 Good afternoon. Welcome to the 12 p.m. session of the March 23, 2021 meeting of the city council. I have a few announcements and then we'll move on to our meeting. Today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television channel 25 and streaming on the city's website city of San Cruz.com. All council members are participating in this meeting remotely. If you wish to comment on an agenda item today, call in at the beginning of the item you are you are wanting to comment on using the instructions on your screen. Please mute your television or streaming device. Once you call in and listen through the phone. Please note there is a delay in streaming. So if you continue to listen on your television or streaming device, you may miss your opportunity to speak. When it is time for public comment press star night on your phone to raise your hand when it is your time to speak during public comment, you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted. The timer will then be set to two minutes. You may hang up once you have commented on your item of interest. And I would like to ask the clerk to please call the roll. Thank you, Mayor, Council Member Watkins, Helen Torrey Johnson, there is a friend vice mayor Brunner. I bent the mayoral proclamation declaring March as Red Cross Month, and I will go ahead and just read a few lines from the proclamation here. It's here from the Red Cross. So hi, Megan. Welcome. Thank you for joining us today. Whereas American Red Cross Month is a special time to honor the kindness of our neighbors who aid families in need every day in Santa Cruz County across the United States and around the world. Their dedication touches millions of lives each year as they carry out the organization's 140 year mission of preventing and alleviating suffering. And whereas during the trying times of the coronavirus pandemic, people have stepped up to help others in need. Whether it was responding to this year's record breaking disasters across the country or rolling up their sleeves to give blood when our country faced a severe blood shortage. And whereas here in Santa Cruz County, local families have relied on Central Coast chapter volunteers for comfort and hope while coping with wildfires and floods. As a recent example in response to the evacuation of some 15,000 people in the Central Coast area due to the dangerously wet and windy storms, the Red Cross mobilized 100 disaster responders to support those in need. And in the following days, following in the evacuation orders, the Red Cross and its partners provided more than 1,200 total overnight stays in hotel accommodations for those that were displaced, provided 2,655 meals and snacks to those who forced to evacuate their homes and made more than 167 individual care contacts to support the health and mental health needs of those affected. And whereas the Central Coast chapter volunteers also helped 18 households affected by home fires in Santa Cruz County by addressing their urgent needs such as food, lodging and recovery support. And whereas this life saving work is vital to strengthening our community's resilience, nearly 200 years since the birth of American Red Cross founder Clara Barton. We dedicate this month of March to all those who continue to advance her noble legacy and we ask others to join in their commitment to care for people in need. Now therefore, I, Donna Myers, Mayor of the City of Santa Cruz, do hereby proclaim the month of March 2021 as Red Cross month in the City of Santa Cruz and encourage all Americans to reach out and support its humanitarian mission. So Megan, thank you for being here. I don't know if you have any words or anything today to add, but we just want to of course honor the work of the Red Cross. You're an incredibly important organization in our community and have been for as long as I can remember, I think my first interaction was after the earthquake. So the work that you do is tremendous. And I know also many Red Cross volunteers who provide, you know, find working with as a Red Cross volunteer is one of the most rewarding volunteer, you know, experiences that people can have in their lifetime. So I see a number of people nodding. I'm not sure if anyone from the Red Cross would like to say anything today, but please do. Thank you, Mayor. And I also am joined by the Chair of the Central Coast Board, Jane Loeb, who would like to say a few words. And Kamala, go ahead and as well. Just want to thank you so much for your kind words and we are honored to be able to work in the benefit community. Thank you. Thank you, Jane. Mayor for acknowledging the Red Cross Month. This is a huge compliment to our organization and we really appreciate being partners with the City of Santa Cruz. Every year, year in, year out, we have volunteers from the city who step up in people's time of greatest need. And I'm grateful to be a volunteer for the Red Cross and honored to be the Chair of the Board. And I can tell you, from the Board Chair position, the City of Santa Cruz means so much to the Red Cross and all the citizens in Santa Cruz matter. And I don't know if we had an earthquake, how important the Red Cross drill was during that major disaster on a daily basis. So when someone is displaced, family or multiple family, we're going to be there for them. And we really appreciate anyone from the City of Santa Cruz stepping up and volunteering to be a member of the Red Cross, whether it's a blood donation or joining our disaster preparedness group. So thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Dany. And Camilla, did you have some words to say as well? 90% volunteers. And this is just an example of the wonderful people that we have. And there are people that live in our communities who are there during the most tragic times in people's lives. And we're so grateful that you're honoring us, but we're also grateful for all the amazing people in our community. And we're so grateful for your support. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for being here today. And definitely for everything you do for our community. Also, we appreciate it. Thank you. Bye-bye. Take care. Excuse me. Two more proclamations. I'll just read from these as well just very briefly because they're fitting with Clara Barton's legacy as well. So next we have a mayoral proclamation declaring March 24th, 2021 as the Equal Pay Day. And this proclamation is whereas more than 50 years after the passage of the Equal Pay Act, women, especially minority women, continue to suffer the consequences of unequal pay. And whereas according to the U.S. Census Bureau, women working full-time year-round in 2018 typically earned 81.6% of what men earned, indicating little change or progress on pay equity. And whereas according to graduating to a paid grit gap, a 2012 research report by the American Association of University Women, the gender pay is evident one year after college graduation, even after controlling for factors known to affect earnings such as occupation, hours worked and college major. And whereas in 2009, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was signed into law, which gives back to employees their day in court to challenge a pay gap. And now we must pass the Pay Check Fairness Act, which would amend the Equal Pay Act by closing loopholes and improving the law's effectiveness. And whereas according to one estimate, college-educated women working full-term time earned more than half a million dollars less than their male peers do over the course of a lifetime. And whereas nearly four in 10 mothers are primary breadwinners in their households and nearly two-thirds are primary or significant earners making pay equity critical to families' economic security. And whereas a lifetime of lower pay means women have less income to favor for retirement and less income counted in a social security or pension benefit formula. And whereas fair pay equity policies can be implemented simply and without undue costs or hardship in both the public and private sectors. And whereas fair pay strengthens the security of families today and eases future retirement costs while enhancing the American economy. And whereas March 24th symbolizes the time in 2021 when the wages paid to American women catch up to the wages paid to the men from the previous year. Now, therefore, I, Donna Myers Mayer, the City of Santa Cruz, do hereby proclaim March 24th, 2021 as Equal Pay Day in the City of Santa Cruz. And I think after all of the data that's coming out about the number of women who have lost their jobs due to COVID-19 and the shift, really a decadal shift that will impact women from COVID-19, probably the most we've seen in many of our lifetimes, I think that is especially important proclamation to spend a few minutes reading through. We have still have work to do in so many ways. And then finally, we have a proclamation today to recognize in women's history month and I'll just do very quickly. Whereas women of every race, class, cultural and ethnic background have made historic contributions to our communities, nation and world in countless recorded and unrecorded ways. And whereas women have played and continue to play a critical role in every sphere of life by constituting a significant portion of the labor force, both inside and outside of the home, as well as sustainers of tradition and social cohesion. And whereas women have served as early leaders in the forefront of every major progressive social change movement, not only in advancing their own rights of suffrage and equal opportunity, but also in the abolitionist emancipation, labor, civil rights, peace, and environmental movements. And whereas there is a long impressive record of local activism to support the rights, opportunities and contributions of women from the early appearance of suffrage activist Susan B. Anthony in Santa Cruz in 1869 to the development of the feminist studies department at the University of California at Santa Cruz, along with outstanding contributions by local women in virtually every area of human endeavor. And whereas despite these contributions, the diversity of women's achievements and importance has been consistently overlooked in most mainstream approaches to history. And whereas history helps us understand who we are and recognizing the achievements of women across the full spectrum of endeavors, science, community, government, arts, sports, medicine, environment, education, economy and more has a huge impact on the development of self respect and opportunities for girls and young women. And on March 8, International Women's Day is observed to honor the achievements of women throughout history and around the world and to serve as a focal point in the movement for women's rights and gender parity. And whereas annually, since 1978, the month of March has been observed as women's history month in the United States, this year has also marked an historic milestone of women's leadership, 232 years in the making with the inauguration of America's first women vice president. Now, therefore, I, Donna Myers, Mayor of the City of Santa Cruz, do you hereby proclaim the month of March 2021 as women's history month in the City of Santa Cruz. So thanks, Council, to let it give me a few minutes to read through those. I think it's a really timely set of proclamations and the stories actually interweave quite nicely. And obviously, we're really thrilled to have our first woman vice president and our first woman and our first woman vice president of color, which is also an amazing feat in this year, 232 years later. So I will move on to the few announcements that we will have a few announcements and then we'll move into the regular meeting. Today's meeting is being broadcast live on Community Television channel 25 and streaming on the city's website, city of Santa Cruz.com. If you wish to comment on an agenda item today, instructions are provided on your screen. We will provide these instructions throughout the meeting whenever we move into an agenda item that will be opened up for public comment. Please note public comment is heard only for items Council is taking action on and not regular updates and reports. The items that will be open for public comment during today's meetings are numbers 10 through 26 on our agenda. I'd like to ask that Council members if there are any statements of disqualification today. None. Okay. I'd like to ask the city clerk administrator to announce any additions or deletions to the agenda. There are none. Okay. For oral communications today, oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not on the agenda. Oral communications will occur immediately after agenda item 26 today. If you wish to make a comment during oral communications, please call in towards the end of item number 26. Next is our city attorney report on closed session. On the city attorney to provide a report on closed session. And I believe Ms. Bronson is here today. Hi, thank you. I'm here today in place of Tony, who is out of town. For the first item on our closed session agenda, public employment. The city council met in closed session with Terry Black and company, their recruiting firm that will be assisting the city with the city manager recruitment process over the next few months. The council discussed the process and timeline for their recruitment, which will include posting community and stakeholder input and public outreach. More details will be made available as the process moves forward. The second item on the closed session agenda was number two real property negotiations. The council met with its real property negotiator to discuss potential sale of city owned property known as part of law 11. And a small undeveloped parcel on the corner of Laurel and Front Street, designated in the Santa Cruz County Assessors parcel numbers 005-151-48 and 005-151-35. For the third item, which was a conference with legal counsel existing litigation. The council received a report from legal counsel on two items of pending litigation. The cases are Santa Cruz Homeless Union versus the city of Santa Cruz, pending in the United States District Court and built more of the work versus the city, which is pending in the Santa Cruz Superior Court. And there was no reportable action taken on those cases. Thank you. Next, we'll have the city manager report. I'd like to call on Martin Bernal, their city manager to report and provide updates on city events and business events. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Martin. Thank you, Mayor and council. I wanted to actually have Lee Butler and Jason Hayduck, our planning director and the homelessness director and our fireteeth to do updates on the pandemic and also to talk about the Highway 1 and 9 situation. I'll first have Lee provide an update and then Jason can follow. Thank you. Thank you, Martin and good afternoon, Mayor and council members. Just quickly, we are continuing to coordinate with Caltrans and CHP as well as the county on the Highway 1 and 9 situation. The Caltrans crew recognizes the safety hazards that are present in that area and they are taking the lead in the approach for making sure that everyone can be moved to out of that dangerous location. We have been working in coordination with Caltrans and the county or excuse me, Caltrans and the CHP on trash removal out there. And tomorrow we have the next in that series of shoulder closures and dumpsters being available. We have paid staff out at that location to assist and we've also been fortunate and appreciate the number of volunteers who have been out to help make those cleanup efforts a success. And finally, the vaccinations of unsheltered individuals has commenced. The county has started offering those vaccinations, including to individuals at Highway 1 and 9. So that's it for the update at this point and happy to have questions after Jason's completed his update as well. Thank you, Lee. Welcome, Jason. City Council, Jason Haiduk and I'm going to give a brief presentation on COVID. You know, follow the format that I've been using for the last couple of meetings. So as you can see, this is from the County Health Department website. Our case numbers continue to drop dramatically and that is really good news for the entire community. This will be updated daily in the afternoon, but from the call this morning, we are headed in the right direction as far as our overall cases within the county. And that is a continued trend that we want to keep up. Next slide, please. So the approach to get vaccinations out was to reserve our health care capacity. And the good news is we've gone from close to 100 people in the hospitals with COVID to single digits. And so the ability to care for people with COVID is there. But just as importantly, the ability to care for people who have non-COVID related health care that could have been displaced is there. So currently within our county, we're doing very well with the overall number of people that are being treated for COVID. And hopefully we can keep that up. Next slide. So this is also from the county as well as the state. And if you look at the overall state metrics, they have a 2.3 positivity rate to the last seven days here within the county of Santa Cruz or 1.2. So we are doing very good in comparison to our counterparts across the state. And this is going to be a significant driver of what happens next when it comes to moving from one tier to the other. Currently we are in the metrics of the red tier. And all indications are that next week we will move into the orange tier. I believe today that San Francisco and Marin will be moving into that orange tier, which is less restrictive. It doesn't mean we can let our guard down, but it does mean that we can get back to a little bit more normal than what we've had. One thing that is changing a little bit within these metrics is it's not just the overall positivity rate or the case count. They are also balancing this against the number of vaccinations that have been distributed. And so as those vaccines, that number rises within the community. The metrics that they're using for the positivity rate and the case counts will actually grow because they're drawn from a smaller sample size. So we're getting close to having that next metric of moving toward orange tier as vaccinations are rolled out. And that's really good news for all of us. Next slide. Besides our current practices that are going to be vaccines and the vaccination process. I'm sure all of you have shared some frustration, both in the rollout and the communication of it. So what I'm going to tell everyone here on the city council as well as the public who are listening is go to Santa Cruz health.org. It is the best collection point that I've been able to find for communicating who can get vaccinated right now, but just as importantly where to get vaccinated. And it has all the different mechanisms, whether that's through public health, through Kaiser Permanente, through Sutter, Dignity, Salute Parliament, the HP HP project. It has a listing of all the different outlets, including, you know, CVS and Rite Aid and soon to be potentially Costco of where you can go to get vaccinated and the parameters for who's included in that. So again, Santa Cruz health.org and they have a really comprehensive listing. They can show where you get this vaccine and I would urge everyone to regularly check that depending where do you fall within the community age underlying health conditions. Next slide. So again, we're not done with this. I know we're all tired. We're at the end of a very grueling year and we have a little bit more to go. So we need to continue to do those things that will prevent this disease, but those graphs that we that I showed you at the beginning, keep going in the direction that we want them to go. So wash your hands, wear your mask, keep your distance, stay home if you're sick. And just as importantly, go to Santa Cruz health.org and look at where you can get a vaccine. There's a number of places that are not requiring that you're a member of that healthcare organization and you can still get vaccinated if you fit within the guidelines that are put out by public health. Great. Thank you, Chief Hedges. Martin, is there any other updates today or can I take questions from council members? Yes, the questions would be great. Thank you. Thank you. I was just wondering if there's any update on any potential reimbursements that we might be able to move that we might be eligible for for the management of the highway one and nine and Cammin in particular, just given that that's on Caltrans. If I heard correctly, I know there was a fire there last week and there's like the ongoing management maintenance, you know, refuse wondering if we're going to be able to recoup any of those funds. I can speak to the track collection services. We are tracking our costs. We don't have any updates in terms of whether or not Caltrans will cover any of those additional direct costs. I'm just wondering if we can move that case and speak to reimbursements there. My understanding of the FEMA reimbursement, this is one of the challenges of being a city that has issues that are larger than our municipality, but not large enough to sit within the reimbursement process. A lot of what you hear about FEMA reimbursement for COVID is directly related to healthcare for COVID and the fact that someone is homeless or housed doesn't necessarily fall within that equation. And so our ability to get recruitment for that would really be at the direction of our county health officer and has to be specific to COVID. As for fires, we had another fire incident in that location yesterday. We've had a number of fire incidents, some more significant than others, and it's obviously concerned not only for the people that are there, but also the entire community. We are trying to work with our partners to mitigate those within the confines of the COVID restrictions for displacing people. And I had one more question of taking some notes and not sure if I missed this, but is there anywhere on the county's website or state's website to see how many vaccines have gone out in Santa Cruz County? Yes. And I just added so that we can have an understanding of what percentage of our population has been vaccinated. Yeah, so there's two different numbers that are shown. One of them is on the Health Services Agency, the Santa Cruz Health, and it shows the number of health vaccines given to the health department and then the number of distributors. That is a smaller percentage of the overall vaccines that have been given out because of the multi-county entities like Dignity, PAM, Sutter. And the last time, the last number I forgot was we're well over 110,000 vaccines distributed here within the county. And per capita within the state, we are number six of the 58 counties for vaccine distribution. I don't have a specific count for you, but I do believe the county or the state website for COVID, you can drill down to each county that shows those overall numbers. The Health Care Agency is showing what they've distributed and the state is showing what has been distributed within that county as a whole. Thank you. Any other council member with questions? Mayor, I did have actually one other item that I forgot we're going to be giving an update on and that is the sidewalk vendors. So I was going to ask Ralph DeMarica if he could just do a brief update on that. And what I might maybe do just real quick, Martine, also just so council and the public listening, I do want to also just recognize that Senator Laird's office has been also very helpful with the one and nine encampment. I'm part of the team that is in regular conversation weekly with CalTran. I just want to recognize our help with Senator Laird's office on the one and nine issue as well. We're being here, Ralph. And I will get my PowerPoint there by her in council for you guys on how we're doing with the sidewalks ending on Beach Street. I was going to go over the timeline and summary really fast and where things are currently and the next steps we're planning on taking. This was the original direction of staff and it was to work with community bridges to find a more structured and equitable system that would accommodate each area of ending. Here's the timeline of the actions we've taken. The way is the actions I shared with you at the previous update in blue are new actions that have been taken since then. And February 9 was the last update to council about a week after that, vending prohibitive signs were posted along Beach Street just to inform the community and those who are pining on vending at the beach that the regulations were with executive order that was passed and then we have a meeting scheduled with community bridges in a couple of days. This is a signage that's been posted along Beach Street and it's in both English and Spanish. We were finalizing and initiating a process of planning in parks in Iraq. It's a new process for us and we're working both through community bridges to make sure that process is fair for everyone involved. We're continuing our outreach efforts and making sure that everyone will have a really good understanding of what the application process will be when they'll be due and all that. And we're also working with PD and local departments on site outreach efforts to make sure that you know vendors that are going that are popping up there right now understand that it is prohibited. And we have an executive order in place to really make sure people's health and safety are prioritized. And what is new is we're working with the ideal barn grill down there to finalize vending sites. And so we realized on the process that the city actually had a 25-year-old agreement with ideal barn grill on that patio. So that was new that we're working with. And ideal barn grill contributed to the construction of the public debt. And a part of that agreement was for the city to not issue any permits or licenses or business licenses on that patio deck. However, the Senate bill does override that. And so we've been in communication with ideal barn grills to let them know that they are legally able to exercise this. And if they do, we won't issue any permits or licenses at this location. However, if we do that, then we may not be able to regulate any vendors that may want to pop up there. We've been in close communication with them, and we're going to work on some kind of compromise that works for both parties and make sure that we have a really good path moving forward. The original, working with ideal and two and three, they felt comfortable moving forward with. So I'm very confident that we could find a compromise with ideal barn grill and move forward this season. And this is sort of just zooming out as to the location where we're talking about. So the next step is current regulations of the public navigate through a new administrative process. And working with community bridges on the whole application situation with vendors and then issue permits for sign spaces. And this being a really new process for staff and the public and the state even we want to continue to evaluate and respond to the necessary. And we understand that this is going to be changing as we go along. It may look different next year or even this season, but we're definitely just moving forward and trying to make sure we find a better process for both the public and the city this summer. And that's my update. Thank you so much. Thank you, Ralph. Is there questions from council members, council member Cummings. Thank you, Mayor. I was just curious, is this going to come back to council at some point for final adoption ordinance that will allow for people to sell in certain areas or is this just going to be something that Unicode that I'm in bending on parking right property and having to go to the council, you know, but I will leave it up to maybe our city manager and the council to determine if that's something you guys do want to bring back and have a discussion on. But we do have a code right now that does allow staff to to move forward with determining the sites informational item. So the community can see that that topic is going to be on our agenda and get a sense of where we've kind of gotten to with it. I know that we, you know, get communication still with the city manager report. It's not clear from any community members when this is this topic is coming up and when it's being discussed. And I know at one point a couple weeks ago there was murmurs of our houses who voted for us who voted to go in the direction of creating this community process. So just I think as a way for us to engage with the community and demonstrate that we are moving forward, we are creating a process. You know, we have not forgotten about this. It might be good if there's even just an informational presentation at some point on this topic. And then the other question I had was going back switches around them because I know that they use the site on Sundays during the summer when it's nice out. And so that's a big draw. And I know for many businesses in those areas that draws in a lot of people. And it's on the permitting system being in their sort of formula as to permits will be regulated and is one of the major events that they do have in their annual calendar and that they're being that we're keeping in there for the season. Holders understand that there will be special events at the site and that bending during those days may be limited. It's positive. Some good news about that is salsa dancing usually occurs for a few hours on one day. So I think there's definitely a way where we could still do both and have vendors and salsa dancers share the space. Thanks. And then just one last point to having some kind of informational presentation come back. I also think it'd be good for us to be able to thank community bridges for all the support that they have provided with this process. And so, you know, as this kind of wraps up, if we can get, you know, whether we have to provide direction or not. But if we can have some kind of presentation to show the community process that's been involved and really thank our community partners, I think it'd be really beneficial overall. Thanks. Thank you. Any other council members with questions at all? Thank you, Martine, and your staff for that update. I'll go ahead and move on to call on the clerk to provide any updates to the city council calendar. We have no update. We'll now move on to item number nine, which is city memberships and city groups and outside agencies. And this is the time for council members to report out on actions at external boards, committees and joint powers authority meetings. For future meetings, please come prepared to provide an update on any meetings or actions that occurred during the last council meeting so that the council and the public can be informed. I will go ahead and I'm just going to call on you from my perspective of seeing you on the screen. So I'll start with council member Watkins. I'm trying to find the notes that I have. I'll keep my that meeting. You know, there's been a lot of discussion around different, different policy changes that could be instituted countywide, particularly as it relates to equity and trust building training, race relations, etc. And just as somebody who's been connected to the CJC for a very long time through my other position in education, it was it's really delightful to see an opening to want to explore how this body can take on different topics in addition to always in the past and continuing to prioritize game prevention. So we had an opportunity to hear from the various jurisdictions about what they are doing in terms of some of the kind of the escalation and 20% through practice policing and some updates and then some potential suggestions and efforts to move forward and I will encourage our other council member coming to be really involved in this to share any additional updates. I believe council member Calentary Johnson will be reporting on our community programs committee and there's an agenda item in the packet today that really I think covers most of what we did so that you probably already know about. Lastly, our public safety committee meeting and we will be bringing forward a kind of a work plan item to the full council for input and suggestions and hopeful approval of as we move forward with thinking about how we as a committee can best move forward with some of our public safety efforts and in addition we had an opportunity to review some of our crime and activity statistics report. And then other than that I'd say you know the farmers market continue to shop there shop safely and support our farmers market and our vendors and and they have instituted similar policies as others who serve us in essential services in terms of wearing masks and and really respecting some of the guidelines that our health department has put out and we can shop and participate in these events safely and I think that covers my committees at this time. Okay, thank you councillor Hawkins vice mayor Bruner. Thank you. I will report on the two by two committee that I attended with Mayor Myers and some of city staff as well and we had updates on large encampments at one and nine and updates on staff for county and Caltrans and county updating us on the reservation of vaccines 150 for the population at that location to begin after March 15 which I think was brought up in the city manager's report. Also response recommendations. We had an update on requests for FEMA hotel support and long term locations and financing for temporary and permanent housing. There will be a second round of project home key and we mentioned and talked about the armor sites as well as other locations tied into the update of the county's three year framework and six month plan. And I don't know if Mayor Myers has any additional reporting on that item I will. I'll look at my notes and see if I have anything when I get to my report out. Thank you. Vice Mayor. Any other committees on your end? Vice Mayor? Nope. Okay. Nope. I have this week but not before this meeting. Okay. Council Member Brown, please. Anything of import to and health from the boards and commissions that I am on. And Council Member Collin Tarry Johnson is going to talk about the CPC. Just the one that. Great. There were some actions. So next time. Thank you, Council Member Brown. Council Member Cummings. It used to be an ongoing priority. And although some of the management actions have reduced have resulted in demonstrating reduced chlorophyll concentrations, which is a metric used to measure sea water intrusion. In some areas we've seen reductions in those concentrations and in other areas we've seen increases in those concentrations, which suggests that there may be some inland movement of sea water intrusion that may lead to undesirable results in the future. And so they're continuing to monitor what are going to be some triggers that might result in reduced pumping to kind of ensure that the water table, that we don't have too much salt water intrusion and we're maintaining the freshwater water table. Some of the projects to reduce the net groundwater pumping include, as many of us are aware of, the Pure Water Soquel Project, the aquifer storage and recovery, the water transfer and in lieu groundwater recharge and then distributed stormwater management recharge. In addition to receiving that report, we also spent a good amount of time discussing amendments to the government, the governance documents and agency staffing. And those are some of the major items that were discussed at the meeting. In addition to that and bag and met, we received an update on the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Management Plan, which has been an ongoing effort and is getting close to approval. We received an update on the Monterey Bay Regional Overall Work Program and the budget for that program. We also received an update on the 2045 Metropolitan Transportation Plan and Sustainability Sustainable Community Strategy, which included the draft revenue and constrained project list and land use. We approve the extra territorial service agreement for the Atkinson Lane and Brewington Avenue so that they could receive water and sewer service from the city of Watsonville. We also adopt a service and sphere of influence review for the city of Scotts Valley. And to provide an additional update, I've been invited to the Criminal Justice Council ad hoc committee as a community member and have been working with the chair, supervisor, Zach Friend, to produce a survey