own assembly member mark stone is a co-author of this bill so why do we need public banks one reason is because cities are discovering that large banks do not live up to their ethical standards for example oakland is trying to divest from institutions that support fossil fuels but wells fargo and chase are among the largest investors in fossil fuels meanwhile san jose prohibits itself from contracting with institutions that have issues of wave stuff theft so all of a sudden they're scrambling to find an alternative to you guessed it wells fargo and chase um smaller banks and credit unions cannot meet municipal needs but a public bank can and a public bank can finance projects at a much lower cost than using a commercial bank or issuing bond funds santa cruz is too considered to be too small to viably have its own public bank but if san jose creates a public bank they might allow santa cruz to be a customer another possibility is to create a tricounty jpa that is a public bank serving three counties such as basically the way monoray bay community power does um county of santa cruz has endorsed the concept of public banking and next we expect we expect cities like san jose la and san francisco to specifically endorse a b eight five seven we're asking the city of santa cruz to do the same preferably at the next meeting april 22nd because our bill is going into committees that week we'll follow up with more information and uh sample resolutions thank you thank you were there other members of the community who wanted to address the council on items not on today's agenda okay this is during oral communications this would be your opportunity to do that hi amy uh don't forget about the tenants so we're talking about the homeless people today but you know we got a lot of tenants that are suffering to becoming homeless every day so today um i just want to put out three little ordinances they're really not going to help that much but they are ordinances that you could easily pass and the landlords won't come down on your head about it these are for section eight people um one of them is a reusable tenant screening report ordinance oh these housing application fees cost me so much i have that apartment for sure but my background checks that i had an eviction that never happened so this ordinance supports the use of reusable screening reports by setting guidelines for landlords regarding tenant background reports the reusable reports are a verified report purchased from a third party company by a tenant who can then give the report to as many landlords as they would like to within a 30 day period the reason you need this ordinance is to complement a source of income uh ordinance so you can't um you know you can make a law which you should that says you can't discriminate on the basis of the source of income people can get around it anytime they want but you should make the law and then the tenant will know that that law is there and they'll know the landlords lying when they turn them down but at least when they go to 30 landlords they won't have to pay for a new credit report every time all right so there's two laws the third one is there's a first in time ordinance you can make i'm gonna just pause you could you please keep your conversation down here in the right please it's distracting to the woman who's speaking at this time i'm gonna go ahead and ask that you please conclude your conversation so that we can allow for this public speaker to speak without distraction and so it's a first in time ordinance so these are three little ordinances i'd really like you to pass those you didn't do you're not interested in helping tenant or rent control whatsoever and i understand that you know uh some of you and your backers that threaten to recall the ones who are so how about a few little tiny ordinances and first in time means like if they accept somebody if they accept there's if they get a few acceptable applications they have to offer the place to the first one who meets their criteria so um i can send you more information from mahas institute about these thank you okay um the next speaker who wants to address the council during oral communications on items that are not on today's agenda come forward hello again uh my name is my name is elia i hope you can hear me talking to the microphone this time uh i have two things one is on a council city level uh to all of you people up here i would just like to reiterate that this is an incredibly inefficient way of doing public engagement and collecting people's opinions um despite myself engaging in it right now i think that it's very inefficient and mostly a waste of time secondly to the people behind me i'm not going to turn around because i have a quiet voice when not in this microphone but i would like to encourage everyone here to do something other than come to these meetings even if you continue coming to these meetings go do something else about these issues that you apparently care about so much because it will be much more productive at least in the short term while we are waiting for the city to do things that's all uh council members half homeless united for friendship and freedom the group i work with uh we're still hoping that the rent control justification protection ordinance will be dragged out of the crypt and tenants will be protected uh you need ovaries and balls for that on the progressive side but please do it uh we also need on the the issue of tenant stats there's a supposed to be a committee that's looking into all these issues how about figuring out what kind of profits landlords are making over the last four years what the rise in their taxes and costs has been how many people have been evicted over the last four years and how long those people were in Santa Cruz before to get some idea of whether the landlord's whale of concern actually has evidence-based basis i would also request on this meeting that you put on the agenda for next time agenda items that is to say one restore the right of the member the members of the public to speak on consent agenda items without groveling before a council member now sandy brown has been very good about this i want to thank her for that but it shouldn't be necessary for one council member to bear that burden it should be a change and a restoration of an old policy secondly of course the agenda should be made if not in a public manner at least in a fair and non-partisan manner so that being the case please put on the agenda for the next council meeting a discussion of these issues and i hope that some member of the city council will essentially present a staff report get some action on these matters and that's pretty much what i got thank you elise casby here the thing that i want to discuss tonight that is not on the agenda is the very likely possibility that donald trump is not going to leave the presidency that is willingly and at the current time the complete and total discreditation if that's a word the he is discrediting all of our other government departments i really hope that y'all are paying attention to me i know that it's super long and i don't think i could do what you do honestly i do respect it but this is a we are just a hearer's breath away from this man and his cohorts declaring a national emergency this is a history that it's absolutely deregare for all of our representatives in all levels of our government to to understand deeply and intricately that is become familiar with it because what happened in germany is exactly what's happening here with the great exception that it was a totally different time in history and no two periods of history are ever the same but germany before hitler was one of the most free and liberal one of the most erudite and intelligent places the abound abundance of independent newspapers in every single city we absolutely have to understand that already trump is putting out thought bubbles about him not leaving office this is not just a i hope you understand just how real this is and i hope you understand that we have been coming here over the last 20 years so we are in a very dangerous place and we actually are in a state of emergency we as government representatives and people need to come together and have this conversation and plan for our freedom not our security we're beyond that we have to mobilize for our liberty so say the experts thank you very much are there any other members of the community who want to address the item an item that's not on today's agenda during oral communications um i just wanted to get back to what i had an outburst about earlier that you caught me on um it was just something in berkeley that that i've seen done at sandy city council member meetings where if a member is on a speech that it's actually you know interesting to everybody in the room rather than being cut off really abruptly um allowing another member that's in line to give them their minutes if they feel that what that person is saying might have more impact or similar impact to what they want to say then that'll allow them to finish their thought process just an idea for future you know meetings thank you i just want to say a few comments uh about respect and i said this before but i would think respect would be not cutting people off and letting them finish their train of thought or at least their sentence that's all i need to say right now are there any additional speakers for oral communications items not on today's agenda is yes any additional other than okay so you two okay you will be our last two speakers and then we'll resume to the public comment of item number 15 i believe the the gentleman is signing in is that correct two or three minutes today you have two minutes for oral communications items that are not on today's agenda if you're interested in addressing us on an item that's earlier today we were at three minutes three minutes we'll resume three minutes to continue our conversation thank you i am not a jedi i am not a dancer i will never be have not been and never hoped to be and never was a prize winner my preferred mode of work is exceedingly dark has the advantage of after long intervals of time offering few excellent photons and when that happens typically anywhere from negative 59 million years to 10 years or felt to have gone by which works just fine for me but it doesn't work well for other people that either get to know me or that try to follow me or that try to harass me or that try to steal my identity my lifestyle is not that far removed from people that excel as contestants in something like this which is the forestry challenge now for some reason i'm offering you direct evidence that they had absolutely no sponsors no one knew about them and uh okay and you will be our last speaker on my left thank you that's the other for this my idea is okay please i don't need it i'm i'm really anti electronics i'm really hoping that all the rest of us go that way we've been way over electronicizing this world it's doing so much damage to our environment talk about petty theft things like that is nothing compared to what we're doing in large-scale ways to our environment driving these oil cars supporting these companies that are killing the environment all over the planet and humans all over the planet we kind of start changing these ways there's a person across from me that warmed up his truck for 57 minutes one day he uses more than one day of driving that i have in years their lights they're on all the time many lights even in the day they use more lights than i do in years you know i mean come on this is got a time we've got to change we've got to grow and it means you also love everyone everything on this planet even if you take its life you need to respect everything and everyone and you can't label people this and that you want me to start going to your houses and telling you what you're going to put in your body bonnie will you pause the time please this is an opportunity for you to address the council so please direct your comments towards us now you're trying to control me and tell me who i can talk to i want to talk to everybody okay i'm talking to you and everybody i'll look at you too okay go back to paul revere i've been reading a lot paul revere lately very dynamic beautiful he wasn't just a messenger he was a huge part of the revolution and you know what happened when people started getting poor he started a company he started to save and help everybody that was in poverty would have been frank when you the same thing these guys were active people i said about drew about action we need to make action maybe it's not always going to be right but let's make action and do things that help everything and everyone on this planet we got to put it's a holistic thing it ain't piecemeal all right and learn about the kogi or the koji the columbian indians that have given everybody a message if you look at their documentary okay thank you okay that concludes oral communications as part of oral communication we cannot respond to what people have said but we can ask staff to come back to us for with with information um and i'm just wondering if they come back to us with information about why the felker street uh where the bridge lights aren't on right now um if miss berger wants to send the council an ordinance that'd be great has to do with the tenant screening and also um i assume we may be talking about agendizing items at a meeting that we're having a council retreat coming up so that's what i'll bring that up thank you okay thank you mera so at this point we'll go ahead at council around can i just clarify that the issue about the black i'd like information about the felker street bridge the levy all of the area that where lights have recently gone out so the surrounding area there too okay so at this point we'll go ahead and resume public comment for item number 15 on our agenda today um how many members of the community are still interested in addressing the council on this item okay so eventually you'll want to make your way to my left um at this time the uh time is still up to three minutes so you'll have up to three minutes to address the council my name is bill chappan and i come here with a heavy heart i have loved ones and friends and family that are living in camp ross and they're living there by choice they're not living there because they're homeless they're living there by choice they're not living there because they're homeless they had homes before they went there they went there by choice and that's an issue that we we need to look at we have a homeless issue here but camp ross is first and foremost not the homeless issue that it is it's a issue of drug addicts and people committing crimes to support their drug habits and i implore and i no longer want to be a part of that problem of enabling my friends and family that are living there and i implore the city council to look deeply in inside and there's i don't know there's answer but we have to stop enabling the drug addicts we really really need to figure out a solution which is it's a hard one we um because if the if my loved ones there can't figure out how to hit a bottom they're gonna die in camp ross they're gonna die in another camp we set up a 23 year old girl died yesterday because of her asthma condition and her drug addiction her boyfriend wanted to call 911 she didn't want to guess we have a homeless issue but at camp ross it's it's it's a it's a it's addicts that and i too am a drug addict and until i hit bottom i wasn't gonna do something if we keep on having the bottom easy or having it easy for them to live there by bringing them food bringing them needles and all they have to do is is go from another camp and just stand in line at one of those tents and buy drugs with the stuff that they've stolen from the community okay we and look at all the break-ins we have okay we have to look exactly what it is okay and i implore us to close camp ross i don't want to see it opened again anywhere else yes we need some tradition uh transitional housing those transitional housing come with rules and regulations and the what then most of the drug addicts are living at camp ross won't move to those places because they have to be in by midnight and they can't meander out and bring in stolen property all day and night and i know that the solution is really hard we need to really dig down deep and figure out how we can get them the drug addicts into uh rehabilitation and a lot of times that's because that's they think more clearly when they spend some time in jail okay and we need to get the drugs out of the jail there's too much drugs in jail so they used to be thank you for listening good evening thank you for your time and listening to everybody my name is lisa ward i'm a mental health social worker and i moved here in 84 went to ucsc and taught for a while and then when i was 40 i went into training to be a social worker and i did my first internship with homeless persons health project and i was nervous i was scared it wasn't my first choice um i was studying at san jose and that was kind of the only position over here left um and i have to say that my fears were alleviated on the first day of meeting my supervisor who was amazing um and so that's a county program that's still going i do believe and um what i learned was is that a lot of the people i worked with in the outreach program didn't want our services and they didn't want our vouchers they took the sleeping bags and the tarps and they were grateful for the company um but they didn't want to sign up because there was a lot of mental health concerns and you know maybe some paranoia with some extreme mental health but they didn't want to be part of the system they didn't want to sign my forms they didn't want to join my job programs that we had to offer them and that was a real wake-up call for me that they needed more and something different and so for the years that i've lived here i've seen the homeless people on the streets and it always makes me sad that they have to pick up and move along every day there's no permanent place that they can be i'm concerned about the legality of people being able to survive and sleep if they don't have homes then they're sleeping on the streets so when i saw the homeless encampment at ross i was actually uplifted that i saw these community this community these people were able to stay in their tent overnight and every day and not have to move every day and what i think is important in that is that if there are mental health challenges we don't want to add to the stress of that so the people that are homeless now the people without housing they're going to be out on our streets they don't have homes so if they have an encampment like this they have community they can watch out for one another i've been there it's you know they're doing the best they can to keep it clean to take care of one another i want to put in my voice that i hope that ross camp does not get shut down that it definitely not be shut down until they're available beds and that transitional camps be allowed by the city council and law there are nonprofits food not bombs is coming forward and i would be happy to work as an advisor to offer training for mental health and substance use concerns um like it's been said people without homes are not the problem necessarily to the crime going on and i just want to say that i'm happy to be joining thank you thank you hi my name is surge kagno i made a website stepping up santa cruise it's got a resource directory on it um i wanted to put the picture you guys are talking about the short term issues that you have of you know homeless people but you're also uh in some of the things that you're talking about you're talking about the long term thing so you're talking about going from homeless to housed and there's a bunch of steps in there the first step is what she was talking about engagement that whether somebody is willing to go into a shelter whether somebody is willing to talk to hphp whether they're willing to do mental health substance use for whatever reason that they may be resistant to part of the system there are people that are choosing not to go to a shelter even if there is a bed so that idea of how do you engage people whether that's a compassionate conversation whether you can connect with them you give them a pair of socks and maybe next week they're willing to talk to them but that's a piece of whatever whatever program you choose it's how do you do your engagement to get the disenfranchised to feel like they have a voice to feel like you're respecting them you're a friend they've been burned a lot are they willing to take a risk on you and try the program you're talking about even if that's building k and emeline because of that relationship they may be willing to try the system the next step is whether it's homeless case management mental health substance use whatever kind of program it is how good and robust it is that's a necessary piece on that moving towards being housed there's housing navigation which is also something that is not something that you guys are talking about or legislating or deciding how good that part of the program is but how good are those people actually trained to do it whether they're programs that are housing stabilization and help them whether there's funding for different kinds of programs and there's some funding that you guys help with whether there's housing stock that's also something that you guys work on but i just wanted to put out there that what you choose on how you decide your immediate services is whether they're willing to play the game on the long term and whether they're willing to go through start this process to be housed so whether that's encampments whether that's safe sleeping whether that's salvation army whether that's hsc it's it's not just that there's a program it's how they're treated do they have more social worker conversations or more conversations about move it along like that's the the entire idea of they see everything the bureaucracy and government as that thing that is a challenge for them and they want to stay away from making more of those conversations engaging and giving the the police like the mental health liaisons and giving them the tools to be able to have the the nice conversation how are you how did that meeting go did you get that place did you get into that program oh you need a reference oh hey i can call they would love to have those conversations more than the conversations about you're just trying to live your life and i need to enforce a rule so just putting that into the discussion all right so my name is Jose Peña and i really been living in this town for 25 years um it's been quite a struggle i moved here from Lake Tahoe and you know up there was like pretty expensive to live here and moving down here was even more expensive and i think that's where our whole homeless thing strives from i have so many friends that went to college with me 20 years ago who were good upstanding kids and now they're homeless because the rent is so freaking expensive in this town and like we're doing nothing in this community to help like the people that have the working class jobs i mean it's great that like you guys are like city council members and like you know you have the money to live your lives but like what about the people that like work in restaurants what about the people that have to work at like stores it's these are the people that like are the backbone of our community but yet they can't even afford to like live here and so they they break their leg they break their arm they they're out of work for like a few days like for a month or two and then all of a sudden they have to go homeless and this is just like a real thing in this community it's like anything happens to you in this community and you can't like pay your rent you're done you're done and that's how this whole camp has started a lot of people in this camp are there because they had something bad happen to them and now they're living on the streets i lived up and i lived like i had to live in pogan it for three months because like i had something happen to me you know but i picked myself up i got back to working my job and like i got a job and like i had to do that and like it's just like i have to i have to have two jobs just to support myself in this town and i feel that it's like that is like one of the things that is the biggest problem with this i love this place i i i tried to move away and i just got drawn drawn back because i love this area but i really think it's just just the hardest part is our rent and the fact that like everyone that owns a house things that they can like charge 1100 a month for a room to live like seriously seriously to live but like then then then they come to my restaurant and they complain that you know a pizza is 32 dollars it's like come on guys like seriously yeah really okay i'm just saying i'm just saying we need to do something about the rent and i think like lower prices will actually get people off the street if they if you can actually have like a real job and just work your job and be able to afford like living here i don't think there would be like a thousand people living over behind ross and that's all i got good evening council my name is brennan robbins um i don't have a prepared speech today but i'm just going to like to make a few remarks in strong support of council members brown and Cummings alternative um essentially what essentially martin v boys is now law um the what that basically means is that you can't as the decision has said resisting the need to eat sleep or engage in other life sustaining activities is impossible avoiding public places while engaging in this otherwise innocent conduct is also impossible as long as the homeless plaintiffs do not have a single place where they can lawfully be the challenged ordinances as applied to them effectively punish them for something for which they may not be convicted under the eighth amendment sleeping eating and other innocent conduct what basically the what for about 20 or 30 years the city of Santa Cruz has generally followed the policy of total basically total ban we've seen multiple we've seen multiple encampments form and then be broken up and then another one forms again because you can't take people try to go for community um and essentially what what what we need to have is a something is a stable place where people can um not have to you know wonder where am i where am i literally going to sleep tonight a place where there a place where there is a self-governing council um and what and when we look at the alternatives that are being proposed where people would go basically the the river street site which really resembles a prison more than anything else um it just is not a it's not a logical way and it's not a workable way so i really would say um to just keep to just basically don't keep on going with the same failed policy that's we've spent the last 20 or 30 years doing and stop playing whack-a-mole with human beings um so keep the river street keep the grass camp open for now hi council members uh my name is Pedro Castillo um you know um i know you guys have a lot a big decision to make and then um you know maybe most of you know you know what the position that you need to make but i that's going to say this fable um there's this man walking this donkey with his his his boy so he's getting his he's getting his boy