 Council members, Crohn is currently absent. Matthews? Here. Chase? Here. Brown? Here. Naroyan? Here. Vice Mayor Watkins is currently absent, and Mayor Therese is here. Before we open the public comment, I have a brief announcement. The city attorney will provide a report on items listed on the closed session agenda beginning at the 12.30 p.m. session. Are there any members of the public in the audience that would like to speak to any items on the closed session agenda? Seeing none, I will adjourn this meeting at the Courtyard Conference Room where the council will go into its closed session. Good stuff. Thank you for being here this afternoon. Welcome to our 12.30 p.m. session of the June 26, 2018 meeting of the City Council. I'd now like to ask the clerk to please call the roll. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member, it's Crohn. Here. Matthews? Here. Chase? Here. Brown? Naroyan? Here. Vice Mayor Watkins? Here. And Mayor Therese? Here. And if the clerk would please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. At this point in our agenda, we're going to introduce some new employees. So I'd like to first begin with the Economic Development Department, the Director of Economic Development, Bonnie Lipscomb. Good afternoon, Mayor and members of the council. I'm excited today to introduce formally many who you already know, Rachel Christopher, in a limited term position as Housing Management Analyst. And we're so excited that she is officially a full-time employee with the city. I'll first start off by saying, because it's really exciting, is that she's getting married in less than a month. So that's the big news. And then having a permanent position with the city is also pretty big, too. But she's a Santa Cruz native, always lived in California, has traveled pretty extensively, grew up, was born actually in the Seabright area, grew up backyard opening right into Iran-a-Golch. Her mother was with the Santa Cruz Library for over 30 years. Her father actually retired from Santa Cruz City Schools after 30 years. Her aunt from De La Viega. So she's definitely rooted in the community and just a little fun fact. Her cousin, which was also her next door neighbor, was my son's favorite third grade teacher, actually, favorite elementary school teacher through his six years in Bonnie Dune School. So shout out for Mr. Bala. I think he's watching. Other fun facts, Rachel went to Santa Cruz High, was in the marching band, played trumpet, was an understudy for the bagpipes, likes to hike, and backpack wilder is one of her favorite places to hike. And she's also on the board for the volunteer center, so she really does give back to the community. And that's one of the reasons that she's so excited to be part of the city team is because she cares so much about the community. So we're really glad and excited to have her in this role working in our apartment and working in a housing in an area that's so critical to the community. So welcome, Rachel. Welcome, Rachel. Next person I'd like to invite up is the director of HR, Lisa Murphy. Afternoon, Mayor and Council. I am so pleased to introduce to you our latest addition to the Human Resources Department. This is Debbie Jones. She comes to us from a neighboring agency, which we stole her from. She's actually replacing Loya Fukuda, who's going to retire pretty soon, who's been here for a long time. I mean, a little bit of background. She holds an undergraduate degree in business administration from Old Dominion University and a master's degree in human resources management from Chapman. She comes to Santa Cruz with a strong human resources background in local government. Over 20 some odd years, I believe. Okay. Yeah. You're so young. And benefits, employee relations, and recruitment, so that's great because she has a depth of experience. So I asked her for a little fun facts to share. And Debbie says a fun fact is that she has a travel bug. She grew up in a Navy family and has lived in Maine, Rhode Island, Alabama, Bermuda, and Virginia. And she currently lives in San Juan Batista with her partner, Tim. The joke that her dream job is a long haul trucker that would combine her love of travel with the enjoyment of driving through the countryside. And that her commute to Santa Cruz from San Juan Batista is simply the long haul driver training. So we're really excited to have Debbie here. She's a great addition to our staff. Please come by and say hello. And she'll be working with many of the members that are out here today. So I welcome you, Debbie, to the city of Santa Cruz. Thank you. Thank you. And I'd like to introduce Director of Planning, Lee Butler. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council Members. Today it's my pleasure to introduce to you Jade Ordonias. She joins us as an administrative assistant too. And she has a bachelor's degree in sociology and a minor in business from San Jose State University. And she, over the last five years, has worked for the city of San Jose as a recreation leader. She is originally from San Diego, which she says contributes to her love for Santa Cruz. And as a fun fact, she does vocals and plays bass for two bands in the Bay Area. Two metal bands in the Bay Area. All right. All right. So please welcome Jade. Welcome. I know you could have gone a little longer on that. I'd like to know. Okay, we're going to move on. Welcome, everybody, to all the new employees. We're going to move on to the presentations for- There's a new one. Oh, I'm sorry. Rosemary Menard, Director of Water. Please. Okay. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. I'm here today to introduce two new Water Department employees versus Patrick Rosso here. And he is a new water meter specialist for us. He grew up in Santa Cruz, went to Gateway School, Santa Cruz High, Emerson College. He was a journalism major and he's worked at the Boston Bulletin and the Boston Globe. He's a photographer, bike mechanic, California State Park Ranger, and now he's at the City of Santa Cruz. So he's had a little bit of a very curious comeback to Santa Cruz where he was born and raised and he likes to play water polo and grew up in the Carbonara area. So that is Patrick. And then our second employee is Darren Huxley. He's a Ranger Assistant at Loch Lomond. We had a great event up at Loch Lomond on Saturday. Thank you, Mayor, for coming and joining us to talk about all those projects we're working on up in the basin. Darren's background, he's from the United Kingdom and when he speaks, maybe you should let him speak because he has a really nice British accent. He has been here 10 years in the US. He's gone to culinary school in the 80s, facility maintenance for 20 years and public service for about 30 years. He's been a chef and he's worked all over Europe and Saudi Arabia, working on neon signs, facility management, management of blue chip companies. And then he's more recently worked up in a couple of the camps up in the upper San Lorenzo watershed. He likes cooking, golf, soccer, which he's been paying a lot of attention to recently. Cricket, water sports, and photography. So please welcome Darren and Patrick. Welcome. Welcome. All right, next we'll move to the next portion of our agenda, which are presentations. And it's my pleasure to invite up Rachel Kaufman, the Interim Recreation Superintendent. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council Members. Yes, my name is Rachel Kaufman, I'm the Interim Recreation Superintendent. And I am pleased to be here, as always, this time of year to kick off our July. This is Parks Make Life Better Month. And I am joined here today by many of our supervisors and employees in the Parks and Recreation Department here in council chambers as well. And as you know, for the month of July, we offer free activities for the community to celebrate this month as well as just to recognize the outstanding parks, facilities, and programs offered by the Parks and Recreation Department. So I just wanted to, I have posters here for all of you as always that list all of the free activities. But I did want to highlight three of the new ones that we're pretty excited about. So the first one is that we start the month with a pop-up park in downtown Santa Cruz. And this is on Friday, July 6th, and we'll be closing down Cooper Street to host a Parks and Recreation recess event. And this is in collaboration with County Santa Cruz Parks and the Museum of Art and History. And we'll have classic recess games of dodgeball, tetherball, hopscotch. Plus we'll have a DJ for dancing in the streets, and that's from 5 to 9 PM. So this is really exciting to do this collaboration with county parks and city parks coming together to recognize this month in Parks and Recreation programs. And then our sports department, Supervisor Jill Bates, is organizing a new home run derby. And this will be at De La Viega Park on Saturday, July 21st from 1 to 3 PM. And this event is part of a larger event that she's undertaking. It's a midnight madness softball tournament with games running for a solid 24 hour period at De La Viega Park. So this is an awesome undertaking. I really want to recognize the sports department for trying this new event. And the home run derby itself will be a really fun festive atmosphere with food trucks along with the home run derby and a beer and wine garden. So don't miss that one. And then lastly, we're concluding with another collaborative event. But this time it's county wide, so it'll be, again, Santa Cruz County Parks, the city of Watsonville Parks and Recreation, as well as the city of Santa Cruz Parks and Recreation. We're going to come together for an epic family fun day at the Simkins Swim Center. So there'll be free swimming, but there'll also be inflatable obstacle course, a pop up playground, food trucks, and then the swimming will have water slides, stand up paddle boards, and a climbing wall in the water. And this is a free event for anyone in the Santa Cruz community. So I really encourage them to come out Saturday, July 28th, 3 to 7 PM. And that ends the festivities. But there's several other things. We always do the tree walk. There's the Wacky Water Day in Laurel Park, and there's a walk on the San Lorenzo River. So all of these events are listed on our website, SantaCruiseParksAndRec.com. I encourage the community to come and see, to look them up. They're all free, and I really encourage council members to come out as well. And so with that, we usually have a fun, as you know, creative portion of the presentation as a way to get city council members involved. And we've had contests before to try to get you out to events and so forth. But this year, Mayor Tarasas had an idea to do an art exhibit here in city council chambers, highlighting all of your favorite parks or programs. So as you all know, you have selected a favorite park or program that is featured in city council chambers. And at this time, I'm really turning the presentation over to you to go kind of briefly, if you could one at a time, talk about why you selected your favorite park or program. And so I have the photographs here. I'll just say why you're doing that. I mean, though it's still June, not yet July, it was amazing to see the event at the wharf this weekend for what he's on the wharf. I think the Parks and Rec Reaction Department did an amazing job. And then we also, we've kicked off the start of junior guards, what happened this month as well. Both the morning and afternoon session, and it was really great to see all the Parks and Rec staff out there supporting these really important community programs. I'm going to start with David for stalling for technical difficulties. I appreciate the support. So first, we're going to start off with council member Crohn's selection, which was the Civic Auditorium. We can just talk briefly about. My daughter's a violinist, and she was in the youth symphony for many years, and she actually went on to play in college as well. And I'm going to get choked up if I talk anymore, but that's been a really special place for us for a long time. And if you've never watched people warm up either the symphony or during the Cabrillo Music Festival and have those open days, I highly recommend it just to go there and see the musicians in their element and without a lot of pressure. And it's just, it's an amazing experience. Thank you. Council Member Naroyan selected Cal Beach. I selected Cal Beach as I spent a lot of my growing up years here and just some of my best memories growing up and being in Santa Cruz. I held my 13th birthday party at Cal's Beach. We had a sand castle contest. It was wonderful. I used to swim all the time at the beach. And it just called to me when you asked me to pick my favorite park. And then Council Member Watkins selected Frederick Street Park. It was a tough choice between that and Ocean View, because I'm on the east side. So often my girls, I have two daughters, so we decide which park we want to go to between Ocean Street and Frederick Street. And you get one side the view of the boardwalk and the other side the view of the harbor. It's a beautiful park for all ages. So many people enjoying it. It's just a wonderful opportunity to spend time with our family and see other people spending time with their families as well. So thanks, Rachel. Council Member Matthews selected Harvey West Park. And I rebelled. I said, that's asking me to choose my favorite child. I don't want to do it. She was the hardest one to get a response for. You can decide. So, anyway, they made me pick one and this is a shot of the trees in Friendship Park that were donated by our sister city, Shinkuchapan. Really, Harvey West is so much, which is why I chose it. And what's missing in this picture is all the generations of people. And that's what I love about Harvey West. The range of activity from youth sports to adult sports, all the people that have learned or grown up with the pool, the t-ball, the summer camps, activities in the Harvey West Clubhouse there, service clubs, personal events, there's so much there and it's rooted in community. It was originally a gift from Harvey West, that's where the name comes from. The service clubs have been involved over the years in making improvements to this and there's so much that goes on here, it's so much a reflection of generations past, present, and future. Thank you. We have the Loudon Nelson Center and Laurel Park that was picked by Council Member Brown. I wish that this is a shot of the annual Sac race at the Juneteenth celebration. So, I also, I kind of rebelled, I picked a whole bunch and that at least one of them would get up here and I'm so glad that this was the selection. I've been going to Loudon Nelson for a variety of reasons and to the park for almost 30 years now. And I'm amazed at the generational experience there are, we have Meals on Wheels there, we have community meetings, we have kids in Sac races. Everything happens in the park and within the center and we had a sock monkey exhibit that I particularly love, so I was just, and so the experience of being there is just, you really feel, and so I look forward