that will go out to law enforcement agencies here in Santa Cruz County. And that survey is going to really be looking at trying to see based on eight can't wait and some of the other policies to mitigate and reduce use of force and why we align as law enforcement throughout the county and where there are opportunities for us to improve our policies and further align our policies. And so we'll be sending that survey out in the near future and hopefully based on those results, the ad hoc subcommittee will meet again and provide updates to the Criminal Justice Council at the next meeting on May 13. And with that, I think I'm done the revenue. I can't find my notes for the revenue subcommittee. So I don't know if one of the other members can maybe speak to that, but we did meet with Seal Cirillo. We had discussions with Seal that were taken after the 1989 earthquake around how the city, what were some measures that the city took to try to generate revenue after that disaster that our community faced. And we're also going to be meeting with former council member and former mayor Cynthia Matthews to discuss with her some strategies and approaches that might be worth considering for the city around revenue measures. And so that's all I have to report. Thank you, council member. I mean, next I have council member Callentary Johnson. We've mentioned this is an agenda item later on in our meeting today. So I won't go into the details, but we did discuss staff recommendation for the CDBG and home funding allocations. And we also discussed the core investment funds that we will be looking at reissuing the RFPs this coming fall of 2021. And this round of core investment may look a little different from last round. And we will be discussing the process in our community programs committee. So that's it for that one. And also attended the Metro board last month. We have another meeting this coming Friday. Our last one was February 26th and Mayor Myers, there's a lot there. So if I forget something, please add. I'm going to look at my notes because it's a lot. So the Metro installed, excuse me, I was 17 buses. They have these aren't new these have been here but just to reiterate the COVID precautions that the Metro bus they're taking air ionizers have been installed in buses and in the offices. So dispensers and all the facilities and they've updated face covering flyers to reflect the federal law. And there's been a partnership between the para cruise program and Sutter health to provide free rides for individuals for vaccinations. And they have the Metro has reopened customer services in Watsonville. And they have qualified to not do mandatory weekly testing, but the Metro decided to continue weekly testing to have extra to take extra precautions for the staff and the writers. The transit workers were included last month for vaccinations just recently they were included in a priority by the state to be vaccinated. So in the process of vaccinating the Metro workers. The new pro tarot bus that has arrived several weeks ago and in Watsonville in the fall. And I think, you know, most of you know this but the American rescue plan passed and this will provide for 30.5 billion for transit across the nation. And we'll provide funds for COVID emergency relief through 2023. The last Metro meeting we talked a lot about other funds that will come through after the American rescue plan focus on infrastructure, potentially $2 billion. And we anticipate getting some of this for the Metro added of climate change and racial equity and opportunity for our city and the Metro to look at funds for water broadband affordable housing. So we'll keep our eyes out for that. And we also discussed a recommendation that was approved to do temporary fair reduction. The last of the six months consisting of 50% discount on regular fair for adult and youth and free fairs for writers with an eligible discount card. The staff projects, this proposal could increase ridership financial burden of transportation for customers who need it. And implementation of the fair with us was a worthwhile temporary riders up into our into our buses. The key points and Mayor Myers can add if I missed anything significant. I think you caught a lot of it. I'll look at my notes. I do. I do sit on a lot of committees with my colleagues. I will just look to see if anything was missed. I might also just I do sit on measure the measure you committee with council member Brown and council member Cummings. That committee did approve a submittal on the the EIR for the long range development plan and also submitted additional letters regarding the LRDP and some pertinent decisions and land use designations in that plan. And then finally that committee has been working with Senator Laird on some options regarding understanding community input obviously into university growth and what kinds of options and especially tied to the mitigation issues that have been, you know, there's concern with regards to the university growth and whether or not they're really going to be able to accommodate and accomplish the necessary mitigations for increased student and faculty numbers that are seen in the LRDP and that committee meets again next week. On the two by two, the only thing I would add is that we did receive reports from director Mimi Hall, who also will be helping the city understand more about the administrative claims process, which is a process that entities that do provide some services for healthless individuals. And that is actually the ability to potentially look at doing an administrative claim process to potentially look retain some of those dollars back into the city. So we are going to, she's going to help the city begin to explore that there also was a discussion around a request for qualifications that the county is doing as well. And looking at bringing new providers or providing new providers the opportunity to bid on the request for qualifications. And that is going through the general services department and the city took action as well on a similar idea tied to the outdoor living ordinance. So there may be some good synergy there between looking at some additional providers that may respond to that request for proposal. And then finally, the other was that I believe the county is assessing whether or not they have the availability and capacity to do to move from a twice to every other year pit count to an annual pit count. And this obviously will help inform some of their planning work with regard to their new effort that was adopted by their board two weeks ago. So those are the only things that I would add to the two by two report out. I'm also a member on the downtown management corporation and we met last week. That group has been very focused on downtown recovery and planning around how we manage downtown going forward. I think everyone saw the good news that Regal nine, even though Regal nine is leaving. We do have a replacement tenant who will be operating that super theaters for for to retain that as a theater downtown, which is a really great thing that came through last week. The downtown management corporation group looked at a series of about six proposals that have been developed by a subcommittee on activating downtown during this time. And that includes everything from looking at how to deal with vacant storefront windows to various other types of programs and projects that we could do over the next six months to a year. There's also a new artist selection solicitation that went out with with I believe proposals due April 5th right Sonya. And that's meant to really bring art back into some of the spaces that currently maybe aren't filled or in the process of getting their vacancies resolved. And that bringing art into the downtown is one of the main focuses of the DMC recommendations. And there's some really exciting and really innovative ideas also looking at standardizing the the parklets as they're called or the outdoor dining areas so that there's some cost savings for owners and owners and a little more efficiency and how people can stand those up quickly but have a little bit more of a uniform feel to downtown and really anticipating that those that those may be you know turn into more long term availability over over time. So the downtown management corporation is very much focused on really putting some things out on to the street very quickly, which is really exciting. And I think Councilmember voluntary Johnson caught all the things on my list for better. So, I think we'll, we'll end there unless there's any other council members that have things to add. No, okay. Great. Okay, we will move on to agenda items. Here on to our consent agenda today, which will include items 10 through 19 on our agenda today. And for members of the public who are streaming this meeting. Now's the time to call in if you want to comment on items 10 through 19 instructions will be on your screen. Please remember to mute your streaming device press star nine to raise your hand and listen for the Q saying you have been unmuted. 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 comment or pull on any items excuse me or pull any items. Councilmember Brown. Yeah, thank you. I would like to pull item 11. And I have a question on item 13, which might cause me to want to pull it. Maybe it's better to just do that, but I don't want to make it a big drawn out conversations. I just have a question about a possible addition. So do you want to pull 13? Just so you have a discussion. Yeah. 13. Sorry. No worries. No, that much fear. No worries at all. Councilmember Contari Johnson. Oh, you're muted. I wanted to comment on 11 and 13 so wait until after Councilmember Brown brought up report. Any other council members councilmember Cummings. The comment on item number 17. Council members I 14 and 15 11 and 13 and then we will have comments on items 1415 and 17 that we will go ahead and call on the comments and questions from council members. 1415 and 17 I think the first two are mine and then councilmember Cummings, I'll turn those over to you. So I guess my main thing just on item 14, which for the public is something called the next epic challenge grant application for Pacific Station North project. And this is really a resolution to apply for a grant called the next epic challenge a reimagining affordable mixed use development in a carbon constrained future. This is when I read through the staff report, I just thought that it had some really important things for our public to understand what this could potentially bring to our community. And one sentence, a couple sentences stood out in really stood out to me. So one being that nearly 20 years in the making of Pacific Station mixed use affordable housing and transit project, which is at the existing Metro transit site is rapidly moving toward fruition through recent policy changes and a renewed commitment by the city in the Metro. And this grant really is about obtaining state support for sustainable development couples with recent changes in the building code and innovations in renewable energy, construction technology and electric mobility are unlocking the potential for Pacific Station North to truly become a transformational groundbreaking and climate climate sensitive project in the heart of our downtown. For those in the public, if you get a chance, take a look at this report. It's item 14 on consent and especially folks who are interested in what the city is doing with regards to climate change. I think this is a really exciting and exciting project. And I just want to recognize our staff at economic development and planning for bringing this forward to us. And I hope you get the grant. It's a million dollar, hopefully for design and then potential for additional money for construction. But most importantly, it's really showing the commitment from our staff and our city to pursuing these kinds of projects in the future downtown, which is really exciting. And then similarly, I just want to also compliment our economic development department on the growth and cruise County revolving loan program, which we're authorizing them to enter into a memorandum of understanding with all the other cities and the county in the and the small business development center and the National Development Council to support the growth and cruise revolving loan program for the city of Santa Cruz, but in partnership with all those other entities. And I think this is a demonstration of when COVID puts you into, you know, an extreme situation. Extraordinary things happen. And so it's really amazing to see us take the lead and working with the county and other cities to really look economically at how we can bring more businesses and especially for businesses that can't otherwise obtain traditional bank financing. This loan program is really targeted those folks who really don't have the resources and need that initial capital to get going. So I think this program in especially really reflects both our interim recovery plan and also the high gap goals that we set as a community as well. So and as a council as well. So thank you to economic development leadership on that. And council member Cummings, I'll turn you turn it over to item number 17 for comment or question. The agenda that are really just in, but this one in particular I just wanted to comment on because for members of the public, this is the purchase of an electric refuse vehicle and amending the fiscal year 2021 budget and appropriation of funds for electric refuse hauler emission reduction. And I know that since I've been on the council, this has been something that council members have been interested in and the public has been very interested in. I think it was our last meeting we were purchasing a refuse truck and this conversation came up about, you know, when we might be able to have an electric refuse vehicle. So it's really just wonderful to see that we're going to be able to get on the electric refuse vehicle and then see how that works with, you know, like what are some of the constraints of it that come with having these electric vehicles, how those can be improved and continuing to move in that direction. So I just wanted to thank public work staff for all the work that you all been doing to really respond to the community's comments for making this happen. And so just wanted to express my thanks for bringing this forward. Thank you, council member Cummings. So now that we've finalized the questions and comments, I'm going to move on to public comment on the consent agenda. If there are any members of the public that would like to speak to any item on our consent agenda, with the exception of the items pulled by council members, and that's item number 11 and number 13 today. Now is the time to do so. Please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand. When it is your time to speak, you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted. The timer will then be set to two minutes. I will go ahead and take a look to see who's over here. Okay, I've got phone number ending in one eight. So Bonnie, let me just make sure here. Yeah, this is Garrett Phillip has to item 11 left this outrage over shootings of Asians at massage parlors. The FBI says those weren't paid crimes or caused by racial bias. Of course, two white people were also killed. I guess white lives don't matter. All too often now any act of violence or any person of color invokes a woke tile wave of call of racism and hate and classic any racist racism as the message is always whites are racist white supremacy is the blame. Orange man bad dredging up the ancient past as if it were yesterday to draw meaningless ever less legitimate or irrelevant parallels for your information when Trump spoke about China, he was referring to the bad actor, Communist China CCP government, not about race. You have that as wrong as blaming China or the Wuhan flu phrase for the recent shootings, senseless violence seems more likely. Nope. Mayor, I just muted him only because this item was pulled. Right. That's okay. Yeah, thank you. Let me just get caught up here on my script. Okay, so I will look for a vote on the remaining items of the consent agenda before moving on to hold items. So now looking for an motion on remaining items on consent with the exceptions of item number 11 and number 13. Mayor Watkins, I mean, Council Member Watkins. Thank you, Mayor Myers. I will move the consent agenda except for items 11 and 13. And if I may just for a brief moment just really thank my colleagues for highlighting some of those really important items that sometimes get wrapped into our consent agenda, but needs to be made known to the public and then also reiterate your appreciation of the connection to some of these bigger plans that we have in place like Hyap and our interim recovery plan. So those are my brief comments as I propose moving the consent agenda at 11 and 13. Thank you, Council Member Watkins, Council Member Cummings. I'll second. Okay. So we have a motion by Council Member Watkins and seconded by Council Member Cummings on the consent agenda. And all in those in favor please say aye. Excuse me. I'll do a roll call vote. Yeah, roll call vote. Council Member Watkins, Callentary Johnson. For Golder-Bean absent. So we'll now come back to item number 11 on our consent agenda item. It's Consent Agenda, which was pulled by Council Member Brenne. Thank you. Yeah, first I want to thank my colleagues who brought this to our agenda. I think it's really important that we make a collective statement about what's happening with, you know, that's part of the longer history as you all raise in the in the agenda report and the resolution. And, you know, it's disturbing what's happening right now. There are, you know, people are scared. They're confused. I know working with my students, it's been, you know, a constant conversation. And it, you know, talking about how this fits in with our broader history. And so I wanted to ask if my colleagues might consider, and I know it's pretty dense. There's a lot in this resolution, but just a couple of possible additions. These come from a group that has a BIPOC network that has been, you know, working on issues, you know, fighting racism and many and all its forms. And so they asked me to to bring some language that reflects the US role in foreign policy, our foreign policy, how that and it's kind of alluded to, but it's, I just kind of put it in here, recommended putting it in here at the top of page two of the resolution, which just references the role that US foreign policy and US imperialism, like the word isn't in there, but that's kind of what we're getting out here has played in, you know, affecting Asian people all over the world, right? So the US actions kind of abroad as well. And so I think that that was one they wanted to ask us to include. And then this second one came up in as well from the group, but I've also had several conversations with people who do work in this arena, who have taught have talked with me about really acknowledging that what happened in Atlanta was yes, it was a hate crime, you know, against Asian Americans, but it was also, you know, targeting sex workers, all right? And to acknowledge that that is that there's a real a serious vulnerability there. And many of these women are not necessarily freely engaging in this work. And, you know, because of sex trafficking, etc. So kind of just acknowledging that, you know, the role that Asian American women face that's additional, you know, additional barrier and additional level of discrimination and, you know, bigotry really, because of their gender. And so that's the other one that was that I've been asked to recommend or to propose here. And then finally, I had a question about the not the use of the term immigrant is not really in here. And so we have, you know, Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, API communities. And I'm just wondering if there's a way to acknowledge that we're talking about many people who are immigrants who are who are very vulnerable as a result of their immigration status. So that was that's what I forgot. I am happy to, you know, try to wordsmith if folks want to do that. But these were just the ones that stood out for for some of us. Thank you, Council Member Brown. I would, yeah, if we could maybe keep those up. Bonnie, I'd be happy to work with Council Member Watkins and Council Member Contari Johnson in terms of revisions. Council Member Contari Johnson. Thank you, Council Member Brown for bringing those points to our attention. I think these are important additions to make. And if Mayor Myers and Council Member Watkins are okay with it, I would like to accept those changes that you recommended and suggested as well as I don't exactly aware about leaving in the term immigration in here. And then if I may, I'll just give my comment that I wanted to give earlier as as Middle Easterner and someone who is an immigrant here in this country, my community has been a recipient of hate and hate crime. And it's so important and so meaningful for us to explicitly and publicly acknowledge the history, acknowledge the current hate and make a commitment of the community to stand up against it, fight against it and to re-envision a different future. So I just wanted to share those words. But this touches me very personally. And I'm proud of our city for making this statement. Thank you, Council Member. And Council Member Cummings, and I would agree, I fully accept, I fully acknowledge and I think your additions are really great, Council Member Brown. So I too am fine with those. And if we can figure out the right spot, I have to pull everything up on my screen. So if there anybody has a Council Member Brown, if you haven't, I see, yeah, if you have an idea on where we can put immigration in this. Yes. So Bonnie, if I remember, if I could, Mayor Myers, please, please, because if weaving it in, you know, I was, I thought about that as I was putting together the proposal. And it is a little bit of a challenge. I'm wondering if, including an additional whereas, just acknowledging that there are, you know, many members of our communities who are nationally vulnerable, or I see, how to say this, is due to their immigration status, might be a way to do it. But if others who are better at words than me want to give it a shot, please do. And I'm wondering if it's, I wonder, Bonnie, if the whereas right there at the top, below the second red line, I wonder, is a part of the history of violent communities of color and immigrant. And immigrant, would that work there, Council Member Brown? Yeah, I think so. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I have Council Member Cummings and then Council Member Watkins. Made in the words, I think if it was necessary, a point out is that, that acknowledges that violent acts, so against Asian, Pacific Islander immigrants, and their community stands, you know, ready to support our Asian immigrant communities. I'm just, I was just putting some, trying to put something else out there to help with the word switching, but whatever seems appropriate and, you know, where we can include something to that extent, I think it's fine. So, yeah, I did want to acknowledge that the other challenges around citizenship and, you know, and that can influence how they're able to access resources for their own safety, because the immigration status prevents you from going forward to the police or to have you that that's another constraint. And so, I just want to acknowledge what's been brought up and, you know, if there's any need for help with that word to something, but I thought forward should probably be sufficient, unless we want to have further discussion around that. And I also want to thank council members, Calentari Johnson, Watkins, and Mayor Myers for bringing this forward during the time when we really need to continue, you know, focusing on eliminating racism from our community. And the last year, we made racism of public health crisis in the city and in the county, and I think that we need to continue doing what we can to let people know that it's not tolerated in our community. So, thank you all. Thank you, council member Cummings. Council member Watkins, and then council member Calentari Johnson, I'll go back to you. No, I want to, I too just want to thank my colleagues and thank our staff who was able to really quickly put this together in acknowledgement of the recent violence that occurred in Atlanta. I also just want to acknowledge and thank the additions that were brought forward by council member Brown and the inability to strengthen the relevance of it. And I also, although it's not necessary to include it, just want to remember how the Watsonville riots here occurred as well in our local history. And so, it's our responsibility to acknowledge our history and to make these types of statements to move forward in a more positive direction. So, I want to thank everybody who was involved in getting it, getting it to the place we're at today. Yeah, and I just want to acknowledge the help of Ralph, Democrat, in our, in helping me prepare this and also our Assistant City Manager, Laura Schmidt, and just acknowledge that, similar to what my colleagues have said, yeah, we just have such a long way to go. And anytime that we can, as a small community, just reiterate our values as much as possible. And whatever notice that makes in people's minds and their hearts by us doing these kinds of things, I think it's always worth it. And I appreciate your edits or your additions council member Brown and really appreciate you bringing those to us, really good additions. So, thank you everybody. Bonnie, do I vote on these one at a time then, right? No, you need public comment first and you don't have a motion on the table yet. Okay, I'll go ahead and can I take it out to public comment once we've done 13-2? No, this was pulled, so you have to do them separately. Okay, so I'll go ahead and take this out to public comment. This will be for item number 11 on the Consent Agenda, which is a resolution denouncing hate crimes and bigotry targeting Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. So, number ending in 1810. Hate and classic any racist racism, as the message is always whites are racist, white supremacy is the blame, orange man bad, judging up the ancient past as if it were yesterday to draw meaningless, ever less legitimate or relevant parallels. No current FBI data adjusted for demographics exist to indicate white people are more likely to commit hate crimes against Asians than other races are. There are many subversive actors that works viewing division and stability advocating woke Marxism like the BLM where isolated acts of police violence is really a cover for a very different agenda that you don't really have to blindly support. Some Chinese progressive associations are reported to be funded by the CCP and those have then funded the BLM. It is soft-headed, naive or useful idiot not to know communist, socialist, propagandist, revolutionary and anarchist subversives are out there infiltrating, instigating and spewing racial hate as one sigh up after another tool to wage war in America and its values and to moralize its people. There is a difference between so-called objective hate incidents ascribed to racism and official hate crimes. Think about some early reports of the Denver shooter suspect yesterday as a white middle age man and then later revealed he was 21 in of Syrian origin. I'm skeptical about race and blame finger pointing. Good luck trying to count the endless incidences of violence in the BLM riots or with antifa. 2020 overflowed with violence instances and when FBI hate crime data comes out for 2020 we'll see how objectively accurate or appropriate the finger pointing of claims are. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Next item member of the public. Minami with the last name. Please go ahead. Star 9 you should be able to unmute yourself. It's on your phone. There we go. Hello. Hi there. Welcome. Hi. My name is Akiko Minami and I am a resident of Santa Cruz. I guess I can't see you all but maybe you can see me. So in this resolution that people will have more buy-in and feel like it really speaks to the needs of the community and it's not may not necessarily represent Asian Americans or Pacific Islanders. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. I will participate in the resolution. I personally would be willing to delay action on it if we can bring it back out to more community input. So I'd be happy to do that and look for a motion potentially for that. Council Member Brown. Thanks. Yeah. I would. I agree. I appreciate your willingness to do this. I think it is really important to really create a space that's welcoming and you know open to community input. And as you know I say hi. So I really appreciate that. And with that I would I guess I would make I could make a motion. This would be a motion to continue the item would it be continue? To continue the item considering a resolution denouncing heat crimes and bigotry targeting Asian American and Pacific Islanders. API community here in Santa Cruz to bring back a revised version at a future meeting. I have Council Vice Mayor Bruner. Council Member Cummings. Wait a minute. Sorry. It was my. I was muted. Have for a hand up first. Yeah. Council Member Brown. Does that include your additions? Yeah. Yeah. I think so. That's a place that I know that's where some of these books want to want to go. Yeah. So I would like to second that motion. And I feel that providing that space for further input from the community would be very important to this. So I second that. Thank you. Further comments or comments before we vote? Council Member Collentary Johnson. Yeah. I wonder if we can set making this commitment and having a resolution. So I think absolutely further community input. But if Council Member Brown, if you would maybe recommend some time limit to it, that would be great. Council Member Cummings. Oftentimes we usually have to we usually have, you know, a week before agendas are out, but this is one of the few times during the year that we actually have two weeks before the agendas are posted. So it could, I would imagine there might be an opportunity to get input by for this to come at the next meeting since we'll have two weeks before our meeting on April 13th, which means I think the agenda reports would need to be in by the first and then it will be published on the 8th. So just wanted to put that out there that we have a little bit more of a buffer for the next meeting that we normally do for most council meetings. And so wanted to provide that to just to demonstrate that we do have a little bit extra time that would allow us to to meet that urgency, but they would provide that buffer that would be needed to get some level of community outreach. And then I guess within that motion as well, if the friendly amendment to have it come back at the first meeting in April, just also do we need to provide direction for those the three members who brought forward to meet with community or how we want that community incorporation to happen. And so just wanted to put that out there for us to make sure that we it's clear who who's going to be who's going to be in charge of getting getting that community input. And if it's the council members or the staff, I think it's just important that we include that in the motion. As a maybe one as one of the members that brought it forward, I believe the three of us would be happy to accommodate that and have other council members members join as long as we don't, you know, ground ask so we but certainly the three of us will absolutely and other council members, please, you know, I'm open. I shared I share the urgency component to this with council member voluntary Johnson and had been had been in receipt of a lot of and emails regarding this from other mayors around the country that were seeking an urgent declaration by as many counts as possible in relation to what was happening. So certainly we we were reflecting on a nationwide brilliant nationwide request that as many communities possible as quickly as possible, you know, work to get a resolution passed. So but I will defer to my colleagues if they on on the on the item if they would like to add to that council member Brown. Yeah, thank you. I absolutely would accept that as a friendly amendment council member Cummings. I hesitated at the end of making the motion because I know that bringing back if I'm certain or a day certain is really important and I recognize the urgency as well. So I think this does give us an opportunity to be able to bring this back pretty quickly. I'm having that extra time between council meetings. Thank you for raising that council member Cummings. So with that, I would just add, you know, and return on our April 13 meeting April 13 council. Okay, great. Council member Joachim, did you have any other comments? No, I'm just happy to be part of, you know, supporting this direction. And I know Ralph has done a lot of work with bringing this before us and happy to work with my colleagues who co sponsored this resolution as well as if Ralph has capacity to support us in engaging specific community members for input. Thank you, Ralph. Okay, so we won't go. We have a motion by council member Brown. Seconded by council member, excuse me, Vice Mayor Bruner. Yeah, Vice Mayor Bruner. Sorry, Sonya has been bouncing all over the place. Seconded by Vice Mayor Bruner to and to return the resolution for action by April 13. Is that capture it? So I will go, let's go ahead and do a roll call vote on this Bonnie. Council member Watkins, Callentary Johnson, member Golder, and move on to item number 13 on the consent agenda. And I believe that was also council member Brown. Thank my colleagues for bringing this forward. As we know, you know, food service workers and food service workers are at much higher risk of the exposure to COVID. You know, farm workers are really on the front lines and have been, as we know, very vulnerable. They tend to in terms of workplace and living space be in places that expose them to more risk. And, you know, they're obviously fundamental part of our food system. And, you know, while we don't have farms in the city of Santa Cruz, given that this is in concert with Watsonville and, you know, our region is really one of the, you know, the solid bowl of the world. It seems like farm workers, it would be good to include them. And I'm just wondering, maybe there was a reason that they weren't included. And if so, then that makes sense. You know, I'm sure it makes sense. But if not, it would be nice to include farm workers. Do you want to make that into a motion? I'm Miss O'Hara, did you want to clarify? Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, thank you, members. Suzy O'Hara, go ahead, please. Thank you, Mayor. So I just wanted to provide a little bit of context for council member Brown. So in my research of the available specific vaccine clinics that the County Department of Public Health is already conducting, there are farm worker clinics already. Most, I mean, all of them are in Watsonville. And there's a pretty high level of effort already underway to carve out specific vaccine clinics for farm workers. That being said, I think it would be good to engage with Watsonville on if there is an additional level of advocacy that should happen. And I'm happy to do that with the council approval and direction to the city manager. Thank you, Suzy. Okay, I have council member Cummings, council member Watkins, and council member Collin Tard Johnson. And I'm just going to make a quick note, we're running about 20 minutes late. So we'll go ahead, please. Yeah, Mayor, I was just going to say maybe we could go to public comment before we make motions because I know that was mentioned, but if we could go to public comment, I think we could probably incorporate the changes and make motions and kind of get moving as well. Yeah, I was just opening it up to see if you had any questions or other comments. I was going to go to public comment. I thought the making of the motion was mentioned when after council member Brown made her comment. So sorry if I was wrong. I'm sorry. Council member Watkins. No, thank you for bringing that up. Council member Brown and for the clarification also, Suzy. I just also wanted to as we think about this population of folks who are providing this essential service that although maybe not farm workers, but are, you know, our farmers market is implied and I just but I just want to you know, intentionally state that we can include that later if we basically get into motion making. And council member commentary Johnson. Thank you. Thank you, Council member Brown and Suzy and my colleagues who worked with me on this. I just a comment that this is this is so necessary right now is outlined in the agenda. I report, so I won't repeat it, but I wanted to quickly share that I have some personal impacts from this. I know a family here locally personally who family member worked at a local grocery store. There was an outbreak and their their father got COVID and passed away a month ago. And I know there are a lot of other stories like that here in our community and beyond. So I'm hoping that our county colleagues hear this and that we can immediately move forward with vaccine clinics for this population. It's more important now than ever as the community is opening up and it's all outlined in the report, but I just wanted to say it here publicly. Thank you. Thank you, Council member. I'll go ahead and bring this out for public comment now. Phone number ending in 1810. My letter has more detail and I'll keep this short, but it's worth reading. The highest vaccine priority is the highest at risk individuals, but job type is not really the first selector to that to me as age and health are. More importantly, any coming attempts to coerce vaccine after vaccine jab or show proof of vaccination by increasingly restricting travel, assembly, attending sporting events, etc. Some authoritarians plan to is not freedom and should be opposed. A friend of mine died two days after his second dose. No scientists or health directors showed up to investigate. Not saying the vaccines don't work. They're brilliant, but there are many health professionals with some serious questions about them and they really have not been tested for their long term effects and it is an individual decision. Anyway, the COVID response, including the ineffective fear masking, the deadly horrific lockdown measures, the loss of human rights, the power grabbing, the money grabbing, the fear mongering, the risk of long term effects discounted, the flip flopping, the political grandstanding, so much fake science, the coercion, endless emergency states and the epic debt and monetary destruction cannot be repeated for every new virus that shows up. In my work experience, there was considerable effort put into a lessons learned diary. Every aspect of the COVID response deserves to be in one. Thanks. You've seen no other members of the public with their hands raised, so I'll return it back to council for a motion. Council member Cummings. I'll move the recommendation and Bonnie, I'm wondering could you put it up on the screen? So I think I can incorporate two changes that might might help us move on. So I'll leave the comment between food and and then comma after agriculture for retail. Where does the restaurant fit in here? Oh, there'll be a comma after agriculture. So food and agriculture restaurant. And then add in front line and then it'll be front line and retail workers. And I just wanted to add that little front line because there are people like bus drivers and thinking of people like there are people who work whether it's they're outward facing in banks, I have a roommate that works in a pawn shop. You know, there are people who are engaging with the public regularly in these spaces and those people are going to be the ones who are really most at risk of exposure because they're constantly dealing and outward facing for many businesses. And so just really trying to ensure that we're capturing frontline workers who are constantly engaging with the public in this as well. And so to clean that up, it will be restaurant comma front line and retail workers in both north and south county. And council member commentary Johnson. I was going to second the motion. Okay, great. And I just might make one note. I have family that work in agriculture. I know that they have to Miss O'Hara's note. They have been available for vaccinations for several weeks, but I agree. I mean, I think that we should continue to advocate for that. I do know also that our metro drivers and transit actually was moved up as well. And there was a specialized clinic stood up in Watsonville and Santa Cruz for all Metro. In fact, I think we just got a report from the Metro director that almost everyone from Metro I think received is available to receive the vaccination if they're if they so choose. So that that is making progress. And I really want to recognize Mayor Mayor Dutra in Watsonville for really spearheading as a member of the Metro Board. And he's been incredibly helpful both in the he's just been a huge advocate for the farm worker community. The frontline workers and other folks that have really struggled to get to get vaccine. So he's an amazing partner in this work. So I will go ahead and call for a roll call vote, please. Council Member Watkins. Motion will pass unanimously. And that is a motion to direct the city manager to engage in a letter to the Santa Cruz Public Health Officer with the amended additions to include our culture frontline and frontline workers to that list. And so thank you Council members for bringing that forward. Next up, we will move on to item number 20. And I think I'm going to call for a 10 minute break. We are running about 40 minutes late. So let's take a 10 minute break. And I will try to see if we can make up some of this time. So next item up will be item number 20 for the public. That's the 2021-2022 HUD action plan. Thank you. We'll be back at 2-10. Council members are back if you could turn on your cameras so that we can get rolling. Bonnie, did you see if Council Member Golders back in yet? I don't see her. I don't see her either. I texted her but she hasn't responded yet. Okay, great. Great. We'll go ahead and get started. On our agenda is item number 20, which is the 2021-22 Housing and Urban Development Action Plan. For members who are streaming this meeting, if this is an action you want to comment on, now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen. The order will be a presentation of the item by staff followed by questions from the Council. We will then take public comment and then return to the Council for Deliberation in action. We will have Tiffany Lake, Principal Management Analyst from our Economic Development Department presenting today. And welcome, Tiffany. Thank you, Mayor Marce. I think Jessica DeWitt, our Housing and Community Development Manager is going to give a brief introduction. Great. Thank you. Good afternoon, Council. I'm Jessica DeWitt with Economic Development's Housing Team, and we also have Tiffany Lake here from the Housing Team presenting the Housing and Urban Development Annual Action Plan today. Every year, the Federal Department's Housing and Urban Development allocates community development, block grant, and home funding to designated jurisdictions. The City of Santa Cruz recently received notification of its funding allotment and Tiffany will provide more details about this in a minute. While there are a couple smaller subcategories, the CDBG funds are largely split into two umbrella categories. One is for programs serving community needs, and the second category is for projects like infrastructure improvements and building rehab that also serve a community need. Home funds are primarily focused on providing new housing opportunities and tenant-related assistance for low-income households. For the City to allocate the home and CDBG funds, I noticed the funding availability was issued last November to provide the opportunity for community organizations and agencies to respond with requests for funding. The City has received funding requests from various applicants, and now Tiffany is going to walk you through the funding requests that were received and the recommended funding distribution. From opening up the NOFA in November and then most recently bringing the estimated budget and funding recommendations to the Community Programs Committee or CPC in February. And that brings us to today this first public hearing where we're seeking the initial council approval from the full council for the 2021-2022 action plan budget. And that'll keep us in line to hit our hot deadlines. The funding recommendations that we get from the full council today will be able to draft our 2021-2022 annual action plan 2015. When we met with the CPC, our Community Programs Committee back in February, we only had estimates of what we would receive for CDBG at home. Now we've received the actual numbers we know we have about 15,000 more than our estimate for CDBG and about 4,000 less than what we had estimated for home. So the actual funding numbers for CDBG are 618,000 and the actual funding numbers for this upcoming program year for home are 396,000. The funding made up of what we know now is our actual grant amount of 618,000 estimated program income of 35,000. So program income is made up of repaid loans from prior CDBG grants in the past. And then also prior your funds for reprogramming of 70,000. This category could be made up of a few things. It could be canceled projects that aren't going to move forward and haven't used all of their funds but they're done. Or in the past we may have underestimated program income and so then not programmed are allocated to anything. So the majority of the 70,000 we see here is that last category where we underestimated the program income we were going to receive. So that gives us a pot of about 723,000 that we have available for allocation. 3,000 for CDBG. 20% is set by HUD formula that's 20% of the new grant and the estimated program income. We also have rehab administration so this is loan servicing for prior CDBG and home loans. And we have the total remaining for programs and projects of 586,000. This year we received four applications for community programs are what HUD calls public services. 15% activities cap which is about 90,000 but we have total requests of 190,000 but this is okay because only these three programs here are subject to that 15% public services cap. This is because Nueva Vista is a community-based development organization or CBDO and that means that they have a board of directors that's made up of at least 51% low income residents are residents of the community served and in this case because they are a CBDO the area served is our NRSA our neighborhood revitalization strategy area which is the beach flats and lower ocean area our capital improvement. So Loudon Nelson had an application for the senior studio so this would be concrete slab foundation ADA accessible ramp and other hookups to install a modular unit that the parks and rec department already has they don't have the funds to do the installation so that 50,000 they requested cannot be the amount to move forward. The Market Street Senior Center this is a second application they applied for and received CBG funding last year of 100,000 and they have a total estimate of about 500,000 is needed improvements so we can expect that we will receive further applications from them in the future and then the city of Santa Cruz has put in an application for homeless infrastructure that can include encampment response it could be procurement of hygiene units our other sanitation and cleanup our other CBG eligible homeless infrastructure so we have total request of 425,000 but we only have 396,000 available so not all of the projects can be fully funded at their ask and the recommendation that we got back from the CPC was to fully fund all of the programs that applied so that would be at 190,000 if all four programs are fully funded at their ask and that's without exceeding the HUD public service cap and we received some updates that we requested for those who've received CBG last year to give some updates to council for those that have applied again this year last year we were able to fund second harvest with CBG coronavirus funding and without funding they've been able to increase those served in City of Santa Cruz because they were doing work before the pandemic but when the pandemic started food insecurity has greatly increased so they've been helping an average of 15,000 City of Santa Cruz residents every month and helping with approximately 235,000 pounds of food each month as well we also got some updates from Nueva Vista which operates two locations that are funded with CBBG so their familiar center on east coast has provided over 700 hours of advocacy and support they've been able to stay open during the pandemic with social distancing and other safety protocols and then Nueva Vista youth center the beach class community center has provided over a thousand hours of recreation and 575 hours of homework so these are just some of the highlights of all the work they've been doing because it would have been a lot to put on a slide because they've been doing so much and since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic CRLA our California Rural Legal Assistance has seen a great increase in those seeking help related to housing so they've seen about 87% of those seeking assistance it's had to do with housing and this has been a great increase so they only had numbers for calendar year 2020 so that overlapped somewhat with the funding they received related to CBBG so in that time they were able to assist 148 City of Santa Cruz household our 259 residents so moving on to projects when we brought the funding to the CPC because we only had our estimates we were trying to be a little conservative we thought we had a total of 381,000 but we know now we have a little bit more we really have 396,000 available to split between the remaining projects after the programs are funded so the recommendation is to fund the senior studio at their ask as before at 50,000 because this is what they need to move forward the senior center at 110,000 and homeless infrastructure projects at 236,000 both of these projects can be phased so they're able to both move forward if they're not funded at their full ask 30,000 is that we had administration by the HUD formula at 130,000 rehab program administration for prior loans at 6,500 community prep imposed by HUD because Mueva Vista is excluded as a CBDO and capital projects at 396,000 so that's the remaining split between those three applications for capital improvements moving on to home funding again we have our actual funding numbers for home so that's 396,000 for home like CDBG this is repayment of prior loans that the city made with home funding and we have administration at 10% also HUD formula which is 10% of the new grant year and the incoming program income and we have a prior that are designated for future housing projects so home funds have to be the last funding into a project and can't be designated to a specific project until all of the other funding is lightened up but this is a pot of money that's growing over time that will be available to close funding gaps for affordable housing in the city of Santa Cruz so we have a total of a little under 1.27 million here what we've proposed is that 100,000 go to the security deposit program which is administered by the Santa Cruz Housing Authority so this program funds city of Santa Cruz residents with their security deposit which is paid directly to landlords on their behalf we have a CHODO set aside so CHODO is a community housing development organization so like the CVDO equivalent that we discussed for CDBG this organization would need to have over 51% of their board of directors being low income our residents serve through the program so that 15% of the total grant would be 59,000 and the city of Santa Cruz has currently two CHODOs we have Habitat for Humanity and Mid Peninsula Housing our Mid-Pen and we anticipate that we'll get an application coming soon before our second public hearing from First Community Housing which is working on a number of affordable housing projects in the city of Santa Cruz so with what's left over and our prior reserves our new amount available for future housing projects will be about 1.1 million dollars when a project's ready to move forward because it's kind of a small pot in the large scheme of things because housing projects need so much so again that's a total of a little under 1.27 million based on the budget we get today we're going to be able to draft our 2021-2022 annual action plan and then we're going to bring that again to the second public hearing where we get final approval finalize the budget and this will allow us to hit our HUD-required deadline and then if we hit those milestones along the way funding should be available as early as July 1st so that's it for our presentation please let us know if you have any questions Thank you Tiffany I'll go ahead and open it up for questions from Council are there any Council members that have questions regarding this please throw a presentation and a really great staff report very easy to follow what is a very complicated formula that you guys have to work with so thank you okay I will go and take this out to any members of the public that might be interested so if you are interested in commenting on the 2021-2022 housing and urban development action plan please press star 9 on your phone to raise your hand when it is your time to speak you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted the timer will be then set to two minutes and I do see a phone number ending in 5747 go ahead please if you're unmuted you should be able to go if your phone number ending in 5747 it looks like you're unmuted and you should be able to speak if you have your phone number ending in 5747 it looks like you're unmuted on our end maybe try pressing star 9 again Bonnie do you have any advice there you go try pressing star 9 again and see if we can get you online there you go welcome thank you yeah good afternoon this is Edgar London with the New Avista community resources I would just like to take a brief moment to thank city staff as well as city council for the support and definitely you know we're very grateful and thankful for all the support that we received last year as you saw from the highlight we certainly kept our doors open during the pandemic and we've been just simply very grateful for the funding to be able to provide services in this time of need you know with this pandemic and how everything changed so simply just wanted to take the time to thank everyone for all their hard work and support thank you thank you Edgar and thank you for all your work for the community is there anyone else in the audience today the attendees that would like to speak to this item okay seeing none I'll return it back to council for deliberation and action and council member Watkins no I just also want to echo your comments mayor and thank our staff and Tiffany for the presentation and just the work and the community engagement it's always nice when we get more than we anticipated so you know exclamation mark on that as well as sort of extending our thanks to Edgar and the important work in our community as well so with that unless there's any further deliberation amongst the council I'm happy to move the recommendation before us and council member Cummings did you have any questions or comments or second just wanted to thank the staff for all their work and for bringing us forward and really excited that we're able to provide the support we are for the organizations in our community it seems like we're almost you know meeting everyone's funding needs so I just want to thank everybody for their hard work and I'll go ahead and second the motion okay great and council member Brown I just wanted to add my thank you to the staff for all of your work to prepare this this action plan for us but also for the care that you give in engaging directly with our community partners to receive funding and who provide these really critical services and I know that you do that you know you go above and beyond the you know what's necessary to get these plans together and do the formal submission so thank you for everything that you do and thank you to Edgar for coming and reminding us that Nueva is one of those programs and it's very important part of our community great so we have a motion made by council member walk-ins seconded by council member Cummings to approve the initial funding awards for the fiscal year 2022 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development annual action plan for both community development block grant and home investment partnerships program and could we have a rule called vote please council member Watkins council member Johnson we'll move on to item number 21 which is school district and employer sponsored housing amendments to affordable housing inclusionary ordinance our presenters are going to be Jessica Dewitt with the housing community she's our housing and community development manager and Jessica Malor a management analyst I believe Jessica you are yeah so I've got we've got two presenters and I want to welcome council member Golder welcome to the meeting and for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you want to comment on you'll want to call in now using the instructions on your screen and the order today for this item will be a presentation by staff followed by questions from the council we will then take public comment and then return to the council for deliberation and action back Jessica you guys did such an amazing job you've caught us up so we're we're now completely caught up and on time so thank you for your great reports I'll turn it over to you and Jessica thank you good afternoon council what we're presenting to you today are the remaining inclusionary ordinance amendments that staff and the planning commission housing subcommittee worked on over the last few months in the first part of the presentation I'll discuss the employer sponsored housing recommendation and then Jess Miller also from our housing team will discuss the ordinance cleanup items the proposed inclusionary ordinance in chapter 24.16 and it includes the entire section because the cleanup amendments are scattered throughout in December 2019 the council provided direction to explore ways to make the inclusionary ordinance more effective for workforce housing projects city schools district raised concerns on the increase of the city inclusionary requirement to 20 percent and how that would impact the feasibility of their proposed employee housing project the goal of this proposed ordinance amendment is to help provide more opportunities for affordable housing to retain the local workforce the dilemma is that several people in our local workforce fall into the modern and middle income categories and these households don't qualify for the traditional form of affordable housing but they also can't afford market rate housing either this is the case with the Santa Cruz City Schools District where they're having a lot of challenges attracting and retaining their teachers and support staff so city staff and the housing subcommittee focused on the school district and their proposed employee housing project on the west side of the case study for how to craft an ordinance for employer sponsored housing we studied models for developing school district housing and other jurisdictions and looked at what financing tools are being used to fund this type of housing for example the city of Mountain View has a project where they're using a public private partnership to build market rates school district and city employee housing all together on the same site other jurisdictions are employing ballot measures certificates of participation general obligation bonds to finance school district housing and another source of taxes and bond financing so in one bond financing tool that staff is taking a closer look at and plans to bring back to a future council meeting is the California Community Housing Agency Bond Financing so in addition to looking at how these projects are financed we also took a closer look at the city school district employee income levels including those hardest to attract and retain to better understand how they compare with the city's inclusionary inclusionary affordable ability requirements example several of the salary levels fall into the moderate and middle income categories unlike market rate housing that will charge the highest rents the market will bear employers providing employee housing are highly motivated to charge affordable rents to retain employees with a 100% employee housing project it becomes really challenging to provide affordable rents for all of the employee rental apartments while still needing to meet the city's inclusionary requirements that may not match all of the affordability levels that will help retain local employees we have also been tracking on recent state legislation focused on school district employee housing like assembly bill 3308 and the teacher housing act of 2016 AB 3308 was just approved last fall and its provisions roll up into the teacher housing act are a few of the key points from that act if you back up one more slide it's just yeah just two on this one and then we'll go to the next one so for the teacher school district employee definition section we must be from an employee a unified school district as well as it through pre kindergarten kindergarten in grades one through nine it could also be an employee school or an elementary school district with the same qualifications as a unified school district but it could go through grades eight or it could be a high school district with grades nine through 12 the state legislation also requires that the rental housing be located on school district owned land so there's your housing act are that this occupancy to school district teachers and staff if local state or tax credit funding is used to build the rental housing the district may also allow local public employees and other members of the public to occupy the housing but the school district employees will always have priority and then another key point is the housing must be a majority serving low or moderate income households or the city's proposed school district housing amendment it mirrors the state law on the teacher housing act that we just discussed so you can see here it's for rental rental development only again it prioritizes the restricts occupancy the school district teachers and staff it allows the school districts to rent to public employees or members of the public if they can't find a staff member to rent the units and then the majority is for low and moderate income households through housing amendment it has the same requirements as the school district five percent of the housing must be rented to the employers employees at all times the employers may allow members of the public to live or work that live or work in the city or county of Santa Cruz per our code section 24 16 045 to occupy the housing but again the employers employees still have the priority and then the another difference is the majority instead of just some the majority of the rental units must receive public funding from local state or federal funds affordable housing funds or affordable housing tax credits about the cleanest amendments thank you introduction Jessica the cleanup amendments are coming before you today in response to city council action that was taken on December 12 2019 where council directed staff to review the inclusionary ordinance for any inconsistencies and bring any amendments first to planning commission and then to council for consideration so the amendments we're presenting today are not exhaustive and we do anticipate further amendments to the ordinance will likely occur in the future as we continue to refine the ordinance based on our community's needs so I've grouped them together kind of the way I did in the staff report for these slides so the majority of of our amendments today are located in the definition section of our inclusionary ordinance and the first amendment is actually going to specify that the definition of affordable ownership costs applies to low income for inclusionary units and our legal council advised us that we separate very low and moderate affordable ownership costs definitions from the low income definition in an effort to be consistent with other sections of our code and so we're recommending that we cite the very low and moderate affordable ownership cost definitions that's actually found in our in our density bonus ordinance so that way we'll be consistent between the two parts of code our next group of amendments pertain to definitions of households at different affordability levels again our legal council recommended that our ordinance reference the California code of regulations because this is actually going to direct anyone who is reading our ordinance to the actual income limits that the state releases each year for each category instead of directing them as we did previously to the language that defines how you calculate it this way people are going to actually be able to find the up to date values each year when they check next we have the addition of SOU as a type of inclusionary unit so we currently don't have a reference to an SOU which is a small ownership unit in the inclusionary ordinance however our inclusionary requirements do apply to SOU projects so these amendments will explicitly include SOU as a type of inclusionary unit and our SOU definition is actually coming from a different section of our municipal code so if there's any changes made to that section of code our ordinance should be updated by reference and we also have some clarifying changes that our legal council advised pertaining to residential development definition and then the applicability of the ordinance and then we have amendments 10 and 11 which are for our small rental project for the fractional inclusionary requirements so this is going to be a rental project that's between five and nine units so currently our ordinance is silent on that fractional requirement for the small project so if we have a 1.7 requirement we don't say what happens to the 0.7 in that case but our proposed amendment is actually going to treat smaller rental projects the same way that we treat the larger which is 10 plus unit rental projects so this is going to make it more clear for staff for developer applicants when they come in they're going to know what their requirement is and it's going to be more clear for the public as well to understand what that requirement is so they can kind of get an idea before we have our public meeting and this is for the fractional requirement only it's not going to change how we apply for the full the whole unit component and then there you may notice there's a second number 11 that we've marked for the start and that's because this change recited in our staff report under the employer sponsored housing section but it's really more of a cleanup item and this is from our legal team advising us to add language that ensures affordable units are constructed in a development project making sure that that funding is secured before the council would approve any alternate method of compliance and then our final amendment was again a suggestion from our legal council in response to some litigation pertaining to the housing accountability act it's just making sure that we have the authority to have implementation guidelines which are complimentary to our ordinance and help explain things in a more easier to understand manner for staff for developers and for the public so today we're recommending that you take the action as outlined on this slide and then before we turn it over for questions Jessica and I wanted to thank the planning commission and specifically the planning commission housing subcommittee because they spent a lot of time and effort helping us craft this recommendation in the language that's before you today they did a a great job and we just wanted to publicly thank them for their efforts so that's it thank you thank you Jessica both Jessica's and yeah thank you very much for the for the presentation it's very clear I'll go ahead and see if there are any questions from council members on this council member brown and thank you for bringing this to us and I know it's been a long time in the making and a lot of effort has gone into it and so I really appreciate staff and the planning commissioners who rolled up their sleeves to to get us this this new language I'm just wondering to I'm not sure who this is for for your team somebody on the team why the the ordinance changes aren't specifically targeted to public sector workforce housing you know it kind of came up as a result of the school district you know case and there there is state law around that but I'm just wondering why not just public sector given that those are jobs that tend to be you know lower waged and and the need is really great so just if you could explain where how that decision got made thanks happy to do that and actually this was a topic and a lot of conversation with the the housing subcommittee we actually brought in outside legal council who are experts in their housing law and what's really happening is for us to be able to just public employees it's it's a it creates a discrimination issue a source of discrimination for income and so we were highly advised to not do that but we have in the language of the ordinance really really tried to promote having you know funding that's coming from a public funding source that supports affordable housing and so we're hoping that we're really focused on you know getting to those those income levels and getting to those folks who need it are there other council members with questions not seeing any I do have a quick question Jessica I just want to understand the the change in the code its reference it's on 21 point page 21.6 in the packet is that it's the number 10 and number 11 on the cleanup list Jeff so I just want to make sure I'm understanding so and I know this fractional inclusionary requirement goes with the larger so this will I'm just trying to understand is this adding that fractional requirement to 5 to 10 dwelling units proposed projects so what this change is actually going to do is we're going to remove so if there's a fractional requirement of 0.7 or less as it states in our code for larger rental projects there's no requirement for that so if it's 2.7 or 3.7 or 3.5 there's no requirement for the 0.5 but if there's a requirement of more than 0.7 so if it's 3.8 or 4.9 we'd round it up to the next whole number for inclusionary units and this is really just a way for us to be consistent between the two different sizes of projects the subcommittee last year was really supportive of trying to treat the rental projects the same because we want to try and encourage like dedicated rentals in our city instead of just having rentals in small ownership projects because that way it's a little there's not that confidence that that unit could be there long term because there's always the option to sell those units that are rented in an ownership project as we allow in our code so this way we're trying to incentivize dedicated rentals that will be recorded in a math that they won't be sold later so it's not necessarily doing anything doing away with the fraction it's just treating them the same so anything 0.7 or less there's no fractional requirements for inclusionary units but anything above 0.7 we're going to still require that additional unit so this isn't adding a new this is not a new requirement for the five to nine units it's just consistency now with the with the other part of the ordinance with that the way the fractional the way that the answer when you end up with that fractional interest got it thank you exactly okay thank you okay that's helpful okay any last call on any other questions or from council no okay I'm going to go ahead and take it out to the public Mr. Phillips approval of this ordinance going to the subcommittee for revision since two of the four three voting eyes were by members soon after recall booted by the public item 21 is redline expense public moneys or property develop housing creating special interest exclusion exclusionary housing for priority exclusive use by government employees to make those affordable at public expense or property this is ethically problematic as government employees are subsidized then by the taxpayers in perpetuity low rents regardless of salary why government employees that public expense are so special in this regard is mythically justified as to me