and his donkey and he's walking by people walks by and and tell the men the other the man he has whisper among themselves what are these full old men walking putting the donkey while the young man that is a lot of energy he can walk so he tells his boy you know walk and i'll be riding the donkey so he goes riding the donkey and then another people walk by and then they're whispering this this old man is you know it's uh why he doesn't walk and then how the boy be on the donkey and then so then later he goes well he in the in the young boy going the donkey and then they're walking and then there's another people walk by and they whisper at the end and they say see this unconscious man um both of them riding the donkey poor donkey you know it's all tired so then they decide to both of them walk and then pull the donkey there are another group of men walk by and then they say look this fool you know they have a donkey and they said all right the donkey they just put in the donkey by itself well what i'm going to say is that it's always going to be different people you know different ideas and the one thing i'm going to say is you're not going to be able to please everyone either close the roast camp don't close the drone scamp uh there's a homeless issue going on for years uh what is the best thing to do you know like offering free housing offering low you know low rent housing i mean there's a lot of ideas that have to be done uh but you guys have to decide you know what is the best thing to do is not an issue easy thing to do um the thing is uh a lot of times feelings get on the way and then feelings get on the way it can affect the way uh we decide what to do i had neighbors that had come and and speak to the city council and then they feel like there is no reason to go nothing happened nothing gets done people get discouraged they don't come there's other sentences you know they they don't want the uh this kind of population on the neighborhood uh if they don't have the issue they don't consider council meetings uh it's in that the people they're more affected they're here so i see that big support group for the rosin and coming you know they you know they they feel being threatened you know they want to stay there there is it is uh businesses they don't mind there thank you thank you okay um others interested speaking who haven't spoken before for item um number 15 okay you two in the front you haven't spoken on this item i believe me let's hear from folks who haven't i'd like to okay well yeah i know it is good we'll go ahead and pause okay uh we'll go ahead and pause if you could just one moment please who hasn't spoken to the city council yet on this item or any item yet today okay we're going to go ahead and hear from folks who have not yet addressed the city council on any item today we'll have you go you'll have your opportunity but we're going to allow people who haven't quite yet had a chance to yes okay so we'll go ahead and get to you go right ahead you have up to three minutes um thank you for taking the opportunity to listen to myself and everyone else here uh my name is jeff berkshroom and i'm a social worker community advocate and um i haven't lived in this town very long a year maybe so i was listening earlier to how people who have been here for 25 years have experienced the what we might term as a transition period between housing was affordable i'm going to go ahead and pause your time could if the person's standing in the front filming if you could please take a seat you're blocking the view of others behind you go right ahead thank you um it sounds like there's been a transition i don't know you know exactly when that occurred but um i'm assuming that within the last maybe 10 or five years the cost of living essentially affordable housing has continued to rise and go to a point where there's just some people who feel disenfranchised and can't afford to you know live in a reasonable place anymore now um i don't believe because i've lived in various places up and down the west coast um including los angeles where i see the homeless um population there too i don't think that santa cruz is unique to this kind of situation but it's like you know um when when people start talking about snakes being close by and um as long as it's not on my doorstep you know everything is okay but as soon as i open the door one morning and there's a snake on my doorstep and there's something that i feel like i need to do about it and um in a sense i get the uh feeling that this is what's happening with santa cruz now suddenly this has become an epidemic and i think that the state has set aside some money now to actually address this issue and santa cruz has some of that money and so we're going to be doing something about this hopefully but i've worked um in various communities doing things that um are called models that work where we don't have to recreate the wheel so to speak and there are places in this country and in fact other places in the world where you know people that choose to live in communities like we have here at ross are actually thriving because they have a voice you know people um in that represent and people that are representative of our government sometimes want to feel like they need to tell people how they're supposed to live their lives when in my opinion the best approach is to go to people and ask them how would you like to be supported and then get a consensus from from that population because they're the ones that know what's best for them not us and so as a social worker i would be willing to donate my time to make this happen hi my name is Colleen Sullivan um i would just like to encourage you all i know that i've read that you're all working more closely than ever with the county to work on this issue and that it's an unusual thing that you're working with the county but one thing i would like you to encourage you to look at is maybe locating services and locating these encampments near where county services are right because that's where people need to get to and so rather than putting them in a parking lot in the middle of the city put them somewhere where it's much more easy to access services and i would really encourage you to continue working with state and county and federal sources this is a really complex issue and really needs to have a lot of study and please look at the data behind what you're looking at thank you how about we'll hear from the two folks in front who haven't addressed us on this item at this time miss burger it was brought to my attention that you have spoken to this item already so you won't be allowed to speak again okay you spoke to during oral communications is my understanding okay go ahead good evening i'm scott graham um so on item 15.1 consider rescinding the city council decision on lot 24 there's no alternative given here let's just rescind this but there's no alternative as to what are you going to replace it with what you know you're replacing it with nothing let's you know let's come up with an alternative on that item um 15.2 uh close the ross camp immediately uh that doesn't that's not going to fly um they you need to have some place for people to go right now the only alternative you've got is a prison camp you know and people can't even walk there they can't ride their bicycle there they have to get on a shuttle bus which is an added expense to this whole program and go there and then spend 12 hours there and you know they can't leave they can't come and go um they have to be searched in order to enter the place i mean this is like who wants to go who's going to want to go there you know and then you're going to offer this to people and if they say no then you can say well you're just going to have to leave ross camp because you've refused this service you know that that's ridiculous you set up a prison camp and then you tell people that they that they're going to have to leave because of that um as far as having a ad hoc expert council on homelessness i'm sort of in favor of that but uh i would like it that each council member would be able to appoint somebody to that not just the mayor um you know and then the other thing is if you say that you can't have any park parking lot or any other city-owned thing be a place for an encampment where what are you talking about where are these encampments going to be you know and you've got this uh two by two committee well where where is the input from the the county why isn't the county allowing there's a piece of san lorenzo park that is right next to the to the county building adjacent to the county building that is owned by the county that would seem to be the most logical place for this short term camp because it's it's not near the children's play playground it's not near the river and it's not near the seniors that are across the street on dakota street it seems like the perfect spot but i'm told that the county won't allow that and they have the biggest parking lots in the city but they won't allow any overnight parking for homeless people i mean it's like what is their input into this if if they're not going to help us as the city when they have all this time is up that's already three minutes that's right yes okay thank you your time is up your time is up you know have no longer you have no time left yeah okay but the uh go ahead and sit down thank you sir okay okay i'd like to get a sense of how many other folks in the audience are interested in addressing the council on this item i just i see can i get if you could please raise your hand to indicate if you're interested i see four four additional folks okay if you could line up to my left and we will have you in the purple be our last speaker on this item at this time i'm okay yeah go right ahead thank you um i've said this before so i'm gonna say it again because i think it's really important i'm addressing those of you who really want to close the camp you say all of a sudden some of you are saying you really care about the people at the camp thank you i appreciate it but where were you when you just recently took out the part the benches at the bus stops what about that's that was last week or something so six benches out of the bus stops is that really caring about the people what about the what about the fences that you've put up what about the parks you closed down what about the legal signs that you put all over the city um and all of a sudden you say you care and by the way um wish tony kandadi was here but he said that they're no longer enforcing the camping ban but um november 20 i think it's november 27 2017 i have someone who gave me a ticket that showed they got 6.36 which is the camping ban so i don't really trust that information so they are still giving out tickets um but i don't have everyone's tickets so i can't know that for sure um we've been speaking to you for years about cruel and unusual punishment as soon as the martin versus bell at the time uh decision came out and then it turned um i say bell versus boise sorry and then it became martin versus boise um you know there are several stores at the gateway encampment that are actually getting even i don't know if it's more business but all the people that go and give out donations i'm buying at office depot i'm buying at ross i'm me having meetings at the camp at the coffee shop but i won't anymore because that owner seems to be really rude and same with the mexican restaurant there to pulty so um and i've asked some of the managers i just asked the manager at bay federal have you had any issues no we don't have any issues at all we haven't seen any difference um so it depends who you talk to of course um susie hoeyer explained that one of the components is to talk to the neighbors um that was an important component you didn't you didn't talk to the neighbors so i'm wondering if you first personally sabotage that um you that the committee that you're promising you did a committee in may of 2017 and you had 20 points that you promised it's simple things like a charging station like showers it's been oh on two years and still those haven't been done so i don't trust the committee i don't trust dialogues i don't trust any of that um i don't think it means anything i think the action not talk um the nimby isn't that's happening here we need education i sent you letter yesterday okay thank you when you when people show up for this camp i want to call it gateway camp it's a place where people come to santa cruz because they come here to live some will die but we can show them why we're good at that i've been coming here for a lot of 40 years i was in the wilderness a lot in my life and people say wasn't that dangerous i've never been across but anything i took care of african lions and tigers and cheetahs all kinds of wild animals i've never had a problem with them what i have a problem with is humans and you know what humans have attacked me people from houses i've been shot at a couple different times i've had my stuff taken in the middle of winter i've had my tent sliced up i've had guys show up and wake me up in the morning with big metal poles and huge sword and bat come on and how about you people that live in the houses doing eight prescription drugs on an average according to dr r's show when a whole iowa town i think it was showed up and said we're all addicted addicted to drugs how about murder how about molesting children wife beating husband beating coaches police officers anyone and everyone in our community can do bad things it doesn't matter where you live these people need to respect it for who they are first off who they are love for who they are i don't care who they are and then everything on the planet again like i said who they whatever it is we cannot judge them that way it's what they do then we work with what they do okay if they do bad things we work with them we help them but when somebody when you see somebody slamming a needle that's not the greatest thing but they're in pain and they're doing just like what do you do when a child starts crying you tell them to shut up and go away they're asking for help right they're doing that for you for help why don't you say well i love you or have a good day or what can i do for you you know this has just got to change you people we've got to grow and we're in Santa Cruz and we're in california and we've been showing the way for a long time to the rest of the world we got to keep doing that and we can spin we're in a storm yeah and we've got a lot of different directions within our storm we got to move forward we got to grow in a way that's going to make this whole world and our community healthy just like i said the founding fathers of the really a lot about what they started and they were starting a socialistic democracy it didn't even include capitalism i'm throwing that at the end okay so that's the end thing we got to work on i want to take of everybody even the capitalist too but we got to work on taking care of our democracy and all of our people and all the creatures that live on our planet okay including and the plants okay your time is up okay okay your time is up your time is up you've had a chance to hear from you your time is up sir please take a seat thank you very much hello again um back different items so i'm allowed to talk again i just want to reiterate actually a few of the last things that got said by uh i think his name was lion uh anyway i work in the mental health field and there's a lot of overlap with homeless people of course and i bring that up because he's right people who are homeless and people who are housed do a lot of terrible things whether they're homeless or whether they're housed but something that has become increasingly apparent to me recently is that very often homeless people are the ones who are being and i don't like the word but they're the ones who are being victimized when terrible things are happening either because they're homeless and they're easy targets or they're homeless because of these things that have happened to them and they haven't received support to cope with those things and that's how they ended up homeless so i think that if so many of these people were legitimately worried about the dangerous murderers or whatever it is they think homeless people are they would be up here and they would be condemning the people who go and throw frozen water bottles at homeless camps not the homeless people themselves because while homeless people sometimes do bad things everyone does bad things and that's like literally so simple that it amazes me how many people can get up here and say all homeless people are bad they're literally it's just a way of classing people into a group it's ridiculous that's my final point this entire thing is ridiculous in the original meaning of the word deserving of ridicule thank you thank you the bottom line is this is my first three minute as opposed to a two minute and the bottom line that i've allocated for the last 60 seconds is to discuss one of almost a dozen of the best parks anyone could hope to find anywhere in the world and they all happen to be in our county for some very mysterious reason that i've not been able to find any clue or to crack the answer to since 1986 there is a government office building that terrifies the local population to the point where you don't even want to be seen on camera walking in the front door i don't know how to mitigate this risk yet but the bottom line about this bottom line item is that if you go into the visitors office around the corner from the shell station and ocean and water it could be because starbucks is an extremely evil corporation which is constantly proved by their poorly trained staff managers making horrible decisions at least once every 30 days um the bottom line is that bright and beat to state park has over 100 camping spots and they have a reservation system and i choose this opportunity to remind yours from previous that the border from brownsville to te Juana is a system and when people that care about systems step up these systems officer that i have the higher suspect for is a professor of engineering in a school near la without untrustworthy mascot and he was the original b2 program manager for northrop grumman professor george who i expect to take golfing near large livermore by the end of the year most definitely without family um the most important item in my time remaining is from today's new york times where one of the scariest words that can come up in a pentagon joint chief's uh menace is all i just choose to call a splurge when i want to celebrate transitions and new investments and old deaths and things to be forgotten in the review mirror as fast as humanly possible i think of a splurge as in a shopping spree thank you next speaker yes good evening um like some other people here i didn't have any prepared remarks um didn't even necessarily know i was going to be speaking until the last moment when i decided i uh needed to respond to some things i heard from the community um in particular i noticed one committee member referring to homeless people as a plague and i just want to note at this point how dangerous that kind of characterization of the group of people can be um it's certainly true that there are criminals among the homeless population here in particular there are a lot of drug addicts and in particular among those in our experience a lot of methamphetamine addicts who are awake all night aggressive dangerous we've had things stolen from us we've been threatened we've been attacked by them we would certainly speaking as homeless people who don't live in ross camp because we don't want to be close to the kinds of threats that we face as muslims as all soundless people we sleep a distance away but we certainly want to keep that camp open we also want to see the community try to distinguish between the criminals there who need law enforcement they need to be stopped from doing this and the rest of us who are just trying to survive the second point i want to make regards the roots of homelessness um this problem isn't one of people coming in because there are magnets here that bring in homeless people i've been here since 1976 i imagine quite a few other people have also resided here for a long time i'm not homeless by choice i don't know how many other people are i think it's minority who are most of us would sign a lease today if we were offered a decent place to live but the problem is that it's unaffordable in this county and that problem isn't going to go away unless this council starts finding radical solutions to completely change this game so that it's no longer this artificial scarcity where people actually can make use of the space that's available and we could house everybody here if we had the will to do it that's really all i have to say and you will be our last speaker thanks for um meeting on this for considering it i'm really concerned about the classification that we talk about homeless people like they're all the same there's people who don't have houses we have in that community we have drug addicts we have people who are well kept who just have no other choice and we have a few people who may have mental illness and would be happy they live their own purpose but we have different needs in the community and i'm really concerned about um people the logistics of being of not having a home in this community or not having a car when i i see people in my neighborhood i see people in my neighborhood and i think if they want to go to the soup kitchen they have to walk all the way across town if they want to take a shower or use the public bathrooms they have to come very far to do that and then if they want to sleep somewhere then they have to go somewhere else who's talking about keeping services centralized that they can have the methadone clinic and health services and food and all of that stuff in one place but um also provide safe places for people who don't want to be among drug addicts i see empty church parking lots all over my neighborhood all day and all night and i don't understand why a sober person with an rv or or a car can't park there overnight safely um so and then the other thing was that i was talking with an employee of the city yesterday who does a lot of the cleanup on the streets and he told me that a lot of the homeless people who are addicts are um are able to get their um methamphetamines or whatever they're using easily because there's no enforcement on preventing the drug dealers from doing anything and that he's seen um like guys young guys in uh bmw's with brand new bmw's with no plates pulling up and he's watching them and then they stare back at him like what are you talking what are you looking at and they flash a gun at him and he's like uh nothing apparently but where's the enforcement if you don't want the drug addicts here then get rid of the those drugs um so anyway um i i really have a lot of compassion for the people on the street it's upsetting to my kids i'm concerned about the MRSA that's going around um one man was sitting in my neighborhood and i was driving by and from my car driving by at like 20 miles per hour i could see how bad his leg was and i i stopped to try to help him but the wound clinics all the way in watsonville and he can't use the emergency room as a regular care and he's has to he he can get care at MLIM he has to walk from here to there to get you know it just doesn't make any sense to me why thank you okay all right so that concludes public comment on this item we'll go ahead and return back to council for action and deliberation um i want to thank the community for uh coming out i know that this is incredibly complex um that when we agendize these uh discussions that it really highlights all the complexities that accompany this big social issue that we're hoping to tackle um right now we're at a point where we're going to have a chance to discuss three separate proposals within this uh item item 15 um we'll begin with 15.2 and um i just want to before we begin the discussion i just want to um sort of ask the council to uh remember that we have a lot of city business to do that this evening's item at 730 which was slated to begin at 730 was um originally uh around strategic planning and uh around trying to figure out how we can work towards other types of uh uh work plan goals as a council and that will still take place um and come on and i i see i see you on um on february 12th you know we had a significant amount of homeless proposals come before us at which time there were a number of suggestions including um removing parking restrictions on Delaware etc we returned back on uh the 26th and made some changes including rescinding that on the 12th we um further directed staff to explore uh shelter emergency as well as other potential transitional encampment locations with specific locations and that um on the 19th was returned to us with a vote on um depot park and then on the 26th there was a proposal to return today to discuss a potential um re to rescind the depot park item and uh other solutions for the gateway encampment so um over the past five to six meetings there has been a significant amount of time spent looking at solutions with very um little decision it's being made so although there are two separate choices before us um my hope is that we can make a choice and move forward in one direction or another i do see two differences one the first item specifically mentions the removal of parking lot 24 which we can vote on um and i think was something that was uh interest of all council and and then the and the second difference that stands out is really looking at the closure of the encampment um and one having the enclosure happen with existing uh uh shelter spaces being utilized with the um with the uh with the beginning of the 12 20 river straight camp also accompanying that decision and potential of lodging vouchers to fill any potential gaps for folks who may not have um a place or not be able to access some of the other shelters the other potential option would be to create essentially that location to be that shelter option in the interim um so we'll go ahead and move forward with 15.2 and then we'll move on to 15.3 and then as finish off with 15.4 which is essentially the city attorney's recommendation for standard operating procedures okay councilmember brown and then councilmember mathews i'm going to make a request and if necessary a motion here uh specifically about the ordering of the decision making here i think we have um this is a complex issue we have uh a set of kind of action items potential action items and recommendations i'd like to ask that we take those um in turn rather than asking to vote on these two packages separately we're going to end up with different with motions and substitute motions or potentially all over the place and conflated discussion on the floor i'd like to take the item separately um independently and so i'd like to um ask that we vote on rescinding lot 24 as its own item stand alone regardless of because it's in 15.1 and 15.2 um that we do that um i'm not prepared to personally vote on any of the other um recommendations without first reviewing the sop and what we're going to do with that so i'd like to place that up front as its own separate item i believe it is in 15.4 i'd like that ordered um appropriately and um then with respect to the other recommendations i believe that uh the proposal about having some