to continuing to, I'm there, and I love the mural that was recently painted by the diverse, which happens there. And it's just a reflection of the diversity and the, thank you. Council Member Chase selected Niri Lagoon. So I selected Niri Lagoon primarily because of the creatures. So I've taken a lot of kids there and family and friends who come to visit and we look for the turtles and we go and read all the interpretive signage. And I took a bunch of people down there to see the goats who were very busy and cleared it out in the last couple weeks. And it's just a really wonderful combination of just beautiful tranquility in the middle of the city. But also fun play structures in the tennis courts and I love that there's little footprints in the concrete of different animals there. So it's fun, it's relaxing, it's a learning environment. And it's just this beautiful little spot in the city. Thank you. And last but not least, the inspiration for the art exhibit, Mayor Taras says you picked Ocean View Park. I did, I feel like after hearing all the descriptions from all the council members and the amazing photos, you feel the sense like, hey, I could have picked something else. But for this particular park, really the driver is my kids and those two giant slides that are there. And anytime you bring wax paper or something down there to make sure that you can just jet down those and seeing them smile and go down and have a good time makes me feel really proud of the park system and all of the great facilities we have in this particular park was designed by a local landscape architect. So when you look at the facilities there, there was a local firm that developed the amenities. The blue and red slides that connect the upper level from the back on the other side. And so I really enjoy going there. You connect with the ocean and you have a nice neighborhood park. So that was why I selected Ocean View Park. Thank you. It was difficult to select the photos because it was like, do I select the slides or do I select the view? Because they're both, that's what that park's known for. So thank you all so much for your thoughtful answers. I really appreciated it and I appreciated having the dialogue with you and these photos and the great idea, Mayor Trosses. And I know that the staff also that works so hard to keep these parks and programs also really appreciate the feedback as they do a phenomenal job. So again, it is all month long. This art exhibit will be in council chambers for the month of July and August, since we're closed in July. And if you want to kick off the month early, we are having a food truck event this Friday. We're going to be standing in a park from five to eight and it's a superhero theme. And we will have our capes. We have our parks make life better capes that the staff will be wearing. So, and if you have your superhero garb, you can wear that as well. So thank you very much. Thanks, Rachel. That was really nice, thank you. Okay, we're going to transition from parks to the police department. So I'd like to invite up Police Chief Andy Mills for a presentation. Well, good afternoon, Mayor and council members. It's my honor to be here today. I'm Andy Mills, Police Chief. And if I could invite those award recipients to come up, Sergeant Forbus and FT O'Cockerham and Officer Drewblood and Rick and Dan, if you'd come up also please. It's okay, you can actually come over here. You won't bite them. All these awards are the same, so I'll just read one and then hand them out to our folks. But age has its privilege, classes. This is a police life-saving award given to all three of these outstanding police personnel. On March 1st, 2018, officers responded to Depot Park for Person Not Breathing. That's my favorite park, by the way, Depot Park. When the Santa Cruz police officers arrived, civilians were performing CPR on the victim. Officers checked for vitals and there were no signs of life. The officers adjusted his body to a flat position and stripped away articles of clothing that would prohibit an effective rescue attempt. Officers immediately began CPR and summoned fire and paramedics. Over the next 15 minutes while they're waiting, officers, Sergeant Daniel Forbus, FTO Cockerham and Officer Drewblood performed CPR. When one officer tired, the next continued CPR to ensure the best possible outcome. Fire personnel soon arrived and administered an arcane multiple times and appeared as though the person had passed away in spite of all the best efforts. Officers again took a pulse and found a weak and shallow pulse, so they continued CPR while paramedics were still on the way. As a result, when paramedics arrived, the person was transported to the emergency room where he was stabilized due in no small part to the efforts of the Santa Cruz police officers. Sergeant Forbus, FTO Cockerham, and Officer Drewblood, you're committed for your efforts to save another human being from death. Your care and compassion for another person is the hallmark of this police agency. Quick actions are relentless efforts to save the life of another to be speaks of who you are. Therefore, you're awarded the police life saving award. Thank you so much. And with that comes a shirt pin that they'll wear in their uniforms, as well as a formal metal that goes on their dress jacket. So again, we're very proud of the life saving efforts by our officers. And it just really is an amazing department and we're proud of them. Thank you so much for the time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. At this point, I'd like to transition over to honor a current employee, but soon to be retiring employee, Norm Daley. So Bonnie, if you'd do the honors. Yeah, I just would like to introduce and welcome and say goodbye for the probably the last time publicly. This is Norm Daley and I know you have a proclamation for him today, but I just wanted to just say a few words. It's been an honor and a privilege to work with Norm over the last 10 of the 31 years he's been with the city. So a little over 10 with our department. Norm is a consummate professional and a dedicated city employee who over the years has served the city through many times of crisis and adversity and his loss will be deeply felt within the department of course across the entire city. His contributions have been many and I think you'll hear about a few in a few minutes and his service to the city has been exemplary. Well, we'd like to keep him here forever truly. I recognize that his retirement is well earned and well deserved. So thank you, Norm. You'll be missed. You have a lifetime invitation to our annual potluck party and we will actually always strive to have a spam themed dish in your honor. And you'll hear a little bit about that. So thank you, Norm. And with that, I just would like to give him the special plaque from the city. For his 31 years of service as well. Right. But that's not all. I think after 31 years, I'm going to read this full proclamation for you. And after 31 years, there's plenty of warehouses and it's a nine point font. So I'm going to do my best because unlike Chief Mills, I didn't bring my glasses today. So I'm going to read this if you don't mind. I love it. Okay. Whereas in 1987, Norm Daly, a true University of California at Santa Cruz slug, surfer and sailor, joined the city of Santa Cruz planning department as a rehabilitation specialist, helping low income homeowners repair their homes using federal home program funds. And whereas in the aftermath of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, Norm Daly took his construction knowledge to the streets, tirelessly helping to make the city safe again. And whereas in 1999, the planning director recognized Norm Daly's talent and promoted him to an associate planner, putting him in charge of the city's HUD financed home program. And whereas Norm Daly never looked back, although sadly the city's rehabilitation program did not survive without him and transitioned. And whereas Norm Daly's construction skills were then limited to being used on his never ending home improvement projects, which are after all the real reason for his retirement. And whereas after 21 years in the planning department, Norm Daly moved with the rest of the housing division to the city's redevelopment agency. And fortunately, unlike what happened following his move from the rehabilitation, continued his work there. And whereas in 2008, the RDA welcomed Norm Daly with open arms, happy to have his skills, his knowledge, his hard work ethic, his can-do attitude of wanting to be a part of the solution, not part of the problem. And his timekeeping ability that gave his coworkers an accurate time check every day at 10 a.m. as he left for his daily chai run. And whereas although Norm Daly's increasing knowledge of housing and the challenges of anything to do with HUD has made him an invaluable part of the city's housing team, in 2009 he embraced a new challenge by taking on property management and then planning for the Santa Cruz Wharf, working with consultants he helped develop an imaginative, exciting Wharf master plan which gave him a well-earned promotion in 2014 to the position of project manager in the Economic Development Department. And whereas Norm Daly's work on the Wharf also earned him the respect of the Wharf business owners as well as a new appreciation of grease traps. And whereas Norm Daly has been an integral part of the city's housing team for 31 years and will be greatly missed every day, especially when those phone calls come in with all those housing questions. And whereas fortunately Norm Daly has perfected the art of diligent file keeping, checklist making, and template creation that will help the housing division survive his departure. And whereas Norm Daly has always provided a new and exciting spam dish at each annual department potluck which will be notably missed and the department also hopes to survive the loss as well. And whereas Norm Daly has contributed so much to the city that his dependability and team spirit will also be missed by many other city departments as well as those in the community that he has assisted over his 31 years of service. Now therefore I, David Taras, Mayor of the City of Santa Cruz, do hereby proclaim June 26, 2018 is Norm Daly Day in the City of Santa Cruz. And encourage all of his co-workers and citizens to join me in expressing heartfelt appreciation for his 31 years of dedicated and exemplary service and his numerous contributions to the city and wishing him well in his retirement. So congratulations, Norm. I wanted to say maybe before you make some remarks or each of us have a gift for you. And if you'd start it with Chris maybe we'd just like to kind of recognize you individually and hand you a gift. We contacted the war superintendent, John Bambachi, and he gave us some memorabilia for you to take along with you in retirement. And so it'd be an opportunity at least for us to say. You could do it after maybe if you have anything you want to say now. I do have a few words. Please. Thank you so much. I was last year five years ago for my 25 year pen, so I've taken that speech, that little thing that I said, and I've sort of dusted it off and adjusted it. So when I first started working here in January 1987, Ronald Reagan was the president, Jane Weed was the mayor, and Peter Katzelberger was the planning director who hired me. 31 years later, after seven U.S. presidents, about 25 Santa Cruz mayors, depending on how you count. Who knows how many council members, about seven interim and permanent planning directors, two redevelopment agency economic development directors, two departments and one earthquake later I'm ready to call it a day or three decades and retire. In today's gig economy, folks are taking two, three, four jobs to get by. Retirement for me couldn't have been possible without working for the city for this long. Long term sustainable employment like this goes hand in hand with the concept of fostering strong and vibrant communities. My job here has allowed me to marry and raise a family, 99% of whom are invested in the Santa Cruz community. My wife, Genevieve, she works in the wine industry. Our son, Brandon, is the Marine Safety Officer for the fire department, as well as a volunteer firefighter for Brantza 40. And his wife, Summer, works for Looker downtown. I couldn't be more proud of them for all that they bring to the community. I'm also proud of our daughter, Caitlin, who now lives in Manhattan with her husband, Ben, and they have just given us, Genevieve and I, our first grand puppy. I also couldn't be more proud of the Economic Development Department. My supervisor, Carol, my director, Bonnie, they've been truly inspirational in their drive to serve the community and it shows in our work here at the department. My co-workers, Jan, Jennifer, Beth, Rebecca, Amanda, Marty, Kathy, Rachel and Jessica are likewise engaged employees working for the benefit of the community here. So, well, I can't stay another 31 years. I can steal a lyric from that Grateful Dead song, Trucking, and say, Trucking, I'm going home. Wo-oh, baby, back where I belong. Back home, sit down and patch my bones and get back trucking. Nice. So I barely recognize you without your hat on when you came in. But if you can please come up. We have a few gifts for you and we'll greet you. If you come back on this way, that'd be wonderful. I think I happened to be out at Cal in the Sandbar. Did one of your, did your son, did you get married on the Sandbar? My wife and I. Yeah, yeah, that's right. I was out there. That was awesome. Okay. Chris gave him the bag. I'm giving him a patch to sew on his jacket and a glass for that. Oh, thanks. Sit back and enjoy it. There's something to wrap it up. And I've got your hat. Oh. Thank you. And you can't have, you have to have a pair of wine glasses. So here's another pair of more patches and now you'll have more time to enjoy this. Thank you. You're awesome. Congratulations. Thank you all for your service also. And enjoy. Yes. All right. Congratulations, Norm. Before we go on to the agenda, I just have a quick announcement. I'd like to invite the entire community and the Santa Cruz Police Department officers on a street smarts family bike ride this Saturday, June 30th. The event begins at Laurel Park. That's your favorite park, Council Member Brown. Yeah. At 10 a.m. with traffic safety activities that include Santa Cruz Warriors mascot Maverick games and prizes. Then in 11 a.m., Ecology Action will lead us all cyclists along the Santa Cruz Riverwalk to the Penny Ice Creamery for free ice cream. I hope to see you on Saturday. And if you need more information, go to cityofsantacrews.com. I have a few announcements that will move on to the regular meeting. Today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television channel 25 and streaming on the city's website at cityofsantacrews.com. Jennifer Cameron is our technician this evening and I'd like to thank her for her work today in the booth. All City Council members can be emailed at citycouncilatcityofsantacrews.com. If you would like to communicate with us about an agenda item, we'd like to receive that email prior to Monday at 5 p.m. Before our council meeting. This provides us with an opportunity to review your email included with the rest of our agenda packet. Please bear in mind that all items of correspondence with the City and the City Council constitute public records and are generally subject to disclosure upon request by any member of the public. Accordingly, if you have sensitive or private information that you do not wish to be made public, you should not include that information in your correspondence. Our rules of decorum are on the window ledge to my left and it's my job to keep the meeting running without disruption and we ask that you respect your fellow citizens whether you are inside or outside of the chambers. At this point I'd like to ask any council members if they have any statements of disqualification today. And so I'll turn over to my right. I will have a disqualification, not on consent, but on a general matter having to do with putting a ballot measure on the ballot having to do with rent control. Specific to a particular aspect of that item? Specifically related to the creation of a study. Yes, on the putting the measure on the ballot itself, I don't believe there is a conflict of interest. That's a very straightforward issue but calling for a study, I believe, may create the impression of a conflict and that's on the advice of our city attorney. Thank you. Any other conflicts on today's agenda? I'm still deciding and I'll let you know at the time. Thanks a lot. Okay. Are there any additions and deletions to today's agenda? Yes, Mayor. Number 27 is going to be continued to the meeting of August 14th due to a noticing error. Okay. The appeal. Mr. Brown. I ask a question. I just, because I've had some questions about the nature of the noticing error, I'm just wondering if we could get a little bit more information about that. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council Members. Lee Butler, the Planning Director. And we had published the item and it was noticed on the site. However, the third component of that, the mailing of the postcards to all property owners within 300 feet is required pursuant to our Santa Cruz Municipal Code. And that step was not completed. And therefore, in order to provide the community with a full opportunity to comment and notify those that may not have seen you that the advertisement or the on-site notification. And to comply with the Municipal Code, when we learned of this last night, we pulled the item and we'll re-notice it for the first meeting in August. Thank you. Council Member Crown. Lee, is there any reason why that got past us? We have talked with our team about how that happened. It's turnover of staff and a new process that's being implemented. But we have identified the issue and we're hopeful that it will not occur again. Thanks. I just want to say that I know our staff puts in a lot of time on these issues. But the unpaid public also on this one put in enormous incredible numbers of hours. And I've just heard from several of them how disappointed they are. I just want to let you know that because it's an issue. Thank you. I would echo that disappointment. And we certainly apologize for the error. Thank you. Okay, so when item 27 comes up, we'll also make the announcement just so any members of the public that may not have heard this initial deletion will get updated at that time. Council Member Crown. Just a point of order. Are folks allowed to comment at that time or it's just completely off? I'll turn it to the City Attorney. I know that there's been handled differently. My recommendation would be to simply continue it because folks who comment, if you were to take public comment, those same folks could still comment at the next hearing. Okay, thank you. So the next item that we'll cover is the oral communication. Oral communication is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us at items that are not on the agenda. Oral communications will generally occur at the conclusion of our afternoon business at or around 5.30 p.m. But may occur sometime before then. City Attorney, can you provide a report on closed session, please? Yes, thank you Mayor Tarazas, members of the City Council. Items discussed by the City Council in closed session today are, first of all, item A, liability claims, the claim of Tyler Ladoo-Smith, and the claim of Shoppers Corner Market. That was agenda item A. That is also on your consent calendar agenda today as item number 11. There were two matters of pending litigation discussed in closed session. The Council received a report from and gave direction to the City Attorney's Office on those two matters. First being Brenda Sheriffs versus Kim Lee Horne and Associates Inc. Second matter being Emily Sinclair versus City Council of Santa Cruz. The third matter was a conference with labor negotiators the Council met with and gave direction to its labor negotiating team. And the bargaining group that was discussed was operating engineers, mid-management. Item D was real property negotiations. First real property at 168 Frederick Street and a portion of the Star of the Sea Park on Darwin Street. Those are city-owned properties in which the city has been negotiating with PG&E for PG&E to acquire a temporary construction easement and a permanent easement for location of a gas transmission pipeline. That item is also agenda item 10 on your closed session agenda. Discussed today in closed session was the agreement of the parties, the city and the PG&E of the purchase price which was its full appraised market value of $575,000. That number is not contained in agenda item 10. So we'll be asking you to pull that from the consent calendar so that the Council can take action consistent with the agreement that was discussed in closed session. Next were the properties at 808 River Street and 744 River Street City. The parties to that negotiation are the city and Richard L. and Tawani Santi trustees. That said properties are 808 River Street and 744 River Street. Cities negotiating for acquisition of a portion of those properties for the Highway 1-9 Intersection Improvement Project. Council received a report from the Public Works Department, gave direction. There was no reportable action on any of those items. Thank you. Is there a city manager report? Yes. I have just a brief events that I wanted to sort of highlight for the Council today. As always we've got a lot going on in the summer in our different departments. You heard a lot about the Parks Department but there's a bunch of other things going on. I wanted to highlight the library in particular. They've kicked off their summer events and their variety of different events at the libraries. Particularly you'll see here that on June 27th at the Garfield Park Library and at the Live Oak Library there'll be the puppetry at Garfield Park and then the Carnival Mask at Live Oak. Then Perian will perform his magic at Garfield Park on June 28th as well and sing along at Garfield on the 30th at 1 p.m. You can get all this information on the library's website and then there'll be child bubbles will perform on July 3rd at the downtown library branch as well. The other thing that's happening of course is 4th of July and the Police Department does want to remind the community that fireworks are prohibited in the city of Santa Cruz including those safe and sound. So they'll be out there enforcing and it's a significant fine. The way they put it is if you light it they'll write it which is a 1,305 fine if you get caught with fireworks. So just wanted to make the community aware of that. And then finally there's the Street Smarts Family Bike Ride which will happen at Lowell Park at Loud Nelson on Saturday June 30th. And there was an article in the paper about that today. So just a lot of things, a lot of activities happening in the community over the summer. That concludes my presentation. Thank you. First up is our consent agenda. These items are items number 4 through 25 on our agenda. All items will be acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a council member for further discussion. I heard from council member Cron in advance it was item number 13 that you wanted pulled. That's, I wanted to pull item number 11. Item number 9 and item number 10. Okay. 10 has already been pulled. Yeah. 9, 10 and 11. Okay. So you had not number 13. You had sent an email earlier that that was something you wanted to pull. Okay. Number 13. I mean, if you don't want to, that's fine too. I'm going to pull it if he doesn't know. Okay. So 9, 10, 11 and 13. Any other council members that wish to pull an item? Six. Six. Any others? Sandy. I have a question. I don't know if it merits being pulled. Can I ask that question now? Or I think that's, that is, yeah, that's, that's where I'll go to next. Are there any council members who wish to only comment or question an item? I'll question and depending on the answer I may pull. Number 8. And this has to do with the naming of the pedestrian bridge as a Chinatown bridge. Okay. Let me just start there. The revised recommendation is directing the parks and rec commission to consider naming the San Lorenzo park bridge Chinatown bridge and installing a memorial marker or public art display. My question is just procedural. Does the parks commission do the naming? I would think they would recommend back to the city council for the naming. The response would be an advisory opinion back to the city council after the decision. It's not quite the way the recommendation reads there. And then in regarding, I would also just suggest that we engage the Historic Preservation Commission in the development of that public art or interpretive signage. Do you want to make that as part of the consent? If others are okay with me including these as a consent motion, it's a modification. And finally, the staff report doesn't, the recommendation isn't specific. The staff report talks to fiscal impact of the art or historical exhibit on parks and rec. But it seems to me it could come out of public art too. So I think the funding of that interpretive could be for future discussion. Great. And it will come back again once the commission has their. So my just suggested very small modification would be that we direct parks and rec to consider the naming of Santa Rosa Park pedestrian bridge Chinatown bridge confer with Historic Preservation Commission about development of a memorial marker or public art display to educate the community, et cetera, et cetera, and make a recommendation on both issues to city council for action. That's acceptable as a replacement for the recommendation. Okay. Yes, consistent. Okay. Was that your comment? That's it. Okay. Any other comments? I wanted to know and I'll ask the city attorney or city manager on item number five. This is the minutes from the June 12th meeting. I would like to pull that off. I have some questions about that I think in terms of the action items. So instead of like taking action on it today, can we hold that over until the next meeting? Yeah. Sure. Just defer action on that one. I had a question on number seven. Okay. That's thank you for bringing that up. Just wondering about our, there was some confusion. I just want to clarify it. What we pay the sister cities and I'm sorry, not sister cities to the league of cities. And what are I guess it's not a contribution. It's a fee that we pay as dues to be members of the of that group. And there was another one that I wasn't sure of as well within that, but just this one's about the about league of cities and I'm just wondering to get clarification on it. I think, I mean, I can say the answer because there was an email that you forwarded and there was a response back that the membership fee for the league of cities is $19,000 approximately annually. That's the amount that the city contributes for league of city membership. I was previously sending an email that said 74,000. I thought. Well, I think that there was a response that the line items in the budget were not listed accordingly. So it's actually a laugh go has the balance amount that what you're looking at. And so the amount for the league of cities is 19,000. That's the membership cost there. Okay. There'll be a future question then about laugh go. Okay. I'd like to say on item seven, if we could replace myself as the designated person for the voting delegate for item seven and have council member Matthews service in that role. I'm not going to be there the final day. So I'd like to task, you know, you to cast our vote. And we can have a designated delegate and up to two alternates and they can't be switched. They had a line. So I don't know if there are any others who would entertain being an alternate as well. Any other members planning on going to the league of cities meeting this year? So. Fine. Okay. Great. Thanks. Then this is just a quick question on, I know we went through our budget hearing and from the June six minutes, you know, we talked about future revenue projections. I just was asking if, you know, with that now that the decision on internet sales tax coming down, just getting some sort of future projections on it, whenever the city will might see that type of revenue in terms of its future budget projections when we get it, the budget back in August to have the finance director give some sort of update. Yes. Yes. We're having our attacks consultant HDL can help us with doing an analysis of that. Okay. Great. Okay. With item five deferred, so that will not be on the consent. So the items that have been pulled are items six, nine, 10, 11 and 13 that have been pulled for future action. Is there any member of the public that wishes to speak on any other item on the consent other than five, six, nine, 10, 11 and 13. Please. You have two minutes. Good afternoon. Mayor. My name is Greg Pepping. I'm the executive director of the coastal watershed council. Our strategic focus as an environmental organization that's been around since 1995. Our strategic focus right now is to transform the lower San Lorenzo River. The river is 30 miles long. We're focused on the lower three miles and transforming that space into a community destination that Santa Cruz is proud of and drawn to. We do that through water quality monitoring to identify and fix water quality challenges. So we have a clean, healthy river through habitat improvements and getting youth and families to the river to learn about the history and ecology of the river and just the fun at the river. I sent you a letter about a consent agenda item number eight and I just wanted to, I won't repeat all of that's in the letter, but part of bringing the community back to the river and reminding everyone about the historical significance, Santa Cruz is a community because of the San Lorenzo River. Part of that story and part of that effort to make the community aware of the significance the river has played in our history and in our future and today includes recognizing that the Chinese American community is largely forgotten when you look at the river and there was a Chinatown in a number of places. It was most recently right next to the river. So I won't repeat what's in my letter. I wanted to say that it's an opportunity to improve the community's awareness. If you walk by that and you see the Chinatown bridge, what's that mean and why is it there? The other thing is very practical. A number of you have walked the river walk with me and I say let's meet by the pedestrian bridge going from San Lorenzo Park over to Trader Joe's. And that just doesn't roll off the tongue. So I mean it's there's functional reasons. There's historical cultural relevance reasons. So I just invite you to consider how that adds to the ongoing movement in partnership with the Coastal Water City Council of the city and many others to make the community aware of the value of our river. Thank you, Greg. Next speaker, please. Thank you, Mayor Tarasas and council members. My name is Aleve Bilgensoy. I am the river scientist at the Coastal Watershed Council and part of what I do is take kids to the river and teach them about the river, about water and flow and the ecosystem. And we go to the Chinatown bridge regularly. We stand on the bridge and look down at the river and look at the river profile. We go down to the beach. We do water quality monitoring. We gather aquatic insects. And I'm so excited to be able to include this new historical framework as part of our education so that kids understand their role in the river ecosystem and their community history as well and connect to the diverse communities in Santa Cruz. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any other member of the public that would like to speak to our items of consent other than five, six, nine, 10, 11 and 13? Okay, seeing none, I'll bring it back to Council and this is for approval of all items except five, which is being deferred through this action, six, nine, 10, 11 and 13. Is there a motion? I'll make that motion noting the replacement of myself as the delegate to the league event and modified language for number eight. Thank you. I'll second that. All those in favor, go to Council. I just wanted to point out the last item also. We got a very nice item eight about the bridge. Excuse me, no. It was. Yeah. From George. From George out and I just wanted to point that out and call attention to all the council members and the public too. It was very nice letter in support of the renaming of that bridge. Absolutely. I'd also like to say just as a comment item number 21 is a project that has been a long time in the making. I want to thank the public work staff. This is the Monterey Bay sanctuary scenic trail work and I want to thank the public work staff for all their work to kind of bring this forward to reality. So there's a motion on the floor. Motion by council member Matthew second by myself deferring item five and all items on consent and then approving all items on consent with the exception of item six, nine, 10, 11 and 13. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed. The motion passes unanimously. We'll start with item number six and that was council member Cron. Brown. Oh, Brown, excuse me. So, well, I'm glad to see a three-year lease coming up which will ostensibly secure tenure for the beach flats gardeners for a while. Although the terms, I mean, I just think it's worth saying the terms of the lease do allow the landlord to remove or to provide 60 days notice. So it's really a three-year lease but it's a 60-day to 60-day lease technically. But I understand that the landlord has suggested that they are committed to the three-year lease term. So I'm not, I did not pull this to oppose the item. I pulled it to ask a few questions about where things are at with the potential for a permanent site because, you know, some of you who are on the council may recall that on October 27th, 2015, you all voted unanimously to commit to the city engage in an effort for a permanent community garden in the beach flats neighborhood and directing city staff to continue work with the seaside company to finalize the lease renewal, which I'm glad to see is happening now, but also to work with the property owner towards a long-term solution and to look for, with the goal of acquiring either that site or some appropriate site in the beach flats area. I know that a lot of work has been done. I'd just like to hear a little more about that and ask that we as a council really work and take this seriously to not make this just a philosophical commitment but actually really provide some direction to staff to make this happen and do everything we can to provide real security of tenure for the beach flats gardeners. I know this is something that is, you know, has been contentious in our community. I don't think it has to be. I'd like it to be, you know, a wonderful thing. If you go to the garden, it's a beautiful place, you know, a lot of wonderful life there and activity. And so if you could just say a few words about, you know, how that's played out and, you know, where you see things going forward. So do you manage your Bernal? Sure, I'd be happy to. So as you'll recall, the agreement that was signed previously called for the reconfiguration of the garden as well as some improvements to be made to the garden, all of which have been completed in terms of the fencing, in terms of the garden plots and some of the other improvements to the sheds and the facilities that are there at the garden, as well as some of the leases and how that works. And as I understand it, it all works really well and it looks very beautiful and everything's been completed in that regard. With respect to the question of the long-term acquisition or fate of the garden, we have been in and we are in constant communications with the CZ company. They're not interested in selling the property outright. And so really the focus is on, you know, long-term what is sort of the vision for the beach flats and how a garden and the other lane uses in the area might fit into that. And I think they have expressed an interest in having those discussions, although we really haven't delved into some details with respect to that, but they have shown an interest in doing that and hope to continue to have those discussions. Certainly this provides a period, an additional period of time to have those conversations and additional at least three years. And so those will continue. Thank you. Okay. Are there any other questions? Council Member Macron. Yeah, I was just wondering if we could ask the city attorney what is the difference between a lease and a two-month, we can kick you out kind of agreement. Is it two months, as Council Member Brown just mentioned, is it two months? Is that a lease? Does that constitute a lease? Because I'm wondering about the... I think I understand your question. It's a three-year lease agreement, but it includes a provision that allows the seaside company to terminate the lease at any time on 60 days notice to the city. So barring that action taken by the seaside company, the lease would extend the full three years. And I've seen the original lease, it was for 90 days. I'm just wondering if anybody was involved in that, why we backed it off from 90 to 60? I can't recall specifically that discussion, but you're right, the original, the lease that was in effect prior to 2016 had a 90-day termination clause, so it's similar language, and this was 60 days. My assumption is that that was a term that was requested by the seaside company when the extension was being negotiated, but I don't recall that specifically. Okay, so you know the questions, I'd like to turn it over to the public. Is there any member of the public that would like to speak to item number six? This is the Beach Flats Community Guard and Lease Amendment. Any members of the public? Okay, bringing it back for Council Action. Is there a motion? I would make at least an amendment to the motion that... No motion on the floor. Well, moving the current motion, accepting the lease agreement, but also the recommendation on moving, but also direct staff to pursue vigorous conversations with the seaside company on acquiring the Beach Flats Garden where it is right now. Second. Okay, there's a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Council Member Matthews. I'm going to vote against that particular motion as I understand the language, because it requires both acquisition and at its current location, and I believe the staff is in ongoing very serious discussion with seaside about a long-term future for the Beach Flats Garden in that neighbourhood, but I think the language that's proposed sets an unnecessary constraint on the city's long-term commitment. Council Member Chase. Yeah, and I will not support the motion as it stated, either although I completely support the ongoing vigorous discussion about a permanent home from the garden, but one of the things that I know was in the original direction was that the conversations happened between the city and the seaside company about finding the best location for the garden as well as other things like housing, particularly affordable housing and sort of the best land use decisions as it relates to that entire area, and so I don't want to constrain us into saying it has to be exactly this. I support the conversations continuing to move forward for the community benefit in that area that includes the garden, as well as other really needed things like infrastructure, affordable housing and things like that. Just a question. Yeah, Council. And I tend to agree with most of what you said, but there's a whole lot of folks, hundreds in fact, who come together and said, no, that's where the garden is and that's where it's been for 26 years, and they, you know, they're making that statement. How about if we just get a report back at our next closed session on the status, because we have not gotten any information that from staff gives us a status report of those discussions with the seaside company. Let's say we've got a motion on the floor. Do you want to withdraw all your main motion? And I'll withdraw that motion and I'll just say, can we, is it more acceptable, can we get a staff report in closed session at our next council meeting, at our next closed session about the status of the property negotiations or the negotiations with seaside company or negotiations in looking for a new guard? Councilmember Mathews. My question on that, and that's for the city attorney. Closed session has a pretty narrow range of things, and if we're not considering directly acquisition, litigation, or personnel, is that kind of a general report back appropriate for closed session? And that's just a honest question. The only context in which I could see a closed session discussion being permissible under the Brown Act would be as real property negotiations, so... More specifically. Yeah. So then that would be acceptable if we do it under real property negotiations? It would be permissible under the Brown Act to have a discussion in closed session about real property negotiations. But it'd have to be narrowly focused on the acquisition... Price terms of payment or both. So it wouldn't be able to have the conversation about the broader... Generally. So it was your motion. The recommendations included in the staff report and to provide updates were appropriate under the Brown Act in closed session. Is that... Or an open session. Or I thought he was specifically narrowing it to closed session. I'm going to go back to the main motion that I made that we go with what's the recommendation as well as direct staff to pursue vigorous negotiations to acquire the current beach flats garden in its entirety. Okay. So there's a motion and a second on the floor. So you re-making that original motion. A motion and a second on the floor. I won't be supporting the motion for the reasons that were stated and also because I think this is an ongoing discussion that goes on. I appreciate though the opportunity to kind of hear from other council members on this item and all the work that staff has put into it today. Council Member Norion. I also won't be voting for this but I want to make it really clear not because I don't believe in the goal around having a garden in the beach flats area but because I do think and I allude to what council member Chase said that there's so many moving parts in this and that I think we could get to a really good place where we have a combination of housing and garden and I hope other amenities for that neighborhood. So, but like I said, I just want to make it really clear I'm not voting against a beach flats garden in any way, shape or form. Vice Mayor Watkins. I agree. I also feel that this is something that I do and would like to hear back from city staff in terms of progress. I think there is a lot of potential and we don't want three years to go by and not to have any movement. So I know that there is discussions about hiring a liaison and I think it is in terms of the previous comments that council member Chase mentioned there is so much opportunity in terms of this bigger movement to support the beach flats community and so, but to hear back from staff on where we are with those things is critical as it relates to this and other investments in that area. So I appreciate the sentiment as well but I agree with the tactic a different way. There's a motion on the floor and a second motion by council member Cron second by council member Brown. I just have one comment. I'm going to support the motion because I feel like it's one of the only ways that we I mean one we've heard from the community the directly affected community that's what they want. I understand that there are other possibilities and I don't want to foreclose those but I do what I'm hearing is that there haven't been a lot of conversations going on very seriously and like Vice Mayor Watkins said I don't want to see now we have a three-year lease we can just sit back and wait and see what happens and leave these gardeners hanging. I really think that we need to take it seriously and if not that site find an appropriate site and be very aggressive about that so I want to make sure that that happens and I'm just trying to figure out how we get there but in the absence of a motion that it gets to that I'm going to support this one. Can I just suggest maybe different language you say how about an update from staff in six months on the status of the lease in the park? I'll accept that as an amendment to the main motion. I mean just say pass it and then have an update back from staff in six months is what I'm suggesting. Okay there's a motion on the floor Do you want that as an amendment to the main motion? Well I Council Member Matthews So what are we voting on? Are we voting on the Council Member Crohn's motion? Entire motion and the amendment or just the the recommended action and a report back for six months? No that was not accepted by the Council Member Crohn's motion if you want to restate it now It's in the recommendation that's before us as well as directing staff to enter into vigorous conversations with the Seaside Company on the acquisition of the current Beats Flats Garden in its entirety That is