some government employees make the jack compared to the same jobs in the private sector I realized the state originally allowed this kind of thing in the essence is not all your idea but assuring some even highly paid government employees don't have to compete for low cost housing with the public is indefensible the government getting into the housing ownership business is not just a little bit Kelly's way less socialist just because the state has allowed this kind of self-serving corrupt special interest pseudo socialism doesn't mean you have to pursue it teachers here make 65,000 average base wages which per capita is not low income mostly low income earners are under 25 or retired or female no husband or almost no income single men or huge six plus number family households not teachers Santa Cruz actually has a higher median household income than the state and has widened that in the last 10 years to almost 91,000 per household and per capital ends come also remains higher at 42,000 but over the same time frame 10 years or so the gap between the state and Santa Cruz is closing rapidly as C is bifurcated though and that a higher than state percentage 20% percent of households earn less than 30,000 36% earn less than 50 bit of a gap to 75,000 than a greater percentage of the state at 41% earn 75 to 200k and has a high percentage of rich households earning over 200k at 16.2% possibly I suspect going to the fact eight of the top 10 employers are government entities and the other two are healthcare providers most all the rich people are married couples or men single women dominate the medium income brackets seems to me promoting marriage with fewer children might do more for household affordability ideally you would allow the free market to address the low cost housing and not with more regulations or unqualified self-serving subsidies with the kind of monetary debasement going on now a delayed inflation surge like the 2012 2018 surge is a common okay thank you and next up we have phone number ending in 9951 you're unmuted go ahead you're muted there you go welcome hi this is Chris Monroe superintendent for Santa Cruz city schools and I want to express my gratitude to the city staff and the commission for working with us on this really important project to ensure that we can recruit and retain the best possible teachers and educators to support the youth in our community 42% of our employees spend between 30 and 50% of their income on their rent 25% spend more than 50% of their income on their rent and we have continued to lose teachers every year to the high cost of housing then leaving to higher paying districts over the hill or into Carmel or Pacific Grove and our ability to recruit and retain teachers is definitely tied to being able to house them the other issue we've had is we've had numerous teachers who have declined job offers because they haven't even been able to find a housing unit that you know no rentals available so we're super grateful to the city for your support in our efforts and we are looking forward to seeing these amendments made so that we can move forward with a housing project that will help us bring the best possible teachers to serve the children in our community thank you Chris and thank you for everything you're doing for everyone in our community and their children and I agree this is a really really important action by the council today so thank you for your leadership and working with our staff and the planning commission and others to bring this forward I know that you've put a lot of timing as well okay I'll bring it back over to the council and I see council member Golder I also just wanted to thank everybody that's worked so hard on this over the years I know it's been a long time coming and having served on several interview panels for the Santa Cruz City School District over the years in my capacity as a professional and as a parent representative I have to echo what Superintendent Monroe said and that it's really difficult to recruit and retain teachers and staff for certain positions you know especially in science and math and the high school district and for special ed as well and so I think that this is a really important step in keeping the teachers here and keeping them part of our community and so I'm happy to move the item I just saw a couple colleagues pop their hands up so I don't know if you have comments or questions or but if I'm happy to move it muted my dog's barking so I'm muted I have a count motion by council member Golder council member Watkins I saw your hand go up next and then vice mayor Brunner thank you mayor Myers and council member Golder and to the planning commission and the staff and to our school partners for bringing this forward and I just I am happy to second the motion I just want to echo the comments that were made in regards to really just sincere appreciation for getting us to this point but also hopes and that we'll be able to support more teachers being able to be in our community be part of our community and see these types of projects move forward it's really essential for all the reasons that were brought up and we do know that we have a huge need and so this was a concern when the ordinance passed prior and having this as the direction moving forward to really ensure that we're not having any unintended consequences of our policies to not support these types of projects is really critical so thank you very much and happy to second it and looking forward to seeing more movement and traction as a result okay so we have a motion on the table and vice mayor Brunner thank you I wanted to thank city staff on this and especially the planning commission housing subcommittee for the time spent in going through those cleanup updates I wanted to call out the cleanup number two really important to actually call out the current numbers of income limits rather than the calculations I think overall I think it's great to have the options for making the ordinance more effective and prioritizing the flexibility for the workforce housing projects and really intending to meet the needs of the workforce so I'm happy that there is a first and a second and I will leave it at that thank you thank you vice mayor so we have a motion by council member Golder seconded by council member Watkins to introduce her publication and ordinance amending title 24 of the Santa Cruz municipal code the zoning ordinance part one of chapter 24.16 affordable housing provisions including sections 24.16.01 zero through 24.16.060 and could I have a roll call vote please council member Watkins aye calendar adjonesa aye she get included off so first so that you have a yeah let's give her a minute yeah I don't I'd I'd like her vote to be recorded see her out I see her coming in are you on your bench yes I'm just going to start with the votes again council member Watkins calendar adjonesa aye passes unanimously great thank you so much to staff for that I know there's a lot of work and I really appreciate all the work you guys have done on that important item and next up we have item number 23 excuse me 22 our annual housing element and general plan progress reports for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you want to comment on now's the time to call in using the instructions on your screen the order will be a presentation of the item by staff followed by questions from the council we will then take public comment and then return to the council for deliberation and action today we have Catherine Donovan who's senior planner with our planning department as our presenter welcome Catherine welcome see the presentation here we can yes good sometimes I don't get it up there right good afternoon council this is Catherine Donovan senior planner with the advanced planning division every year the all jurisdictions within the state are required to provide two reports one on the general plan and the second on the housing element progress that we have made in meeting our general plan requirements and our housing element requirements the general plan report has no specific format but it should include information on general plan amendments ordinance and policy amendments information regarding intergovernmental cooperation and on how the city has promoted infill development as well as general information on major development projects the housing element report is on a form that is provided by the state and in the last three years since 2018 significant new requirements have been added every year the reports are due to the state on April 1st and if we don't submit the reports we are not eligible for certain state grant opportunities so it's not that the reports make us eligible but if we if we don't submit the reports we are not eligible the first report is the general plan annual report and as I said earlier it covers general information and this year we covered specific projects I did not include all of them on here this represents some of the projects the 119 Coral Street project the Wharf master plan the Ghost Santa Cruz program our progress on the climate action plan our new wayfinding program the resilient coast project the circles development project our progress on the rail trail and a 818 Pacific the Pacific Station South project as well as the objective standards project closing element annual report this report is on how we have been doing on meeting our regional housing needs allocation and for those of you who are not familiar with this term the State Department of Finance anticipates the population growth within the state and assigns shares of that population to the local government organization then hands down specific requirements based on affordability levels to all of the local jurisdictions this reporting period is 2015 to 2023 the cycle is an eight-year cycle this year we have this cycle we have an additional year in there because they're we're catching up so that so that we can be in the same cycle as the metropolitan transportation plan sustainable community strategy so that those two things are aligned and in this arena cycle Santa Cruz has a total of 747 housing units assigned to it and this shows the breakdown as you can see this table shows from 2015 through 2020 2020 was we developed a smaller number of housing units and I'm although I don't have specific evidence I strongly suspect that COVID-19 played a role in that and in the past year we have met all of our arena targets except for the very low income housing and very low income housing has is always difficult we have some some new tools that are coming online and we're hoping that we'll be able to get more of that that very low housing built in the city in this chart shows just a breakdown of development activity in 2020 it's divided up by by the levels of approval step in a development project is submitting a planning application we have in 2020 we had applications for 260 units um in that same year 126 units were approved these are not necessarily the same units because there some that were submitted in 2019 may have been approved in 2020 and then once the planning approval has been granted then the developer can submit for building permits you can see we had 95 units submitted this year 79 units issued and I can't see that last number 218 units were were final this year and because those those permits overlap you can't add them all together to get a total of what's in the pipeline but this gives you a sense of just how many units we have you know there's there's quite a few that are in the pipeline right now and I'm keeping this presentation short because I know you have a long agenda today so if you have any questions I'd be happy to help you thank you Catherine our I'll go ahead and turn it back to the council for questions any let's see council member brown thank you Catherine for the report and for putting both the oral report and this really helpful written report with the charts and all of that it's really great to just be able to walk through it and begin to understand with all of the complexity that is involved in where you know how we categorize and you know where things go so I really appreciate it I have a question about I have one that's very specific and so I'll ask that one first in the report I believe it's a pre-application application for entitlements or requests for entitlements where the affordability levels have yet to be determined and I absolutely understand in general why that's the case I'm wondering if you could just know what's happening with the Coral Street 119 Coral Street the affordability levels pending my understanding was that it's supposed to be an you know entirely low-income project so I so it's just a affordability level within the very low extremely low low categories is that where okay great thank you another question I have actually it's just really a basic question why wasn't the the Planning Commission involved in reviewing the document this as you might guess by looking at the complexity of the form this is something I barely get done in time to present it to the council before it's due on April 1st so we don't have the extra three weeks that it would take to take it to the Planning Commission it's been our practice that once it's been submitted to City Council and you've reviewed it and we send it off to the state that we that we do take it to the Planning Commission for their information but we just don't have time it's not something that they would be making changes to because it's strictly a factual report so so we do we do bring it to them it's just after the fact got it and then I have a question that's more of a comment around the 650 square foot cut off around the ADU you know where they fit with the low income versus you know other moderate income but I'll I'll save that for when we go into deliverance so that's all for now thank you Catherine sure Council Member Cummings Mayor and I I have a similar question regarding the 650 the permitted units issued by affordability and rena targets one of the things that catches my attention is that you know for example with the moderate income units none of them are deed restricted and for the low income units it looks like some but probably close to 100 were not be restricted and one of the things that I'm really concerned with and it's come up in meetings before is that you know we've heard that if you don't be restricted unit then you can't guarantee its affordability moving into the future and you know given that we don't have any mechanism for tracking rental units within the city of Santa Cruz I'm really interested in knowing you know how many of these units actually remain in that affordability category after the permits have been issued and after they've been built because again if there's no way if they're not deed restricted then they could say we're going to be we're in the affordable unit and then the city you know checks it off as meeting one of those requirements but then without there being any restrictions the person could just rent them at market rate potentially so what is actually keeping these units within those categories so one we're meeting our goals but more importantly so that we have this stock of affordable housing in the community almost entirely 80-year units they might also be SROs or SOUs and they're generally the the HTD refers to them as affordable by design I explained in the staff report how we allocate the ADUs based on the on a survey that we've done and on the the size of the ADU and similar with the SROs and SOUs but usually when you have something that's only 300 square feet it's going to be rented at a lower price than if you have a you know a 1200 square foot unit it's that's just that's just the way the market works so while I do share your concerns about if it's not restricted with the ADUs we have not been able to as I again explained in the in the staff report we used to offer a program to to provide incentives to build ADUs by waiving the city's development fees however there was a legal determination that waiving fees was the equivalent of um providing financing for a project and so that made prevailing wage kick in and the cost the additional cost of paying prevailing wage made the fee waivers not really an incentive any longer because the the cost didn't pencil out if you had to pay a prevailing wage you were paying more to build it in the first place so I do believe that especially our smaller ADUs even though we don't have a recorded affordability on those units because they're smaller they will over time always rent for a lower cost than a larger unit and that's also the same with the SRO and SOU it the numbers may not be exactly the same but there there may be other units that are I mean sometimes when I'm writing in that when I know the units that are being developed and there's no affordability agreement and there's there's no way for me to say that it's affordable by design and yet I know it's not going to be a high income a higher income unit I still have to list it as above moderate so I think it these sorts of things over time they do tend to equalize I wish we could use I wish we could restrict the ADUs more because we're getting we get so many of them but we just don't have any method to do that yeah that's what I guess that's one of my concerns too because as someone who's in the rental market you know I've seen some of these kinds of units you know be very expensive for you know and and outside the range of what you know what I guess it's it's really not clear what the definition then is of you know an ADU that's that's for a moderate income or a low income because even with the size of the units a lot of it then what ends up happening is although it might be listed you know within our reports is market rate or moderate for low income when you are engaged in a highly competitive housing market we hear stories about people who you know it just ends up going to whoever the highest bidder is oftentimes so and with a lot of I wouldn't say restrictions but oftentimes when people are applying for these kinds of units tenants are being asked what their income is and what they can afford and that can influence what people are willing to charge because we hear stories about people who say you know I've got this person who's willing to pay more for this unit so you know you're not I'm not going to be able to rent this to you and so what we you know are listing as being from moderate and low income it's hard to know what that actual reality is playing out because if people can afford it they'll pay more and oftentimes without it being be restricted it's it's going to get into that kind of market dynamic of whoever can go to the highest bidder so again I think it's really important for us as a council to consider ways that we can track our rental housing through data and I think it's really important that if there's ways that we can encourage deed restriction on these units that we try to do so because well I appreciate how we calculated that for the purposes of meeting our rena goals I feel uncomfortable not knowing you know what these units are actually going for and are they actually affordable or if they're actually you know going outside of those categories and then we're really not being clear and transparent with the community on our affordable housing stock there's a another twist in there too and that is the data that we got back from our survey indicated that a significant number of our ADUs are actually not going being rented to the general public they're being used by family members and often are not charged any rent so and there's sort of there's two ways to look at it one is that those aren't really even rental units but on the other hand they're providing housing for real people who because they're not paying anything you know they they are almost certainly low-income people they're they're you know it's probably relatives who are not making enough of an income to be able to go out and and rent a place without help so there are there are there are many factors involved and we we just can't we have so little control we do the best we can with accounting but I agree with you and and you know my philosophy and I think the city's goal is to simply get as much you know yes we want to track our numbers for for the rena targets and we do have to meet those requirements or attempt to but really we just want to build as much affordable housing as we can right yeah and and thank you for those one similar question related to this is there any financial calculation that's made to determine you know you know there's a unit that's less than 650 square feet in the community like what's being charged for that and what units that are over 650 square feet are going for because financial information I think it will be helpful for us moving forward yeah and this was this was sort of a quick and dirty with the survey we had it the it was a survey that was sent out to the owners of the 80 years and it it was we tried to be as simple as possible because the simpler it is the more responses we get and it broke the 80 years up into it I think it was like 200 I think I think actually we stopped at 650 so it was is your is your unit below 650 and then if it was above it went up I think in about 200 square foot intervals and then we ask the price again in I don't remember now what the what the price intervals were but it wasn't a specific price it was an interval of 100 or 150 or 200 I think it was 150 and then when we compared that we had to extrapolate because you know the the cost of the unit needs to be based on the number of bedrooms so to make it fair we were very conservative and assumed that they were all one bedroom or fewer and that it was a one person family and that's probably not true at all there's there's many 80 years that have two people in them and there's many 80 years that are more than one bedroom but this is a conservative look so if you factor that in and and accounted for the number of units that we counted as moderate units that might actually be housing more people and so and have more bedrooms so they would actually have qualified for low we're probably still our numbers are probably still going to track in another five years or so so it's it's not as bad as it could be and I have one follow-up question is that are the results from that survey available like is there a way for us to receive no they were it was a it was a confidential survey because we're doing everything we can to get people to respond no but I mean in terms of like this a summary of the results from those surveys that could be available for council so we can see the number of people surveyed square footage what people are charging because the result I can go back and see if I can find that yeah that'd be great and then we probably have to do some cleanup because it was you know we were just doing quick and dirty for our own purposes okay and if there's an opportunity for us to provide direction maybe not today but you know for a similar effort to be done I think it'd be beneficial for us to kind of see where our rental housing stock is at and then and then I just want to make a point that when there are multiple people oftentimes living in ADUs the unfortunate thing is that the cost isn't shared between the two individuals oftentimes we see people charging based on the number of individuals so for example if you have a house and there's a couple that's renting out a room sometimes they'll get charged more because it's not a single individual and so that also can complicate things and I understand that as well but I just want to thank you again for pulling this together and I think that you know there are further discussions that need to be had over how we can collect more data and better understand what's happening in our rental housing market so thank you mm-hmm thank you council member Cummings council member Brown thank you well I was going to save it for later but since the council member Cummings brought it up I just wanted to follow up a little bit on the that question around ADUs and how they're designated and I understand the survey was I remember when we got some information about that survey and it was really helpful in getting a better understanding and not making the function so I appreciate that it is a few years old and it was a survey of existing ADUs and we know that the ADUs that are being built are not necessarily going to they're not going to necessarily be at the same rent level for a variety of reasons where I'm in the cost of producing an ADU is going to automatically lead to increased rents right so if you have one it's been there and you're already on your home it's a very different scenario so and I'm just in general I don't I think I say it all the time I'm I'm skeptical of the affordable by design concept in communities like ours in particular so I'm just wondering if you the 650 foot cutoff was that something that was determined here and I know that's a that's a that's a cutoff that's used for other purposes when thinking about ADUs and you know permitting but is that something that we could think about reducing this work footage because yes yes that the survey that we used for this was actually designed Sarah Noisy designed it when she was working on the ADU ordinance year and a half ago and so it it wasn't it wasn't actually intended for this purpose but it provided us with that information and it was our intent to create a survey that would be specifically for this purpose and to to do it probably every other year but we kind of got this was not a good year for that we we had more work and less time this year so I'm hoping that that we will have that in place in time for next year so we'll have a better survey better information we'll ask about smaller units and you know the hardest thing is to design it so that people will actually answer it appreciate your efforts and I'll just put in a plug for you know taking making it a priority to do some of that surveying we don't have a rental registry so we're we're kind of we guess a lot we're you know shooting in the dark so you know as we move forward it would be really great to hear about your from staff about thoughts on how to how to make that survey informative and something that people will respond to thanks thank you council member I'm not seeing any other council members with their hands up so I'll go ahead and take it out that public comment and I have phone number ending in 0030 nine to unmute and available well that's on the field I would just calling to echo what council members brown and and Cummings mentioned regarding the ADU affordability in the the arena progress report I I really you know want to encourage the city to produce as much low income affordable housing as possible and certainly ADUs could potentially do that I just worry that that the the numbers of new produce newly produced ADUs aren't necessarily or shouldn't necessarily be considered low income or moderate income because we are using you know a rental survey that's a couple years old I would hope that the city commits to having an annual survey for this sort of thing or a rental registry so that we actually know what the numbers are and I'm worried that you know the justification to HCD in trying to justify using the there's a for example 100 low income ADUs below 650 square feet that we're counting in our low income arena numbers HCD will want justification for that and I don't know that we can really say you know a two or three year old survey that we did of existing ADUs satisfies this requirement I don't want to you know curtail production of ADUs at all I just want to have some more realistic numbers and I would hope that you know we're able to produce as many ADUs as possible and accurately reflect them in in our arena numbers I just don't know if the methodology that we're using right now to do that is is accurate or not thank you thank you thank you bring it back to council and this again is item to accept the 2020 general plan and housing element annual progress report and submit it to the california office of planning research and office of housing and community development council member coming thank you may I add one quick question for for the legal council or maybe for the for someone else I'm planning but to Mr. Stone's point and to some points that were brought up I'm just wondering is there a way the city could create policy that would policy around deed restricting ADUs that are produced for the purposes of rental housing I think to the point that was just brought up you know one of the things that brings to mind is that if someone builds a 800 square foot unit or and they've built it in 2017 and someone builds one today you know they could that if one was considered you know moderate income back in 2018 you know there is the potential if it remains at that level of affordability that will go down over time and it'll help fulfill some of those needs of course showing that hey you know this unit is still being rented at this low rate and therefore it actually is helping us meet our affordability numbers so I'm just wondering if there's any way to deed restricting so that we so that some of these units that at one point are for moderate incomes will end up in those lower income categories versus kind of not having any deed restriction which pretty much doesn't really allow for us to keep those for those units to stay within those categories and they can be moved up at any point in time I can jump in on that and then Cassie you can fill in any additional information if you'd like and thank you for that question councilmember Cummings it's certainly something that I'm sure many are interested in we actually don't have that ability under the state law the state regulates what things we can require as part of ADUs and the affordability restriction is not one of those and so when you saw Sarah Noisy pop on the screen a few moments ago during that discussion I think that was the point that she was going to raise but I'm not aware of unless it's a voluntary requirement so you know we can still offer the the fee waiver if someone wants to have this and wants to pay prevailing wage or if someone wants to do that so you know there have been the instances where a developer has offered that for example as a way to exceed the requirements if they're doing the plan development for example and they want to provide additional public benefits and so that's what I would comment related to that affordability restriction being needed to be voluntary and then I would chime in and I know that Catherine works very closely with HCD with respect to what can and can't be counted in each income category so I see Sarah might want to add something on the ADU and affordability restrictions that appears and then I'll ask Catherine to highlight some of the comments that she's had because I know that she communicates directly with HCD about the timing of the survey and the question that you had there Council Member Cummings The law come down last year that the next time we update our housing element which for us will be in 2024 we have a requirement to show in there some programs how we're going to promote affordability for ADUs so we will have a whole you know put on our thinking caps moment when that comes around jurisdictions are a year ahead of us in that cycle where that's going to be required so we'll be able to hopefully gather some good ideas from other jurisdictions that have you know had to cross that bridge before we do Catherine did you want to add in as well on the yeah I can just say that the survey was done in spring of 2019 and the data that we're looking at now is for the year of 2020 so it is not I would not consider it out of date at this point we do we do want to do another survey and someone said that we should do it annually and I'd love to do it annually except that we have to deal with this is something that people fill out voluntarily and we don't want to get survey fatigue because then we won't get any responses at all and so that was the thinking behind every other year we figured that the data would be up to date enough and it might help us get a better response rate okay thank you I know you were going to I wasn't sure if you wanted to weigh in please got it covered nothing beyond what he said thank you thank you okay I'm happy to move the staff recommendation to accept the 2020 general plan and housing element annual progress reports direct staff to submit the reports to the California Office of Planning and Research and the Department of Housing and Community Development and we'll just express again you know the need for us to really figure out a way to track this housing because I'm just you know just in conversations with people who are renters in the community it's just really concerning that some of these units you know might not be staying in as affordable units and if we really are going to commit to making sure that we have a large stock of affordable units and Santa Cruz that we you know have a really good understanding of whether units are remaining in those categories or if they're getting you know pushed into other categories so so that's my motion okay do you Council Member Brown second that I think the motion was to accept the report for submission and I'm just trying to think about a way to include some direction to the to staff and I know you're already thinking about ways to do this and and planning to do it but include direction to staff in next year's process bring your thoughts to the recommendations to Council on how to more accurately capture levels of affordability for non-dead restricted units so I'm just trying to think about like including that as part of the direction today so that we know that's the goal that we want to pursue so if my if the motion maker is willing I'd like to just include that as a second piece can I just clarify in terms of that do you want that as part of the motion or do you want it as just direction to staff I don't know putting it in the motion will just I think make it more clear so if we could do that just in addition direct staff to return to in preparation for next year's annual report return to Council with recommendations on how to that's capture affordability levels in non-dead restricted units that are categorized as well-income so the motion will be to accept the 2020 general plan on housing element annual progress report and to submit the reports to the California Office of Planning and Research and the Department of Housing and Community Development and direct staff in preparing the 21 2021 annual progress report form Council help me out here of next year's planning process levels of affordability in non-dead restricted units categorized as affordable or maybe Cassie you can weigh in this is a so I'm understanding just trying to understand so the the the action is really it's basically we're required every year to submit the annual reports according to the calculations and the I mean Catherine you mentioned that this is really basically pulling data and then entering it into the statewide into a statewide form right and so I'm just trying to I don't Catherine do you do we do we make that decision then on how we count those do those calculation and then we just put those numbers into the form correct well I just want to make sure I'm not restricted that is if they're deed restricted there's there's no that's just counting the numbers but for the non-dead restricted we have you know we could just call all of the all of our ADUs above moderate income but that wouldn't be accurate either and that would be detrimental for us and so we have developed this methodology before we had done the survey we used to do online survey of rental prices but that was not accurate either because that just showed what was available at that point in time and the things that are advertised are generally going to be the higher priced units because the lower priced units never get advertised they just get passed onto your best friend so there is a there is a element in here that that we have some discretion over how we categorize these units as long as it's a methodology that that we that passes the straight face test basically and specifically I had brought this to HCD last year and I noticed in their in their directions this year they actually mentioned an informal survey as being one method of establishing affordability for non-need restricted units so this is something that they they recognize as being a valid thing to do the data point they want to they want to collect but today so if councillor