kind of community it's item three and 15.2 i believe um thank you um that that be um considered separately and discussed separately um and then um we can carry on to um recommendation um in 15.2 number two with discussion um about that and then 15.3 is recommendation for conditions of maintaining the camp in the interim so i think it would be really helpful for all of us if we if we took those separately and councilmember matt i don't disagree with you and um the original motion that i laid out just listening to all the discussion and the various components as we learned about them this afternoon and throughout the course that evening i i see those components and a few others so i'm just going to run through them super quickly and then we can see how they parse out um first of course dealing with uh lot 24 and um not pursuing campgrounds on other city neighborhoods and parks um then um the standard operating procedure um i was speaking with the fire chief and um the feeling there was the uh to have a standard operating procedure for removal encampments on city and non-city on public property understanding there will be future modifications based on pending discussions so that's how i would do that let's get something on the record understanding that it will morph um also um again in consultation with the city attorney um adopting a council adopting as council policy the chief of police's administrative practice of suspending enforcement of ordinance 6.36 against homeless individuals camping pending adoption of an amendment that is consistent with the ninth circuit decision in martin versus voisey so that would be um it's it's a practice we currently have but it's not council policy so um going ahead with that um can i pause you for just a moment maybe we can go ahead and move forward with that i just wanted to get on the table that there are other components that i think are right right they're compatible we just we've learned a lot are you interested in moving those at this time considering that is essentially what i feel we could do i think the only other one that that's different um than a date is um immediately engaging with the aclu and others regarding illegal issues that have been raised and reporting back on april 23rd i mean i think we want to give direction on these things and then directing staff to develop and implement an immediate management plan for the ross camp and any other encampments on public private on public property that again is a request of the fire chief that it's not just related to the ross camp but it's any other encampments he feels strongly he wants a general policy to deal with fire safety health and welfare issues with this management plan to be delegated to fire and building professionals and then that kind of just leaves the last little bit to deal with but i think there's a great deal in common here okay so would do we want to move forward with the commonalities and uh try to get those taken care of and then move into some of the detail conversation regarding the two different proposals brought forward is that a would that be would make sense do you want to i'll entertain a motion would you like to i'll start then do them one by one i think this is something each each components a little bit different so i'll start with saying um that um i moved to rescind the city council prior action prior approval of parking lot 24 as a site for slave sleeping or camping and uh direct that we not pursue further campgrounds in city neighborhoods or parks okay i'll second that motion so that was that motion by council member matthew seconded by myself to rescind lot 24 and not pursue any um additional uh locations would you clarify specifically where what your language was around in city neighborhoods and parks in city neighborhoods and parks uh let's discuss that and then we'll move on council member clever and then yeah so that was one of my main concerns from the proposal brought forward by council member brown and vice mayor Cummings was specifically that language in number three which says uh and not pursue further homeless campgrounds in city neighborhoods or parks i think uh i really appreciated what mr castillo said with regards to the donkey analogy and that you're unable to please everyone and i think it's really uh that the then we heard from other people it's time for us to take some really serious and tangible action so my question to my colleagues is that if we do move forward with this and decide to not pursue further homeless campgrounds in city neighborhoods or parks where are you going to explore homeless campgrounds the intention here i believe the intention here was not to pursue at this time given that the um where we've been it has been um suspicion fear reaction to the potential for any and all sites being just trying to put that that idea to rest that we are not considering currently considering other parks other spaces at this time um was was the the intention of that the the concern i have with that is that for example friendship garden which is over in harvey west park which was a site to my understanding that was dedicated to the community and the relationship between housed and unhoused people is not near a neighborhood or highly dense area there's only one school that's located by probably like a half mile away yes it is in proximity to say the pool and farther away the baseball fields but that is a place that could be a tangible and viable location for a potential transitional encampment with the correct amount of community input now i'm really disappointed by the you know i identified another location at 115 debois street or debois street that i brought to the city manager's office months ago when we had our little retreat over there at harvey west park but only until last week when i called to remind them that it was a potential location did they let me know that oh all of a sudden it was rented and leased but that was after months of it being unleashed for a long time so i'm concerned about this line and i won't be able to support this package motion i i uh support the rescinding of lot 24 because of the lack of community engagement that the staff did in that process which elicited such fear and react and reaction into that state but not to cut out all of our options of looking at any city neighborhoods or parks because ideally through the process of community engagement will be able to create a sense of community both with either within communities or ideally within parks where people will not only be receptive to it but be constructive and productive in doing it we need to act and no more no more of this dancing around not doing stuff it's like it's time to so i'll just for clarification can i just clarify the one issue i'm going to make one point of clarification there is actually a school at harvey west that is a alternative school that's located right next to the pool just as sort of a fyi um and multiple education uh services in that area um and then we'll have you uh city manager martin Bernal and then back to councilmember brown i just want to clarify also that the council direction was to look to bring back city properties city on properties that's what we were focusing on okay great councilmember brown just once again to reiterate the request that we take each of these items separately rather than as two packages so i think we can if we just talk about them independently we can get there so the item before us is a motion to resend city council approval of parking lot 24 as a site for safe sleeping and camping and to not pursue further homeless campground campgrounds in city neighborhoods or parks i believe at this time that's the motion that we're addressing at this time okay so any further discussion on that okay councilmember brown why don't we i mean the the recommendation here is motion to rescind city approval of parking lot number 24 as a site for safe sleeping or camping why don't we vote on that and then move on to the the next issue that might preclude all parks and you know that was not the motion made by councilmember matthews to essentially look at commonalities between the two proposals one to close the parking lot 24 and the other to not pursue further homeless campgrounds in city neighborhoods and parks so that's not the motion on the floor councilmember matthews and then councilmember brown and i just want to say i intentionally borrowed that language from the other proposal because i think the community has been so jerked around right lately over the last few months weeks of this site that site this site that site and we really need to focus it's caused such anxiety and anger and fracturing in the community and we have some critical issues we have some critical opportunities we will look at some point in the future at other city property but right now i think let's get the parks and neighborhoods off the agenda let's focus on the things that that take so much energy i don't think we have the the capacity to get into yet another site that's next to schools and parks and everything else so that i purposely want that language to go together okay would you like to restate the motion and then we have a question is it a question no it's a substitute motion okay you want to go ahead and restate the motion for motion to rescind the city council approval parking lot 24 as a site for a safe for safe sleeping or camping and not pursue further campgrounds in city neighborhoods or parks okay so the motion was made by council matthews i believe i seconded that motion okay um councilmember glimmer i can make a substitute motion for uh to rescind the city council approval of parking lot 24 as a site for a safe sleeping camping period second okay we'll go ahead and vote on whether or not the substitute motion will continue whether or not to accept the substitute motion okay all those in favor please say aye aye opposed no no so that passes that fails with councilmember crone glimmer and brown voting in support vice mayor Cummings matthews meyers and myself voting against so we'll go back to the original motion all those in favor oh can i ask a friendly amendment to the motion that we include the language of um in city neighborhoods or parks at this time um just so that if in the future neighborhood neighborhood groups what anything we do is at this time yeah but yeah so that's a friendly amendment that needs to be accepted by uh councilmember matthews to incorporate at the end of the motion at this time okay and that's fine for me okay all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed no so i'm sorry i didn't catch your vote did you were you in support yes okay councilmember crone um meyers brown matthews vice mayor Cummings and myself in support councilmember glimmer voting against okay and then the second was to move forward with item 15.4 if i'm understanding correctly in regards to the standard operating procedures for vacating homeless encampments and i believe uh councilmember matthews you had some language around how to move that forward is just a very slight addition it's a resolution adopting standard operating procedure for removal of homeless encampments on city or non-city owned public property that contains significant health and safety or nuisance conditions subject to further modifications as appropriate okay is that a second that okay so motion to uh adopt the recommendation of item 15.4 um made by councilmember matthews seconded by councilmember meyers councilmember brown yeah i'm i'm okay with uh adopting the standard operating procedure as it is today although i do think that given the letter from the aclu this is going to be referred for additional conversations and i i don't think this so so having the subject to further revisions language makes me okay with supporting it today but i do think that's going to happen that's the assumption yeah vice mayor coming i just want some clarification because my understanding was that the homeless two by two committee meeting was canceled because the the standard operating procedures weren't ready to bring to that meeting last monday but at the same time they were then put on the agenda without having gone to the homeless two by two committee and i'm just kind of curious why that meeting was canceled when this was supposed to go in the meeting and now we're seeing it on the agenda without it having gone to that meeting we have assistant city manager tina shul good evening um mayor watkins council thanks for that question vice mayor comings yes we were slated to try to get a two by two committee meeting together as soon as possible with the purpose of if we're contemplating these sops it would make sense for the county to also contemplate the sops and see if there are points of commonality um we weren't able to get a meeting scheduled and we did not think that we had urgency to bring this forward however upon later review and discussion with the city attorney we said no it is prudent to come forward so it was we didn't think we needed to after all and we did and so it came about rather quickly toward the end of the week however we did share that material with the rest of the two by two members this week and i did not receive any comments pack okay okay council member crone and then council member just a question why why was the i'm not sure why the two by committee was canceled um since we're this is all this stuff is on our agenda right now and i thought it would be good to have their input on directions they might uh you know working with the county might like to see us go to communicate that with our representatives yeah absolutely so the two by two has been meeting on roughly a biweekly schedule and this was not a cancellation of a regularly scheduled meeting this was a last minute request from us to try to get something scheduled within just a two-day time frame in the spring break week when we didn't really have good availability anyway to discuss this one this one um subject but regularly um that has been meeting and discussing things so that i'm going um i think this year it's met maybe three times maybe four times four times actually already this year so i think the first meeting was within the first or second week of january and it's been fairly regular since then um so again this was not a regular meeting that was canceled we were trying to schedule a special meeting we didn't believe we had a need to meet urgently it turned out upon further review and consultation with our city attorney it made prudent sense to go ahead and bring this forward to you um but i did um send that around this was published as you know thursday available to everyone i did send around specifically to the two by two committee this week and i did not receive any feedback council member clever and then vice mayor so i just have uh some concerns with some of the language here specifically on page seven of guidelines for property identification the city will not search through piles or bags of items for valuable or personal property so does that mean that if there's a bag that is confiscated taken found whatever word you want to use that it'll just be disposed of without identifying what's inside the bag no it will be um set aside tagged and and uh kept with unclaimed property for a period of at least 90 days great thank you and then the next question was um under items that will not be taken to storage specifically bedding sleeping bags pots and pans and books are the ones that are most concerning for me so can you talk more about that and what will happen to those items if they are seized um generally beddings and sleeping bags are considered biohazards because they they have um issues with um contamination um you know this this was put together in a short period of time in an effort to provide uh that a blueprint that we could follow that would be legally defensible based on um the the city of Oakland case and the SOP adopted by that city so it's modeled on that that to some extent absolutely yeah no i mean i i totally appreciate y'all putting this together in the timeline i'm just concerned that my colleagues ready to eliminate books from the from the list of items that would not be uh kept as property you know i don't have any problem with that right my my point was more so that i'm it's disconcerting that the colleagues or members of this body are ready to move on uh the restriction of people's books pots pans and bedding and sleeping bags uh just seems like a rather callous to say what what if someone has a really special book what if they journal what if they whatever someone comes in and takes that away and then throws it away just because they're inhabiting a camp uh that is unsanctioned so um it's envisioned though is not is a process whereby um first of all people are allowed to take whatever personal belongings they want with them and stuff that remains is what will be will be um sorted and either stored for up to 90 days or discarded because um of the reasons outlined in the in the policy right so i would uh then i don't know uh i would also just uh point out that um i took the motion uh amendment to make the adoption subject to further modifications as appropriate what i intend to follow up with is to open a dialogue with the aclu and and discuss these details possibly with an eye towards bringing back a modified version for the council's consideration as early as the next meeting and i'm sure those are some of the items that um that the aclu will like to have uh discussed as well i was leading into it i would love for us to remove books pots and pans from the list of things that won't be taken to storage and add a stipulation under bedding and sleeping bags when deemed to be a biohazard council member matthews um that's that's not entirely a friendly amendment i want to first of all say that there is uh as i'm sure you know a notice to vacate so there's prior notice that items should be removed um i think there is reference to unless they're like if pots are dirty and moldy you don't take those if they're clean yes same with books are all wet and moldy no i mean there's some degree of judgment right going on there so let for that be reflected in the language um you know this is just to get it on the table i think we'll have uh amendments very very shortly so i'd like to just proceed with this and um anticipate that we're going to have some some modifications very soon okay so not accepted at council member i would i would move it as a as an as an amendment that was a request i was requesting that we add the language but if you need to go through the formal but i think there's some discretion involved there talk about it so the friendly amendment i believe was not accepted right now we have a motion to amend the motion by council member crone second seconded by council member glover to incorporate the changed language i just am not clear on what the uh modified motion is because i haven't talked about it well the my understanding would you want to say what it is do you want to state your motion your amended motion uh to take out the the things that council member glover was just referring to um i'd be happy to restate it what's that i'd be happy to restate it um that it would be to strike books and pots and pans from the list or add uh when deemed a biohazard and add that to bedding and sleeping bags pots and pans and books so that they're not just automatically discarded because even though there will be a notice of vacating if people don't have anywhere to go and they wait until the last day and then the police come and kick them out and then take all their things which we've seen happen in other cities during camp enclosures they're going to lose their stuff and i want to make sure that doesn't happen mr kandadi did you want to add no i just wanted to make sure that i understood what the what the substitute motion um language was and i think uh council member glover made it made it clear okay can i ask a question of um vice mayor uh Cummings did you were you suggesting that you would like this to go to the two by two committee before we voted on it or does it matter is it is there a time sensitive thing here i think at this point if it's going to go to the aclu for a review that um that we could move forward with it at this time and then when it comes back that or if there's recommendations by the aclu before it comes back then we can have a go to the two by two committee as well we need to incorporate the aclu into the motion or that's that's my next motion okay so before we do let's say we have a motion on the floor by council member matthew seconded by council member mires to remove the recommendation of 15.4 subject to further modifications as appropriate we have an amendment on the floor made by council member crone seconded by council member glover to add some specificity into the language around specific items um we go ahead and vote on the amendment at this time is my understanding correct yes okay so all those in favor to accept the uh council member crone council member glover amendments at this time please say aye aye any opposed no no so that passes with brown comings crone and glover in support matthew's mires and myself voting against so we'll go back to the original motion which is to move the recommendation 15.4 and um any further discussion I guess I want to have something there priorities taken to storage items that will not be taken to storage um bedding sleeping bags pots pans and books then are automatically moved up to items that will be taken to storage okay I think the language that I what I understood council member glover saying is that those items if deemed a biohazard would not be taken to storage so that was what I understood to be the amendment to the main motion that's correct if not deemed biohazard or clearly soiled I mean like rotten books and moldy pots and pans you know I would consider those to be a biohazard problem is not just the person handling the materials it's that it's when it's stored with other materials it contaminates I think it goes to the original comment if I may around some discretion around trying to make that distinction and to discern what feels the appropriate and so I think that was sort of part of their original process we can further refine this but yes we want to have some ability for some some discernment around what and cannot so right okay I mean I think it's yeah okay so all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed okay that passes unanimously that was to move the recommendation of 15.4 subject to further modifications at the end of the recommendation do you have another vote because I know you voted to accept the amendment but was there a vote on the amended motion the main motion main motion right as amended as amended I know you voted to accept it but I don't have a vote on the amended motion we voted to accept it so that so what I understood the council did was it by a four three vote voted to amend the main motion to add the language proposed by council member Glover then what the council just did is unanimously approve the main motion as amended by council member Glover's motion to amend okay another item I don't know exactly what order we ran through them initially was to immediately engage with the ACLU and others regarding legal issues that have been raised and report back on April 23rd motion second okay so motion made by council member Matthews seconded by council vice mayor Cummings and you know what I might just say is no later than April 23rd it may well be sooner no later than April 23rd okay any for the discussion okay all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed that passes unanimously council member Glover yeah I'd just uh like to make a motion uh so I'd like to make a motion for the city attorney to return to the body with amendments to the city code to ensure our policies are consistent with the Martin versus Boise decision okay motion by council member Glover to essentially make any changes to any policy around I was going to suggest uh an alternative that accomplishes essentially what council member Glover's proposing and while we were on a break I provided some language to council member Matthews that I think the council would might be interested in hearing before you vote on the motion if I could it's it's exactly where you're headed but a little more exactly in line with what you're proposing and it's it's what I read excuse me point of order what it wasn't the city attorney just give us that language right now instead of going to another council member because I wrote it out for council member Matthews and I didn't save a copy for myself I'll find it I can paraphrase council member Glover here there's just an issue with that um because in giving council member Matthews a motion you give her control over managing amendments and any kind of flow of the process of that conversation so what I was going to suggest is that um that that you consider amending your motion to read along the lines of to adopt as a council policy the chief of police's administrative practice of suspending enforcement of chapter 6 36 of the municipal code against homeless individuals pending an amendment to that ordinance that is consistent with the ninth circuit's decision in martin versus spoisy so in addition to directing that an amendment be brought back for further consideration the council formally adopts the practice that's been implemented by the police department as council policy in the interim no I get I totally get it it's the process though that I'm concerned with understood yeah okay so um is that the motion you'd like so moved okay so the um is there a second seconded by council member crown made by council member Glover uh all those in favor please say aye any opposed that too passes unanimously okay and if I could Matthews very briefly comment the reason we had this interaction is I went ask the city attorney what would be the language you would recommend to achieve this purpose I asked him the exact same question so so we'll go ahead down to be I think I believe that we kind of covered a lot of the kind of over there's the community advisory committee I don't know if you want to leave leave that to the end or um I think we should definitely talk about the community advisory committee there is also okay would you like to discuss that at this time I don't know we might as well I mean I think the camp closure might be a while okay do you just proceed with this so yes do you is there a motion well so we've sort of covered I believe that we've covered some of the broader concepts that we wanted to address at this point we're sort of looking at two different um kind of pathways forward one which is including a closure date um and the other which does not include a closure date but um includes modifications to the existing site um in in conjunction of opening the river street campground so and then the other recommendation which is 15.2 also includes the proposed community advisory concept so for sort of clarity I think it would be helpful to go through the different proposals and then move on to the next ones so it would be them returning to 15.2 two which is to confirm a closure date using the existing alternative shelter locations 1220 river street lodging vouchers if necessary but essentially kind of adhering to what I think was one of the recommendations by our county public health uh officer which uh recommended that because of the significant public health risks to the