current location Motion by Council Member Crohn and second by Council Member Brown All those in favor please say aye Aye All those opposed say no Council Member Crohn and Brown voting in favor Council Member Matthews, Chase, Naroyan, Vice Mayor Watkins and myself opposed Is there a new motion? Yeah I'll move the recommendation before us adding that we encourage the staff to continue their serious ongoing discussion with Seaside about the long-term future of the Beats Flats Garden and report back to us in a comment. Have there been any serious negotiations and can staff can you report back to us now instead of waiting six months in the past three years have there been serious negotiations to identify or find a new Beats Flats Garden if it's not going to stay where it is Well first of all with respect to the the initial conversations revolved around acquisition and there wasn't an interest in doing that and so the discussions then really have to revolve around development and what can occur there and what the future sort of uses are of the Seaside Company and so obviously it's its own for housing and so we have had some conversations around that around how that might look and also how that would work with respect to the Seaside Company's future plans again they've been more conceptual at this point and that's really as far as we've gotten I mean the other thing I also want to point out too is that we've had you know council priorities established by the city council that we've also been focusing on but it was it is just going to take some time because it's really has to involve making potentially some land use changes and revisions to our code depending on what it is that we want to accomplish so we can certainly bring that back in six months again it's all thus far it's all been conceptual with I think the Seaside Company expressing I think also a concurrence that looking at the area from a big picture long-term perspective makes sense to be able to address both the neighborhood specific needs and issues and then also the Seaside Company's you know long-term interest in needs there as well and then of course housing has also really made it a major issue and then that neighborhood is much more functioning in particularly with the current market conditions and I want to say that is exactly the context that was behind my motion and I believe I use the term ongoing discussions rather than negotiations because to my mind it is a much more general discussion involving a whole lot of factors in the role and I know those are ongoing discussions among the parties and they know of our interest. Thank you. Is there any further discussion? Council Member Naroyan. I just really want to make sure too that the neighborhood the folks that actually live there that this is what they envision and what they want as well because a lot of times I mean I love the beach flats garden personally I love community gardens but I really want to know what the community area are thinking as well I know that we had a community forum and pulled the folks going but I don't think we've ever had formal polling of folks who actually live there. I have to say this is helpful that if the council you know makes it clear that you are very much interested in the big picture and looking at it that way I think that's a good message also to the seaside company because I think previously the message maybe was more on acquiring the particular property and having a broader perspective I think that's a good message to the seaside company as well. Council Member Cron. I just like to respond to Council Member Naroyan and all council members I mean just go to the garden it's open you can hang out I'm happy to meet you there if you want to somebody translate Spanish or I'll get another translator for you if you think I'm not going to translate well enough walk the neighborhood talk to people the garden is a focal point from everything I've heard I'm not just making this up because I want to have a garden down beach flats I feel like we're up here to represent folks and part of that representation it was an issue in 2015 it's when council member Brown and I ran for city council it was probably for me anybody one of the top four issues that and for our city manager with all due respect to say that there's other issues there's been other issues this is since 2015 it's over three years so I'm just putting that out there if you want to go down beach flats garden I'm happy to join you if one have a council meeting down there we could do that Council Member Chase I'm glad you said that because we did have a survey of other folks in the neighborhood and the primary thing that they said was important to them was housing and particularly safe housing some of whom had like open sewers in their homes so I mean I think we have to really think about the entire context of what people are talking about the garden is part of having a vibrant community and that's what it absolutely needs to be and people want and need housing desperately so I think we also have to keep that at the forefront of our conversation thank you can we have a motion and it's council member and I've been down to the garden many times and I spent time down there it's beautiful I think it's a great community asset but I don't live there so that's why I was saying that I think maybe doing some formal polling for an agenda to not want to support the garden I wasn't suggesting I'm sorry if that came through Council Member Chase if we could and this is the whole housing discussion we've had this year if we could guarantee a significant number of affordable units to the people in the neighborhood I think the conversation would change and you could guarantee a lot of the folks who live around the garden now and sit down with them and plan this and that they would actually have a place to live in Santa Cruz but right now the garden functions as people's living rooms and backyards and many other ways people hang out at the garden and what they do there it's not only gardening but if there's a plan that we can and I see some a representative from the seaside company here if there could be significant affordable units for the folks who live in beach flats now this would really be something that everyone I think could get on board with so let's have that conversation great okay there's a motion on the floor council member Matthews second by me it's the motion that's including the agenda packet plus report back by staff in six months on progress all those in favor please say aye those opposed that passes unanimously right thank you next item on the agenda is item number nine this was pulled by council member Cron I'm going to try to shift gears right now because I really appreciate the folks who brought this up David and Martin and Rochelle thank you so much I think there's some good stuff in here and I think that our country right now and I think there is linkage between what we were just talking about folks living in our beach flats and families in various Central American countries I called the mayor and told him this would be a great thing to do he already had two other folks that were supporting this because I had an amendment that I wanted to make and I wanted to see if it was okay he said why don't you bring it to the meeting first I just wanted to point out what I really like on page 9.5 I used to work with refugees in Washington D.C. I did political asylum applications for a year with Salvadorans Guatemalans at the time when Ronald Reagan was doing his thing funding the countries and funding very bad people in El Salvador and we're experiencing hangover of that right now not only with the refugees who came up here during that time and then got involved because of poverty I feel in gangs here and then they were either deported or they went back to El Salvador thinking they could have another life and then planting those seeds there and then creating just havoc right now in many of the big cities in Central America in San Salvador it has not gotten to Costa Rica and there's a different history there and Guatemala City is a different history too but we are affected by many Guatemalan immigrants and I just wanted to point out be it resolved further resolved that Santa Cruz City Council calls for just and humane immigration proceedings that protect families ensure the welfare of children domestic violence survivors and provide for an accessible asylum process. I really stand firmly behind that and I really appreciate the sentiment that went into this and as well as the language. I wanted to just add if we could if in that letter that we write to Governor Brown and our representatives if we could ask Governor Brown to withdraw all of our California National Guard troops from our southern border with Mexico that we not participate in what I consider evil that's being carried out by our administration in our names. He's using National Guard troops from various border cities to carry out a policy that I believe most Americans do not stand behind and for sure most Californians don't stand behind so that would be a friendly amendment once it when it comes back after a comment we'll get to that. Is there any further comments or questions? Is there any member of the public that would like to speak to this item? This is item number nine. Item number nine is the resolution of the City Council of the City of Santa Cruz to urge the Trump Administration the U.S. Department of Justice and Congress to keep families together. Any members of the public would like to speak to this item? We'll bring it back to council for action. I definitely support requesting the withdrawal of California National Guard from the borders. Republican Governor of Massachusetts did something similar. So it's already happened with several other states. This hits really close to home for me in the Supreme Court ruling today that happened barring certain people from countries entering the United States. One of those countries included a branch of my family that came when they saw that rights for women were going to be pretty terrible in Iran so they were able to immigrate to this country with my grandmother sponsoring them. So it just horrifies me what I see going on and with that Supreme Court ruling I think now more than ever it's a great time to make this statement. So is there a motion? Oh, I'm sorry. I'd like to move the motion with the addition of Councilmember Cron suggestion about removing California National Guard troops. That we include the letter urged Governor Brown to withdraw all California National Guard troops from our southern border with Mexico. Thank you. And you commented on... Is there a second? Seconded by Vice Mayor Watkins. And then you had mentioned there was a whereas was that additional language? Oh, no, I was pointing out that I really just wanted to make sure. I appreciate that. Is there any other comments or discussion on this item? Thank you. I mean I think all of us are kind of sickened by what we see in the news and want to make sure that we can protect families. Many of us have immigrant families. Many of us are married to those that are immigrants and are impacted by this so thanks for have an opportunity to speak to this item. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Those opposed? That passes unanimously. So the next item on the agenda is item number 10. And item number 10 is the Pacific Gas and Electric Request for Easements or Licenses at Frederick Street Park with Pipeline Replacement. I'll first of all before I turn it over for any questions this was pulled at the request of the city attorney and I'd like to just ask you to begin. I'll turn it over to the Interim Park Superintendent Carol Scourge first. Thank you Mayor Taraz's. Just wanted to clarify this item. This report came to you as a full agreements with blanks included because we were still in negotiations with PG&E yesterday we were able to come into agreement with them or at least be able to come to City Council with a recommendation. And we came into closed session at that time of staff's recommendation was to internet agreement with PG&E with all the items that you see in your packet with the exception of adding into the blank $575,000 that includes the temporary easement and the permanent easement for Pipeline District Street Park. Thank you. Are there any questions on this item? Do you have anything else to add City Attorney? No, except I'm not actually seeing the agreement in your packet but I think the recommended action is appropriate. Thank you. Councillor Marble-Crone. I'd like to hear why this didn't go to the Parks and Rec Commission. I heard about a park and I heard from a Parks and Rec commissioner and they would have liked to have seen this and discussed it and maybe passed the recommendation on their sentiments on to the Council. And my understanding is there was a presentation at the Parks and Rec Creation Commission that did take place on this item and I'll ask the Interim Parks Superintendent to provide any background. The announcement was made to the Parks and Rec Creation Commission at their June meeting. A negotiation started preliminary talks I think started with PG&E back in February. It would have been probably March that the director could have brought that to Parks and Rec Creation Commission. I think at that time it was really in preliminary discussions and hadn't been made public yet. When you say presentation and the Mayor said presentation and you said would you clarify how much information was exchanged? Just announcing that we were in negotiations with PG&E for replacement of the pipeline. And I understood too that neighbors have not yet been notified of a pipeline that's going underneath Frederick Street Park. That is correct. Again we were in negotiations. This was brought to Council I think back in May to go ahead and start those negotiations and look at the possibility of that until we were able to enter into agreement with PG&E we felt it was premature to notify the neighborhoods. We weren't exactly sure of dates and times but as one of the requirements of the agreement is that there has to be absolutely a meeting with PG&E Parks and Rec Creation staff will be there as well with the neighborhoods to inform them of the project and take feedback from them. We are already taking money from PG&E and selling them property before checking in with the neighborhoods. I just wondered from the city manager, is that usually the way things take place? Do we usually acquire or sell stuff and then tell the neighbors? It varies. I think it depends on the particular circumstance. This is not something that we do on a routine basis and this in particular is fairly unique. It involves a program obviously by PG&E Replace Pipeline but also it's not necessarily going to change land use or the use or any have any impact on the park in and of itself. They really are acquiring a permanent easement that's just underground and so it's not going to result really in any change other than a safer pipeline that connects the facility across the harbor into the city. As I understand making that connection, this is really