I just want to I just want to make sure the staff can do you know that it fits with you know so it sounds so we could include so it would be to include an updated methodology to count include an updated methodology to account for non-need restricted units reported that when it matters you have the language written Sandy I'm just trying to make sure I'm capturing it because I yeah thank you I don't have a written I apologize this was not planned in advance here but since we're having the conversation I'd like to reflect it so so the what I'm hoping we can get to is it's a direct staff in preparing the 2021 annual part report to include recommendations to so to include an up an updated methodology is fine if you but recommendations simply an updated methodology for and you can take out recommendations that's all I to do for to include an updated methodology oh l they reflect levels of affordability for non-need restricted units that are categorized as low income yeah I would change four ways to in order now that I'm looking at it in order to more accurately reflect it's not accurate you know so more just you know more precise more accurate to more accurately reflect levels of portability for non-need for non-need so that Council Member Brown yeah this is a principal planner Matt Sanwa I was just wondering could you clarify are you are you looking for options presented from staff for this or a specific methodology presented well I I guess that's why I use recommendations rather than methodology to start out with because I I don't want to I don't want to make it so precise that it it spies your hands in terms of you know how to basically I'm just trying to get at how it is that you know you all are thinking about how to more accurately reflect what is low income and what isn't and you know it's a standard based on serving you know other you know maybe perhaps reducing the square footage to you know for the affordable by design category I don't know that it so does that make sense like it may not necessarily like a menu of options but just what are some of the ways that you've come up with to try to better capture lowing the level of low income units available that are non-dead restricted so I don't know if it's yeah either yeah yeah thank you I I prefer recommendations if it makes you feel like it's a little more like it fits better with what you might do coming moving forward then let's leave it that way yeah I I do like that language better we're going to be starting on our the housing element update next year most likely so that work in thinking about that that Sarah mentioned and looking at what other cities are doing we may or may not have started that at that point but we can certainly include whatever we have at that point in the report next year so Bonnie they would take out and and update a methodology and just go recommendations to council is that clear for staff okay thumbs up either the three affordability levels or affordable housing because low income just restricted to that one designation and I think that there's moderate low and very low restricted units all non deed restricted that were indeed restricted so just really trying to get at standardization so so Bonnie if you go back I think you can put that you can undo that deletion yeah the back side there say it again income housing that's the housing so the maker of the motion I'm just most concerned about reporting on low income and very low income very low is pretty much always need restricted in my understanding so but that's fine to include them okay great thank you okay so we have a motion to accept the general plan with the direction to staff and I'll go ahead and ask for a roll call though please council member Watkins aye Calendari Johnson we built a break into the meeting today so we will go ahead and take a break and reconvene at 430 that's public we will start item number 23 which is the downtown plan expect expansion project at 430 so thank you everybody turn on your cameras we'll go ahead and get started I think we're just looking for Martine council member Watkins when you are ready and turn on your camera and we will go ahead and get started humor items today next up on our agenda is item number 23 downtown plan expansion project for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you want to comment on now's the time to call in using the instructions on your screen the order will be a presentation of the item by staff followed by questions from city council we will then take public comment and then return to the council for deliberation and action our presenter will be Sarah Noyce with senior planner with our planning department and Matt Van Wa principal planner with our planning department so I'll go ahead and turn it over to them and again this is item number 23 the downtown plan expansion project so Sarah and Matt I'm not sure who goes first but I'll turn it over to you guys thank you mayor hello council members members of the public I'm sure there are lots of folks that are following this item I know we did receive quite a lot of correspondence seems like folks are really interested and engaged on the project which is great rezoning action this is not a rezoning action we're trying to just sort of send a geographic scope of where we're low-prey at earthquake we've updated this plan you know several times in the course of its life in the early 2000s in the mid 2010s most recently we limits in certain areas and that's allowable you know downtown is a place where housing belongs and that was also sort of part of the housing voices process that we went through just a few years ago was about creating more opportunities for housing downtown we've been looking for ways to address our housing needs it's combined that with last year the requirement of the rebrand is that projects that are approved city-wide we also have an opportunity because this is now create some new economic opportunity for city workers and local city businesses we were approved we are on a timeline 2023 giving us you know between two and two and a half years to to complete the project we were thinking maybe we'll go north maybe we'll go west maybe maybe we'll also go south maybe we can do all three of these things and so we started by kind of making conversations with stakeholders in the cities that downtown businesses some other major areas were involved you know thinking about which way we want to go with the downtown expansion so as I mentioned with the grant you know we do have a specific goal of increasing housing units that can be built in the city coming out of the beach south of Laurel plan and the general plan is this idea of connecting downtown with the river and beach areas both to make it you get from downtown to the beach and the river but also so that visitors have a more natural connection and understand humanities into downtown to have a meal and to visit our local businesses to be more of Santa Cruz the direction that we expand to create more opportunities for public amenities and infrastructure existing location has always we've always intended to be temporary you know the existing stadium was never intended to be a permanent facility so we're aware that that use is going to change at some point so it would make sense to that some point we also then have this opportunity to work with the warriors and set some standards and use allowances to accommodate a permanent arena which then could really be a public amenity so it serves the warrior's needs and then it also provides another a modern event venue for the city which we don't currently have a fully modern event venue and then of course going along with events our economic opportunities I think every downtown business owner knows when game nights are happening because it does have such an effect our economy and visit our local businesses moving into COVID recovery always being some cognizant of the city's budget we wanted to just identify that that continue to meet its needs moving forward so in thinking about have around our job became obvious to staff that we weren't really going to be looking at expanding north connecting to the beach and working with the warriors like that's not really the place that would meet these goals and then thinking about expanding to the west we very quickly run into a historic district and a lot of really sensitive historic structures and single family homes that we wouldn't necessarily be expecting to redevelop or turn over so the idea that we could create more housing capacity by expanding the west for district to fall apart under those historic preservation regulations more detail also here so we started by mapping out you know what it would be existing like you know where the historic structures how far does the floodplain extend what's the geography you know where are the nature slopes stuff like that and then we take into account the zoning the current zoning in general plan because we do know that are more difficult to develop and assembling small parts that could be redeveloped for housing is really telling readily or easily universe of options that we might be you know if you go all the way over to Washington Street and start there and thinking this is great we could have this big new area of downtown like there's all this opportunity here for creating more housing creating more jobs creating new public amenities because there are some of these larger helping in the next 20 to 30 years you also when you go all the way out to Washington you capture a huge amount of you know existing established the neighborhoods we're capturing some you know recently you know less than 25 years old noticing them to redevelop kind of we've got this most complicated option without necessarily getting like that really high yield in terms of what we would expect the parcels to to redevelop as maybe that's a good boundary and again that has a lot of the same problems you're capturing this this on Cedars Spruce and Sycamore that's you know already developed it is already also identified in our zoning code with the neighborhood conservation overlay zone you know come in and we zone and we designate this area for a lot of change the police station is also on this on Center Street here that's the PF parcel you see on the left side there's just there are a number of uses on Center Street that you still aren't really capturing the you know the bulk of you know we might expect to redevelop and kind of turn over it's already identified is CBD a lot of these large parcels which we know are going to be key opportunity sites already to downtown recommendation are we working or are we working with you know 120 parcels if we go all the way out to Washington and that's just a really different level of complexity and like timeline that you would have in a process so you know once we kind of once we got to this point internally it kind of seems like there are a lot of reasons that we as staff can't really be recommending Center Street or Washington as appropriate boundaries I mean this neighborhood conservation district is a number and complexity of the of parcels and so the the sensitivity much more challenging process than in our existing budget and when we lay out the pros and cons River Levy hearing is going to be happening with the Warriors soon boundaries for the purposes of coping and for you know issuing an opposite community in terms of you know we have no assumptions about that right a range of SIRs and a range of height limits you know there are portions of the existing downtown plan that are still only 35 feet height limit which is what the existing height limit is through most of this area assuming that this whole area is going to go to 85 feet there's going to be a really robust public participation process seeing residents existing landowners and also the broader community about how area and what kind of change we want to see what kind of accommodate in this area so that is all yet to come and we're just trying to get our proposal out we're hoping we you know we do understand that time is of the essence for some of these you know property owners and opportunity sites and so we thought we could save a little time by I know that's a preliminary boundary so we can issue the RFP and that there there will be an extensive public process around what land use intensity is what land use is and what the urban design is of this whole area a big number of units that would be increased in this area it would be premature at this point these are things that we in mind as we move into the planning process about you know what is the right number of units for this area and you know what are the right requirements for inclusionary and replacement units does it make sense to have them be different from our existing standards elsewhere make sense here and we would want to kind of we want to consider all of that in the context appropriate in this neighborhood people really interested in can be no net loss I mean people really a concurrent process so one place is downzoned and another place is upzoned at the same time this process won't be complete for two years minimum the council if the community wants to pursue a general plan amendment of that would be complete and effective until all of it's complete comment we made in the staff reporting to make sure that we have enough money to fund the whole project and the whole sequel process the property major property owners contribute funds to the city to support to do a thorough process so the money comes to the city the city manages the process the consultants and then the developers or property owners get and then an individual project has a lower for a big development project to do one without the we can accommodate that in our and it will take a little bit of time and you know we want to do this right so is that council's discretion to decide you know will black the areas currently zoned cbd-e and rtc at on pacific and center streets as shown in the attached map for questions Sarah this this is math and law principal planner I would just can you go back to the recommendation page I just I just wanted to make one brief clarification there we should add to the recommendation number two to have at that the end there instead of for inclusion in the expanded downtown plan it should be for inclusion in the analysis and and general plan rfp scope for the expanded downtown plan I let me imagine I thought I was not did you catch that language without that that would just clarify that a little bit better that this I got it that this boundary is just for the for the scope and analyzing it as part of the scope then the actual downtown plan thank you even to act with Sarah I will go ahead and change from council and then I will take it out for public comment and then we'll we'll deliver a and take action after public comment are there questions from council on this item okay see oh okay council member coming then I want to start by thanking the staff for pulling this together um I'm a little well I want to appreciate to the clarification around the preliminary considerations I'm still a little concerned because a lot of members of the public reached out expressing concerns about us moving forward with designating these boundaries before there's been any kind of community input process just like to get a better sense of you know one of kind of why that step hadn't been taken to get some community input I mean at a minimum it would have seemed appropriate to at least have this go to the planning commission and I know back in August of 2020 was kind of when the council had mentioned you know really wanted to work with the warriors to create a permanent home so there's been you know months of kind of to work with the warriors and have a permanent home and so I'm just kind of one city council this is a major this is going to be a major rezoning and so just really want to understand a little bit get a little bit more clarification on what this means if we're saying preliminary you know approval because that this really does need to go to the planning commission I mean that's like the role is to weigh in on these decisions so before we do anything that's going to be permanent I think it's really critical that it goes to them and that there's an opportunity for the public to weigh in because that's one of the the things that's been expressed in a lot of the emails is that we're going to make a zoning change and we haven't had any community input thank you for that question that is really you know really important I saw those emails as well from folks really concerned that we were you know circumventing a public process kind of was like you know what are we going to drag hi this is the best option and they're like well obviously this I I shouldn't assume I can be surprised about community input I assume we are absolutely we are going to be involving the planning commission you know this is going to be undertaking expected to be consulted and I you know I appreciate that I I do hear that as a as a critique you know and I've heard all of that that they wanted to have a public process but I didn't see comments that the boundary should have done this differently I just wanted to add as well that you know this this project hasn't even started yet just this really is preliminary and we're looking to just get an idea what to get the consultant to to come back to with us on a on a scope and and a budget and those those were vastly different depending on the areas that we chose and based on how much money we had and and what we wanted to give the consultants to get a good proposal back from them you know really just to get an idea of what what the order of magnitude is for what this plan will be and so that's really what where we've come to with this so far that order of magnitude is is is really just this more focused area and that that can of course change and when this project officially starts you know that's that's when we're really going to have this significant public process that's going to involve a lot of a lot of public meetings going to involve planning commission and so once we get a consultant on board and really start studying this area more and you know get a get a community engagement strategy from the consultant you know that's when we're going to see that kick in a lot more and really engage the public in that way so in this instance it really is this preliminary step before the project even begins sure thank you and I and you know thank you for the the comments I'll just say you know there's there are recommendations that the council has made on a variety of different policies and although it seems like you know from the public that you know we're not getting a lot of pushback that it's likely something that's going to be adopted I feel like we still send those items to our different commission so that they can weigh in and it's really important because I feel like you know I'm getting emails from commissioners the expressing concern that they have one they haven't had a chance to weigh in and the other is that they haven't it doesn't sound like they've been meeting right like in the so I don't think they've met the last two times for their regularly scheduled meetings and please correct me if I'm wrong but I reached out to a number of them and they said you know they haven't been meeting regularly lately and so if the if there isn't anything on that their agenda this is something that even if they are in full agreement they could have weighed in on and it's beneficial for us because when we get these comments from the community saying hey there's been no input you know we can say at least the the planning commission has weighed in and here's where they've landed and it's quite possible that they all agree with staff's recommendation and I'm not opposing what the staff's recommending it seems like a you know it's appropriate for this plan but you know part of our role as government officials is that we're supposed to be doing everything we can to uphold the trust of the community and the trust of the governmental process and if the community you know if they perceive or if it seems like we're trying to rush these processes and especially when it comes to land use and development because if we change the zoning in these areas that's going to have an impact on those property values there's concerns about the people who are living and housing around there and how they're going to be impacted and just getting that that having those conversations and having that opportunity for the community to weigh in just really helps us to really know that we're trying to do our best to have the community you know engaged and involved in this process and that we're not trying to kind of you know rezone things or change boundaries without them without giving them and without giving you know our commissioners and our bodies an opportunity to weigh in and so that's it's one of the concerns that I have just how we're moving I really hope that we can move quickly with this process but I do want to you know just encourage that we're trying to do our best to engage with our different the other bodies that are supposed to be weighing in and really trying to increase that public input and and I don't think that you know it would really delay it would if anything it would like demonstrate that we want to hear from the public we're you know wanting to have their trust and move forward in a way that brings them with us so yeah I do want to see how we can help work to bring this forward in a way that really demonstrates to the community we're trying to have them engage in this process thank you council member Cummings I've got council vice mayor Brunner council member Watkins council member Brown and council member Callentary Johnson in that order please great thank you thank you so much Sarah for going through that I think my question is also clarifying with the community response we received an input I'm wondering how much of it is in the language of how it was presented and and even in your report you started off saying this is not a rezoning this is for the purposes of obtaining an RSP for the project within this grant timeline so not a rezoning and in the public process in the future there is opportunity for that to happen the boundaries could change for example during that public process for planning commission presentation right yeah so as we get into the you know that is the core of it is what are the uses that we want to see here what are the intensities of use that we want to see here and oh we we sort of we phrase sort of we understood I can only apologize for that you know I I understand that folks are everyone to like continue to stay involved that wasn't maybe clear in the written document and so I want to be extra clear right now this action that you are taking today involves no change is what we determined to be the best option to look at in terms of obtaining an RFP and okay and then my second question tied to that was with your recommended boundary the yellow portion of the map it would be released in April or May and with a deadline in June so is that kind of like a three month process in the staff report it says if if we do that's recommended then that would get returned the the results in the summer July let's say and so the RFP would then be three months from then what would that look like yeah so September yeah so to go out and do public process we're prepared to do that we certainly can go out and have these conversations you know we would expect that to take a few months and sort of wrap up by the end of the spring and you know later in the spring and we sort of like May June so we would then work on issuing the RFP in July and so we're trying if give us the chance to like push through and get a contract potentially back in June and just complicated process and you know a little more wiggle room in terms of time I think it's gonna okay those are my questions thank you thank you Vice Mayor Council Member Watkins yes thank you Mayor and thank you Vice Mayor for your clarifying questions and I appreciate the clarification and language Sarah asking this is simply a proposal for a plan in 2017 I feel like this was also identical proposal to have a way to extend potentially towards the beach to align that portion as a component of the downtown plan so this didn't really seem to me like really out of the blue and I'm wondering if Lee or others want to speak to that because I sort of remember that being uh kind of the next stage that we anticipated coming with that plan and then as well thank you Council Member Watkins I'll jump in on that because that predated Sarah's time with us and what I'll say is that the idea has been in front of the council a number of times in fact the first time may have been you know well let me let me start by first saying for decades there's been a goal to really better connect our downtown with the beach and to really you know draw so many of those millions of tourists that visit main beach and Cal's beach and draw them into our downtown so that they can experience that that great aspect of our city and hopefully you know stay for dinner or decide to you know uh spend money in our shops so standing goal what I specifically recall is that and so I don't recall as part of the downtown plan in 2017 if there is any specific discussion about later expansion into the downtown there may have been but that's been sometime but I do remember that when we brought and I may get them confused this was the when we brought the leap grant this one's the reap grant when we brought the leap grant to the council and we identified the housing element as the preferred project what we said is believe that one was $310,000 if we've got extra funds from that after we go through the housing element process let's dedicate that towards a an expansion of the downtown plan and I believe but I'm not sure that that is that may or may not have specified to the self when we brought the reap back we were more general and we said hey let's expand the downtown plan the reap requires that we that we extend housing capacity that we expand housing capacity and so that's when we got the the green light from the council to expand and at that time we were thinking you know well we're going to go we might go north we might go west we might go south and we'll engage the community to figure that out given the multitude of things that sarah talks about in terms of timeline the amount of budget that we have the process that we need to undergo which will likely be an environmental impact report after an analysis of various alternatives alternative development scenarios and growth patterns in that area then we would conduct an environmental impact report those those are you know significant periods of time and the farther out we go the more complicated that gets the more and the less opportunities that we have to do in-depth community outreach if you know we do because the the end timeline is set you know we have to get it done by the time that the grant is there so all of these things factored into our consideration but you're right there has been some discussion I can't remember the initial parts but the the council has considered this at a point in the past thank you council member brown thank you yes I so I wanted most of my questions have been asked and answered for the most part but I do I just want to echo my colleagues concerns about the apparent speed with which this is coming and a decision is to be made and thank you very so much Sarah for clarifying the so everybody's clear about what we're at being asked to do here today and I appreciate all your work but it does seem that we we tend to be we tend to get into this pattern I feel that is it's it's difficult to reconcile with you know the public in public input and public engagement and interest in the decisions we make so we what I find happens often is we make decisions where they say oh it's like this is really just the beginning and you know we're we're going to work on this later but then it doesn't really end I'm not sure quite how to say this much that public engagement and openness doesn't seem to really come afterwards and so then we the council or the public is presented with a proposal either ordinance change or a particular project that is pretty fully baked and and people get frustrated because the only thing they can do at that point is either oppose potentially take legal action you know or support and so making this more of an iterative process seems like it would be to our benefit so I really just wanted to echo what council member Cummings was talking about in that regard in terms of the role of the planning commission it seems to me that this is this is a pretty traditional role for the planning commission to be involved in these kinds of decisions and these kinds of processes and I'm just wondering about the the concerns about the delay being you know potentially three months to do a community engagement process couldn't the planning commission perhaps put it on their agenda have a public hearing have some discussion make create a more open process for a limited period of time so that we don't delay but there there is a space to have some of that conversation and help people understand what's coming next so I'm just wondering if that would be a possibility like a middle way to maybe have a little more time and put it out there so that's just a kind of a question comment and then my other question is if you could or someone could just give us a encapsulate what these changes would allow might allow us to do the city to do or developers to do businesses that is not allowable under the current designations because I think another thing that I've heard is the like in particular with density bonus we're already talking about potentially 50% increase over the current zoning and so do we really want to go there right I mean we kind of did that in the downtown along the river in certain places to have increased that height but do we really want to go there and I think that the question that that the public really needs to be involved and so just wanted to if you could just kind of help us understand what those key differences are I know it's complicated the zoning rules and all of that and so I'm not asking for an overview of that just more like you know we could have you know seven stories or we could have more mixed use or you know we could have these other functions just a little rundown sure yeah absolutely thank you for those questions so I will I'll respond to your first you know question comment first about like could we involve the planning commission in you know having some of this outreach to you know mitigate the delay and the only word I would change their delay it's not really I wouldn't call it a delay we have time we we can do to make up that time throughout the rest of the if we think we're going to end up re-or if we think there are other reasons to take this boundary out for more public process you know we could involve the planning commission that might be a useful way to do it um yeah you know the planning commission will be involved with this outreach and really reaching people like really the greatest way to do that so I don't know if that would be my first to out from the people we've already heard from facts with the existing residents maybe doing having some online cerns and looking at these three options of boundaries and like thinking about that so we haven't laid that all out right away if you know if that would be necessarily be my first choice in terms of doing effective outreach um by the land use issues so involving them does I might before we go too much further I we have a number of council members haven't answered questions so I'm just hoping we can maybe just instead of to kind of solve each question is maybe there may be maybe we can get through questions and then we're going to deliberate afterwards so you know I don't want to get too much out before we're really being able to deliberate and also to respect the public right so keeping an eye on height in some places up to 50 feet of height in some places 75 and in some places 35 feet of height so um you know South of Laurel would be determined through this you know planning process we would work with the community to figure out what the right intensity was and you're very you're absolutely correct you know the density bonus does allow for up to a 50 percent intensity bonus when you're providing a high level of affordability with the project and that's true throughout the city so in terms of you know what we might what we can see currently under like the current state law and affordability components so it is a density bonus project so that's sort of one example of what could be done currently and you know they're having standards that can only be developed out under the density bonus and having standards that really allow conforming projects will have inclusionary to be built without the need for a density bonus because part of this process is part of the objective standards process the density bonus is absolutely a component that we have to take into consideration and that we can't necessarily control I'm gonna let's see Martine I just Martine Bernal I saw you did you want to comment also Martine on this sorry I just saw your hand come up so if if council members don't mind I'll I'll shift it over to Martine for whatever his comments might be yes thank you I just wanted to just jump in with respect to the the timing issue and question obviously the the intent of staff is to go through a thorough process and to have you know appropriate to community input into the process however it's also important to recognize that one of the most significant reasons for wanting to move forward with this is in order to facilitate any kind of warriors project moving forward and so as you may hear from them later they have an urgency in trying to move forward with respect to a project and so that is really what we're trying to balance here there's no project that's pending in particular project or anything that's waiting for this however the process for moving forward with any kind of project private project particularly facility there's the timeliness to that and this would this is one potential tool that could facilitate moving down forward and so the longer this process takes the more difficult and challenging it'll be to be able to move forward with any kind of project with the warriors so I just want to point that out that that's a significant issue and a reason for wanting to begin the process and to you know expedite again in a way that is as quickly as possible however that's needed to move forward so I just want to highlight that council member commentary Johnson is next thank you so much thank you Sarah for the presentation and clarifying all our questions and thank you Martin that was actually a question I had is if if we could really clearly articulate the urgency for an expedited decision-making process and then also to go back to I mean I think you clarified Sarah but just to reaffirm and maybe hear from Lee that this is not circumventing a public process this is putting forward a preliminary plan so we can move forward with this grant proposal so I want to just hear that from both of you again and then my follow-up question to that is could you speak to what the public process would look like and reaffirm Sarah's statements from earlier council member count Sarah Johnson that yes this process will undoubtedly have a very robust public outreach and engagement component one of the things that I would expect to happen which is often the case in terms of the early stages of the RFP whoever is selected through the RFP process that consultant will one do background research right at the beginning and two will come up with an outreach and great and engagement strategy so I don't want to presuppose what those elements would be particularly as we're emerging from the COVID era and you know we may or may not have in person opportunities for engagement and creative ways to meet people where they're at in the community as you know we would encourage in a non-COVID time but certainly there will be a strong outreach engagement component whether that is electronic if we're if we're still in social distancing mode or whether that is able to occur in person and oftentimes when the community engagement strategy is developed it specifies you know before these key milestones we're going to go out and get community feedback so that we can build that into what our initial