individuals at the encampment um and the general community that it should be closed as soon as possible for those concerns are very very strong for me personally um councilmember brown and then Myers and then vice mayor Cummings as with all of the other items I'd like to take the community advisory committee separately from the closure date okay okay so you so we'll go ahead and talk about the closure date of so you want to make that mention to him yeah council did you or vice mayor did you want to I had a I just had a comment um and a question because I thought that um when 15.2 was brought forward earlier that the um the date was removed from council member Matthew's proposal around changing language so I just wanted to get some clarification around that because when it was introduced the public that was removed from the motion you are correct on that and then as further discussion went on with staff on the availability of the um uh 1220 river street facility and other alternative shelter options um I was satisfied to my I was I felt comfortable in my satisfaction that there there were and would be adequate shelter options um concurrently with the closure of the gateway encampment so I feel if we set an April 30th date we can achieve that and I am personally interested in setting a a date for the closure of the gateway encampment concurrent with opening of the river street facility and the full utilization of other resources so that's where I'm going and also that assumes and I think this is where everyone has concerned also directing staff to develop and implement an immediate management plan for the Ross camp and any other encampment on public property to deal with fire safety health and welfare issues with management plan to be delegated to fire and building professionals so maybe two paragraphs one has a date specific but I think the implement implementing an immediate management plan is a shared concern and what I did hear from the um fire chief is that it will take more than two days to do that that's a bigger project so so why don't we um go ahead and address the date specific uh recommendation at this time which I um share uh you know a commitment to have and recognizing that the April 17th date might be up in the air in terms of feasibility with 1220 river street but um they're near near there would be appropriate given the other utilization options including potential lodging vouchers um so if you want to make that into a motion and then we could address the the sort of second portion of that separately so the first part of that motion is motion to set April 30th as target date for closure of the gateway encampment concurrent with the opening of the 1220 river street facility with other additional shelter needs to be met by other shelter options throughout the county I'll go ahead and second that do we want to have further discussion counts member chrome yeah I have a few questions here um I don't know if uh Susie O'Hara is still here or Tina Scholl Susie is I'm wondering about um now we're up to April 30th but but we had said previously April 17th but April 17th it's not not going to work for the opening of the um river street camp so as I mentioned earlier in the in the afternoon um the closure of the camp being concurrent with the opening of the of the 1220 program is really a process that we have to actually use the SOPs which includes the noticing and all the different processes to ensure that we have an appropriate transition their staffing that's required for the shuttle drivers as well as the campground hosts and managers and then just also the process which I think is critically important which is to engage with the raw street campers and ensure that they understand the resources that are available to them with all of that in mind I don't think April 17th is reasonable but I do think that we can in the next few weeks before the end of April move forward with the closure and opening up with the camp when you say closure of the camp what what do you mean the closure of the gateway encampment and opening of the 1220 program closure of the gateway encampment means what exactly um following the SOPs that you just adopted unanimously I'm still uh I'm not understanding are we gonna shut the camp down for two days clean the camp and then have people be able to stay there for I'll go ahead I'll go ahead and pause maybe um councilmember current we're voting on 15.2 which was the potential pathway moving forward by councilmember Matthews Myers and myself which did not include maintaining any existing transitional encampment on that location at that location item 15.3 brought forward by councilmember brown and vice mayor Cummings did include that so we'll go ahead and vote on this and if that doesn't move forward then we could go ahead and vote on the second my last question was um when is the it's going to open April 30th but then the river street 1220 river street will close when so 1220 river street that site is not available in perpetuity we do have a water pipeline replacement project that is scheduled to begin in early July and so yeah it would be a temporary program and it really gets to the question of this council you know soon starting to grapple with what to do with the interim site and that is part of the joint action plan to open an interim navigation center for a hundred beds how critical maybe martin Bernal knows how critical is that site if we needed to maintain it longer than July 1st or the beginning of July well my understanding from the water department is that the project that's slated to happen there is is critically needed it's a replacement of the main water supply line that goes underneath the river that connects the water treatment plant to our water supply so and it's been on the books for quite some time so it's a project that's been scheduled that it's really really critical to the public health and safety of the city's overall water supply so we're going to lay out all this infrastructure for two months it sounds like 75,000 a month 150,000 that sounds like staffing as well as any infrastructure I assume showers are going to be there and bathrooms and washing stations yeah that has always been a consideration that the council has made is that that 1220 program is temporary and will be replaced by an interim site that hopefully we can get up and going as as quickly as we possibly can yeah I mean it's hard to support the motion um if we can't if we're going to close that one and only have a two-month reprieve um I don't know I think we're going down a difficult road councilmember Glover um and just clarifying on both that program and the Salvation Army program um when is the so the Salvation Army program on Laurel when is that program supposed to terminate so the current um programs are funded through June we are in the process of working with Salvation Army to extend both the VFW and the Laurel Street program so um I am scheduled for a meeting with Rainie Maher and Captain Harold hopefully this week um to talk about potential extensions so the heap funding that was utilized to support both of those programs going from April 15th on through June which is typically um we usually um end those programs April 15th um that funding is available what we don't know is if those sites will be available moving forward I suspect that Captain Harold and Salvation Army will be open to those discussions um it really is about ongoing funding options um and then ensuring that um we have the resources and staffing capacity to continue to move forward with those programs and then just so the community knows how many beds are at each site and what's the operating cost of each of those programs I don't have all of that information but I can say that there's 60 beds at the VFW there's 40 to 50 beds at Laurel Street there is a little flex there um there's 35 to 40 beds at the poly loft um there is about 70 beds um between the South County programs at the Watsonville Salvation Army as well as the Pajaro Rescue Mission uh I believe there's 16 beds at the rotating shelter so yeah I appreciate it adds up and then in terms of the cost it really does vary program by program but for fully staffed models the cost for shelter um you know it's it's they're all pretty similar quite frankly thank you um so my reasoning for asking those questions uh for my colleagues was to illustrate that worst case scenario if we aren't able to secure the Salvation Army for an extended period of time then and just so the public knows and that means that we're going to close both the 1220 River Street and the Salvation Army location on Laurel at in or at the end of June so we're going to be right back where we are right now trying to figure out where to go and this is why I protested my colleagues in taking the options of parks and neighborhoods off the table if we have two and half months to build a relationship with the community and establish transitional encampments that are proven to run at half or a quarter of the cost of these fully staffed cabinets that we're talking about I don't understand why we made that decision we're just tying our hands but um I do think that that should even more so elicit of the understanding that we cannot set a closure date for this camp until we have solid consistent shelter beds available for the people okay well we can go ahead and vote on that and then so at this time we have a motion to close the camp and we could also further the discussion if if maybe or did you have a view it's related it's related to the to the to motion number two point two okay yeah um I just wanted to ask the city attorney when um the expectation around the discussions with the ACLU about closures and legalities of closing this camp down what's what does the timeline look like with that I mean well I mean my intention would be to reach out as early as tomorrow and hopefully have a discussion in relatively short order but I haven't had that uh communication with the ACLU yet so um it really depends on uh availability and I would hope to expedite that and bring it any suggested changes or agreed upon uh in principle changes back to the council for your review at the next council meeting so it's a pretty short timeline um if we're able to open up a meaningful dialogue in short order like that so at this time we have a motion on the floor by councilor mathews to uh confirm the April 3rd now April 30th so be to change the date to April 30th 2019 to close the camp with the alternative shelter needs being met to maximize the spaces that will be the oncoming 1220 river street camp while fully utilizing other existing options throughout the county including the vfw laurel street shelter and possibly lodging vouchers that's the motion on the floor council member mathews seconded by council member mires okay well all the do you have further questions I just want to say the one reason why I'm not going to be able to support this at this time is because I think they'll be good to hear back from the ACLU about the conditions that we would need to meet in order to set a firm date for closure because I know that there's since since we don't know what we'll need to provide in order to have a date for closing the camp um I'm just really hesitant with trying to set a firm date without to have having the knowledge of what do we need to do to actually make sure that we can close it so that's what I'm going to do okay just a council member mires we're gonna go to member brown okay um and then go ahead see I'm just gonna follow up on vice mayor comming's point particularly given that we've now been asked for march 15th april 17th april 30th there is no reason to continue to leave people in limbo and create new firm closure dates when we anticipate that we may not be able to meet them that's another reason that I can't support this motion council member mires and then council member matthew I think that's uh I guess my comment is that you know we've been we've been trying to to um to find a closure date that works for the folks in the camp and also for providing uh alternative beds within the community and unfortunately uh we just keep kicking the can down the road and um we know that the conditions in the camp are not uh not appropriate uh we know that there's um all kinds of different issues in the camp right now and so now here we are again this is our fourth attempt to try to close the camp and the reason we need to close the camp is because um there's significant safety public safety issues in the camp um we also know that there are effects to local neighborhoods we know there's effect to businesses um it this camp is not not costing the city of Santa Cruz any money frankly it's actually costing us a lot of money it costs us money in police and fire services it costs us money in infinite amount of staff time that has gone into evaluating every time we meet every two weeks trying to figure out how are we going to do this so this idea that somehow this isn't costing anything for us to continue to try to bring closure to an area that has been deemed by our public health official from the county as a public health and safety hazard um it's it's this is not this is not a free ride and I just want to say that and here we are again going to kick the can again so okay councilmember Matthews um vice mayor Cummings I also just want to say the language in my motion was to set April 30th as the target date we know we're going to be talking with ACIU we know there's ambiguity in the martin ruling and so I think if we say a target date that gives us something really to aim for knowing that we will um they have some very serious discussions between now and then can we have that we'll go ahead and have you please keep your voices down and then if okay and please okay um vice mayor Cummings um I think that by not setting a date this isn't saying that we're not because the follow-up motion is to develop and implement an interim site management plan for the gateway encampment and I think that the point of that is to try to get at some of these public health and safety issues I understand that that there are issues that the camp that need to be dealt with and I understand that we need to work with the fire department to like work on spacing and all these other um concerns around public health with the site my concern is that without knowing that you know what what we need to do in order to close that site whether we need to find additional spaces whether we um need to provide some alternative in addition to 1220 is my concern which is why um I don't want to take you know have implement a specific date I'm not implying that we should not go out there and try to mitigate some of the public health risks so I just want that to be clear and we can have that we can have that conversation after um okay so um I think did you have an additional comment yeah um there was something that that um councilman Meyer said about we've worked with the people in the camp on the closure date a date that works for the people in the camp I wanted to uh call on Ms. Kuhl if that ever took place could you could you answer that I know we never wait we'll go ahead and pause for a second we've had an opportunity to hear from the community we have our staff here who could potentially ask and answer any additional questions if you'd like um at this point you know we can have a further discussion around best policy next steps we um are significantly behind in our agenda at this point and so I you know if that furloughs the conversation around how to move forward at the policy level I think that would be you have an answer that was so how about a question for the staff then did they have you worked with have you worked with um the folks on a closure date and that did they did with the camp council and they said yeah that's a closure date so we have not worked with the camp council on the idea of a specific closure date because I don't think we've had substantial direction at this point to have clarity about that and I don't think that's appropriate but we have worked with them on numerous occasions around um developing an interim plan to effectively manage the camp knowing that it's a temporary encampment and I think there's general consensus amongst the camp council from my interactions with them that um it's important to ensure that the camp is effectively run that safety and health concerns are addressed and um they do have the interest and will to help with that but I don't know if they necessarily have the ability to do that all on their own and so we really have had a lot of conversations about how best to work together um there is interest on behalf of the camp council and I I don't want to speak completely out of turns so um this is just my interpretation I think that um interest and will does not necessarily match up very effectively with the ability to do the work that needs to be done and so there needs to be a more coordinated effort between the city staff and the camp council and the greater camp community to put this management plan together I do want to I know you're going to get to the conversation about the management plan I do want to remark about um should you move forward with the management plan we are going to have to move everybody out of that camp to clean it up so can we go ahead restructure let's pause for that yeah okay conversation because right now we have a motion to close the the the camp um by a specific date utilizing existing spaces and I think I'll just by having a target date of April 30th and I will just um you know I don't think there's any easy solution I don't think it's clear clearly it's not there's a lot of ambiguity in terms of the interpretation of the law or the challenges that associate the complex social issues that surround the encampment the those residing there the surrounding neighborhoods and businesses the health and public safety issues 100 completely complicated and we have uh to weigh that in terms of the health and human safety issues the public health risks that have been um illustrated by our county public health department saying that the camp really poses a significant public health challenges and that to me is a huge concern and that's why I support the motion moving forward so at this time we'll go ahead and take the vote all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed nay so that fails with council member brown vice mayor Cummings council member crone and Glover voting against and then that um with council member Myers council member Matthews and myself voting in support okay so we'll um at this time uh vice mayor I want to restate a motion that I mentioned a while ago and just because um to the to date we still don't have much demographic information on who is at the camp and so I just wanted to um I prepared and wanted to restate a motion just so it's on the record um but to gain a better understanding about our homeless population I would like to motion that the city manager is hereby directed to ensure that the city is collecting demographic information necessary for the process of developing a sustainable and outcome based homeless policy included but not limited to such information as may relate to the work history residents and life history family eligibility for government or private support and employment disabilities special needs and other relevant data related to the individuals to be served in shelters facilities and when an individual is to receive report or support said information shall be confidential as to the subject individual to whom it relates but shall be made aggregated and made available to the city council city staff and the public at large in a report format that does not identify the individuals to whom it relates to better inform a population about the demographics of our homeless population so that we can provide adequate resources to aid our homeless population as it changes through time second okay um motion by council vice mayor coming seconded by council member crone question by council member mires I just have a question how that differs than the homeless management information system that's already in place and being operated by the shelters are you is that I guess I'm joining clarification are you desiring to collect this data from the Ross encampment uh residents or is this correct is that type of information is already being collected countywide in our various shelters and service areas I believe I would say that this is to be collected for example um in the events like our current event right now where we're trying to get a better understanding of who our homeless population is at the camp what are their needs and this is information that um was told to us that was going to be coming back and um you know maybe these these surveys apparently were given out to um the camp council and they weren't brought back and I think that it needs to be clear that we need to be gathering data on the populations that we're serving not only the ones who are using our indoor shelters but the ones who are also residing outside so even if we are if the policy will be to um to disrupt encampments throughout town if it's that we're going to manage the current encampments that we have and we're going to bring new encampments online I think that this information is important so that we know who we're serving and the demographics of the people who are in these camps and in other services thank you for the clarification we had a chance to hear from the community so now is our chance for action and deliberation so if you could please keep your comments down and now is the chance for us to do some policy direction council member Myers and then council member Glepper I just have one follow-up I don't know Susie could you shed any light on this I do know that we have pretty much daily presence by police fire I know mental health is there behavior health um um medical folks who come and do wound treatment is there of all those touches that happen at the camp with the residents there are we collecting any of that data just as as those kinds of interactions are happening I'm just curious if you happen to know that so both the city and the county are out there doing outreach for different purposes and county is going and doing outreach hphp staff as well as hsd staff doing benefit eligibility they collect information that cannot be shared with the city they certainly can share that information and we do have the ability with the web at EOC to understand demographics but that information has not been compiled at this point the city through our outreach effort really does need to come at a different angle in terms of understanding barrier doing a census and understanding barriers to entry into shelter and really under trying to get to um an understanding as to the specific needs of the camp population that was the intentionality of the survey there are other ways to get at it but I want to suggest that the council is in a bit of a catch 22 because for us to effectively go through the process of implementing the SOPs we need an accurate census and to get to an accurate census we need a plan to do that and the plan to do that is going to be a very difficult process whether we work with the camp council or not the camp council I would suggest is not connected intimately with every single person in that camp and I think that we need to really think about um kind of the process for which we implement the SOPs and giving city and county the resources to do that so while I agree I think it's important what vice mayor Cummings is suggesting and I actually think it's necessary for the closure I do think that we we need to be given resources to do that and that really does need to be part of this discussion about the closure um the the impetus to get information and actually understand how many beds we need available really does need to be part of a plan to actually close the camp so that's that's the situation that you're in okay and we just one quick follow-up sorry um could we is there a way to put in place with the intent of of council member Cummings something that we can sorry vice mayor Cummings request is there any way that we can bring hsc I mean is there any way to operationalize this information being collected at the camp I would recommend to do a and this is me speaking someone out of turn I would recommend working with ASR to do a mini-pick count out there that's a neutral party do it very similar to what we do on the bi-annual bi-annual pick count the same practices and procedures the county and the city have there are different perspectives about why we're there doing the work that we're doing I think it would be important to get to hire a third party to come in and and do a pick count to really understand what the vice mayor is getting to and the further clear for for clarification for the community the pick count means point in time count by ASR okay I would request with the vice mayor consider that as an amendment to your motion so that we can move forward or substitute what's the language to oh so to basically get direction to to to put together a mini point in time census process right to direct staff to potentially contract with an outside neutral party to conduct a site specific point in time count that would also get to the questions that you have in your motion in terms of some of the more specific demographic data ask a question related to that please and then we have we have a comment or question like I know that there's a lot of people in the community who have mentioned that they would be willing to volunteer their time to do that and I also know that with the point in time counts we actually have asked people in the community to come out and volunteer their time to do those counts so I'm wondering instead of spending money on trying to get people to go to the to the camp to count people whether or not we could send out um an ask to the community for volunteers to come and do a point in time count I think there's I mean my interpretation would be you could do either one one would have sort of statistical relevance and significance based on being a third party evaluator and assessor based as opposed to a volunteer's assumption so I have a little bit of confusion then around that is the idea that the people who would go and do the point in time count would they be also with I'm sorry I'll I'll take a step back would the contracted group also be doing the data analysis associated with the surveys that would be administered or would they just be administering the surveys and then the city would be doing the data analysis because I think there's a difference there I think it's fully up to the council in terms of what level of consulting you would want what I'm suggesting is there there are many different ways of going about getting this information we want the information to be accurate and we want it I I believe it would be important to come from a new neutral party that is not preconceived to have a set of expectations as to the outcome okay councilmember clever thank you there's a quick question on that survey process you said before that there had been surveys distributed but none of them returned so I'm just maybe you could clarify for me the difference between having volunteers going into a camp and collecting data and just distributing surveys and expecting them to come back in so we had worked with the camp council to disseminate the surveys and had planned on meeting back with them