the most viable way to do that otherwise it would have to acquire some other property and demolish homes and have the pipeline go through that. I think it just depends on the project in particular. This one there was some timeliness to it also in that the PG&E needed to start construction before the winter season and so there was some urgency in trying to get it worked out as well. The focus was on negotiating something and again also the other interest that the city has here too is it is a property negotiation so you do that in close session in order to be able to conduct negotiations that are in the best interest of the city. We generally don't do negotiations in public sessions and that sort of thing. Letting people know certainly that the negotiations are going on or that there's a potential project we can do that. I just feel like we're dealing with a bad actor. PG&E already cut down all of these trees didn't treat the neighbors very well didn't inform them as far as from what I've heard from the neighbors themselves and now we're talking about allowing PG&E to what I consider rush forward. I don't know if there's a time thing that we can do but of course everyone wants the pipeline to be safe and we don't want another gas explosion here but as far as the steps that we take I just feel like we need to inform the public and I feel like we're not utilizing our parks and rec commission and I'll make a motion or amendment to this or I'll make a substitute motion when time comes. What will happen at a later date? Is there any process because it's impacting our parks we want to make sure that the park property proceeds are able to be reinvested in park improvements what would be the best way to have that come back at a later date? Yes so we'll bring back to council because it's a one time fund so we can bring it back in the context of the capital budget and we can look at certainly the parks capital budget needs and then council can look at how you want to designate the funds and how you want to designate those funds so we'll bring that back to you. Okay but in terms of motion language just so we have a record that'll come back? Well I would suggest then and then direct staff to bring back the recommendations related to the allocation of the funds. But they stay in the parks department? It's entirely up to you what I thought we would do is also give you an overview of the total capital needs so you can look at it in the context of all of that but it's entirely up to the council if you want to dedicate it specifically for its entirety for parks you can certainly do that or if you wanted to look at the overall CAP needs and then decide how you want it to allocate it between parks and other needs that's up to you. Generally when we have property sales we allocate it to the public trust fund which is what is in the report and then council decides how to use that moving forward but it's entirely up to you. Any other questions at this time? How much is in the public trust fund right now? Trying to recollect off the top of my head I think it's you know Bonnie? Yeah about a couple million Maybe you could get back with a figured and so you email the council. And the public trust fund the way we use it is we use it as a leverage so we borrow against we tend to place proceeds from property sales into the fund and then use the fund to sort of leverage other opportunities to borrow against it for a variety of different projects. So the fund balance changes because there's proceeds that go into it for example that's what we use to loan the warriors the funds and so there's proceeds that go back into that loan so it does vary from year to year depending on its uses and how it's leveraged. Okay alum at this point is there any member of the public that would like to speak to this item? This is item number 10 the Pacific Gas and Electric Request for an easement. Any members of the public would like to speak to this item? Okay I'll bring it back to the council for action. I'll call on Vice Mayor I have a quick comment at this point about trying to find a way to ensure that those funds are used for parks and rec and understanding that it's a one-time receipt from PG&E that that money be used specifically for parks and rec capital improvements I worry that if it goes just directly into the public trust fund and it comes back it's just then it just disappears into the fund and we're looking at the entire list of capital improvements so the sentiment may get lost along the way about the use of those funds for parks and rec purposes so I'd like to find a way to make that clear as we move forward. I'll call on Vice Mayor Watkins. I'm prepared to make a motion to authorize the agreement and then also add that to direct staff to return to council with opportunities or recommendations on how the one-time funds from the PG&E property agreement can be reallocated to the parks and rec departments for views. There's a motion by Vice Mayor Watkins and second by Councilmember Crone. Is there any further discussion? I wonder if you could I don't know why we're going at PG&E's speed and trying to please them because they're such a disappointing corporation they've disappointed us in so many ways even though our Monterey Bay Power people are sort of all of a sudden friction too as far as PG&E's attitude. I'm wondering if we could send this back to parks and rec and also notify members that these negotiations are going on. We've reached an agreement have a neighborhood meeting also have the parks and rec commission weigh in on this. I don't know if you would accept that as a friendly amendment. Before you answer I heard that PG&E is going to have a public meeting on this that's what I understand and I think that one is part of the recommendation maybe for the funding having the parks and rec creation look at that would be helpful to get their advisory opinion on how these funds would use. Those seem to be consistent with that and I think they're kind of embedded in the motion. I'd also say for the record that I'd like when parks comes up and issues with our parks come up that it goes to the parks and rec commission that's why I feel like we have commissions and people want to participate they're volunteers and they're interested in our parks and they can really help the council make decisions when we go to them first. Thank you. I was just going to add that I think this I feel is already moving at this time and I think every opportunity that we have we can also learn to do better the next time is to hopefully moving forward there will be more time and opportunity for us to consult with the parks and rec commission. I thought it was funny that we didn't get the postcard out for the other item that we deleted from the thing so I'm just... I hear it. I don't want to get too far in the weeds on this but perhaps one way we could address Council Member Crohn's concern is to suggest that the use of those funds be... that the fund should... when we get a report back about how those funds might be used that that also be... go through the parks and rec commission so they can weigh in on the recommendations. That's what I agree and so I think that's embedded in the motion. Is there any further discussion? Is there any further discussion? All those in favor of this item please say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Okay, that motion passes unanimously. Okay, so the next item on the agenda is item number 11 and Council Member Crohn you pulled this one I believe. No? 11, excuse me. Shoppers Corner. Yes, I just wanted to... I don't understand the $520 for Shoppers Corner. Shoppers Corner is an amazing business. It's been a good neighbor in this community for so many years and they were... what I understand they were a week late in making a claim and I just think we should work with them and pay them off the $520 if it was our fault and be done with it. Okay. Making a motion? That was the question. I wonder if we could separate that claim out number 11 and I will make a motion that it be separated and that we pay Shoppers Corner the $520. Maybe I'll first turn it over to the city attorney just for a brief background so that we're all on the same page. Yes, the claims filing statutes are required that a claim be presented within six months of the incident giving rise to potential liability so the recommended action from the risk management department consistent with our long established practice was to require claimants to adhere to our claim filing requirement. That ultimately is of course a decision that could be altered by the city council but I would urge you to use caution in doing that because you know making exceptions tends to change the rules and situations so that's not what I would recommend but it's a council decision ultimately. Council Member Mathews there's no motion. I'm going to go ahead and move the recommendation before us to reject both claims. I am happy. I'll second that. I'm happy for you to divide the actions if that will move things along. Let's hear from all the council members. Do you want to weigh in? Do you have an opinion to divide this? I mean most of the time when we're talking about this is like it is in this case procedurally regardless of the individual who is making the claim it's independent of our value judgment toward that individual or in this case business it's really a procedural we're proceeding based on procedure and so I wouldn't support separating them because we're handling this how we handle all the claims really as possible based on procedure. So I'm sensing that that's the sense that we're going to go but I'm going to go to the members of the public and members of the public that would like to speak to this item. This is item 11 the liability claims for the city. I'll bring it back to the council for action. We have a motion on the floor for the consent item just to deny the liability claims that was seconded by me motion by council member Mathews and is there any further discussion? Councilmember Cron. Perhaps in the technical detail but as city council members I assumed we have discretion and I just heard the city attorney say yeah but not much and really why would you want to change things and I'm sorry maybe this is just a different view of what a city council member does and the job but I think it maybe is legitimate differences but I think we do have discretion and I will be voting and I thank council member Mathews for separating it I would vote no on denying Shoppers Corners claim for being a week late is from what I understand. So you could also we'll do that we'll just separate these two yeah so all those in favor of denying the liability claims item 11 council member Cron is weighing a no on the vote for the shoppers corner I'll be voting no on that as well okay so two notes all those in favor of the approval of the consent item please say aye aye that motion passes unanimously with council member Cron and council member Brown voting no on the shoppers corner aspect of the liability claim thank you okay so the next item we have is item number 13 that was council member Cron that was again I didn't mean to you know push it but you had emailed me in advance to pull that one I think that was you well I pulled it technically but council member Cron if you'd like to start oh go ahead so I pulled this one because I I understand that we have made you know these changes were approved in our budget and so I'm not I didn't pull it to oppose per se but you know one of the things that I noticed when these particular positions and reclassifications were pulled out was that most of them are changes that upgrade positions and that means additional cost to the city and I don't think we have a really clear understanding of what those costs are going to be I'm told that there's you know and if you look at the overall within the budget you see that there's not a net increase in positions but they are upgrades and so over time those are going to cost the city money and I'd like to have some kind of accounting of what that cost will be maybe some explanation at the moment I believe talking with the city manager yesterday it sounded like you know there's not any net cost but that was really just there's no net cost but I'd like to see some kind of report or some kind of data that actually shows what this is going to mean for us certainly we can I'll respond to you if it assists you at all the resolution attached it although it does list the salaries but you are correct it is contained within each department's budget if you want to pull that out separately the ins and the outs I think we can have finance probably pull that together and unfortunately our finance well fortunately for him our finance director is not here at the moment otherwise I might have been able to get this answered in advance certainly I will note that you are correct there's the intention was no net gain because those positions were eliminated to offset those although some may have been upgraded there was other offsets within maybe not necessarily within the department but within the total personnel complement to achieve the no net gain and cost may I just ask those are ongoing offsets not just ongoing yes no they were ongoing deleting a position adding a position and maybe there were a few that as you identified appropriately that were considered an upgrade but there also were and that's what the net difference and there's also the transfers from the police the ranges from the police department parks as well so it's all the changes that were incorporated in the budget transfers upgrades downgrade I had another question on a particular position the I see that the and this is one perhaps for director Lipscomb the the position of economic development manager has been eliminated and we now have a business liaison and I'm not sure what that means and it just seems a little I don't know as a public agency having a business liaison is I'm just not accustomed to that kind of position existing in the public sector so if you could explain sure Bonnie Lipscomb director of economic development it's actually not the economic development manager that was deleted but a development manager yeah and the right and the business liaison position specifically is one that works does a lot of work with the businesses economic development coordinators sort of our entry level position that really you know gets your feet wet in economic development and does a little bit of everything the business liaison position works more directly with businesses and works more directly also interdepartmental within the other departments on business permitting assistance it's sort of that concept of the whole business plan roadmap of taking a business and sort of providing assistance all the way through and so there's a lot of more intense development individual business assistance with the business liaison any other discussion council member crowned yeah mayor I apologize I did email you and now I recall what what what that was glad I was I was I was being I wasn't mistaken and even with council member Brown as far as we had approved this budget already