alternatives that we're considering are and then once we've got alternatives put together understanding what that initial feedback is we go out to the community again and we say hey here are the alternatives what do you think is best about this one and that one and this one and then oftentimes what we'll find is it's not one of those alternatives that's selected but that's sort of a mishmash of those and say you know the community liked this part and they didn't like that part and so then once that is brought together they'll often be like okay community we heard what you said here is a here's a plan that we think kind of best encompasses what we've heard and you get feedback on that then there is the sequel component and through that sequel analysis there is environmental review of all of those components including alternatives so you know the the initial alternatives that were considered oftentimes become the alternatives that are plugged into the EIR and so then there's analysis of all of those where there's additional opportunities for community feedback and then how that happens you know electronically or you know through surveys or online you know that's yet to be seen but but I would expect those as kind of the general checkpoints okay thanks thank you for providing that and just you know thank you to you Sarah and Lee and the team for doing all of the work that you do to to bring it to this point that's to consider launching some process great see no other councilmember hands I'm going to take it out to the public now and I see two hands there and I do want to yeah thank Sarah and Matt and if you guys can stay on the line I'm sure there'll be additional additional questions and just from my comments I would just say that I I understand sort of the thinking that's going on going in behind this and also understand the interest in the warriors is something that's obviously really important to the community so trying to trying to look at that balancing of hopefully working with them into the future so thank you for the presentation though okay I'm going to go out to the public first person has the phone number ending in 5724 and we can hear you sorry for the dog good afternoon my name is Chris Murphy President Santa Cruz Warriors first and foremost I want to say thank you to council member city staff for the time and hard work serving our community during these times and in this issue you know just wanted to say you know the warriors are committed to the Santa Cruz I want to stay in Santa Cruz long term we just need a long-term arena solution you know the Santa Cruz Warriors are about a lot more than just basketball games we've worked hard to support the community through countless events and programs like re-do-achieve in our local schools also recently donating over 50,000 meals to second harvest food bank you know we've also supported numerous civic projects like river levy beautification with the coastal watershed council community serving missions like the resource recovery center post wildfires last fall and the current COVID-19 vaccination center has a permanent arena a permanent home in Santa Cruz will help us continue and expand that work our arena project expectations are to form a primarily privately funded project that hosts basketball music art entertainment other community benefiting events we look forward to sharing ideas and collaborating with the community once we fully know what the possibilities are for the site we want to stay in Santa Cruz we just need to move with some clear momentum forward toward a long-term long-term arena solution thank you very much for your time thank you Chris uh next up I have uh phone number ending in 0030 go ahead please unmute yourself office on the field again I was just uh you know I think the city has an opportunity this evening to basically what you're doing is you're selecting the scope community homework aside that what are going to be some of the best options for the downtown to expect you know the most responsible thing to do is to make that homework assignment as robust as possible and that means um including scoping out all the way to to Washington street whether or not Washington street is ultimately selected that's you know a very long process that will involve lots of community input and but I think it's the responsibility of the city to to have that on the table as as an option so that you know there are just there's more opportunities for the public to be involved in the process I think the the larger area will probably have received more you know press coverage and maybe generate more controversy which is actually a good thing if we want public participation and and so I think it we we even if you know it's not ultimately selected going out to Washington street I think it's still worthwhile you know doing the work to figure out you know what what the public wants and what some of the the feasible options are so that's why I would suggest having a as robust of of a community engagement process and robust of a review of the various options as possible and and include as an option going all the way out as far as Washington street thank you thank you next public member is 0193 that's your end of your phone number press star six please phone number ending in 0193 we're ready for you if you press star six you'll be unmuted since that's the previous call I pretty much said what I was going to say so I'll be brief which is simply that the planning director has pointed out that this whole area of land is the logical place connecting the downtown with the beach um and and it's a it's a very long laborious extensive time consuming process and we should take advantage of it to talk to all the people in that area particularly about what they would like to have happen because it's an area that just makes sense for the city to extend in in the downtown and to say that and I understand that the short term thing is to get the warriors into their place but the long term thing is really to deal with that area in a way that makes sense for everybody until the long term growth of the city and um um now is the time to do it because you're doing it and all good to do it thank you I was muted next up is phone number ending in five six five two and you're unmuted go ahead please hi thank you mera filipini here the importance for community engagement and input from the public has come up as a priority to council a number of times today this boundary decision would undoubtedly affect a large portion of the community members who have not been informed about it let alone asked for input on it this agenda item is a big deal and it's nice that public input is being promised by staff for further down the process but it was also previously indicated for this part of the process when it came up before council on October 13th it was tagged on to the REAP grant application for funding toward affordable housing at that time staff made it abundantly clear with repetition that there would be community engagement before the hiring of a consultant or the establishment of boundaries for any downtown expansion associated with the grant reviewing the recording confirms this the original language of promotion today is expressly circumventing the process that was originally delineated by staff and accepted by council in your previous motion passing this without that necessary community engagement with threatened community trust in the current city council as councilman Cummings has brought up with rightful concern Sarah has indicated that you do have time to engage with public input process at this stage so please do so however if you consider this motion today please edit the motion to state explicitly that it will not include boundaries for expansion of the downtown plan and that it is instead specifically approving an RFP for a consultant with loose ballpark of what staff recommends for expansion zoning but that any such establishment of new boundaries would include a public input process thank you thank you next step is item or excuse me phone number ending in 0836 please press star six to unmute council members my name is Ed Porter and I'm calling to say that I listened very carefully to what staff had to say a few moments ago and all the question was brought up whether or not this matter would be referred to the planning commission and the answer was it's not necessary to do that I think we shouldn't have a planning commission if that's the decision we have a planning commission for the purpose of considering matters like this staff is saying that we're contemplating a major planning process of course it should be referred to the planning commission there's no doubt in my mind furthermore if we're going to continue in the in the manner that we did in January of approving building in excess of our building height we need to have a community conversation about that and it certainly needs to be on the table to reconsider building heights of 70 feet if in fact the state density bonus is going to allow higher heights than that in any place in our downtown thank you very much thank you believe that is the end of the folks who wanted to speak is anyone else in the public wanting to speak to this item there's one person what they're asked right that'll phone number ending in five three six two can you hear me good evening yes this is Judy Grunstra and I could picture you know a wonderful connection from the town to the beach if it's done right um so but I do think the public needs to weigh in early and uh otherwise it could be a disaster so I think you should have learned by now that the public wants to weigh in and it's not a good idea to cut corners at the start of a process so um I'm looking forward to something that public can participate in fully and um right from the start thank you yeah we don't know the warriors could be putting pressure on every other community that is making them an offer and we shouldn't be held hostage to that okay thanks thank you I will go ahead and go back to council for additional questions of staff and deliberations council member Watkins please make a motion at this point all things when I want to just say I appreciate the clarifying comments made by staff to help us better understand what's before us and really the instituting of an RFP that will essentially kick off a public process also recognize the timeline and the end date that's essentially in place and how to expedite that and also do our due diligence in terms of the process and the what I took away was also a deductive approach to why you landed in the recommendation that you did create this ingenuous type of process when you already had a predetermined understanding of what that would look like but then to kick off the process knowing that that could be the approach for the community input is sort of how I was able to take that away also want to acknowledge the contributions that were brought up stepping up and partnering to support our community amongst some really challenging times I've frequently seen partnerships that have been really geared at giving back to the Santa Cruz community and the timeline associated with the permanency of the location for them I had a one sort of question and I'm wondering maybe this could be in the RFP is that it says would be to go to the planning commission essentially to community input as sort of that first we wanted to speak for sure I'm happy to jump in there yeah that that can be is certainly a approach is you know with the initial kickoff going there would be a good opportunity for hearing from the commission you know it's tough to have dialogue with the you know three minutes and so that would that could certainly be an early component to to go to the planning commission and hear back from them and welcome public comment at the same time but I would say that you know that is that would not and I don't think this was your intent at all but just for the members of the community that would not supplant any of the other community outreach efforts that we would do that would allow for additional engagement that's right yeah it would just be sort of the preliminary first steps to have their input and awareness around this as well and then while I have you you know I welcome if there's any corrections to what my statement was in terms of what I took away at the high kind of level of of what the presentation and clarification have been if I could see the recommendation and then I want to give that one more read and then I I think in terms of moving our deliberations forward I'm happy to make a motion so Sarah I emailed Bonnie some tweaks just to clarify that that second part Bonnie do you have that or I could share it if that's easier I do have it it might be easier for me if there's changes okay great a couple of suggestions to really clarify for the community what the word what step we're taking here so the there's a number one okay oh sorry obviously where's number one okay number two would change there and and I'll let you read it so I'm not reading over folks but essentially establishing a preliminary boundary okay I can go ahead and read the motion as the motion would be to issue a RFP a request or proposal to secure consultant services to manage the regional early action planning grant funded projects shown on the attached maps for inclusion in the analysis in general plan RFP scope for the expanded downtown plan that would be that was the original proposed motion now the alternative that you emailed Bonnie is what I'm about to read next right please that's correct with the additional text underlined okay and so the other alternative would be then to select the areas currently zoned CBD-E and RT-C south of Laurel Street as shown on the attached maps as the preliminary boundary that could be refined later for the inclusion in the scope for the request of proposals for an expanded downtown so I think I'm more comfortable with the alternative to language and I appreciate you coming up with that so my motion would be to move forward with number one and the alternative language for number two and then maybe it doesn't necessarily have to be kind of a component of the motion but to direct the staff as a component of the RFP and commission weigh in the outreach prioritized for the and early consultation in the process is what I think the intent was to go to them sort of right off the bat for early consultation in the outreach process yeah there you go thank you I second that everyone calling a robust community an engagement process what I'm hearing from staff that that that that will be part of the process this motion passed it will kick off with the planning commission giving consultation and then we'll move into a robust community engagement process I wanted to just echo what my colleague councilmember Watkins said about how the warriors have contributed to our community and the civic engagement and I wanted to further just point out that beyond the amazing civic engagement and recreational and entertainment that they provide there's a significant amount of funding that comes to our community from the warriors being here approximately $130,000 in general funds and approximately $300,000 to the public trust these are these are estimates that I asked staff to give me so that's significant and it aligns directly with our re-envision Santa Cruz our interim recovery plan in infrastructure in financial stability and revitalization of downtown so I think that's really important for us to keep in mind as we make these decisions and move forward is that the warriors are fond and they're wonderful and they contribute significantly to the vitality and sustainability of our community so thank you Council Member I have Council Member Cummings Council Member Golder and Council Member Brown Thank you Mayor I just have my colleagues and thanking Chris Murphy and the Warriors for their ongoing communities support and you know just want to express that we you know we kicked off these conversations last year and these conversations have been you know ongoing as well around creating a permanent home for the Santa Cruz Warriors there's a ton of people in our community who appreciate them being here and I think we want to do everything we can to support this effort I do also want to thank my colleague Council Member Watkins for the language that was included around directness to the Planning Commission I understand the urgency and I think to the comments that were brought up by the community you know this came before us back in October of last year when we were discussing the recrant opportunity and I think we really need to you know stay committed to trying to have community process as a part of this and I know that sometime has gone by and there's a sense of urgency but you know at a minimum having to go to the Planning Commission for their input I think is really important I do want to point out that there were Planning Commission meetings that were scheduled but then canceled for January 21st for February 4th for March 4th and for March 18th and these all could have been opportunities where this item could have gone to the Commission come to us and then we could have you know in the sense you know with knowing how urgent this is to get moving forward you know we could have had these these recommendations come to those meetings get input and while it's not the broadest and most robust community input and engagement process these bodies exist for a reason their appointments that are made by council members and we are you know we vote these individuals in to provide us with recommendations on very major community decisions and so I think it's really critical that we include them in these processes and in this instance in particular there were four opportunities for this item to go to the Planning Commission prior to it coming into council because there were no items heard at those meetings and I think that you know if we are to if we want to maintain public trust we do need to have some kind of public input process and the planning commission is one of those bodies that is there for us to get input from I would as part of the motion I'm wondering if this could go and I'd like to hear maybe from staff and from other council members but I think it would be good given the urgency if this item could go to the first meeting of the planning commission in April it's unclear what level of changes needs to be made if we're you know directing that these if we're allowing for these preliminary boundaries to be considered and then sending it to the Planning Commission and that we're going to finalize these boundaries at another point is is it possible for this item to go to the first meeting in April of the Planning Commission and and then receive input on the proposed general plan and zoning changes and recommendations from that group and then I don't know if it would need to come back then or if those recommendations would be included but then you know come back after we've had more community outreach but yeah I think that you know if we can get a sense at a minimum from the Planning Commission what their thoughts are and you know other input that comes to that meaning we've heard from other people today members of the community today are expressing extending the boundaries further than what we're recommending so obviously there is a difference in what you know what the community thinks about in terms of the boundaries so I guess I'd like to see if that might be an amendment but would like to ask staff if it would be possible for this to go and I would imagine this report itself could go along with the some notes on the discussion that we've had today sir thank you council member Cummings I think you kind of hit the nail on the head in terms of your question your follow-up question which was when you said I'm not sure what the outcome what we would do with that is so what I would be asking is would the intent to be for you to for us to come back and have the council select those boundaries at a later date or would it be just to go to the keep the planning commission sooner rather than later meaning as early as possible in April and I think you know pros and cons to each if if you wanted us to come back to the council there would be a delay I can't say that you know we would not get an RFP I mean it's a really tight schedule to get an RFP completed and back in front of the council by June so even if we you know jumped on this and brought it to the council and if if the council's desire is to not select the boundaries until the planning commission has weighed in the earliest we would be back in front of the council who would be august with a consultant if you wanted to just if you just wanted us if you wanted to say like here are the general boundaries but go to the planning commission and get their initial thoughts and considerations then that would not have a delay on the project we would we would be able to go ahead and draft that RFP and then the the only the only negative I would see with that is we wouldn't necessarily have the consultant on board for that initial discussion but you know they could always go back and view the tape they just you know they may bring additional ideas that you know could benefit the conversation so you know pros and cons to each approach and you know timing being the the key consideration depending on whether or not you want this to if you want to direct us to make the bound the preliminary boundaries known as part of the RFP or if you want to come back and make that preliminary boundary decision decision later I guess given that these aren't final boundaries it seems like if we adopt the preliminary boundaries but then we have the planning commission to weigh in on this and we're not going to finalize the boundaries I don't see that as being a problem I think that's also what the community is concerned with is that if we were to because because with reading the report the way it was drafted and prior to our meeting today I think the many members of the public thought that we were going to finalize these boundaries today and that was the you know walking into this meeting those are the concerns that I came with so we're not going to finalize the zoning boundaries and just preliminarily designate them that's an operate that won't delay us you know going through this RFP process if that will then also allow for these preliminary boundaries to go to the planning commission and receive input you know I'd see that that first meeting with the planning commission to really help inform you know and be an opportunity for our commissioners to weigh in for the community to weigh in even more and if there's a need to change those boundaries I would imagine that would come up and that's going to come back to us at some point in time so that's kind of my understanding where we're at and I guess my concern is you know given that the planning commission could have weighed in at these other meetings that were canceled is it possible for us to get this to them as soon as possible because it sounds like we really want to get as much input as possible and we really want to have our plan commission weigh in on this item so I just have a quick clarifying question about the motion just make sure I'm clear and then we've got four members queued up so the question is is the question the timing of the first of the meeting in April just trying to clarify for the motion maker is that really the intent is not this so the boundaries are not going to be drawn that there will be a long public process a two-year public process to basically draw the boundaries basically it sounds like over many considerations so is the intent council member coming to try to just get the planning commission involved as soon as possible the motion maker as well I mean I think that that's I'm not sure if that was part of that direction but it going to the planning commission and be prioritized for early consultation but I do you know I'm trying to reconcile the the fact that there's community concern because this could have gone under the planning commission and hasn't and then reconciling that with the urgency of you know needing it to go needing us to get this community input because the times the clock's ticking on this so and I imagine that that input would also be useful as this goes to further community as we receive more input from the community on what the zoning should be yeah unfortunately I don't I don't think we can go backwards so I mean I think your intent really is to try to get it to the early to the first meeting in April and Lee is that possible on your end? Sharon I'm checking our schedule is that that agenda goes out later this week and I'm just pulling up the info right now while I'm waiting for this to load because I've got a swirling week here the we were not able to send this to an earlier planning commission because the item was not ready I just want to make that clear that Sarah has been focused on the objective standards work and so that's why it hasn't been to a planning commission and so you know from a perspective of RFPs they're not typically sent to the planning commission that's not to say that they can't be and for something like this you know we're happy to do that if that's the will of the council but just in terms of like addressing the comments of like why wasn't this sent to the planning commission beforehand the report that came to the council specified that you know we were going to go into outreach and come directly to the council it didn't say we were going to come back and go to the planning commission there's nothing that that requires that we go to the planning commission there's also nothing that says we don't have to except for that timing aspect you know so when we when we do those things we add an additional time and as as we've heard you know the the warriors do have a interest in moving this forward sooner rather than later and so you know we we want to support that but also if there was not a clear path if if we felt that it wasn't entirely clear and we weren't sure about which direction to go we wouldn't have brought this to the the council at this point in time we would have gone out to the community and said hey you know what do you guys think about these pros and cons so I just wanted to to provide a little bit more background on on why we ended up where we did and so I'm not I think that we can I'm not seeing any issues you know we could present this report to the planning commission at the April 1st meeting and you know they could weigh in and then I would just ask for clarification with respect to the intent of the council with regards to are you are you saying move forward with the RFP with the preliminary boundaries and then just bring this to the planning commission or are you saying I'll turn this back Lee if you don't mind to the motion maker because I've got to choose the one that can provide that direction I appreciate that thank you mayor and thank you Lee and I think what I would say is there I don't as the motion maker don't have an interest in wanting to further delay but do want to prioritize as indicated in and item number three for our planning commission to weigh in as you know as an early the consultation as as basically written on the on the motion here I do think that you know I really appreciate I'll see your comments Lee in regards to just the the not sort of intentional approach to keep out a commission body but the divergent workload needs right essentially is what I'm hearing as well as wanting to also include them moving forward in terms of this just really being the very beginning of the process so I I think for item number three I think really covers what I'm reading mainly in the friendly amendment other than wanting to prioritize that go before them at the earliest convenience which if I'm hearing from you Lee that that this could be that before them in April but I wouldn't want that to be placed it's not my intention as a motion maker to replace us moving forward with direction to issue the RFP at this time so I I mean at at least that's how I that's how I'm presenting it I don't know if the second year of the motion feels differently council member Caltari Johnson I you're you're you're you're in agreement with council member Watkins that's that's correct yeah so are you so the earliest consultation you feel like is providing that direction so the friendly amendment is is not being accepted in its entirety I mean what it could be is just to incorporate that the early consultation be the presentation of this agenda item at their first meeting in April but wouldn't preclude us from moving forward with direction and approval of the RFP at this time right yeah I think it could be both at both ends if you will I think your your number one captures the intent to issue the the ready to have requests for a proposal okay okay I will move on to council member Brown council member Bruner council member Golder and council member Watkins are you your hands still up or you're gonna you're good okay council member Brown yeah so I I just want to thank my colleagues council member Watkins thank you for being willing to you know to include some additional language around inclusion the planning commission in this process I think it's really important that we we do that and I don't I'm not saying this because I want to open up another can of words about what goes in the motion but I did just want to add that you know the downtown commission also has a really important role to play in this and and did in the downtown recovery plan and so you know I hope that they're also prioritized to be involved in this process early on and so I want to just say that and then a couple other comments you know I I recognize the interests that and the need that the warriors have to try to get some clarity on where things are you know where we're headed moving forward for their own planning process and I want to support that I want to support them as much as possible I absolutely agree with my colleagues with Council Member Calentari-Johnson and Watkins in their appreciation for what the value added that the warriors bring is not just economic you know activity but really you know a commitment to our community so I I just and I want to thank Chris Murphy for you know all the work that you do and in coordinating and leading that effort so I do want to make sure that we're not I guess I'm just wanting to say and Claire be clear that I am not looking to in asking for additional public engagement or the Planning Commission to be involved or the Downtown Commission to be involved trying to delay this process I just would like to see it be as iterative as possible so that when we we do get to that point of making a decision people will feel like they have been heard that that input has been um you know incorporated and I think it'll just be a smoother process kind of on the you know down the road if we do that up front so I'll I think I'll leave it there but thank you everyone for working together to get this motion together thank you Council Member Brown Vice Mayor Bruner thank you I wanted to comment on the motion and I'm glad the friendly amendment that Council Member Cummings brought in and it was just clarified my question in terms of item three of the motion of Direct Planning Commission to be prioritized for early consultation in the outreach process and I wanted to know if the motion maker intended that to be in regards to the RFP but even though number one states that so it sounds like we are the motion is to go ahead with the staff recommendation of the identified yellow boundary for the purposes of obtaining RFPs and in commission to take a look at those staff recommended boundaries yellow boundaries at their first meeting is that correct anybody's understanding the following zoning process moving forward with these proposals and I just I want to make sure that clear and understood because I really share the concern that our committee members have called in and written about I also want to firmly urge that we make a commitment to really support the Santa Cruz lawyers in their needs with moving forward a permanent arena and staying in Santa Cruz and you know what they've contributed to our community to the economy what they bring I think it's really important for us for them to hear a commitment from us in whatever way that looks that they will be able to move forward with a permanent arena and I just think you know identifying those six goals in this staff report was was all very valuable and important and you know number I think it was number three was working with the Santa Cruz lawyers to establish those design standards so I really want to emphasize that we make that commitment and it's part of this piece but I don't know how that you know piece can really be solidified in and of itself you know irregardless of the whole picture we move forward if there was a way to do that so thank you for clarifying with the friendly amendment that was what I had in thank you Vice Mayor I have Council Member Golder Council Member Golder question or a comment somebody else made it and I just want to say thank you to everybody for your thoughtful and thanks everybody for your comments when you called in I did want to acknowledge one more contribution that the warriors have made to the community and I just think it's sort of something that sometimes gets lost is that this investment in our youth that's kind of like a future investment when we talk about prevention of drug use or homelessness or other other things that we're trying to work on now when we work on pro-social activities like the warriors provide the the reading read to achieve program they do with the schools and just the tickets they give away to inspire kids to have access to see these athletes in action and I can't thank Chris Murphy and the warriors enough for that future investment in our community in terms of the youth and I do look forward to seeing what the process looks like as far as as community engagement goes in contributing to this very early process of this we have a motion and council member coming did you have more on the on this item two really quick items one I just wanted to clarify for council member Bruner and some of the newer council members last I think it was August 11th of 2020 the council voted to send a letter of support and commitment to wanting to to see a permanent home for the Santa Cruz Warriors so I just to the questions you had I just wanted to let you know that we that's kind of what started this process was that item that came on our agenda in August of 2020 so we've we've sent those letters out and just to remind the community that the council did support and made it clear to the warriors that we do want to try to create a permanent home for them here in Santa Cruz and then the other question I had I just wanted to get clarification from the the staff so what I know we've talked a lot about the zoning changes and everything today but what what are some of the next steps going to be so you know we're going to secure consultant and then are we going to when do we expect something to come back to council with kind of like a timeline and you know really the different time the different opportunities for engagement with the public that's a great question what I would say is that when we come back with the RFP consult the selected consultant from the RFP that contract will contain the proposed process now it's it probably won't be very specific as I noted before you know they'll probably say an early task is creating a community engagement strategy but it will be broad in terms of saying like we're going to engage the community at steps a b and c in roughly these time frames but it won't necessarily dial in how that will occur but you'll have a decent understanding the number of touch points you know so they'll say you know we'll have four community meetings and we'll have two survey monkey or something you know okay they'll they'll basically set the parameters of this is what our work scope is going to include so you'll get a general idea when that comes back these zoning boundaries is that correct in terms of the specific boundaries what could happen is as part of this process when we're going out to the community the community could say you know well we would prefer if it was this way or that way and you know they could say well if that's the case then you know maybe right here these parcels or maybe a property owner comes along and says you know I own these three parcels right here and I would like