I don't know a week to 10 days later to get those surveys back and there was a commitment on behalf of the camp council to disseminate the surveys 10 by 10 get the information and bring it back to the city when we met on the subsequent meeting no survey surveys were returned okay thank you just a question since there for thank you a question and so I noticed that you were may are going to stop councilmember crone from asking a question of a community member but there's someone here that is directly involved with the camp council and may be able to answer the question as to what their perspective of the most effective way of data collection is you can make a comment and then I can make a response if you like before no I generally what the process how the process unfolds is that we have an opportunity for the community to speak and they can speak from varying perspectives and with different expertise lenses and once we hear from them then we have an opportunity for us to have further clarification but they've had their chance to speak if you want to have that as a subsequent action that is further pursued at a different time I think that would be appropriate personally but can just clear just to clarify then so city attorney kandadi I cannot ask for someone who has direct experience and connection with the group that we're discussing to clarify a question about what would be effective surveying strategies because we're talking about surveying strategies and how to implement them so I can't do that or is that just it's general practice is my interpretation general practice but the council could by motion direct that further additional comment be received from a member of the public okay and I'll just remind the council that we are now about five hours into this item we have an evening item on strategic planning which was expressed with high interest as to interest in want and desire to do that that has not occurred at this point there has not been a dinner break either so if you know I would just I mean I'll allow councilor Myers I know that you had a comment you'd like to add I would then maybe suggest that we take a break potentially and then reconvene after that in about 10 minutes or so if I can't ask the question then I have a something then I will place that question with do you want to make a motion that you can add no no I'm going to make a statement so what was mentioned earlier was that there was a certain level of distrust between the residents of the camp and the city entities especially the police especially the fire department but also the liaisons that have come from the city to go into the camp so there is a disconnect or a concern there because if there's a level of distrust between the people that are in the camp and the city and the city is sending representatives in to collect data from the people in the community then there's going to be a conflict there and the trust of wanting to give accurate information to city representatives so that's the reason why I was hoping to ask miss cool about what the camp council believes or from her perspective what the best and most effective way to not only build trust of the people in the community but also to collect the most quality and valid data because we want to get good data since I support councilor vice mayor Cummings motion for data collection but on page 20 of our council member's handbook it states in paragraph two each council member may recognize a member or members of the public for additional time or move additional time for public discussion you want to make a motion to move that make a motion that council member Glover could recognize member of the audience who has expertise miss kewell okay okay um miss council member mires i just wanted a clarification whether or not the amendment would be accepted and i just have a comment about using applied survey research which is a professional data collection service that is doing point time counts throughout the nation actually and i think especially with the current lit litigation situation as well as sort of the policy that we're trying to develop overall in terms of meeting our objectives for housing homeless individuals in our community this is an important data point and i think it needs to be consistent with the way that we've collected our data over the past 10 years 12 years i think it's been going on for quite some time as far as i understand so that's that's the reason i'm just interested in making sure that this data point is consistent with the other types of data collection approaches that we've used over i think probably closer to 20 years now in these point in time more so that's just for by clarification and then just if i could get a get a uh whether the amendment was accepted or not and then i'll be quiet could you can you just clarify the language used so i would um offer to amend your motion by um basically uh identifying a i believe susie sort of referred to it as a mini mini a point in time count utilizing applied survey research as the consultant with data processing to be determined by uh by city staff uh so that would be my my amendment thank you okay so that was an amendment to the main motion by um councilmember i mean vice mayor comings um is it okay if we vote in that separately yeah we can go ahead and vote on that we have a motion if i want to accept that as a friendly as a friendly amendment um the motion as a second as a seconder okay so it was not accepted by the seconder of the motion okay so that um i mean i'm happy to vote on it separately but it's part of the main motion i prefer not okay so we'll go ahead and um because i want an opportunity for like there's a lot of classes up on campus that can collect information steve mckays trained his people to collect information and um they're familiar with the campus well so i'll i'll make i'll i'll make that as a substitute motion um can i do that right now tony or is that yeah because the amendment was rejected correct so i will make that as a separate as a substitute motion to the main motion you don't have to i i think you just make it a an amendment to the main motion and we vote the that up or down it was rejected as a reject you wouldn't you weren't you weren't going to take it as a friendly as a friendly so we just vote on the amendment itself okay motion to amend the main motion i will move to main to amend the main motion i will second that mayor walkins i'm sorry um i would recommend because we have not gauged the capacity of asr to be able to do this on quick order i i think we should say any asr or um another you know statistical data quality yes um to leave it a little bit open um just because we know we need to have this happen quick and i i you know this was on the fly and i'm not sure their their availability at this time okay so the amendment is then to include changed language around uh specifically calling out as a specific organization survey and make it firm okay a qualified survey and research firm okay mayor i would i would take third if what she said third party i would take that as a friendly amendment is that that leaves it open for various we'll go ahead and pause for just a second uh city clerk uh go ahead i had a hard time hearing the amendment because you guys are both talking at the same time can i get either one if i can just get you to repeat the change that susie just said okay so it sounds to me that the change that susie just said um was specifically around calling out a uh business that could potentially do the independent assessment and evaluation data collection to now be uh stated as a third party uh professional consulting business that could do that evaluation or data assessment that was no was that accurate if that's the amendment then i'm not sure i i if it were qualified third party third party i'm fine with that but i don't think it has to be a professional consultant third party business license because the university could be doing it and that's right somebody else okay so do you want to clarify what you in your intention as the maker i again am worried about data consistency survey and research methods which is typical with regards to how data is collected over the long term so i'm fine with saying a third party qualified third party and i do i do have some reservations about having volunteers go out and collect this important data we are being asked to try to assess and document uh these uh you know part of a population of homeless individuals in our community and we need to have consistency we're now on the hook uh as a city apparently according to recent court decisions that uh we will going to be needing to provide housing and so i'd like to make sure that our data collection is consistent and that i'm okay with the third qualified third party um i'm not okay with having volunteers do this so as long as we okay qualified third party i think qualified third party as a corporate language okay so we'll go ahead and um uh release one second i'm going to go ahead and restate where we're at we have a motion by council member by vice mayor Cummings a seconded by council member crone to have a data collection process into with now a amendment being proposed to incorporate that be done and by a qualified third party um and exploring if asr is available um does that reflect where we are at this moment and that was not originally accepted as a friendly amendment but would you it was indicated by councillor crose that that would be accepted as a friendly amendment without that last part if asr is available okay just a qualified third party qualified third party okay does that okay do we want to go ahead and vote on that at this time council member lover do you have any additional comments just a quick statement um just with the concern of volunteers doing the work i do just want to make it clear that asr does use volunteers to collect the data okay correct okay thank you okay so i understand okay great thank you for that all those in favor please say i i any opposed okay that passes unanimously there was a motion to engage in conversation with a uh uh representative from the camp council um i'm assuming that since there was an existing action taken that we will be working with a qualified third party that they could get out the best uh techniques and uh approaches to gauging and and acquiring that data does that satisfy what you were hoping to gather from that person well i was hoping to hear from miss cool with regards to the strategy of data collection before we passed the motion and went through the data collection but so it's since it's a moot point now there's no need and we can talk about it offline and some other time but it just seems strange that the reason i made the motion was to hear from the community before we made the decision and that kind of got lost in the okay so you're going to withdraw your motion at this time i will i will withdraw my motion okay motion uh to do that uh to engage with an individual of the public at this time has been withdrawn by council member crone and uh the seconder was council member clover okay so we'll go ahead and uh have a 10 minute break at this point we'll reconvene at uh 9 35 two for the discussion operation and action we essentially covered um good portion of the various proposals i believe that we were going to return to the um potential of a conversation around a community process um and then to move forward with a additional proposal if i recall the proposed timeline is that correct vice mayor coming there's some language that was in the composition that i wanted to see if we could address um with regards to the expert council and i believe that uh council member mires was interested in sharing a uh updated document regarding the composition in and a specific proposal is that correct yeah okay are we on that now we're not running we're not doing 15 15.3 okay we're going to go we're going to finish 15.2 we're going to go ahead and wrap up 15.2 and then we'll move forward with 15.3 i'll just pass this out okay i will go ahead and hand it over to here you go thank you councillor mires so um we received quite a number of um communications around it so um we three of us have talked a little bit and uh we have a slightly revised version of this um starting with the name which would be community advisory committee on homelessness it would be an ad hoc advisory body of community members and staff of 10 members representing diverse local stakeholder relevant subject matter matter representatives across sectors and these are listed here homeless advocate homelessness advocate health care with special focus on the local system of homelessness care and solutions education employment and job creation local business neighborhood representative community member with lived homelessness experience behavioral health and or addiction and treatment local system of care policy and governmental expertise on homelessness youth homelessness others as identified by nomination selection process uh we would uh these members would be nominated by individual council members and selected by the mayor and it would focus on three stages uh and this is really reflective of a lot of the communication that we've received from our community which is um people are struggling with what what our objective is at this point in time how we are where we are today and what the future looks like not only for the next six months to a year but actually over the next several years and the intent of this committee would be to accomplish those things through this this uh a series of of work uh stage one being education community engagement with uh increasing the community wide understanding of homelessness related issues and alternative solutions and develop a collaborative approach to immediate challenges give community members a seat at the table and ownership of solutions so we would do this through five community meetings citywide they would be educationally interactive from staff and experts about basics homelessness current challenges and constraints legal framework services and resources concerns expectations and alternative solutions for community consideration and feedback stage two would be looking at synthesizing that feedback and exploring short-term options for addressing unsheltered homelessness this would include a presentation to council with community feedback on criteria for site and program selection for intermediate cell shelter which we are obviously struggling with pretty much every other week among other alternative solutions to maximize effectiveness sector coordination and community collaboration so this would be done through a community meeting that conveys feedback from the five prior sessions and focuses on immediate solutions testing for summer fall 2019 and the meeting would be highly interactive with the goal of evaluating prioritizing solutions notably citing and alternative countywide strategies finally the stage three would be policy work with um reflecting on the prior education and engagement taking up key policy issues affecting the city and serve as a community-based platform for exploration and development of needed future policy and we've listed um what we what we would anticipate as upcoming citywide policy changes which would include transitional encampment and facilities project charters unsanctioned encampment management policies and processes citywide ordinances changes shelter feasibility study countywide systems integration and homelessness governance and update of the homelessness coordinating committee recommendations which have been mentioned which were done in 2017 develop recommendations for homelessness priorities for for the city via the upcoming strategic planning process and finally developing coordinating plans with partners across sectors including the county h h uh homeless um action action partnership the nonprofits uh that work in the sector faith business and neighborhood organizations so the overall intent is the broaden the number of voices at the table uh with this community advisory committee on homelessness and to provide a predictable and managed method for us to engage with our community and work through these important stages the committee would be convened by may and would have recommendations coming back to council uh uh after fiverr in 2020 so that's our proposal are you making that a motion yes that's a motion very long motion i'll go ahead and second it okay so motion by council member mayer seconded by council member matthews vice mayor did i hear correctly that this is to come so when are the the various report back periods so that is this timeline then is this when the report backs are supposed to be between august and february 2020 yeah so the first uh the timeline for the education community engagement would be during may 2019 uh we would then do stage two which is synthesizing that feedback and exploring short-term options for addressing unsheltered homelessness that would be done in a june meeting and then finally working august through february on the on the on the last stage three policy work is that helpful i have a couple um friendly amendments to this um when it comes to the um stakeholders uh i was just curious around education because i think it would be important that rather than education we have mental health and behavioral health and then specifically someone who works in mental health and behavioral health and then specifically a person who works in addiction and treatment um i wasn't really it's not really clear why we like someone in education would have the expertise to deal with homelessness unless you can further clarify what that would be so we do have on the one two three four five six seven eight eighth uh dash down we have big behavioral health and or addiction and treatment local system of care i'm happy to add mental health we'll go ahead we'll go ahead and this is we've had a chance to hear from the community at this point okay i'm going to go ahead and ask whoever's speaking to please not speak or i'm going to okay you have been warned please do not speak out we've had an opportunity to hear from the community i would have to ask you to leave if you were continue to do that we're at a point of of council deliberation and action at this time please proceed the intent with the education person um was actually to bring that perspective in terms of um uh really the needs of the of the community in terms of getting access and understanding how to get access into uh for example cabrillo bringing those bringing that expertise people who are helping people ladder into those kinds of opportunities so it's not necessarily as an education person around homelessness but more bringing the perspective similar to employment and job creation so that um in talking with different service providers around town uh you know one of the things is is whether someone's ready for employment or job creation uh the other is how do i get back into getting myself back into my education so what are the kinds of things what how do i access g ed information so someone that brings that perspective that's servicing that specific population so that we have some some kind of um feedback on that so like educational support i guess might be a kind of what you're yeah i mean as far as i understand it it would be part of that continuum of care wraparound services um it's it's a specific thing that um some of the service providers in town um specifically try to bring to the table when they're working with clients so it'd be that kind of that kind of situation council berg lover and then thank you um i just want to point something out so we hear consistently from people in the community especially those that are currently experiencing homelessness or that are advocates for people that are currently experiencing homelessness that a lot of times when these expert panels are formed they're made up of people who are experts potentially uh with degrees but no real in like experience and i appreciate that there was a line here for community a single community member with lived homelessness experience but i fear that that single representative from the community of people currently and that means is this currently experiencing homelessness or is it with lived homeless experience where they've lived homeless 15 years ago in some other city and now are providing their context and their framework for what they think this should be with regards to the body so i'd love to see more and we can talk about this so i don't unless i have to make an official motion but the incorporation of more voices of people that have are currently experiencing homelessness like for example i realize there's no here there's no students for example who are currently experiencing homelessness and we've heard students come to the city council to talk about their experience of having to sleep in their cars because they're being criminalized by the university so where is that representation in this uh expert panel i would suggest if i could the youth homelessness component really actually could be a partnership with a group that convenes on a regular basis to address youth homelessness in our county that draws on an advisory group um i believe called the tape and i'm i'm blanking on what that stands for um transition age um anyhow it's uh all directed around youth homelessness so i think in terms of expert representation would make a lot of sense to have them be part of that conversation for advocacy and non duplication of resources essentially yeah i would add that youth as a category as a recognized actual category of home homeless population here in our community is quite large and so that is defined from the age of 14 to 24 and that absolutely we need to have representation um from from that from that uh affiliation so i mean just saying because youth homelessness is very broad and vague so you could go to if we pass this with this existing language then you could go to anything that has to do with youth homelessness and say okay we have the experts but if there's a specific group that you are thinking about then i think it would be responsible to put that into this language and it sounds like you're already thinking of the group that you're thinking about bringing in without any conversation and then uh the other issue i have is that the potential members will be nominated by individual council members but selected by the mayor i opened up our meeting talking about the ideological divide that exists on this body and i don't feel comfortable having the mayor select my representative on an expert panel regarding homelessness just a couple of comments um first i really appreciate the thought that's gone into um trying to bring us a proposal that we can wrap our minds around work from it's really helpful um with respect to the education line um i i think i understand your what you're getting at could we call it education and job training to make it clear that that's what we're talking about so when we could roll it we could even roll it into education employment and job creation or job training uh fine either if you want to have to so i just just to make it clear that that's what it is and not the idea about education and outreach about homelessness right it's just that idea of continuing care and wraparound got it um with respect to the overall makeup i um you know i don't want to start trying to like negate some in favor of others but i do think that there ought to be at least two representatives um that are addressing kind of the this kind of broad behavioral health questions mental health addiction um this is a huge as we know we talk about as a huge issue related to this encampment the homeless population i'd like to see at least two seats for mental health behavioral health and addiction however that is parsed out um i think that's important councilor matthew yeah i don't disagree um there is that final one others as identified and that to me is there should be a category if um either a community wants to self nominate or we think of someone you know they're not any of these but they would be really valuable i think it's good to have an extra right and as i read this any of us could nominate any number of people in all categories um and we recently went through this process with the um who should be contacted as key informants for the rent rental services and we all gave names with some description of why they'd be useful and then it was at the discretion of our consultant in that case but i think the mayor would do a really serious job to get of a representative working group that that drew on all these nominations so rather than each one nominating a certain person i i'm i'm comfortable with that approach well i that i wasn't finished with my comments so i just want to include so that was i had a comment related to makeup but i also have kind of a question comment related to nominations process the previous the agenda report that we received talked about an application process with the mayor um then making a recommendation to the council and so what i'm seeing now i might understand that's a different you're proposing a different process yeah we've updated the process yeah as opposed to applications exactly potential members nominated now by individual council members selected by the mayor that's our current proposal correct councilmember clever and then vice mayor coming thanks so i didn't really get a clarification on the youth homelessness i heard that there is some group that we don't know the name of that could potentially represent the voice of homeless i'll give you clarification on that that's the youth homelessness demonstration program it's a HUD funded grant effort underway countywide really coordinating and organizing around all things youth homelessness in the county primarily ages of 14 to 24 and so they would be the experts to draw on when trying to get a broad understanding of what and how to best support their efforts within our city essentially but that doesn't answer my concern of it not being representation of homeless youth homeless youth are an integral part of the makeup of the youth homelessness demonstration project there is a critical component that allows for the youth voices to be made in that work i do they would be consulted in terms of we'll go ahead and we'll go ahead and we're the uh the other thing is uh the process that we're going through right now with the just cause evictions and rentals protection task force is with a independent nonpartisan third party that is not associated with this body at all in any kind of decision making or power structure plus has no beholden ties to any political interests in our community because he lives in sacramento and runs an independent organization so i find it really really hard to believe and really really kind of strange for you to be able to say that someone would be able to make especially someone that is obviously ideologically different than people on this body to make an unbiased and equal decision on who should sit on an executive body or an expert panel that i i i do not agree with your assertion council member matthews and i'll just add that um this is typical process that's generally performed when considering these types of things um under normal circumstances i'd say so perhaps these feel like not normal circumstances but generally the mayor has had input from council and has had the discretion to appoint various subcommittees and bodies that could