do any of us up here really know everything that was in that budget I wonder this is one that I want to bring up is I thought that this was not approved in the budget so I just want to the the deputy city manager assistant city to the city city manager and I ask some questions what's the different what is an assistant to the city manager the previous deputy their previous assistant to the city manager got elevated I guess to the deputy city manager and then he left to take a job in more obey and we have this then going back to assistant to the city manager and I'm just wondering what that position what's what's that person going to do and you know that I've asked for assistance for council members and we're desperately seeking assistance and what is this assistant to the city manager going to actually do well the this is a position that's going to do a number of things first and foremost it provides additional project management and analytical capacity for office to specifically manage the work plan items and to lead some of those work plan items it also will allow some delegation to occur so that we can have more capacity to do more on the communications function you recall that in past years we also had a community relations manager and that was deleted and our previous deputy city manager had some communications functions and since he's left we really have not had that in our office which is I know is a priority for the city council so this allows for that capacity to be built in to be able to do more of the communications coordinating and leadership throughout the organization as well as additional sort of project management and analytical capacity to work on the work plan items and priorities that are in our work plan how is that work not getting done now or what's been the result of it not getting done well I mean I think the work right now the workload is pretty overwhelming and I think that in so far as just the number of items that people are handling and dealing in terms of trying to simultaneously work on a multitude of projects and so I think the quality of those projects is hurt when you don't have enough time to do a good job on all of them so that's one thing that happens also it's difficult to be able to meet deadlines to be able to complete those projects and also with respect to communications I think the council has stated that you want to be more proactive with respect to providing and engaging the community that's a priority for the council and again we're not able to really do that because we just don't have enough time or capacity to really in depth work on those things and as you know we've got some major projects so for example we're working on the shelter project and that really eats up a lot of our capacity and one time so that we're not able to dedicate as much as we should be to others. Overall our city manager's office is a very very small office even with this position compared to most other city manager's office of our size of city and budget so and this is a reduction in our budget as well so it's it's not unreasonable in fact if you actually do a comparison many other cities have much more capacity than we would have even with this position no not unreasonable at all but I also find it is unreasonable that the council members we don't have assistance to in our communication for example that's a great one to talk about in communication and setting up meetings and answering emails there's a huge amount of time that this takes getting this whole agenda together I just don't I would love to see this position funded but I'd also love to see a position for individual council members to have get some assistance as well because we were going to get assistance but the analyst person is dedicating themselves to a particular job for the city manager's office and I think that a lot of tasks and stuff that I would like to see done is going by the wayside but yet we're going to hire another assistant I mean I assume the person hasn't been hired yet but we're moving in that direction because we're approving an assistant to the city manager you know at this at this point I think those are some general comments and I'd like to just see if there's any member of the public that would like to speak to this item this is item number 13 it's regarding our personnel changes that were discussed in our last budget any member of the public would like to speak to this item okay seeing none I'll bring it back mayor I would move if there was if there was a second that we delete the assistant to the city manager position and allocate that money to assistance for council members that you know is sorely needed there's not a second there's a second to it okay second our motion by council member crone second by council member Brown I'm just going to say that I don't support that I appreciate the idea of looking at what our organizational capacity is and what our staffing staffing resources are I'd first of all like to see some sort of org chart to see what those assignments are I know that's something that is I believe in the works that we're going to see because there was a reorganization after there's been some staff changes and that is something that's pending so I'd like to kind of see that so we can see what the capabilities are and then have a better understanding of what resources can be assigned to maybe particular council needs but I appreciate the sentiment that you brought forward are we going to see that workflow chart before we go enter into a hire this person you know I'll just say this I don't support the motion on the floor but that's something where maybe as it comes back we could talk about in the next if there is a substitute motion okay is there any other members of the council that like to speak to this item councilman I'm very going to oppose this we had a very thorough discussion of the positions that are referenced in this during our budget discussions this is simply implementing direction that we gave in our the adoption of our budget and we discussed the staffing of the city managers office I completely agree we have very high expectations in terms of issues and projects in our city managers office we're down staff right now we have very slim resources given our ambition we have discussed a reorganization in that department to be more effective but to my mind it's a disservice to our staff in the city managers office to expect them to do more and more and more with less it's true that they there are high demands on individual council members for communication with the public responsiveness etc and we're trying to deal with that we will see some changes as the new positions come into play but we've been through this discussion rather thoroughly before and I know that councilmember crone would like to have individual staff for individual council members but that did not get through the budget process so I think it's really important to move forward with full staffing for our city managers department so we can do all those things that are urgent for the community and priorities for us councilmember chase in our last council meeting we did discuss having a conversation about how to restructure this city council including support from the city managers office and I'm still in strong support of that I believe that our direction is to have a committee that's looking at that and I think that that's the perfect time to have the conversation and really address I know one of the things you brought up councilmember crone was compensation I think that's one of the things that we should be looking at as well and so I think that that is really the place to do that so a lot of the concerns you brought up I believe are going to be addressed through that process in fact on that point there will be an agenda item on the first meeting in August there will be a review committee and the appointments by the council okay is there any further and those points will be kind of threaded in the discussion on the agenda okay is there any further discussion on this item well I'll just say I seconded the motion not because I don't support the city managers office getting additional resources it's just another one of these situations where I feel like we talk about exploring and nothing really happens and so I'm trying to do my best to make it clear that I find this I think this is a very serious issue charter review committee is great and you know talking about increasing councilmember salaries is great having that conversation about structural change is great as long as it leads to something and I just worry that it's going to be one of those paths to nowhere because we just don't have the money for it and so that's why I'm supporting this motion today well you will be on the council for the next couple of years so you'll be in the driver's seat to help drive that conversation so there is a motion a second on the floor council I mean city manager Bernal just one quick thing I wanted to highlight this would also provide additional capacity to provide council assistant because that's one of the things that has generically happened we do have an analyst in our office that provides assistance to council members with research and that sort of thing but what seems to happen is their time gets sucked up with appropriately so with the major projects that we're working on so we hope to create some additional capacity also to provide that additional council support so that's part of the equation as well just seeing that and no disrespect martin it's it's the fiction that we're living through to think that one person can work for seven of us I know we all agree on most things up here and sometimes we all vehemently disagree on things in different groups as individuals and I just think that having one person work for directly for seven people on our issues is near impossible I just want to say that okay thank you so you have a motion on the floor second do you need it restated no all those in favor of that motion please say aye oh wait excuse me take that away all those opposed say no no okay that motion fails council member crone council member brown in favor council member matthews chase neroyan vice mayor walkins myself opposed is there all calling vice mayor walkins I'll move the recommendation as presented and and just add not for the for the recommendation but anticipation of a further conversation to really talk about progress what we're seeing in terms of moving in the direction that we want to see and outcomes that we want to see associated with that as well as look forward to the august 14th agenda item in terms of how we're going to move forward with some of the bigger issues raised so with that said I'll move the recommendation before us today second by council member matthews vice mayor walkins second by council member matthews all those in favor please say aye those opposed okay that motion passes with council member crone opposed all other council members in favor okay thanks next item on our agenda is item number 26 this is our consent public hearings it's number 26 on the agenda are there any council members who wish to only comment on this item if there are any members of the public that would like to request an item be pulled or speak on it now is the time to do so this is item number 26 looking for a motion so moved okay motion by council meroyan second by council member chase is there any member of the public that would like to speak to this item this item is the second reading and final adoption the ordinance revising chapter 16.08 of the municipal code pertaining to the sewer system seeing none I'll bring it back to the council and thank Mr. Wolfman for all the work you did on this thanks so we have a motion on the floor and a second all those in favor please say aye any opposed that motion passes unanimously thank you okay we're now at the portion of our agenda where we have our public hearings for those of you that started the meeting with us there was a deletion that is item number 27 is there any member of the public that's here for item number 27 that's the 1024 Soquel Avenue appeal of the planning commission approval of a special use permit and design permit to construct a three-story mixed use building to include approximately 1,000 square foot ground floor commercial space and 12 apartment units in the CC community commercial zone district that item will appear on our August 14th meeting per this planning director he mentioned that announcement at the beginning of the meeting so we'll have that at our August 14th meeting and thank you for those that we're here earlier the next on our agenda is item number 28 this is our city council ad hoc revenue committee recommendations related to the placement of a general purpose tax measure of one cent per ounce on distributors of sugar sweetened beverages on the number ever six 2008 ballot 18 ballot I'd like to first call on the city attorney for an update on current news well relevant to this discussion today is a bill that's currently pending in the state assembly AB 1838 just to give you a little bit of background as you're aware there's an organization called the business round table that's in the process of attempting to qualify a measure for the November ballot that would greatly alter the existing legal framework for adopting local taxes and fees one of the things that it would do it would basically eliminate the distinction between a general tax and a special tax under current California law as adopted by the voters and when it enacted Proposition 218 in 1996 a general tax measure can be used for any general revenue purposes but it only requires a 50% or 50% plus one majority in order to pass a special tax measure on the other hand is a tax measure that the proceeds of which are dedicated to a specific purpose as outlined in the measure and under current law it requires a two-thirds majority in order to pass the business round table the ballot petition would change that law to essentially eliminate the distinction between general and special taxes and require all local tax measures to receive a two-thirds majority vote thereby further limiting local governments like the city of Santa Cruz other cities, counties and special districts from raising the necessary revenue that they need in order to conduct their business this bill AB 1838 is as I understand it the product of negotiations that are ongoing between the legislature and the business round table and particularly the sweetened beverage industry that would essentially operate as a compromise whereby the ballot measure that I just mentioned to you would not be placed on the November ballot in exchange the legislature would adopt this new law that would on the effective date that it's enacted establish a prohibition on the imposition increase levy and collection or enforcement by a local agency of any tax fee or other assessment on groceries broadly defined in the measure to include sugar sweetened beverage and other products containing refined sugar so essentially if this measure is adopted by the legislature it would affect all existing it would affect all new sugar