to be included and you know maybe we hadn't thought about including them because there are three small parcels that we didn't expect to redevelop so you know through that process it will likely be an iterative in process where you know we're working with the community and we're refining those boundaries what I would expect to happen as part of this and what is is typically the case is there will be check-ins with the council so you know when we get to certain stages in the process we'll say hey you know let's bring you know a typical one is before we select a preferred alternative to go study in the EIR we'll typically bring that to the council and say council you know this is the direction we're heading we don't want to go do 10, 12, 14 months worth of work if you're not on board with the direction that we're heading and so you know during those check-ins you'll get an opportunity and we can highlight you know here's what we've heard from the community this is why we made these tweaks this boundary was here and we contracted it because you know this was happening and this boundary was here and we expanded it because that was happening and what do you think so so it's it would be an integrative process in that respect appreciate that feedback because I think it helps for members of the public to understand that this isn't going to be an ongoing process and we're not finalizing boundaries and that there's going to be opportunity to engage and if we need to change there's opportunity to do that as well so thanks that concludes all my comments on this item thank you council member council member Golder your hand is up did you want another comment I did I had one more question I wanted to ask and it was has there been an attempt already or is it part of the process to reach out to the property owners in that yellow zone and maybe some of the the other I don't remember the letters but you know the ones that are close in there to see what their thoughts are in this process and I mean I know there's some properties that I can think of that just seem underutilized or maybe ready for some revitalization and so I just was wondering that you broke up a little bit so if I if I didn't if I don't cover a part of your question let me know but we have so when council made that direction back in August we initiated conversations with the Santa Cruz Warriors and so we have been in conversations with the Santa Cruz Warriors and some of the key landowners in that area where they may have a a potential opportunity for a stadium so we've had a series of conversations with them we have not done any broader outreach we haven't done we haven't kicked off an outreach other than talking with the the Warriors and some key landowners there some of the larger parcels yeah that's that's what I was wondering and but the but through the process you'll reach out to the other other property owners as well I'm sure without a doubt both within whatever boundaries but also you know from a broader range you know one of the the great things about the downtown is that it draws everyone from the community and it really is the heart of our community and so we expect that this will have interest not only from the immediate area and the landowners that are directly affected but also the larger community who will be affected by the overall look and feel of our downtown and I have to say like I was a little embarrassed that I didn't know this until recently but I didn't realize that the Sycamore Street isn't really considered that's not considered part of downtown is that is that's why I was confused I was like I used to live on Sycamore Street I thought I lived downtown so the downtown plan different people have different visions of what downtown is but the downtown plan itself stops on the southern boundary at Laurel surprising to me thank you yeah it is somewhat confusing because some of the same zoning districts you know it's still the central business district zoning designation CBDE farther south so that can add to the confusion as well you can blame it on our zoning yeah okay great if I could I would suggest one clarification in the motion under the friendly amendment the first line where it says and receive input on the general zoning plan and recommendations I would say and receive input on the report presented as part of this item and associated recommendations if that's okay with the council I think that was that what the intent is is basically presenting this report as the kickoff that's a good catch yeah that's how I read it and I appreciate you correcting the language to reflect that more actively okay so the motion is before you it is to go without recommendation of issuing the RFP to secure consultant services to manage the regional early action plan grant funded project to select the areas currently zoned designated here in the motion language as the preliminary boundary that could be refined later for inclusion in the scope for the request of proposals for an expanded downtown plan and direct that the planning commission be prioritized for early consultation in the outreach process and that the intent of that would it be it would be going to the planning commission at the first meeting in April to receive input on the report presented as part of this item and associated recommendations and Bonnie I'll ask for a call though is this part acceptable to councilmember Cummings I did have a question about that the associated zoning that's what I'm wondering about because it's it's the zoning that's in the report is that that's considered the associated recommendations because zoning recommendations because that I think that that would capture me I was just trying to and I think that that is helpful just in sort of making sure that it is broad I would anticipate that there are going to be conversations about that the concern is that we're not really sure what those what the zoning is actually going to be that's going to be later but I think this is absolutely fine the way that it's worded now because I think that what the planning commission will naturally do is start delving into some of the thoughts that they have surrounding where the project may go with the updated downtown plan and future zoning that's associated with that and I guess the big thing from large zone that's been reduced and so if there's any input on that or people are bringing input and they want to weigh in on those different zoning boundaries that wouldn't stop them from weighing in on on what's been brought to us today with all the recommendations because the full report would be brought rightly yes the full report would be brought jump in here so when you say zoning you mean the three different options for geography right we're not zoning it yeah the report would be okay okay we were understanding that word a little differently so you're interested in having the planning commission see all three options and you know hear this whole same report and talk through why we are recommending the yellow one thank you Sarah for clarifying that okay Bonnie we'll go and do a roll call though Council Member Watkins Callentary Johnson that motion passes unanimously okay we've got three more items this evening that one was scheduled for half an hour and it took us two hours off we go so we have next up item number 24 which is the unified master fee schedule correction and code compliance fee structure update and I have Sarah Damion and principal management analyst and more landry code compliance manager as our presenters if for members of the public who do want to speak on this item now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen the order that we'll do item in is that there will be a presentation of the item by staff followed by questions from the council we will then take public comment and then return to the council for deliberation in action so Sarah and Laura welcome thank you for hanging in there tonight no problem can everyone see my screen yes we can fantastic so Laura and I will be talking with all of you tonight about fee schedule revisions what we will be asking for or from you make sure I can click this correctly is to essentially adopt their resolution to revise our city unified master fee schedule and there's a number of reasons for why we're asking you to do this tonight some of them are listed here on this slide we will not go over every single one we'll kind of give you some of the higher points a lot of the rationale is explained in our staff report for why we're looking at this how we are today so just some a little bit of overview and some general points before we really jump into the presentation I wanted to point out that we are not recommending any new fees as part of the resolution before you everything you're seeing today is revisions to existing fees that we have fees for service specifically for our department planning and community development these fees for services are different from taxes they're different from impact fees so we just wanted to make those clarifying points up front to put it in some context fees for services are things back in the good old days when people were coming in person to our counter and applying for building permits it would be the cost for the plan review for say for that building permit or perhaps a research fee from a planning staff even charges for copies so those are the types of fees for services that we're talking about again all existing none new our presentation tonight is going to be split into two sections I'll be taking care of this first part that really covers rental building and planning and then Laura will cover a more specific section of our fee schedule for code compliance and that will be structuring their existing fees to more flat rate fees it's important to note as part of Laura's that and the fees that I'm talking about today all of these fees for services their charges cannot exceed the reasonable cost to provide the service so you'll notice some attachments as part of the report specifically for Laura's section that provides the analysis and breakdown of how those costs were established for that proposed flat rate fee schedule so for this first section the problem you guys are helping me address really is that I have two different universes I'm dealing with two different fee schedules the city's unified master fee schedule which includes some but not all of our department's fees and then our department fee schedule our department fee schedule was was initially in a format adopted way back in 1987 there were a few fees on the schedule that were left there on accident and didn't make its way to the city's unified master fee schedule so this resolution will correct that issue with the adoption of the city's unified master fee schedule in 2017 there were a couple of minor technical errors related to some of our fees all of this you guys will be able to see on table A of our staff report for everything I'm talking about in this section but some of those technical errors really cause some inefficiency particularly for the admin team when it comes to making adjustments every July and January so making those corrections will really ease that annual and bi-annual adjustment for myself and for the folks within our within our administrative division there's also as part of the 2017 fee study there was a large component that was related to cost recovery and for those departments that our divisions they should say of departments that did participate in that cost recovery study they receive increases every July to try to get to that cost recovery period if you guys recall that unfortunately not all of our divisions participated at that time so that further split up our schedule and put some of the building fees on our old schedule where they did not receive their CPI adjustments for their hourly rates so that's another thing we're hoping to correct through this resolution another funky part of it is just the fact that because we have this old fee schedule in the city's new one we now have two different CPI schedules which from an administrative standpoint has been a nightmare the old schedule says that CPIs happen in July of each year and the new schedule says they happen in January so those are some of the things again you guys can reference Table A of the staff or Fort for the very specific ones but for at least this first section that pretty much covers and what we're trying to accomplish with consolidating everything on the unified master fee schedule so with that I'm going to pass it over to Laura for the co-compliance section Hi Laura Welcome Thank you Sarah and good afternoon to the council members I'm Laura Landry and I will be presenting the fees for co-compliance services the title for the municipal code provides tools for staffing needs to date compliance the tools include notice of violation cost recovery administrative civil penalties and administrative citations just to name a few while we prefer voluntary compliance the tools and title forward can be used in situations where an owner is unwilling to comply today we're here to discuss cost recovery one of the tools entitled for with the currency schedule costs are recovered through double fees of permits and a reinfection fee this is problematic for property owners who are working towards compliance and would require a to go through the permit process they will ultimately pay more than the property owners is unwilling to comply and does not require a permit also the current schedule or the currency schedule does not require does not encourage compliance it does not outline the events and the enforcement process and the costs that are associated with those events next slide please in developing the fee structure the following six goals were identified clarity consistency accuracy fairness low administrative burden to track time and to encourage compliance while the goal is always to gain voluntary compliance and situations where there's an active code case all parties would know what costs may occur if a case does not move towards compliance the cost would be consistent and accurate and fair regardless of the complexity of the case staff would also spend more time working on cases and less time tracking costs next slide please in developing the fee schedule we considered two methods charging out of an hourly rate and a flat rate based on triggering events we selected the flat rate method due to the complications with the hourly rate one with the amount of time staff spent tracking costs and the other property owners would not know how much the process would cost them and also it wasn't an ideal method for encouraging compliance on the other hand a flat fee rate the flat fee rate method provided fairness, clarity and may improve efforts to achieve compliance it would be less of an administrative burden and flat fee rates ties the cost to a specific event in the code enforcement process property owners would know exactly what is the enforcement actions or costs with delayed compliance trigger and event are the same for every case regardless of the complexity it provides clarity, fairness and consistency here we have a list of trigger and event that were identified as incurring costs the fee structure is included in the attachment seven of the staff report the costs of each are reflective of an analysis the code compliance specialist performed and represent an average time spent on a variety of cases which are included in attachment 10 of the staff report as a note the reinspection fee is a range scale fee that is based on the number of violations and possible involvement of multiple agencies for example a simple a single violation with by one agency would be less than a reinspection of multiple violations by multiple agencies I will now hand it over to Sarah created this slide just for convenience of what the recommendation was from the agenda but at this point if you guys have any questions this is the opportunity for that and I'll put it back to you Mayor thank you Clara and Laura for that report and the agenda report was really thorough and very clear on kind of the objective at least it's my reading of it to try to try to try to sort of gather the ducklings as we as we shall say put everything in one spot one timeline one schedule so very helpful I will open it up to any questions by council members any none okay I'll bring this out to the public for questions I see there's a question someone from the public with phone number ending in 1705 press star six to unmute yourself please hi thank you for taking my comment tonight I note the staff report says that co-compliance provides an important public service vital to protect the protection of public health safety and quality of life I completely agree with that and I appreciate the work co-compliance does however there are some issues with the way co-compliance is run currently co-compliance accepts any complaint without any evidence and there is no absolutely no consequence for a party making a false report I had four complaints filed against me within two years all of which were determined to be non-meritorious the department closed them which I appreciate however the department's default is to that the inspector go onsite and investigate even if the resident doesn't want that so I really wish that the department before they revised their fee schedule they revised their practice so that this doesn't happen anymore and that they don't waste their time investigating non-meritorious complaints and they don't impinge on the residents who don't want them there thank you very much thank you I will take it back to council then is there any questions or any direction on a motion tonight council member Cummings wondering if staff might be able to follow up to that co-compliance and then I'm happy to make a motion as well like to answer that one or Lee I'm not quite sure who that's in the staff level go ahead Laura if you'd like to respond your camera went off and maybe she wants me to reply no yes council member Cummings that is something that we have already discussed within our division and it is something that has been addressed so it's it's something that's recent I do appreciate the comment from the public and I just want to inform you that there is something that a conversation that has already happened and it's also been part of the process now thank you I'm happy to move the staff recommendation so this is a resolution revising the united no the unified master fees schedule correcting fees for planning zoning and building moving all planning and community development department fees from the department fee schedule to the unified master fee schedule updating certain fees by consumer price index adjustments and changing co-compliance fees from actual costs to flat rates identified in exhibit A great council member Watkins I'm prepared to second the motion so we have a motion to approve the staff staff recommendation gate by council member Cummings but a second by council member Watkins and Bonnie we will go ahead unless council members have any other questions you know not seeing any okay we will go ahead and have a roll call vote please I did have one question sure sorry I just did I know this is staff brought up in the presentation the differences between and the conflict between you know using CPI I think it was from July versus January so when would the fee schedule be updated for like have there been any updates in January of 2021 and when would the updates I guess would they after this would they yeah if they've already occurred yeah I'm just trying to reconcile the alignment of the different schedules and when they would kind of come into effect trust me it's been a doozy for me too so we have adjusted them for the ones that they've missed through 2017 based on January CPI that they've missed and so that they can cleanly be updated this January 2022 that sounds so weird yes okay great thank you that's all my questions thank you councilmember Cummings Fawney can you do a roll call vote please councilmember Watkins talentary Johnson vice mayor Brunner frozen frozen yeah now we're moving on to item number 25 on our general business agenda this is the emergency ordinance um temporarily extending the moratorium preventing commercial evictions for non-payment of rent as a result of economic losses related to the coronavirus pandemic for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you want to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen the order will be a presentation of the item by staff followed by questions from the council we will then take public comment and then return to the council for deliberation and actions and I will go ahead and turn this over Cassie I'm assuming it's you since I see you and not Tony so thank you and I'm going to be immediately passing it over to Stephanie Duck in our office who has prepared a short presentation and I'm also aware that Bonnie Lipscomb is on the call and she's available to answer questions as well great thank you welcome Stephanie hi everyone since a good afternoon but maybe good evening at this point I don't have a presentation but as you just said this is a proposed emergency ordinance to extend the city's temporary moratorium on commercial evictions for non-payment of rent as a result of economic losses related to COVID-19 pandemic I think most of the details and confusing executive order names and ordinances are all laid out in the staff report but I just wanted to give you a brief kind of high level overview and then see if you had any follow-up questions so as you are aware the city previously adopted an emergency ordinance imposing a temporary moratorium on both residential and commercial evictions the city's authority to do this came from an executive order issued by Governor Newsom which suspended state law that would preempt or restrict a local government from imposing limitations on commercial or residential evictions in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic on August 31st of last year Governor Newsom signed and took the law assembly bill 3088 which imposed a temporary statewide eviction moratorium for non-payment of rent for residential tenancies but was silent as to commercial tenancies 80388 preempt the city from either extending or adopting any new residential eviction moratorium ordinances however on September 23rd of last year Governor Newsom issued executive order number 8020 which extended a local jurisdiction's authority to impose commercial eviction protections through March 31st of this year he then extended this authority again an executive order number 321 with the ability to impose commercial eviction protections through June 30th of this year so while the commercial eviction moratorium adopted by council last year has likely been extended by Governor Newsom's most recent executive order our office recommends out of abundance of caution that the city council consider adopting this new emergency ordinance imposing a temporary moratorium on commercial evictions for non-payment of rent as a result of economic losses related to the COVID-19 pandemic happy to answer any questions if needed like I said I think there's a lot of ordinances and names in there so happy to help clarify thank you Stephanie Bonnie did you have anything to add Bonnie Lipscomb no a mayor I think Stephanie said it all I you know in general you know we're supportive of this continuing through June just to give that level of assurance to businesses in the midst of trying to get back on their feet as we hopefully move from the red tier to the orange tier that this is a level of assurance that the city supports them their rent continues to be due and so that's something that they'll need to negotiate with their landlord if they find themselves unable to pay at this time but they won't have to worry about evictions which is really critical thank you thank you and thank you Stephanie I'll go ahead if council members have questions I see council member Cummings and council member Golder thank you mayor I just had one question I know there's a number of different timelines that were brought up and I know that the residential eviction more time was mentioned and so I was just wondering when the last date was for the executive orders the state level on the timeline so the the last date for the executive order if you're talking about the one that that contains the language for residential moratoriums as well as commercial eviction moratoriums that expired September 30th and that was through executive order 71-20 but then the governor in executive order 80-20 continued to extend the the initial executive order that this all stemmed from but just left out the residential language and so from from moving forward from there he only referred to commercial eviction protections which were until March 31st and then now June 30th thank you council mayor if if I could just add to that you know separately at the state level the governor signed SB 90 or 91 into effect which protects the residential so I just wanted to make sure that we presented as part of the city managers a report on a companion bill in the house a few months ago and so there are pretty extensive protections for residential in place at this time as well as funding great thank you for clarifying that okay any other questions by council members thank you Stephanie and uh for your work on this appreciate it I'll go ahead and take it out to the public now for comments I am not seeing any hands up in the public so I will go ahead and come back to the council council member golden I was just ready to make a motion that's why they raised their hands so far so um but I see people raising their hands so maybe people have more comments yeah uh no the motion on I'm going to second oh okay okay yeah so I can read that uh I make to make make a motion to adopt an emergency ordinance preventing commercial evictions for nonpayment of rent as a result of economic losses related to the coronavirus pandemic for so long as authorized by the governor and a second by council member Watkins yep Bonnie will do a roll call vote unless there's any further questions by council members I'm not seeing any hands up okay let's do a roll call vote mm-hmm council member Watkins aye passes unanimously so we will move on to our final item no we still got nope we do have us this will be our final item of the evening um next up is agenda item number 26 which is the parks and recreation annual report for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you want to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen the order will be a presentation of the item by staff followed by questions from the council we will then take public comment and then return to the council for deliberation in action the staff presenter tonight will be Lindsay Bass our principal management analyst with our parks and recreation department and the item is a motion is to accept the fiscal year 2020 parks and recreation annual report welcome Lindsay her video is not on see her in my queue Lindsay are you able to press star six to join us yeah there she is hi there we can't hear you though we're not getting any there you go great how about now hear you now welcome apologies apologies sorry for the late technical difficulties I know Tony is here as well and he's coming in the meeting okay great just a few moments I'm Erin city council will be share my screen here I'll go ahead and jump into it here yeah go ahead Tony all right thanks mayor all right well thank you yeah thank you so much for the opportunity to talk about the parks and recreation departments annual report this is our first one first attempt at this so we're bringing this to the council this evening share with you and share with the community and get your feedback on this report gives direction for future years and how this can be most helpful to the council and for the community looking toward the future so yeah so really the purpose of this annual report the reason that we are doing this is to summarize the parks and recreation services and the scope of our operations to the community this is an opportunity for us to benchmark the work that we're doing for the community for the council and lend to just a more informed discussion on budget and discussions throughout each year it's also a mechanism for us to sort of provide a state of parks and rec each each year prior budget discussions and again it'll help us lead into those budget conversations and help shape priorities based on the different situations that we are facing in a given year so with that I'll send it over to Lindsay and then we'll just go through a short presentation here tonight and hope to open up to council for some feedback and discussion here tonight I'll send it over to Lindsay for now Lindsay we can't hear you what did we say we were going to do what were we able to deliver on where did we run into challenges and why was that year on year both internally and so just really quickly again we'll move relatively rapidly here but wanted to just start quickly with our mission again just primarily for the community here which is providing environments experiences and programs that originalize of residents and build a healthy community so we're actually this is something that Lindsay will talk about a little bit later on but want to work to refine our mission and vision and so forth but for now this is really summarizes the work that we do in the department in 2020 you can see some of our key overarching goals here but wanted to just provide a bit of a snapshot on the parks and recreation department as a whole so in fiscal year 2020 our budget was just over 17 million that includes the war budget as well we had 84 full-time employees maintained over 1700 acres of parks and open spaces and beaches and maintained 34 miles of trails just some of the high points this is a park system that is easy and worth bragging about it's an amazing park system here in Santa Cruz and something we can all take great pride in and put a lot of love and care into certainly but a couple of the high points 96% of our residents and Santa Cruz are within a 10-minute walk of a park that's among the highest in the country we have nearly three times the park acreage per capita than the national average and as everyone knows we've got world-class surf breaks and skate parks and public spaces and amenities such as West Cliff and Santa Cruz Warf and on and on I could talk about this a lot in terms of what Santa Cruz Parks and Rec is what the park system is what recreation does and services to the community but I would just summarize and say that really Santa Cruz Parks and Rec is really at the heart with a green economy and it's right at the heart of health and all policies as well our three pillars in parks and recreation are health and wellness social equity and conservation so it's almost identical to health and all policies it's right in line the work that we do every day is right in line with that so I'm very proud of that work I'll send it back over to Lindsay to talk a little bit about some of the department highlights that you will see captured in the annual report great thanks Tony these achievements we did want to highlight the few from each of the major goal areas that Tony just more than 20,000 city trees in creative ways one of which was the virtual recreation platform that they stood as an example of working families child care program child care so that people that needed to go to work but had kids that were home from school could continue to do so and bring home that paycheck in addition this construction work came to a halt in the fourth quarter of park improvements composed in the report and then $15,000 in scholarships provided to our friends of parks and recreation non-profit group and over 2700 hours donated by volunteers to maintain important park speech and open spaces now these are the achievements that we wanted to highlight for fiscal year 20 which was a very unique year but I would be remiss if I didn't tell you that in a more normal year we service over 130,000 people who benefit from our classes camps events and sports leagues not to mention our wharf west cliff and our multitude of parks and amenities as you look at this list of achievements one thing that we reflect on as we see this list though is you know some commonalities to our success and those include the fact that we wouldn't be able to do these things and achieve without dedicated it would not be able to do these things without incredible community partners our work really does take a village and so our success wonderful inspiration work in partnership for many to that end flexibility this year was a great example of so this has very real direct impacts on people and we saw that both in the work that I mentioned that our recreation department did but also in the work that our park teams did to maintain outdoor spaces that became essential refuges for people and the onset of the pandemic so I could go on much longer than that but I'll turn it back to Tony to tell you a little bit more challenges that we faced in 2020 thanks Lindsay he wanted to use the annual report to to also again as we're thinking about benchmarking to to think about and reflect on some of the challenges that we face in 2020 and we'll use this I hope to use this component in our annual report moving forward just to reflect on the challenges that we're facing and hopefully address those so that in future annual reports we can say hey we we resolved that no problem we moved on from that that crisis or that challenge but in the report you'll see that we flagged and we really created a highlight with respect to staff safety so this was an item that the Parks and Recreation Commission reviewed in 2020 and was a really critical item for us within the department we've taken a lot of steps within the department including working on a new uniform policy you'll see us glowing neon yellow in the coming months as we move to different logo vests and different uniforms out in the field and work across the park system to improve communications we had kind of some old school flip phones across the department before but now we've moved to smart phones and that allows us to communicate better but it also allows us to document and improve our work order system and internet tracking as well so we're taking a lot of steps within the department but that's an item that was a big priority and a challenge for us and I would be remiss to not include that that this isn't just staff safety but this is really public safety and so it's a broader discussion on how to make sure our parks are safe and it's a collaborative effort with the police department the neighborhood parks team in particular to enhance staff and public safety the second item Santa Cruz parks and open spaces continue to be among some of the most commonly used spaces probably in the county by individuals experiencing homelessness and the city's outdoor living ordinance is really begun to address challenges and you know with respect to this this factor but this will definitely continue to be an issue both for the individuals living in the parks and experiencing homelessness but also for a natural environment and the public seeking to access parks so identify that as an ongoing challenge for the park system the third item pandemic driven impacts on the department from the pandemic impacted the department and in a number of ways we canceled a lot of events we've had to close parks it's a number of different factors and so Lindsay highlighted the way that we've used these challenges to create opportunities so virtual programming for an example was a way that we utilize the challenge or embrace the challenge to create an opportunity I think on this on this item in particular you know it's something that between the city manager and the council and the commission this is an area I think as we continue to look at impacts on resources but financial and you know broader resources across the department working very collaboratively and strategically with the council and commission on how we address these impacts moving forward and so that's really the core of the annual report using this as a tool to work together to address the challenges we'll face moving forward so I share and provided a little bit of a brief summary of the scope of parks and recreation and a brief snapshot of our annual budget and staffing and on number four so that's operating and maintaining a diverse extensive system with limited financial resources so we've recently done within the department some analysis