be potentially ratified by the council but definitely include um council approval and i mean and i'd look to our city manager or our assistant city manager to talk about that in terms of past practice please in terms of past practice with the mayor having the discretion to appoint these types of subcommittees or ad hoc this isn't something that just i think it's just created i guess the point is to be made that this isn't something that's just unique to this being created at this moment there's been various examples i mean obviously it's it's up to the city council but there are that is a practice that we've had where uh nominations have been given to the mayor their variety of task forces over the years where that's occurred and then the mayor makes a the mayor makes a selection okay um okay i think a great example of my concern was your decision making specifically madam mayor on the committee structures and the the lack of equity in that decision making process and the fight that it took to make sure that there was equitable representation on the different committees that required the body to force those changes so even though we gave you the opportunity to make those decisions and changes on your own we had to take it with our in our hands so uh you'll have to excuse me if i find it hard to believe that you will have that ability to make those changes that's just where i'm coming that's totally fine okay i'm also i'm going to have a hard time supporting this uh if this goes forward as far as the selection process um i want to take us back to and i was on the council for four years previously and um the decisions were never the mayor may or never made these decisions um i was on the council for four years we in fact maybe donna remembers the river committee um and there was also the master transportation committee there was the zero waste task force and these decisions were always made every council member selected someone and i'm just going to go back to um the last council and i'm making the the case and then you can either you know one scenario would be to bring all 10 members and have us vote on it like we've been voting on commissions or each council member gets a selection which i find fairer and it's definitely fairer for a minority view on the of the council or in minority members um council member brown and i didn't have that uh for the first two years we didn't get anyone on any commission uh so i mean i would be willing to support one council member one vote in one nominee um of course if the full council thought that was an absurd nomination and that person doesn't belong on the committee task force um they could you know bring that and and vote the person off but i think we should have some trust and confidence that council members uh should be represented on this committee and i think there's a history of it i don't know how you've been doing the last 10 years but previously uh it was one council member one vote i can give some perspective about the public safety task force because i think it's actually a hybrid of what you guys are talking about which might be helpful so at that process that process was an application process um and then the mayor did do a selection but it was brought back to the council for ratification um the critical part of that selection process was to ensure that those different sectors were represented um and so my concern about one council member one nomination or one selection is that you wouldn't necessarily get the cross section and diverse diversity um that you would need in this type of um task force or or committee so that might be something that you could consider okay council member Myers and then vice mayor Cummings then comes from you know the intent i believe from my fellow council members and the mayor was to um recognize that the community um has really been uh playing catch-up with us in the last um two and a half months um there's been extensive um actions uh motions made very late at night at midnight on um a lot doing a lot having to do with homelessness prior to that uh as the staff report uh or at least the agenda report noted there had been several adopted policy um and programmatic approaches to homelessness and i believe that um at least our intent was to try to create something that we could engage with our community through and um at this point i i if my fellow council members are are uh amenable to this i i personally would just want to withdraw this uh as an option it's not uh this was not this is not an intent to try to control anything or place people this was to um to basically have our community have a conversation around this and uh i'm sorry if it comes across as some kind of sneaky thing that we're trying to do to get a bunch of people to talk about homelessness in a way that doesn't seem to be um you know supportive um that was not our intent at all so i think uh we're going to withdraw the uh proposal thanks so we have a motion to withdraw the proposal at this time um don't need a motion anymore oh sorry we're withdrawing the motion of to form the community advisory committee on homelessness which was as council member um Myers uh expressed was an interest in trying to um really engage our community as they've expressed interest in wanting to support the city as partners in this effort uh vice mayor vice mayor Cummings uh council member brown matthews clever well i think this is something that's very important because this is something that i had actually been discussing with members of the community and was going to be preparing to bring a motion forward to actually convene one of these groups similarly um so at this time i mean i think that it would be good if there's some way that we can work together to address some of the needs of members of the city council and bring this forward because i think that additionally it's given what's happened over the past few months with a lack of community input and communication i think that this is something that would really help for our community to be um you know in communication with and doing outreach i also just want to add to this and i'm going to add this in the form of a question to the to um city manager i just wanted to to touch base and see what what was the task of the public safety committee because my understanding is that the public safety committee used to actually work a lot on homelessness and i know they haven't met yet and so i was just kind of curious if homelessness was one of the things that the public safety committee works on you're talking about the city council public safety committee um the public safety committee has really focused on and susie's actually the staff so she's actually worked on some of these projects but they've really focused on public safety related items there has been some overlap i suppose with homelessness and the impact of homelessness but it's primarily primarily been focused on various public safety issues that have arisen uh and people have it has it has become a form for for example people have come to talk about the concerns about needles and the finding of needles uh and that sort of thing uh susie do you want to add more to that so there had been a very deliberate um decision to move away from the topic of homelessness as it relates to the public safety committee and not conflate those two things because i don't think it's necessarily appropriate and so i think that what the public safety committee really did focus on was perceived behavioral behavioral issues related to drug property mental health related crime homelessness was intertwined in those conversations but that committee was very intentionally not focused on status but behavior and so really the the question of community of where homelessness should be considered was really part of the community programs committee not the public safety committee well i just want to state that i'm sorry i was just going to add the the other the other concern that i would have with respect to the public safety committee i think that the committee's their work should be aligned with whatever the city council's sort of work plans and priorities are um and that you don't you don't duplicate and an overlap uh discussion of issues um and i think i think we had some of that which i think made it more difficult and confusing to move forward so i would really recommend that you you know be clear about what are the objectives and issues you'll be working on and if it makes sense for a public safety committee to take on aspects of that that you know that maybe you considered from that context i was just mentioning that because i thought that if if we can bring this group forward that it would be a good subgroup to have them report back to so that they're not reporting and then we can get a report back from those members of the city council in the interest of time and with in the kind of the context of complexity with all the different items before us it sounds that there's interest in concept but not a consistent uh council um kind of uh alignment in terms of structure so i think what we'll go ahead if we can we'll just go ahead and we've had this withdrawn as a potential action we can go ahead and move on if that is fine for the council at this time and we could revisit it at a future time in terms of structure i want did you have additional comments councillor brown no i mean i was just i can i think we should have one of these community advisory committees um the motion's been withdrawn in that case i'm willing to move that we proceed with one if we'd rather do that at a different time that's okay with me too um second we make that much all right so i'll go ahead and move that we um uh develop an ad community ad hoc community advisory committee on homelessness with the composition um kind of as delineated in the proposal that was just um distributed um with the uh the only i believe that we talked about some changes one of them being at least two um representatives to cover the gamut of behavioral health mental health and drug and addiction um services and what else the appointment process in terms of how yeah so i'll get there but i'm talking about the seating before i go to nomination or the appointment process the other thing was just specification and clarity on the youth homelessness uh or specifically speaking about students experiencing homelessness so do you uh because i mean the previous conversation i was going to ask the question would you like to include um a student because i think that would make sense yes okay so let's add a student um and did you say you were going to get to the yes but i'm i'm just if if people want to weigh in on makeup we can do that and then i'll move to um the process for appointments or i can just do it all and then you guys all right so so that's my so with respect to um makeup that is my proposal welcome to you know we'll entertain uh additions changes after i finish this um potential members um to be appointed through um an application process um and i would ask that i think that the the mayor can make a recommendation with recommendation to be made by the mayor but that council members receive all of the applications and approve the recommendation made by the mayor based upon an application process rather than individual nomination second that i think um if i could i'll just sort of say you know that was um although not clearly sort of identified that was essentially a component that was encompassed in the original proposal but i think we've gotten there so um at this point uh i know that council member matthews had some comments and then we'll go back to council member glover and then vice mayor comings um i know that council member i'm the night owl um had some other ideas um i was going to suggest that he and council member mires um since they were the most interested in this i thought go off and refine the proposal and come back with it that's another idea i think in terms of the fact that we have an additional item that i think is all really have high interest to the council in regards to strategic planning and work planning um that would make a lot of sense to me if that's the direction that the council feels comfortable in at this time would you be comfortable with us developing an application process at this point because i i do think that we in the abundance of need to move quickly because we would like to have these engagement meetings in may i really think we should move forward with some aspect of this before the next meeting please and i have yeah i have some thoughts on an application form or process that gives us some good information to go on i think there should be references and that sort of thing so if i can understand correctly you're making a friendly amendment to the motion to essentially have some of this information then be deferred to council member mires and vice mayor comings for further consideration to also concurrently contain a process for the application does that feel accurate were you make rev the motion yeah your your um additions or suggestions were substantive or do you feel like this is okay going ahead with this version the only the only additional item i was going to mention was that all members of this committee should work and or or should live and or work in the city of sanikers and only two people from outside the city maximum could be on this committee support that kind of a standard procedure anyway so would that be considered as a friendly amendment at this point okay so we'll go ahead and pursue the original proposal um with the additions made by council brown and seconded by council member glover um and with the additional language to incorporate the sanikers city specific representation structure um council member glover that was a friendly amendment but i don't think it was ever accepted was that accepted as a friendly amendment yes okay uh i look the language for vice mayor comings to be added but not the direction to have them come together and do something separate and then go from there that's right it seems that that has not been uh that's not been and then my other thing was i want to make sure because it was uh insinuated when the motion was withdrawn initially that this was because the thought that it was some ploy to control something and or that there seemingly was a lack of desire for there to be community involvement by those expressing dissent and concern about the structure of the selection process i think that's really uh dangerous to make those assumptions without asking or for clarification and secondly uh it's based off of experience that the when left to the decision-making process of a certain individual on the body the results have not been equitable and distributed equally so uh that's the impetus it's not because the proposal itself was to control anything but that we have seen a pattern of a lack of representation in the decision making when left into the control of one person and secondly no one ever said that community engagement was not important and that's one of the most important things in fact i am the one that is coordinating conversations community conversations around the community with large groups of community members so that i can educate them come get their feedback and synthesize it in the policy so i would just caution my colleagues to think about what it is that they're inferring before they make statements suggesting motivations also i want to clarify just in this language that the selection process will be done by creating an application process that will then be voted on by the city council similar to the committee or the commission appointments is that that's my understand that's my understanding yes so correct um selected by the mayor for by the city council i just like the commission appointments no no it's selected by the mayor for comfort and then confirmation by the council okay and uh i just also point out that the applications will come to the city to the city council for review so with the so the mayor will select we will be we will have access and then they'll be ratified by the city council i can accept that okay so um um can could we include a um a person who is homeless at the time they are selected for this yeah i do you want to so was that changing the language community member with lived homeless experience homelessness experience to a currently a member a community member who is currently homeless yes at the time of appointment i accept that councilor matthews who made the motion sandy yeah um you know leave it i would leave it as is it could be someone who is very recently gotten out of homelessness who could okay so it's with lived with homeless i think it's really encompassing of anybody who could potentially fit as a current or past or former homeless persons in our community and um that could be explored based on the applications that we receive and interest in participation depending on their setting sorry i just i thought i said um current the homeless at the time of appointment and that was accepted i don't know want to go or not we have the maker of the motion the well the maker of the motion has conflicting feelings about this i i think um it's important that we have um representation um from somebody with lived homelessness experience i agree that there may be cases where a person who is recently became house but has some uh expertise or you know direct experience i mean i wouldn't want to discount the ability of that person to to participate or apply so i'm a little conflicted about what to do here i i think the point is um people with direct experience with homelessness apply we'll see what those applications look like and make a determination yeah is that okay yeah so um okay is that conclude the conversation on this item at this point okay i will just go ahead put that friendly amendment accept it or no yeah at the time it does not sound like it was because it was all encompassing based on the language that's currently i don't want to preclude somebody who was recently house i know but maybe that person can fit another category if they're recently housed maybe they're in local business maybe their education maybe their employment i mean there's a real i think a real need in a category that uh currently homeless person fits that's not represented on this list and we could look into that when we have the process is on the applications that we receive is my understanding okay fine that's fine i think we're gonna i think we're gonna know the right person when we look at the applications we'll find somebody who's represented i don't want to that's that's totally fine sounds like that's accepted okay um is there any further further discussion i will just if i can just to say i um i'm very committed to moving forward with diverse local stakeholder and subject matter representation across sectors given that this is a sector makeup i um you know feel comfortable making recommendations to eventually have ratified by the council as a whole i know that's been part of the discussion process in terms of um overall trust in the process and uh sector representation i also just want to say how supportive our community has been and saying that they are interested in participating in the solution um and wanting to engage in all ways as uh in terms of their time or their resources or advocacy in solutions so um that's the intention behind this item i recognize that there may be differing perspectives behind who is the right person to fit in the various subcategories but diverse category representation is i think very essential in terms of that cross sector support that we're going for in this regard so i look forward to seeing the applications and i will um look forward to bringing some sort of recommendation to the council for further consideration at this time okay so at this point we'll go ahead and vote on the motion all those in favor please say aye hi any opposed okay that passes unanimously so now we'll move along to 15.3 of i'm sorry yes 15.3 which is the um i've been brought forward by councilmember uh brown and vice mayor comings in terms of an alternative strategy and how to move forward with the gateway encampment and i'll go ahead and turn it to my colleagues to see if there's any type of uh discussion or uh further explanation or proposal that i'd like to bring forward at this time i'd just like to make um the first motion which is to receive an update on the city county joint action plan for emergency shelter provision and encampment management including efforts to identify location and resources for a permanent year on shelter navigation center navigation day service center um i was looking second and but i think what i'm just want to clarify you're talking about um getting that update receive an update at the next at the next council meeting okay okay so i'm sorry if you could please restate the motion i'm not sure if i caught that so is it it's recommendation item number one one oh okay so that was in addition to what we had today okay okay so uh motion for item number one seconded by uh councilmember brown any further discussion is there any um staff input in regards to potential plans for this type of presentation already well actually we've already been directed to come back um in april that is part of the joint action plan to give an update on not permanent so i want to make sure that's clear to the council the direction in the joint action plan is actually to come back in april which likely will be early may at this point as to the feasibility of the interim navigation center which is you know what we had planned to open on or around july so that would be the one distinction i would make between um what the vice mayor um is talking about and what we've actually already been directed to do to do so it seems like that wouldn't necessarily maybe occur right at the next council meeting but sometime in the near future and is already underway particularly because i think our two by two is also the big discussion that as well and and so what you're saying is we don't really need a motion this is just already happening i would say i don't necessarily think so and i also think based on what you just adopted with the community advisory committee there actually is a need to ensure that that public engagement process is also talking about siding and feasibility for the interim site so we should we do need a little bit of flexibility around timing but we certainly can come with an update on the joint action plan generally speaking because there's elements that are around alternative shelter locations as well that we certainly could provide an update on do you want to withdraw the motion given that okay okay do you want to move on to the other yeah so the next item to direct staffs to develop and implement an interim site management plan for the gateway encampment consistent with the measures outlined in this report and including camp cleanup site sleeping space layout installation of additional hygiene and security measures and ongoing interim operations management with the management plan to go into effect um i would actually change this language to um say as soon as possible just because given the fact that we need to mitigate the public health concerns that are currently ongoing at the raw street camp um and i just also like to add in my the language that we'll work with the fire chief to determine codes and standards for that site um additionally second there's a motion by councilmember vice mayor uh coming seconded by councilmember brown um councilmember matthews and then uh councilmember glover i i wonder about the term interim uh maybe just deleting that developing and implementing a site management plan for the gateway encampment we're we're expressing the intent that it will be closed but um so if we could do that and then i believe the language that was requested by the fire chief was um management plan for the ross camp in any other encampments on public property so that was not specific just to that um to deal with fire safety health and welfare issues with the management plan to be delegated to fire and building professionals so that was language that they requested i'll accept that okay councilmember glover you'd like to make a friendly amendment to that uh that not only will staff develop and implement the interim site management plan for the gateway encampment etc but also that we as a body and staff will reprioritize transitional encampments for both the 1220 river street site and the ross encampment after it is going through this revamp and instruct staff to explore the potentiality or the potential nature of a partnership with food not bombs and miss cool for a third party management of a retrofitted ross camp and with that establishment of those two transitional encampments which statistically cost tremendously less amounts of money we can then split the funding between the two camps and offer quality servers within each this was a friendly amendment to the motion or uh i apologize didn't did you frame it interim friendly amendment okay to the maker of the motion i would say that what would be acceptable is if um the staff explores third party individuals who can run the ross street camp i think that at this point we've we've come a long way and we've done a lot of work to identify salvation army for 1220 so i don't think that at this point in time that it'll be appropriate for us to now then switch who our provider is given the fact that we're extremely close to opening up 1220 i think that that should have been something that was brought up if that was a concern back in um like january or when these rfps had gone up i'm just sorry vice mayor i have expressed a concern and a uh issue with the level of spending at the river street camp since we campaigned together so it's not like it's new and saying well why didn't you say 75 000 was too much money before i did many times and uh if there's the potential option for us to be able to find more cost effective ways of doing it even though i brought forward language for transitional encampments that even though the staff specifically the city manager uh didn't didn't instruct his staff to figure out ways to establish transitional encampments which are statistically less expensive so i don't understand why there was this abandonment of the transitional camp and structure but if there is even the possibility for us to be able to establish even through the salvation army a transitional encampment structure which will cost less money then i don't know why we're not exploring that option so if the city manager wants to respond to that i saw some hand movements going on but otherwise that's where i'm coming from with this and it's it seems foolish not to explore the most cost effective data driven options that we have available to us i just don't see what the resistance is so my understanding is that there was a friendly amendment made to modify the motion that at this point based on the response from the maker of the motion was not accepted is that correct now without clarification around i mean i think that it would be good to hear from the city manager because mine because we've been making decisions on this and we've been voting on this now for the past few months and we've been voting around the opening of 12 20 and this is the first time it's ever come up that there's been a concern and issue with salvation army and so i have concerns around the fact that this wasn't addressed months ago when we had the opportunity for this for your recommendations and your proposals come forward at that point in time so i would not be prepared to accept a friendly amendment stating that we change who our service provider will be at 12 20 especially given the fact that one of the issues we've had with setting up transitional encampments in the city of santa cruz is that we haven't had providers and that's been stated repeatedly that we haven't had anybody stepping up as providers and so i think that that is a major concern right now at this one time okay before you respond i have council member brown and then any input from council but by martin bernard well in addition the uh you know the rfp process that was gone through the heap and and cash process provided for that opportunity for anyone to submit proposals relative to um transition encampments or any kind of shelter facilities uh so that that was an opportunity to do that but you know what we what we've been working on has really just been council direction specifically in with respect to transitional encampments there was a the charter direction to look at to look at that but then otherwise it was to um initially it was to identify sites uh which they were identified uh and then for transitional encampment and then the direction was then to look at uh a sleep sleeping zone and the council provided that direction and identified a site so we haven't had direction to look at alternative transitional encampment sites uh at this point from the council okay okay susie did you want yeah and just to further clarify we don't have the ability to control the contract that is moving forward with salvation army that is long past it is tied to heap funding um and so that is a hap led process not a city led process and so um i believe that is off the table at this point i think it's important to consider what our purview is in this decision making and more over they're ramping up i mean they're in the process of hiring people at all that so yeah okay i have a question in regards to did you have further questions that was next yeah please go ahead so then uh well let's go ahead actually you're right you were next and then i was referring back to you so i just want to make the statement here that um as the second i'm also not inclined to take the amendment perhaps for a different reason though what i see in this particular in this motion is um uh direction regarding a short term plan related to specifically to the ross the gateway encampment i don't like identifying it by a brand name um the gateway encampment as opposed to what we're doing with 1220 what we're doing with transitional potentially doing with transitional encampments this is just specifically about this site now um so that's why um but i i do agree with um council member glever about um the the need to to keep those other options on the table and i'm not sure that this is the place to do that is the only objection i have okay council member glever and i have a question and then short term okay yeah i appreciate that feedback um so uh with regards to the 1220 river street site as we found out earlier today i was under the impression that there was still the uh exploration of transitional encampment options moving forward even though the charter agreement hadn't been completed yet that the city staff was still looking at the best ways to be able to implement that as quickly as possible after clarification from today's meetings i understand now that from previous meetings the instructions that you have received do not emphasize or prioritize transitional encampments which was very discouraging uh and i really appreciate or disappointing i guess i should say not discouraging um but with uh the feedback i just received from vice mayor cummings and council member brown i'd be happy to rephrase the friendly amendment so that it would be to reprioritize transitional encampments period and then uh instruct staff to explore partnership with and now this is just because it's a third party nonprofit and volunteers that have stepped up and said hey we'd be willing to to manage a camp to explore partnership with food not bombs and miss cool for third party management of the camp site because if of specifically the gateway encampment because if we're going to have another structure that costs the same amount as the other one because we adopt a heavy security no ends and now it's constant supervision fully staff model then we're just going to be spending more money waste wastefully so um i'd be happy to remove the 1220 river street language out of there since that's uh gone down the river already but i would like to reprioritize transitional encampments and instruct staff to explore partnership with food not bombs and miss cool for the third party management of the retrofitted gateway encampment so that was a friendly amendment is that accepted i'll accept that that accepted by the second earth okay and then i have a question okay so okay i guess that answers my question because i was i had a question in regards to the interim operations management plan the cost of the plan if it were to be something that was managed by the city and for how long and how the cost would then incur but i guess that also would go to number three which is essentially if we're not selecting a date i can't understand uh what the short term might mean but i'll go ahead yeah i just to get to the friendly amendment what the the public engagement process that you just approved stage three focuses on that more challenging policy long-term policy work and as you'll notice what you just adopted was to have this public engagement process and community advisory committee actually take up the question of transitional encampments and the reason we had the project charter and the reason why you move forward with that that language was table current consideration around transitional encampments in lieu of moving forward with a project charter is to focus on engaging with the community so i fear that the community that the council is kind of moving back again to making hasty decisions about transitional encampments where at the same time you already have policy direction that's been voted on both unanimously to ensure that the public has an opportunity to engage on that very subject so i just want to make sure you understand that there is some issue between consistency with your with the motions that you have brought forward today okay well okay councilmember matthews and then we'll have you respond and then back to for one thing don't have clarity at this point on the wording of the motion right now but my understanding of the intention of this was for moving as rapidly as possible towards closure of the gateway campsite is that a correct i'm just my intention behind this currently is that while the gateway campsite is in existence given the fact that we've had a lot of public concern around public health we've had concerns around fire that we've had a lot of concerns around public safety with regards to the camp that what we need to do while and and the other issue is that we've been coming across a number of different dates that we've been said that we've been having to move for a variety of reasons including having other options come online in addition to that now having to deal with some of the legal constraints with closing the potential legal constraints and so what we're trying to do is mitigate those health and safety concerns right now while we get all of our alternatives figured out so that we can eventually close the camp when sufficient campground or non-campground emergency shelter beds are available my direction with this is to have staff develop and implement this management plan if that includes considering other nonprofits to help manage the camp including food not bombs if that and from my perspective the way that that site would be set up i'm hoping would be that there would be offering some services there would be some in and out policies and so from my perspective that in and of itself if it's being managed would seem like a transitional encampment maybe that's a different definition than what's been proposed but for the purposes of this site what i'm really trying to get at is that we need to manage the ROS encampment so that we can mitigate some of the health public health and safety concerns down there um i think it was i can't well i'll just i i asked a question so i'll continue my good that's taking this thing in a completely different direction than i originally thought it was i thought it was a basically a physical logistical site management plan to deal with the really critical health and safety issues in the immediate time until the gateway camp could be closed what i'm hearing now is it's uh active management within and out you know privileges and all that is not what's going on there and i don't see us setting that up so i there i want clarity on what we're talking about i think i think that we're actually on the same page with regards to what this is supposed to be because i think that what we need to do is we need to go in and create spacing we need to um pull out a lot of the trash that's in there we need to deal with the the objective of this is to mitigate the public health and safety concern which is what the concern has been while we explore not only trying to provide alternatives and get these other alternatives online but deal with the legal constraints as i mentioned previously that's the intention of what um what i'm trying to move forward i'm not trying to turn this into a permanent transitional encampment um but i imagine that currently we have um public safety public health officials going down and working with the individuals down there i would imagine that we would be trying to get those individuals to move on to other services so i my understanding was that that would be a part of it regardless because it's already currently happening at the campsite uh c attorney kandadi yeah i i understood the initial motion to um to be designed to address immediate health and safety concerns while we move forward with an orderly process to um to close the camp in view of the legal constraints that we're operating under but i just want to remind the council that if you start talking about a longer term uh city managed encampment um we are also talking about property that the city doesn't own it's partially caltrans right of way and and other state property um and so i'm not sure that it's a viable alternative um transitional encampment location without input from those agencies right i think can i add to that too that i think it's only this the city is the only one that can do that because to as i understand it to do i mean to do this uh program would require removing everyone over to some other temporary location so we would have to sort of figure that out i don't think we figured that out going in cleaning marking up doing all the improvements and then having everything come back or i do think there is a unique opportunity because we will and i want to clarify this and i tried to do it earlier but it was out of turn we will have to move everybody out to do this and then move everybody back in and i think there is a unique opportunity to work with the camp council to ensure that we are moving forward together even if it's a short period of time to ensure quite frankly what's going to be the most difficult process is adherence to the rules that are created by the fire chief building department and public health officials and so we will need some internal coordination to ensure that that happens so it's not just law enforcement um that's coming in there and asking to do that so i think there is an opportunity to do that but i agree with with city manager burnall that this this is something that the city is going to have to do because there is going to be a require requirement to be really thoughtful about how to secure the location and how to ensure that what has happened now is not going to happen again okay i um okay i i i have a couple questions just in regards to where we're at and what we're talking about if i if i could um i i don't necessarily see how this isn't um i don't quite understand how what is being offered isn't essentially a designated city sponsored location until we get enough kind of adequate adequate campground space available to close the camp given that there has been a moving target in defining what adequate means so for me i think there is the risk of potentially making this the designated location which is essentially um the default designated location and that's simply how i read that i i completely agree with the need to have cleanup and public health uh i see you and i will get to public health um information public health uh interventions take place there um but my concern is that without with the ongoing operations management then i don't know what that really reflects in terms of how we as the city then manages the camp after that process ensues without further clarification on what a timeline for closure um means so i i just struggle to understand conceptually how this how this actually plays out other than um a support and recognition that we want to have the location cleaned out um so i'll go ahead and have the maker of the motion respond and then i'll go ahead and go over to councilor glover i'd just like to say that we've now had to we initially had march 15th as a date that got changed to april 17th which is now about not a viable date and until we have a conversation with the aclu on what it's going to take for us to be able to what what alternatives we're going to have to have in place in order for us to close this site we're even if we set april 30th as the date we are constantly coming back to this issue of changing the date and for myself i would find it um acceptable and i think that it will be helpful to actually have these conversations and be able to understand what do we need to provide so that we can have a closure date in the meantime what my intention is with this motion is to try to deal with some of these issues the health and safety concerns that we've been facing at the camp um if the proposal of the transitional models intention was to um have this as a permanent site then i would reject that friendly amendment but if it is to be a site where we are trying to mitigate the health and safety concerns that we have been presented then i think that that would be an okay amendment additionally if staff is going to work with other members of our community to take into consideration working with food not bombs and alicia cool i think that that is um something that they can take into consideration along with other non-profit and volunteers in our community who might want to help with some of the work that's going to take to mitigate some of these health and safety concerns so i just want to put that out there councilmember clever thanks yeah i'm just confused about the confusion because uh it's very straightforward we don't have the shelter spaces available for people we cannot close the camp until we have the shelter spaces available so we need to address the health concerns in the camp the only way we can address the health concerns is if we retrofit it and get it so it's up to fire code and make sure we take care of the road and infestation and other kinds of stuff but if we but if we do that and we don't have any kind of a structure system in place then it's just going to happen all over again and if the city is responsible for managing it it's going to cost us an exorbitant amount of money so so instead here you go ahead and put i i i don't know who's speaking but please please lower your sign and please whoever is speaking to keep your voices to yourself okay yeah you could go ahead and leave at this time thank you very much okay continue with your comments so then uh with the uh with the partnership or exploring the potential partnership between Food Not Bombs and Ms. Cool it allows us the opportunity to start creating a system so that if and when we do identify a transitional encampment location or a transitional encampment model that goes through the charter process we'll have a non-profit and an individual or group of volunteers that are experiencing working with the population and in a structure of what could transform into a transitional encampment not at this site but at another identified location later on so just to clarify with the maker of the motion that this is not to establish the location as a permanent transitional encampment but a way to mitigate the public health and safety concerns that are experienced by a non-managed camp and to save money so the city doesn't have to take on full responsibility of management okay we have a council member Myers and then it just in the interest of time we have another item tonight i'd like to just call the question okay so we have a motion to call the question by council member Myers seconded by council member crone we'll go ahead and call the question well the motion is to incorporate the friendly amendments that were in court that were added by council member Gleaver at this time okay all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed no so that passes with brown vice mayor Cummings crone and Gleaver in support myself Matthews and Myers voting against okay so i believe that concludes this item council member Gleaver can can can we be clear about what the friendly amendment was i just want to be also clear do you want to read it or do you want to actually do you have the motion they accepted the amendment was accepted by the maker of the motion so it had been incorporated into the main actually i actually went back and said that i was going to reject it if uh the transitional encampment was supposed to be long term it's not but he i think there was clarification that it was not okay so just to clarify the language in motion or the amendment was to so reprioritize transitional encampments in the conversation just in general like bring it back to the front burner so we can start talking about it uh and just talking about it doesn't have to be something we're implementing but so that we're discussing it well i'm gonna ask to reconsider the motion because i do not think that that was part of it do you want to strike that and just include the instruct staff to explore partnership with the groups i think at this point that's what i'm just gonna go i would like to withdraw or to um reject the friendly amendment and to go back to the original motion um to direct staff to develop and implement an interim site management plan for the gateway encampment and system with the measures outlined in this report including cleanup um site sleeping space layout installation of additional hygiene security measures and ongoing interim operations management with the management plan to go into effect um as soon as possible and um also taken to consideration the recommendations made by the fire chief hi i'll second that so that motion has to be a motion to reconsider that's a motion to reconsider the prior action and replace it with the the motion that was just framed there's a motion to reconsider with the replacement of the motion that was just framed is there a second so we're doing the motion that yeah okay so the way that you just read the motion is placed out here yeah but are you vote but this would be a vote to reconsider that motion not to vote in support of that motion to be second yeah i probably would make more sense to just vote to to reconsider the prior motion first and then to reframe a motion to um as as vice mayor Cummings um what forth Mr. Crum uh vice mayor could you clarify a little bit more what why you don't want to accept the friendly amendment at this point in time my understanding with the language behind that is to bring back the con the consideration of transitional encampments the consideration of transitional encampments has now been moved on to be one of the tasks to be considered by the community and we also have um a number of issues that staff are working on in relation to transitional encampments so i don't i don't think that at this time um especially given how much um we've been proposing transitional encampments and a lot of these other models on the community that we need to bring this back at this point in time i think that at this point what we're really trying to do is mitigate some of the health and safety concerns that we have with the camp and allow staff the opportunity to come up with a management plan of the camp as we pursue other alternatives to closing the camp and also finding alternatives sheltering alternatives throughout the community i think that the intention is that we focus on what we're what's happening right now in front of us and that we're not bringing back transitional models at this point in time so you mentioned something about food not bombs and miss kewell um participating in this what you take that out i want to leave it i'm going to leave it up to staff to identify people within the communities i know that when the staff was working on the safe parking program that they were reaching out to members of the community to help work on that program as well um i think that it's been expressed through the city council tonight that food not bombs and miss cool are both interested in working on this and so if staff wants to reach out to them i think that that's fine for them to take them into consideration and to explore working with them but i think that at this point in time the motion is to direct them to develop this plan as best they see fit and so even if we and and so i think that that's what i would like to stick with at this point in time okay so we first need to have a motion to resend the previous council action is what i'm understanding is the best course moving forward is there a motion to resend the previous council action i like the motion to resend the previous council action there's a motion by vice mayor comings to resend the previous council action is there a second yes we have seconded to resend the action okay council member matthew seconded all those in favor please say hi hi any opposed no no okay so that passes with council member mires brown matthews myself and vice mayor comings in support so the new motion is now to incorporate um the original recommendation minus any additional language proposed um and uh to uh continue with a public health management plan while the gateway encampment continues on is that correct with the incorporation of the recommendations made by the fire chief with the incorporation of the recommendations made by the fire chief for me i just will say without um understanding what uh final date could be and without clear understanding which i know that the courts don't have clear understanding of of what constitutes efficient campsite um and campground uh availability it feels to me that we are by default making that our uh safe sleeping or transitional encampment and i don't feel comfortable with that i do feel comfortable with with all of the uh considerations regarding the public health and safety concerns as well as the fire management plan 100 but to um create an interim operations management plan feels to me like um without a target date or potential inability to manage who comes in and out um feels to me like a very difficult way to move forward at this place at this time so i won't support um the motion for that reason if we wanted to parse out the uh ability to clean out the camp i'd be happy to do that but at this time i i'm not sure if there's interest of the council to do that but i'll just maybe make it for the record that i support the public health interventions but not the interim location for the management of that being our uh kind of default location for this type of shelter personally okay so we have a motion made by vice mayor Cummings to move the recommendation i believe that was seconded by council member brown back to the original okay all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed no no that passes with council member crone clever brown and vice mayor Cummings in support council member matthews meyers and myself voting against council member matthews and i would like to go on the record as supporting fully the uh public health and public safety measures i would echo that for record as well and for the record as i've mentioned many times tonight i agree as well um our highest priority does need to to be providing uh uh adjustment of those kinds of things right away thanks it seems to me that you all want health and without people you want to just like clean up clean up health health but no people are involved so um i'll go on the record saying that i think people should be involved with health and safety at the camp and that it should be for the people who live there i think that you you um i will just um i appreciate that we all are trying to come up with solutions regarding the people and i think that we have different pathways that were proposed this evening in regards to address the people which include the health and environmental impacts um affecting the people there as well as the surrounding area so i would just um express that there is a consistent commonality amongst every one of us here seeking solutions to support the people in our community it's just the pathway moving forward i think there's a difference of opinion on um but um we'll go ahead and move along at this point because we still have more items to get to so we'll go ahead and close item number 15 and now we're on to our evening item which is no we have that calendar excuse me council member you were looking that way before you close the item and have a hand up we heard earlier from the community that there were 20 points recommended by a 2017 task force for action um with regards to the topic of homelessness so i would love to make a motion for us to get a report on those 20 points recommended in the 2017 task force and bring them back for action at the next city council meeting there's a motion by council member glover i'll second it if it's get a report on the um and then we can decide about whether or not where we're going to take action or not i would like to get some i think within the last six months you've got you've gotten an update on the homeless coordinating committee 20 point recommendations and then it's also part of the the process for which the community advisory committee would be considering um what what is the current progress with the 20 points 20 point recommendations as well as providing an an update to that plan so i think that's really embedded in this community advisory committee process thank you for the reminder i'll withdraw my second okay so it seems that that is in their agenda every packets for review and will be forthcoming i'm assuming in the future time okay so that's second was withdrawn by council member brown it's in the packet but we can't have action on it so we can't like look at it and talk about it and say like hey you know let's implement this because it's important to do it and i get it that it's a part of this community engagement process but that's slated to be done in february of 2020 at the latest so why is it why can't we just discuss it at the next meeting i don't see what there's a resistance about i don't know why you withdraw your second cover brown but it's confusing as to why there's resistance on this okay well the other um thing i would add and if you're