and looking at standards across the country and looking at standards across the state of California in terms of park systems and recreation systems what is the right number what's the right number of staff or what are the right levels of resources to serve this this scope of a parks and recreation department and system and that analysis and again looking at comps from other communities across the state staff per acre staff per capita a lot of different ratios that we've measured and some of this came from the work from management partners that the that worked for the city in the past months really the number of full-time staff that the parks and recreation department needs to get by at a baseline level is about a hundred FTEs that's slightly over 100 FTEs and currently currently we have 75 FTEs but as we're looking at this annual report at the time of the report we had about 85 84 FTEs from a capital investment standpoint our capital investment is very minimal we invest our impact fees Quimby and Park tax to Lindsay share the number of $300,000 that we invested into our system in 2020 but really that number needs to be in the ballpark of at least four to six million dollars per year to invest in our system we currently have estimated 80 to 100 million dollars in deferred maintenance and so having an annual investment of four to six million is really best practice in most common across Parks and Rec agencies in California and comparable communities across the United States so just a couple sort of again benchmarks and goals for us as we think about really where we need to be in terms of operating at an optimal level and then the last item here the ability to respond to new and emerging community needs this is where I think Parks and Recreation is really defined as this can do department and there's so many opportunities or needs that come up and so in 2020 in particular with a variety of initiatives related to social justice this is where Parks and Recreation was stretched and challenged that able to step up in terms of the mission bell project or the London Nelson Community Center Loudon Nelson Community Center initiative so these will always come up and they're important for our community and part of what Parks and Rec does but certainly a challenge in the capacity to address these work with the community and be really a good partner and really strategic in working together on these types of initiatives here in Santa Cruz so again just a summary of some of the challenges and hope to use this plan to identify some of these that we can work collaboratively with the Council of Commission to address these on an annual basis so with that I'll shift it back over to Lindsay and I'll just preface my quick comments here by saying this is our last slide but we did want to share with you that through the process of creating the report and the Recreation Commission in January and got really really thoughtful feedback from both commissioners and the public on aspects of the report one of which was it kind of reaffirmed some of the things that we had been hearing from staff as well as some things that we had been thinking ourselves as a management team about the need to revisit our mission, vision and values to make sure that they were aligned with our goals and objectives to make sure that we really had a making hard decisions we have advanced more quickly and prioritized in preparation and in part for this fiscal year but definitely we'll have things more fully developed for FY23 I mentioned benchmarking and to kind of look operable agencies as a partner so looking at a subset of agencies that they have assessed as well as a subset of agencies that tend to have a a park system or how do we how do we measure up and to really figure out you know what where do we want to be in the future you know what are those goals and objectives in milestone that's been hugely helpful and finally the process you know no process is perfect and we look to improve on our process of using this in a report and the information that we receive from our elected officials through efforts like tonight through conversations like those that we had with the parks and recreation commission and the public how we communicate the value of parks and recreation and the return on investment that the community getting on on our department and that's something that is key to stakeholders and the community and so over as we hope to continue to have more and more robust dialogue and conversations with you all so that we are aligned and tackling these challenges and moving towards a north star that will bring great things for our community so with that I'll hand it back to Tony and he'll thank you very much Lindsay and yeah just to summarize here our request for the city council this evening is to approve the parks and rec 2020 and a report this could be formal action to to approve it or could just hear it really this evening but we wanted to bring it on general business this evening so that we could have a broader conversation and give the council that opportunity to give formal direction on this and just wanted to give the community the opportunity as well to weigh in but I think a couple of the key questions I think for us for the council are what types of information would be most helpful to the council in this annual report in future years and how can we ultimately make this a better tool for the council's understanding of our our department and how can we use this as a tool for the council to help set strategic direction for the department whether it's related to budget or our operations so again anything that could really help the council through this mechanism would be helpful in assisting us to tailor this in future years to make it most effective for you and for the community as a whole so again I just want to thank Mayor Meyers and the council for the opportunity to to share this report it was fun to put it together and you know we're excited to be able to tell the story of Parks and Rec and just to appreciate your support and the community support and we'd love to open it up for any questions Thank you Tony and Lindsay and it looks like that might be a firebreak there in Moore Creek if I'm not mistaken since I've crawled around now out there looking for a Lonely Tiger Beetles over the years so great shot thank you for the report and I will turn it over to council for comments and questions I'm going to kind of cue myself here real quick just a few things out there and then Vice Mayor Bruner and council member Golder I'll turn it over to you guys I'm just flabbergasted by what you guys do with the amount of people you have and I think you impact your department impacts our residents every single day whether they take a walk to a park in the morning with their dog or they spend the afternoon with their kids in Frederick Street Park or you know they are using the skateboard park or what have you I think that you guys should think of yourself as just you're right Tony you are you're more than critical green infrastructure I mean you are critical infrastructure for our community period people live in Santa Cruz because of these extraordinary parks and open spaces that we have and I can't not say that and recognize people who were visionary when they protected those open spaces you know people like Celia Scott people like you know the folks who saved Erana Gulch I remember living here when those things were happening and you don't really realize it you know as a young college student but those are really forward thinking actions that really have created this place that we all love and you guys are stewarding in those places and those resources moving forward I think having the honor of part is a wonderful idea because I think your department is unfortunately the department that gets cut first when we go into crisis you have some of the most important infrastructure that helps our community stay healthy and vibrant and I'm especially thinking about the pool and the work that council member Walkins and council member Brown and I did with looking at you know how do we bring that back to life it's an important part of not just for people to be healthy but literally for people to learn how to swim in a community in that where they live next to the ocean so it's a critical piece of infrastructure for for our families to have access to and for people to remain healthy I mean I'm done master swimming there and I've watched 85 and 90 year old people go back and forth in that pool over the last 30 years so it's a really critical important thing to the community so I think this report is really really a great idea to really let the council know what's happening with the department because you are sort of the silent you know the silent giant amongst other other departments I have one question for you guys is the department engaged with the Bay Area open open space council at all Santa Cruz county is considered part of the Bay Area open space council area it's a nine county but we're the special tents county that group especially has done just outstanding work over the last really 15 20 years in really under helping you know what parks mean to people you know they're the ones that have with East Bay regional parks you know they're the ones that sort of started the prescription for parks or parks for prescription programs things like that that really make a difference people's lives are you are we members of that or do we engage in that effort at all we're engaged with a lot of different groups I'd say through the pandemic in particular engagement has increased definitely throughout the region but that's a group that to my knowledge we have not connected with so yeah appreciate that that right I would because I think that they have a number of dashboards and community wellness measurements and other ways that they're looking at the value of parks they've done some green infrastructure work they've done green economy work Bay Area Open Space Council they're out of Berkeley but again San Cruz County is part of their region and they I think they have some of the most forward-thinking people in in the United States literally involved in that organization and they have an amazing annual conference is really really great so mostly compliments I think I think some forecasting when you say things like you have a deferred capital improvement program that's 80 to 100 million dollars that sort of doesn't in a sense it's terrifying but also in a way doesn't mean anything right so looking at how do we you know in the next 10 years what is in that capital improvement program is it rebuilding our pool is it rebuilding civic auditorium is it building a new basketball court you know so trying to trying to put a face to that number is really important because there is a lot of value in what you provide to the community so that would be one thing that I would look and then I think the Quimby tax and some of the things where you guys get your money is a big black box for a lot of our community and you're eligible for those things and a lot of those things are tied to development and a lot of the projects that we're kind of queuing up on may provide those resources to you so I think trying to figure out how to convey that boring Quimby calculation all of that really helping people understand that investing in our community by building housing by building commercial by building the things that help a community grow actually also helps our parts to work so you know these are investments that we require and that the state requires when the state sees a community providing you know opportunity for people to expand their businesses or bring in a hotel or maybe you know bring in some housing that benefit actually by state law goes to our local recreation and parks department so that's a really important relationship that I think is really important to also convey in the report those are my main main comments so thank you for doing it very well well worthwhile I'll call on vice mayor Bruner and then council member Golder and then council member of Calentari Johnson Thank you mayor Myers great work great report does a great job as a glance and I think one other tool that might be considered would be a map of the city parks there's six tennis courts for example consideration I think that would be a really helpful tool for council for the public to parks and recreation map at least you know yeah essential public services your programs your parks your open spaces and you know for the well-being of our community thank you for putting this together and really showcasing everything that you do do Golder thank you vice mayor I completely echo everything that the mayor and vice mayor said and I I was thinking and it's kind of a question but I know we talked to at one meeting about how the and I've seen it with my eyes how many people are using our trails in our outdoor recreation facilities especially in you know during the pandemic and so one thing that I was curious about has there and I know that budgets are tight but we are we are moving forward with some of these development has there been any talk about acquiring new property for potential you know parks or or sports fields or or maybe building additional trails and things like that for people to use and so maybe like just one thing that you could add in a future report is you know things that you're planning to do in the future I guess and so kind of echoing what the mayor said but I just think our outdoor facilities are are so well used and I think I don't know I'm sure you probably have numbers about how many more people are using the trails especially during this time it would just be great to see more Council Member Conntary Johnson yes to everything that was said thank you so much Lindsay and Tony for the presentation and all the work that your department does really really just in true gratitude for what your department provides to our community it's really amazing to see all the components of health and all policies in here and I think this is such a great department and a great this report is a great opportunity to show how we operationalize this framework and it can be used as a model for our city's a whole and other departments I mean I just I see it everywhere here around environmental sustainability equity well-being so I think to explicitly draw that out will be really wonderful as a model for the rest of our departments and our city in general you know you mentioned somebody mentioned partnerships I think you did Tony that that this work has a lot of partnership that's another tenant of health and all policies is that collaboration and partnerships is how we move forward with these pillars of equity excuse me equity well-being and sustainability and I think one further step is to think about partnerships in terms of generating further revenue and using this as a launching point for grant prospecting but there's so much that we do around youth prevention substance use prevention criminal justice system involvement so I think there's there's we can think of furthering partnerships with these systems with you know maybe the child welfare system the education system so there are a lot of state grants and federal grants out there that are particular to those systems and may not necessarily at at a first glance seem like it's a fit for a city parks and rec department but I think we can absolutely make the case that we do so much work that interrelates and crosses over to these other systems that we would be prime for some additional revenue for the amazing work that you do so thank you thank you thank you for watching what was wonderful and the work that you and your team is doing in our community is is more than essential but is just what contributes to making Santa Cruz the special replacement is I want to echo a lot of the comments that have been made by my colleagues on the kind of the last comment that counselor Calentari Johnson brought up in regards to partnerships I do think there's a lot of opportunity there and I know we talked about it with some of the workforce development staff and things that you already really have in place I I really recognize the challenges around quantifying the work right because prevention is really hard to quantify and we know how much it costs when things are going to be fixed but it's really hard to say how much we saved when we do things right and however we can start shifting that narrative around parks as public safety around youth engagement and community engagement as public safety as social engagement and responsibility of our environment the more we sort of shift that narrative and recognize the essential components of our community I really want to share what was mentioned around sort of the potential for using parks as a prescription for health and the equity conversation around how to continue to ensure that all members of our community have access to our incredible facilities and you know I really want to see personally how we can have more diversity in our junior life arts program with a number of the students in the Beach Flux community and potentially supporting them getting to the Harvey West pool if they need swimming lessons and learning how to learning how to swim so that they can feel comfortable and confident going into the program but diversity in that program would be incredible and it's something I aspire to see move forward I also just will add kind of an affirming kind of response around thinking about forecasting and financial opportunities around other revenue options I know Tony you've brought these up in the past in terms of really looking at sort of these equity speed scales but also impact bonds and such like that to really ensure that we can kind of just keep in mind how I think what the mayor brought up in terms of just our overall community long-standing community investment and these natural resources and then appreciation and acknowledgement of how nimble you were and your team was this last year your report really showed that and also just highlighting the stories and the quotes that you brought up it's about how you feel and I was looking at that last slide and I was thinking about my daughter going crazy through the like Iranagolch bridge on our scooter and I'm like no knock people over and it's like this incredible feeling that you have when you experience our parks right and so how to just really incite that as we tell our stories but yeah thank you for bringing this item to us today and offering us an ability to provide some feedback in response Council Member Brown and then Council Member coming yeah I'll just echo my colleague's comments I mean everything that's been said I totally agree I'm always amazed by the work that you all do and in the way that you are you do it in a way that that makes it it's just it just it just reflects the commitment that you all have and that you know and what Santa Cruz is that you are really really a huge part in making that possible and so you know and I want to also just thank all of the parks workers the frontline workers who are out there every day and you know we kind of take it for granted that things are going to be there and you know we will be able to use the parks and we'll be able the trails will be cleared and all of these things and and I know that it's challenging to do that with especially with constraining resources and so I think that the work that folks do out in the field is just amazing and I want to really appreciate it I'm I'm glad to hear that you are you know working on ways to address the the safety issues the concerns that were raised earlier last year and I'm in terms of and the document itself is great I'm excited to you know be able to draw from it to you know when I'm talking about the parks pro and open space with folks out in our community and and beyond really and you know to really highlight what it what you know the treasure our system is and then just following on the comments made around forecasting and potential for additional revenues you know I know you're telling your and and Lindy but Tony when you're talking about the challenges you're very delicate about saying that you know we don't have enough resources I mean I want to put an exclamation mark on the fact that we really need to as a community invest in our parks system and and we aren't going to have the general fund you know robust sufficiently robust general fund to you know to provide all of the funding that you really deserve so I think that maybe in in the and I think in the future so forecasting and and giving people like helping them see what is what's coming and what they can be a part of and you know trying to set up for some you know additional fundraising from within our community I know we've met talked briefly about a capital campaign and I think that maybe including some of that those details around the capital investment needs and then also perhaps just referencing ways that people can get involved in either through Adoptive Park which I recently did and it's it's been great and you know so so those kinds of ways that people can be involved and be supportive even if it's not a financial contribution that they're part or parks program and so I think that was all I had for yes I think that's it but thank you really if this is so great I'm I love it I'm going to use it a lot council member Cummings and then city manager Martín Bernal and it looks like we do have one person in the audience that would like to speak tonight as well you Tony and Lindsay for this presentation this is great with all my colleagues so I don't have to repeat everything they said but you all do amazing work and one of our number one assets here in Santa Cruz that people come here for from all over and people really appreciate I mean Tony and I we got to go out to the disc golf course recently and just being able to appreciate some of the world class outdoor space that we have here and just really I mean through the pandemic having spent time in other places in the country where I wouldn't have imagined how it would have been like to not have access to these amazing spaces like how fortunate we are to be able to live in a place with so many outlets for being able to get out enjoy nature and to be in healthy environments and so just you know constantly I'm grateful for all the work that's been done over the years so that we can enjoy these spaces in our community I think the report is is great I think one thing we're keeping in mind potentially is when we have you know as this report gets developed over years it might be worth you know when we have you know the those when we sorry maybe incorporating like additional graphs like line graphs that could show revenues versus expenditures and how that changes over time and then that might be able to give the community a sense of you know how as how our revenues improved how our expenditures changed and then you know really getting the community to kind of think about that as well so that there are opportunities for revenue generation that we can think creatively about that together and like pie charts are great but I feel like you know being able to see how things change over time really give people a sense of you know where have we come from and where are we currently at so we can kind of project where we're going moving forward and then I also in response to councilmember Brunner's comment regarding including maps I wonder if it will be good you know moving forward to consider you know putting some if we're you know we're thinking about maps maybe putting even maps online where people if they wanted to see where the parks were they could see you know where all the parks are in the city where the bocce ball courts are and I think as well for people who are considering coming to Santa Cruz being able to see like oh they have all these skate parks where the skate parks at you know like they've got bocce ball courts I mean I just learned about the bocce ball court at the warp which is great but really having spent a lot of time out there wasn't aware that that was out there or maybe you know it's more recent than I've in the last few times I've been out there but just seeing these these things you know in our community and opportunities for recreating outside it's just it's great and then then yeah to count some member Brown's point you know we can include ways people can get involved and then if there's any changes to the website and what new resources on our digital platforms are available so that you know people can can see that there is a place where you can go to find out this information online and you know and hopefully that will get people motivated and more engaged to check out the park's website more frequently so they can be up to date with everything and it's kind of going on in the new programs that become available and so with that I'll just end right there and just again thank you all for your hard work and for keeping our parks beautiful thank you council member coming city manager Bernal thank you I just wanted to just briefly comment on the topic of fiscal sustainability as it relates to parks one of the things that everyone's mentioned is the tremendous assets that we have which they are in our park system and the fact that obviously we have to invest quite a bit to maintain them and enhance them and and they're used quite a bit so they take quite a bit of ongoing investment and as you know with the with the pandemic in particular it really has been a challenge for us to be able to balance our budget generally in the city and also it's had a really tremendous impact on the parks department as well particularly because in addition to having a smaller staff than is the national standard as was pointed out we also have had quite a few positions that have been frozen and so that's had an additional impact so the level of staffing that we have there is really not sustainable moving forward and so we really do need to to come up with a the fiscal sustainability plan for our general fund but also our parks department and in the spirit of that as we start the process of preparing the budget for next year and as you know we did receive some stimulus funding but that is one time in nature and will help us then gives us time to prepare for the future but it's not going to solve our ongoing of fiscal structural deficit so in the spirit of getting ready for the budget as that's being prepared now for the council to consider one of the things that we're proposing is to do a joint meeting with the parks and recreation commission to really delve and dive into the budget the parks budget since the commission also reviewed that so just an opportunity more of a study session to understand the budget and some of the issues and challenges that the department has and some of the options again so that you have the background in knowledge as we move into the budget and also as you consider options for revenue enhancements and the community also I think would be it'd be good for the community to also be informed and aware of all the budgetary issues that the parks department faces as it is such a critical infrastructure that we have in our community so that's being scheduled I think we're looking at April 20th just tacking that on to the that's already an item on the green economy so we're just going to add some time to that session to if we can to focus on the parks budget with the parks commission so just want to point that out thank you martin okay I will go ahead and bring the bring this out to the public we have one person in the audience tonight who would like to speak to this item and your phone number ends in 1705 and if you press star six you'll be unmuted thank you mayor Myers this is Eric Rodberg and I want to echo what all customers said of my love of the parks department and I appreciate the work of all staff from director Elliott down to the one staff one thing that has been mentioned is that I think the frontline staff has really endured way more than they bargained for this year and you know from batteries and you know let's let's just say it straight up dealing with the homeless situation is you know it's bad enough for law enforcement who gets at least paid really good professional wages to the frontline staff and they didn't sign up for that so I just I just wanted to put that out there but I do appreciate all the hard work that they've done and I do love the parks there is one glaring efficiency not the pool and councilman Wilkins mentioned it we're really in the public pool and if you can't get Harvey what's going could you please talk to the the schools we support the schools we have special assessments we've got parcel taxes you had an earlier item on your agenda tonight about housing they have a pool in Lorenzo Valley high school they allow their pool to be used by the community please get something going on the pool we need a public pool that is a real basic thing for our community and our size and well thank you okay I will turn it back to council members council member Cummings and then council member Vice Mayor Bruner yeah I'm happy to move the staff's recommendation which is to adopt that's the wrong one it was to accept the physical year 2020 Parks and Rec annual report and Vice Mayor Bruner I will second that motion great okay so we have a motion to accept the 2020 Parks and Rec creation annual report and Bonnie well why don't we go ahead and take a roll call vote on that council member Watkins Calentary Johnson Mayor Bruner and Mayor Myers an enthusiastic eye we're all pirates tonight thank you everybody and thanks again Tony and Lindsay great job and with that we are adjourned for the evening thank you everyone no no no no no no we have public comment or we have oral communication I'm used to that so we support in the year at the end okay we have oral communication still to go for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if you want to comment during oral communication now is the time to call in instructions are on your screen oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community on items that are not please press star nine on your phone to raise your hands you will have two minutes to speak when it is time to speak you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted we request that you clearly and slowly state your name before making your comment so that we can accurately capture in the meeting minutes however stating your name is not required so I'll go ahead and take this out to public comment I see two callers in the audience the first caller is ending in number five three eight three please press star star six to unmute your screen go ahead please council members this is Krista Corwin I would like to talk to you today about your conflict of interest code and this is in reference to a letter I sent to you on March third which is a part of the public record and by the way anyone can ask to read it section eight of the conflict of interest code says no designated employees shall make or participate in making any governmental decision which he or she knows will have a reasonably foreseeable material financial effect distinguishable from its effect on the public generally on any real property and any source of income well I'm a reasonable person and it's pretty foreseeable to me that banning camping from residential zones and from the downtown business district will have a financial impact on real property owners and on the downtown business association where vice mayor Bruner works council members Myers Bruner Golder Calentari Johnson Watkins and city employees Bernal and Butler you have read my letter and you know as well as anybody that enacting the tolo will have an impact on your personal finances the good news is that you have a graceful exit strategy at your disposal it's a very common tool which could save the city from an extensive lawsuit you don't need anyone's permission to use it all you need to do is state for the record that you recuse yourself from the tolo discussion due to a conflict of interest and sign off of zoom at this time I have two questions for the city's attorney I believe it's Ms. Brunson one has the FPPC been in contact with the city regarding this issue and two what is your opinion on the defensibility of the council members actions on February 23rd and March 3rd in regards to the tolo thank you okay we have a phone number ending in 1-8-1-0 press starts we're going to leftist public school indoctrination centers I'm shocked the opening paragraph of hundreds of pages of newly proposed as required for graduation ethnic studies classes of k1 through 12 goals and course outline outline says it all quote races very broadly break down as people of color and white people unquote wow that rates of vision permeates every aspect of a students indoctrination into various ethnic studies one guess which of those two so-called races are fingered as the oppressor which the victim in studies of marginalized peoples institutionalized systems of advantage bigotry anti-blackness anti-indigeneity xenophobia anti-semitism Islamophobia designed to help students acquire a leftist educated social activism dictated by a focus on highlighted concepts such as civic pursuit of justice equity race ethnicity indigeneity diversity inclusivity discrimination intersectionality systems of oppression known as the four eyes gender and sexuality studies cultivation racial infancy cultural perpetuity placing a high and center value on native people and black indigenous people of colors pre-colonial experiences critiquing white supremacy white male power oppression and challenge imperialist colonial beliefs nevermind those did cease to exist long ago the focus of teaching goals is justice warring and stirring up as many one guest white straight male hate divisions they can think of devalued our critical thinking and valuable skills needed and instead students are required to master regurgitation of marxist like woke victimology dogma air quote to race or gender studies with selective interpretations of stale history where the real reality is a declining relevance or legitimacy what could possibly go wrong with that and when is the mayor's proclamation of straight white male appreciation day thanks with phone number ending in 1705 this is Eric Grogberg and thank you for taking my comments I'm sorry to sound like a broken record on March 17th the UC regents approved the student housing west project which the number of regents at the meeting expressed skepticism over the affordability issue the only reason they approved it was on Chancellor Reeves a personal guarantee that the prices would be 30% below market that is a gross misrepresentation as I've provided on numerous occasions to counsel documentation from the city's own housing demand study I mean the university's own housing demand study prices are actually two to 300% above market values rates for example a one better one bath is projected for 2018 prices to come in at $3,540 a month five bedroom two bath is projected to come in at $10,220 a month let me repeat that $10,220 a month now you might think because we need housing so much and I mean I definitely support more housing on campus you might think that any housing on campus is great but what will happen is that the students because the housing is so expensive on campus they will not not occupy it fully so they'll put more demand on the community housing and the only reason the reasons approved it was on chancellor Lee's personal representation that would come in 30% below market press the university on this I've sent you the documentation and that's it thank you very much have a good evening hey I will bring it back councilmember Cummings did you have a question about oral communications? yeah I just wanted to see if Cassie or somebody from the city attorney's office might be able to comment on the questions that the one member of the public brought up and so just wanted to ask those questions on her behalf I'm happy to give a quick explanation generally with respect to conflict of interest there's an exception or non-applicability for items that are applicable to the public generally and so that's the determination that we've made which is that then the total was reached a high enough threshold to be applicable to the public generally to where there would be no conflict of interest under the law well I'm happy to give you some more information offline okay thank you Cassie and with that I will adjourn the meeting and we'll see you all in a couple weeks thank you bye good night