happy to respond if you like is that we have a other city business to conduct um and so um given that there has been an update most recently and that's in our packet and there will be continual updates moving forward um that i wouldn't support it for the same reasons that it sounds like we are a place where we need to be for now so um okay that what's withdrawn as a as a as a second is uh they're an additional secondary promotion at this point i guess i just want to respond to council member glover's question i'm just withdrawing the second because the clarification for me was that we are going to have opportunities to hear more about um the you know the status of those recommendations and and potentially take action in the future so i don't want to force it into the next council meeting in that way i do want to make sure that we continue to um hear about it and and take action great so at this point we'll move on to the meeting count oh yeah i just want um i've had a number of discussions with members in the city council and um around scheduling and so i just wanted to make a motion to direct the city manager to contact the public safety committee members this week to schedule a public safety committee meeting um where they can have an opportunity to address public safety concerns that are including but not limited to um concerns around um public safety concerns related to homelessness second there's a motion to uh can i comment on that uh you know the request has been the question has been asked and i think i've responded to a member of the public with respect to why the committee hasn't met and the answer to that is that susie is the staff to that committee and susie has been working 100 plus percent on homelessness issue so it's not the lack of interest in wanting to hold a meeting is just that we just don't have the staff capacity at this time to hold uh to plan forward coordinate those meetings that's been the challenge so just so you know it's it's it's it's really if i could just add um and i'll and then please susie one of the things that we have in our next agenda item is to talk about a work plan and to think about a strategic planning process because this is not the only subcommittee that's been put on hold in regards to our city at work that we could and have potentially had underway so when we're thinking about prioritization and scheduling and agendizing various types of meetings given our constraints for capacity and um the lengthiness of these this specific topic over the past several months really um i think we could maybe have that conversation when we talk about the work plan so that would be my um and uh the the necessity for the next public safety committee is the police auditor report um that is something that is long overdue so that we actually have an agenda that we need to we need to do as quickly as we possibly can um so um i would recommend that we we do in the next week or so schedule that so we can move forward and get that business taken care of and then we can move forward with um returning to the public safety committee or around work plan development that hopefully would be concurrent with your strategic planning process how often did the public safety committee meet last year what was the regular what was the schedule was there a regular schedule uh there there was a regular schedule it was every other month um and they really did focus on issues that arose um that were outside of the city council's work plan um kind of on an ad needed basis and they had spent the previous i would say full year trying to develop a very specific work plan that they were not able necessarily to achieve um so the intention for this year was to regroup around developing a work plan that was consistent with what was happening with the council and to um remark about what martin was talking about you know we are very deliberately trying to ensure that the committees are expressly fitting in with the charge of those committees which is to work within the framework of council direction and council focus and that has um long been a challenge with our subcommittees and so um there is a significant amount of work to do to ensure that we move forward and have those committees actually doing the work that they um are really intended to be to to be doing thank you i would move just to call the question and um get this committee meeting sir second to the call the question second council member crown called the question council member clever seconded and the motion is schedule a public safety meeting to talk about homelessness uh i i would and the auditor's report it sounds like the auditor's reports i would request that the vice mayor consider the um information provided by staff and work with staff offline on the public safety committee oh you're not even okay yeah i mean i i just second honestly i i think we have to respect the workload that's being put on our staff the auditor's report is hugely important it's a big deal um and the idea of syncing up the um public safety committee work program with the uh citizens advisory committee makes a whole lot of sense to me and and to my mind normally the idea of um scheduling a meeting or something like that is less productively done by a motion and a second date that's two weeks from now rather than consultation and just to remind the council that there is a motion to call a question on the thank you okay um all those in favor please say aye all right any opposed no no that passes with council member crone glover brown and vice mayor Cummings in support matthews meyers and myself against okay so now we vote on the motion vote on the motion okay we'll go ahead and vote on the motion all those in favor please say aye aye opposed no that passes again with council member crone glover brown and vice mayor Cummings in support matthews meyers and myself voting against okay so now we can conclude that item and move to our meeting calendar and i'll look to our city clerk because i believe we do have some updates there were um two special meetings added to the calendar for department presentations ahead of budget hearings um december 16th uh december sorry april 16th and may 7th and i i sent you guys meeting invite so it should be on your calendars you say that one more time uh april 16th with a start time of four o'clock and may 7th with a start time of 12 p.m okay thank you all right so what are the special meetings for again they are for department yeah uh department had presentations ahead of the budget here that have been postponed okay so at this time we'll go ahead and move on to our remaining agenda item which was originally calendared for 7 30 p.m this evening um and that's the council city council work plan and strategic plan um we have a brief powerpoint did we have that set up it is set up on the staff computer and i'm happy to help um the mayor walk through this because we actually haven't had a chance to talk about it because of our meeting today thank you so all in the interest of time um i'll just briefly uh go through the powerpoint and allow for staff to weigh in as uh interested um so one of the things that in the staff in my report to um move forward with a work plan and strategic plan was a response to why we haven't been able to move forward and in summary i think um without going into detail as the report indicates we've had a number of really high community interest items before us um on a regular basis um and as a result we have been unable to really get to uh the process around uh work plan and strategic planning um turns out i actually love strategic planning i particularly enjoy it so i was very happy to hear that the council was wanting to make this a priority and that is also why i felt it would be appropriate to make it our evening session i have to say i am a a bit disappointed that it's at 11 p.m that we're only now at this time able to get to this but i think what ultimately this does is just set the process in place um knowing that we'll have the ability if approved by the council to move forward um with the more robust conversation in regards to the content so essentially it's coming up with the framework and going over the framework with you all at this time okay and if that i think that summarizes so if we'll just briefly um without kind of getting into um the details we've had a two-year work plan july 2017 to june 2019 um that was generated by the prior council which was comprised of a few of our council members remaining and ultimately created a work plan that uh that worked on how to incorporate our vision for the city and the community and also have a roadmap for making service delivery delivery decisions and allocating resources given the um reality of not having as many resources to do all that we want to do unfortunately and so there's a prior there was a prioritization process that ensued with programs and policies um uh put into place to achieve these priorities and ultimately um work towards improving the quality of life in our community as you can see from the title of the slide the work plan is expiring and so um it is now an opportunity for the council to sort of revisit the work plan and um what might look at what it might look like in terms of a process moving forward without getting into content as i said last earlier so did you have anything you wanted to add no okay or or martin please um so the work plan and decision-making process on the next slide yep um would essentially encompass the immediate and long-term needs it would recognize that we had prior council direction and up count upcoming council calendar items so really how do we build on previous work i know council member brown and myself um had an opportunity to serve on the housing blueprint subcommittee and there's a lot of really great foundational work there um and then also looking at how we use our limited staff time and capacity to take on um where the council sees hopefully a commonality in terms of policy objectives and priorities um and then looking forward towards a strong kind of knowledge based for decision-making and study sessions um in terms of how do we ensure that we have as much knowledge as we possibly can when thinking about some of our policy directions um given that it's often very difficult to get to the place where you feel completely comfortable all the time um it would look at terms of how do we have a work plan that would be uh effective and collaborative governance um and what i along with staff are interested in proposing is a full day facilitator facilitator led retreat um to develop that sort of intermediate work plan for the remainder of this year um but simultaneously one of the opportunities we have is to have a current sort of work plan to man to manage the upcoming council meetings and the priorities for what we want to accomplish but then looking at how do we go um a different route this time in terms of updating our strategic operational and accountability plan um separate essentially separate from the work plan but um concurrent to it and that would be a more inclusive process that would look at some of the longer sort of three years uh interim but longer term needs um have some strategic direction and um incorporate the community in the priority setting and this would be facilitated as a um uh council and community and staff process over a four to six month strategic planning um timeline susie so i will just add to um give real tangible context to the need for a work plan for the remainder of this year and i will use homelessness as an example this is not sustainable it's destroying staff morale quite frankly to have these long meetings and to continue to push staff to move forward with items that we are not prepared to do so that needs to happen and the council does need to um ensure that you are talking about staff capacity when you're thinking about policy objectives for the rest of the year thank you susie i appreciate that and um acknowledge all the hard work and very difficult timelines and uh pressure the staff has been on so i appreciate your comments as well i also um i want to um go ahead and we'll go ahead and move forward with the timeline and essentially um in a more visual uh demonstration we have is the opportunity to hold a one day retreat to develop a 2019 work plan um and that would uh be uh that temporary or sort of interim work plan and then having the one day retreat to really talk about as a council what do we envision the strategic planning process to look like and then between july and and december having that process take place with a community engagement priority setting and facilitated council sessions um with ultimately um returning in the in the in february of 2019 that we would have a strategic and operational accountability plan before us for potential adoption that would cover the years of 2019 to 2022 so um excuse me mayor um 2019 or is it 2020 i don't want to get that oh sorry 2020 sorry yes thank you 2020 in the year it was by fast okay so the recommendation before us this evening that i um am seeking our council approval on is to calendar a special city council meeting to develop a work plan for the remainder of 2019 and to initiate an inclusive planning process to build a three-year strategic plan and obtain consultant support to facilitate these planning efforts um before we potentially move into um the remainder of the discussion i maybe would ask if any of the council members have specific questions and um and then we'll go ahead and open it for public comment in return for action and deliberation council member matthew quick one if you could go back to that previous slide or just everyone look at this slide so may 2019 is a one-day retreat to develop a 2019 work plan would that be for the remainder of the 2019 calendar year yes calendar year i suppose fiscal year and then june 2019 hold a one-day retreat to develop a strategic planning process and that's three-year planning to develop the process that then would be carried out over the next six months and that would be for a three-year plan got it so it's sort of a work plan management proposal based on sort of the rapid movement of the council for the end proposal for the next few months while also initiating a more inclusive community process at the same time right i guess the only other thing that occurred to me in june 19 we will have just gone through the whole budget process for the 2019-20 fiscal year 2020 fiscal year so that will set the stage for the first year of our strategic plan strategic plan i think the budgets will absolutely right that's right because uh you'll be making some major budget decisions and learning about what the you'll be able to work with the next plan okay are there any additional questions councilmember brown and then councilmember crown it's a common deep question i guess so i'm i'm all for proceeding in this manner in particularly getting us to uh our work plan for the immediate future i think that is absolutely critical um with respect to the longer term strategic planning process i also agree that we ought to be doing that but i do have some reservations about um approving that now without any consideration of the the potential cost how you know when would and how would consultants be hired i mean an outside facilitator for both of these meetings makes sense to me but i'm concerned about um talking about a consultant for some big strategic planning process um when that that could be quite pricey and um so i'm i'd rather just stick to the basics of what we know we need an outside facilitator and then make those decisions about future costs at a at a work plan meeting and this this is just approving it in concept with costs potentially returning i think that's essentially what's what's being proposed here because the there'd be the two retreats that would be facilitated but the second retreat with respect to the long term three-year plan the council would discuss the process and therefore also talk about what that would mean as far as cost and approach and then make a decision after that i'm just wondering the uh idea of a three-year work plan compared to two-year work plan that's been happening i guess i don't know when did the two-year work plan start and why three year now i can answer that the three-year work plan was proposed because the two-year work plan started right after we were elected and it was a really short turnaround that was the first one that was the first one and so this allows a buffer time for a new council to if thinking it forward beyond our time to have that a transition time of getting adjusted to the council role the council work and the work of our city so it kind of gives a little bit extra time in that regard and i'll let susie answer it also um causes the expiration to be on a non-election year which i think is really important so we don't have brand new council members much like you were when we first did this work plan two years ago that were just you know forced into decision-making before you had an opportunity to get more up to speed on city business but my other question is um i'm not i'm not sure it makes total sense but maybe you can help me out to have the strategic planning process after the budget is set for this year it's like when you want to have strategic planning what we're going to go forward to and maybe learn about priorities of the council and then budget for it no so that may 2019 is ahead of hopefully the budget process or at least the final ratification of the budget um and the june 2019 is really just to develop the process for which we will actually go through likely a six to eight month process to do the strategic planning not in and itself developing the priorities so which day in may would that be that be that the third week in may we're looking on the consultant's availability potentially so or did you find a date no okay no but you know the intention is to um have it on perhaps one of your off tuesdays for for instance 21st it looks like in may we have to figure out who is available to do the work and there's you know there's prep that's needed as well and what's the cost of the consultant to just um revisit what council member brown saying but a ballpark 30 000 25 000 not for one day for one day no for the whole strategic process i thought we were talking about having oh uh we would not know how that information at this time but it could be anywhere from 20 to 30 000 maybe this really depends on what on the process and how extensive it is and what you want to include in it so and that that conversation will happen when we decide and have a special retreat on determining the process that we all feel is inclusive to the level that we want it to be but also gets us to the place we want to be for a strategic plan and i don't think that's uncommon for an organization to invest in generally for a strategic planning process and the budget hearings are may 8th so we still might have that one day after the budget hearings possibly but the the one day retreat is to develop a work plan in terms of council priorities for the remainder of the year um without sort of and then while having the strategic planning process happen underway same time thanks america um i two questions one is just trying to understand given the two-year work plan is there any way to get a report back on um what was laid out in that work plan and then what was achieved or how far that the council the previous and current deviated from that work plan just to understand whether or not um when those work plans because it sounds like there's a lot of work going into creating this work plan and um i just want to have a good understanding of whether or not these work plans how often they're adhered to because i think it could be a big waste of time if we put all the effort into creating this plan and then we don't and and if in previous years it hasn't been adhered to or stuck to then i would say that i mean a lot a lot of it has been completed actually a good chunk of it uh and uh certainly when we do the retreat we can you know update you on that as well or any other time but and there i believe there was a memo had that had gone out in the past in regards to updates on the work plan that i'm sure we could we could recirculate that too councilmember matthews and then i maybe i'll open it up to public comment i just had a second question okay go ahead is there any opportunity for us to see um kind of calendars of what's being worked on at this point in time so that we have an understanding of currently what staff are working on so that we're not because obviously there's going to be some time in between when we're going to have this retreat when we're actually going to have the 2019 work plan accomplished there's going we're going to be wanting to take actions on different things between now and then so is there a possibility to get a calendar so that we can see what staff are working on have a sense of how we can be respectful of staff's time as we're bringing things forward and i'm assuming when you're saying staff's time you're anticipating city manager staff or all department the heads the workers oh i i think i mean i i'm just not quite clear in terms i mean we have our water department doing their water where i mean so what um were you hoping to get answered just primarily the work of the city manager's office is that yes okay well i mean it would be good to have as many you know challenges as possible so we can have a good understanding for bringing things forward you know if it's water related how does that fit into what the water department's currently working on if it's public works related how does that fit into the plan that they're currently working on and and what these different department heads are addressing because obviously we have a lot of issues that we and there's going to be the desire to bring other issues forward so i'll just remind the council that we did agendize many individual department presentations to help understand what they've been working on which have been postponed because of the amount of agendized items particularly around homelessness so that will be forthcoming in terms of what they're working on and what the work that they do includes and and hopefully hopefully this is helpful i would fully imagine that to prepare the city council and the community for this one day retreat a strong basis of that conversation would be what is currently calendared and you would get that ahead of time so you could consider that that within the context of whatever you're prioritizing for that full day retreat so i mean i certainly can come back maybe with the city manager's report over the next couple meetings and talk about that process and when you might be getting that information as individual council members to facilitate with the work that you need to do to prepare for this may retreat okay so if we could maybe we'll see if there's any member of the community that would like to address us okay i see one is that correct okay we'll have one member of the community you have up to two minutes okay thank you um first of all susie i really uh just wanted to say that i really sympathize and appreciate uh i've been going to a number of whatever meetings i could go to i went to harvey milk for the uh for the facilitation day and just sat in on that i've been to the hot meeting where the staff outreach to the association of faith communities and the reason i'm saying this it might sound like i'm trying to toot my own horn here but the the real reason i'm saying this is that it really seems to me that we need to hire marci staff but i'm saying that facetiously because i know so completely nothing about a lot of these processes but if we could usher in staff to help the staff that's one thing and it's probably a ridiculously simple solution that i'm suggesting but i really have noticed that our entire city is so dependent on these people and they are just a very few and they're doing just tons and tons and tons of stuff it's just not humanly possible thank you so much for everything you've attempted and i think i just want to also say i've seen surprising discussion point i've seen members of the city council that i completely disagree with and basically despise a lot of their longtime policy actions nevertheless weighing in on issues and there have been new discussions thanks to city staff leading a lot of this and i think real concern even if we completely disagree but i just want to end by saying i i can't overstress that i think we are in a paradigm shift that our way of doing business has been dependent on financial models and i wish i had more time but i just really think we need to have content models the homeless issue has brought enormous difficulties but it's also been ignored for the last 16 years and just shut you know pushed away anyway sorry i didn't really get to say that can i just add one thing the the other thing just to to get back and answer you know uh vice mayor's coming question a little bit it's also important to recognize that you know over 80 percent i think we did this analysis before like 83 percent of our time is spent on the things that we have to do the day to day things i mean because we're not spending all of our time working on all the special projects or the new initiatives or all the new direction uh the majority of it is spending on the day to day things i mean susie even in our office susie has certain responsibilities and duties that they do they have to do every day i mean so do i so does tina we have to run the organization we have all kinds of personnel issues there's a whole variety of different activities that we do every single day to run the organization uh and all those various functions and duties and responsibilities and so the amount of time that we can spend on new initiatives and project is really a very limited resource and that's the part that we will we'll talk about that more at the retreat but it's not like uh we've you know we've got staff that is simply dedicated 100 percent for the purposes of working on new initiatives and new projects that we just don't have that and throughout the city or in the office thank you and we'll return for action and deliberation so councilmember michael uh i'd like to go ahead and make the motion then to calendar a special city council meeting to develop a work plan for the remainder of 2019 and initiate an inclusive planning process to build a three-year strategic plan and obtain consultant support to facilitate these planning efforts i'll second the motion okay so motion by councilmember meyers seconded by myself um any further discussion did you have a discussion a point councilmember no no just the the seconding seemed strange but that's okay nothing we need to talk about i'll just only echo that um bringing the person being the person who brought forward the item it feels great for me to second the item and i'm all for strategic planning and work planning so that being said we'll go ahead and uh take the vote all those in favor please say i any opposed okay so that passes unanimously i want to remind the council that we are only now adjourning to the remainder of our closed session which was a postponed uh a potential litigation item that will return to the court year conference conference for correct that's right it's specific it's to discuss pending litigation the hatch pomerance versus the city of Santa Cruz lawsuit okay so we'll adjourn to uh closed session