sweetened beverage taxes that are enacted on or after January 1st of 2018 so should you put this measure on the ballot and if that legislation passes it would automatically essentially invalidate the ballot measure so the other thing it would do which is not directly relevant to the city of Santa Cruz it says that if a city has an existing sugar sweetened beverage tax that's lawfully enacted and declared as such by a court of competent jurisdiction it would bar the state from administering any sales tax on behalf of that agency so it's essentially an attempt to also get at cities that have already adopted sugar sweetened beverage tax measures so that's the legal framework under which this matter is being presented and I believe the city manager is also going to share with you some suggested wording changes for the question that is the ballot question that is contained within the resolution so I was going to do a brief first of all I would just want to say that Marcus and his staff spent a lot of time in numerous hours working on this and obviously he could be here today so I wanted to acknowledge the tremendous amount of work that he did working with the committee and others to sort of develop the proposal before you and all the material so he did prepare a presentation that I'll just run through really quickly the one that's on the this computer sorry I've got a number of other things so I just want to give you a little bit of background just in honor of Marcus I guess am I going to do it just as like the way he does his presentations I think but oh okay I don't have candy I can run in the back and grab some strawberries maybe that's it it's not the same be healthier at least yeah sugar so I'll just give you some some quick background here so the item before you today and again there have been some changes as the city attorney noted and those have just just occurred this weekend the latest I heard is that there's a committee at four o'clock today of the it's the Senate committee on budget and fiscal review will be reviewing AB 1838 at four o'clock this afternoon so we don't know whether what's going to happen with it but I do know that they're under this deadline of June 28th because that's when the business council has to decide whether they want to proceed with their ballot initiative or not so we'll know later this week but we won't know before you decide today so that's the challenge but I'll give you some additional information on that should you proceed but the recommendations before you are to place a measure it's a one cent and there may be some discussion on that on the council that would also include a community oversight panel and then like you do for other measures to provide direction regarding the authors and the legal and fiscal analysis so by way of background the oversight panel would be included which is similar to what other sugar beverage measures have had and in particular this would look at the impact of the tax and monitor it's the use of funds and then provide report back to the council and it could include members of the Parks and Recreation Commission Santa Cruz City Schools Youth Organizations like Doctors, Petitions, Denison and other community stakeholders as far as the rationale for a big part of the rationale for having such taxes a big part of it of course is the health benefits to reduce diabetes and obesity in kids in particular and looking at the Berkley's they have seen a reduction in soda and increase in water consumption certainly Rosemary would appreciate more consumption in water so the council established a committee in February after we had a previous committee that recommended to you the sales tax and then the council created a new committee to look at additional measures that would come forward in November or some other time frame and those were council members Watkins Brown and Matthews and they went through and looked at what could be a potential measure for 2018 continued the research that the previous committee had done and again focused on community wellness we had done a survey so we had some data related to that so again the committee looked at what is done before did some analysis did some outreach to local stakeholders so they did meet with the chamber with the Santa Cruz Business Council had some discussions with Costco some health and some health providers and other community organizations as well to get some feedback with respect to the potential ballot measure as far as just some of the things that the committee did look at they did look at a variety of different taxes you've seen this chart before but really focused on at least for the November election the sugar tax because we've done a survey and had the ability to do that one with respect to the time frame that we had and the outreach that would be required here are the poll results that we did back in January that were very favorable this was on a 2 cent per fluid ounce and so did and this was also done in the context of also having a sales tax measure so it did really well considering there were two measures on it once and it was a higher rate than other jurisdictions so to summarize this is what's before you what's being proposed also is a general purpose measure and so it's not a so it would require a 50% to pass and that we do have some suggested language in the ballot question again if you were to proceed forward to make it very clear that that's the case and can you bring that one up so all it does is just as compared to what you have in your agenda packet it doesn't really change the substance of the ballot questions it just orders it around slightly so it introduces the fact that it's a general purpose and what the rate is up front and then describes the general uses as opposed to the other way around so that's a clarification recommendation that we have for you now the other question I want to be wondering about what if the council adopts this and this legislation happens because we don't know whether it's going to happen or not so we did check with the county elections clerk and so the council does have the ability to remove the ballot the measure but you have to do that by August 10th which is the deadline and so what that would require and you can do that by resolution but that would require you to be in early August to specifically do that if you choose to take action today that's a I guess my first question is the recommended action was made before this bill was made and so is that stand like that's even in light of the pending legislation that I that's correct and the committee you know that this just happened this weekend we just heard about it this weekend so the committee has not had the opportunity to like sit down and necessarily review the recommendation so let me rephrase the question so there but I mean is the recommendation stand even though there's been this change I guess I'm posing that to the committee members if I may I think I think there's a discussion to be had okay all right okay I have a quick clarifying question so not that I'm not willing to come to a special meeting if required but the would we be required legally required to remove it from the ballot or could we just leave it and it just wouldn't go into effect if passed is that I mean I know that's kind of strange but I'm just I'm just wondering what the requirements are you would not be legally required to remove it from the ballot would we get our money back no you would not I don't think that works I think if it's not if it's not placed on the measure they wouldn't charge us August 10th at the deadline we'd have to remove it then then you wouldn't be charged I was responding to councilmember brown's question about if it were left on the ballot then of course we would still have to but if you removed and then you would be and also her question was if it's placed on we would have to take action to remove it that's right with a special meeting that's right okay all right so is there any further discussion well I as the chair have prepared some remarks but I want to thank you city manager martin Bernal for providing the overview of the process and then I know the other subcommittee members also want to speak I'm sure that you recall council that when this item came before us previously I had a lot of ideas and insights and passion around it so I appreciate the opportunity to sit on the revenue committee to be chair of this committee and to be working with councilmembers crone and councilmember matthews on how to proceed at this time in light of all of the major things that are happening at the state so I do I just want to say how much I want to thank the staff Marcus and Tracy I also want to thank and appreciate do you have something I just can say this is a time for questions and then we're going to go public but if you're making remarks now I mean what do you say because there's some nuance and actually frankly a difference of opinion here we have to get that on the table so people know what they're responding to I'll go ahead and it's maybe a little bit of a variation from presentations okay thank you so okay I'll kind of try to go straight to it I just you know I think there's differences of opinions on our subcommittee by far and ultimately I feel that we designed a proposal that incorporated people's individual but also was centered around a shared value and a commitment to health and well-being for our city and I also don't need to tell you all that we are a community that is conscious and proactive about health and well-being and this is evidence in so many ways by our open spaces environmental protection policies a commitment to affordable housing the spectrum of community programs that we have robust parks and rec department and I could go on I also want to highlight the city's commitment to making social health investments and how we can influence the social determinants of health and we were presented today with an opportunity now to look at ways to sustain our existing community health and well-being policies and then further promote health equity and so just earlier today we had a conversation about the beach flats community garden and that was an opportunity for us to affirm our commitment to the community knowing that we also continue to make further investments in that area as a member of the programs committee the community programs committee I've become acutely aware that there are a number of health and well-being programs needing support in our city and I know councilmember brown serves on that committee along with councilmember matthews with me and we have to make tough decisions within our limited resources on who to fund and how to fund them and just sort of for reference last year or earlier this year we were only able to fund proposals partially we moved some funds around and some of the examples include being unable to fund the dientes request for a new dental chair or unable to fully fund our bike park revitalization project in pump track in depot park we had limited support and funding for our teen center in lauda nelson we had requests from the new avista community center and homeless garden project and the second harvest food bank so there's many many that I can say that we hear requests for and we have to make tough tough decisions about I also just want to say that these sugar sweet and beverage taxes make a difference and they transform communities and in communities where these are in place they have not only seen consumer patterns shift to healthier choices they've also reinvested the revenue into health and community well-being efforts and we can also take this step here in Santa Cruz and prioritize policies to create conditions for health and well-being not perpetuating policies that may have led to conditions for premature death and disease and I ask do you think that the soda industry cares about people's health knowing what we know about the impacts that these highly sweetened beverages have on children the people and particularly the people of color as highlighted in the agenda report I just want to mention one statistic that really stood out to me and that's from the center of disease control and prevention that one in three children that were born in the year of 2000 in the United States will become diabetic and the odds are significantly higher for African-American and Hispanic children as nearly 50% of them are anticipated to develop diabetes I am not okay with these statistics I believe the council isn't okay with these statistics and I think the city voters will see this as a positive step that we can take to fight chronic disease and support community well-being I also want to highlight that the oversight committee was written into the ordinance and is comprised of the key stakeholders that were presented earlier to ensure that we can hear the impact and report of the impact on the tax we can have them review the expenditures as well as to make recommendations on the future use of the revenue and how we can continue to support throughout our years investments in community health and well-being and I'll just briefly end on a personal note I'm sure that many people in this room know somebody who has diabetes and diabetes has absolutely impacted my life my great-grandmother had passed away from diabetes and health complications my grandmother passed away from diabetes and health complications my cousin has diabetes and I've had another family member who has recently diagnosed with pre-diabetes so when I ran for city council I spoke about healthy public policy I spoke about my passion for embedding health in all policies to ensure that health is not be deterred I believe everyone deserves the right to be healthy and we can start where the people that need it the most and this is one way to influence health I know that there's a lot of conversation and a lot of things up in the air so it won't be the only way and with or without this tax health equity will continue to be a priority for me as I know it will be for the council and then I'll turn it over to the other subcommittee members to add anything or if any other council members have questions for me who wants to go first he wants the last word I can read through that one I can read through that one all right council member crumb okay go respect I guess we do vote most of the time up here unanimously you go through the record and I think we I want to thank the staff too because I thought Marcus and we had some outside consultants as well can I just I'm sorry to interrupt you real quick I know that you guys want to do this a little differently we'll go to public comment after your comments is that okay okay sorry to interrupt no no no no worries but we had vigorous discussions and it was it was interesting to see the unanimity about you know the underlying issue of health and I think a measure like this is an opportunity for our community to go on record to go on record in a really positive way about the values that we have and I have to say right on Martin Watkins so much of what you said I agree with and this measure does represent community values and thank you for sharing what you did about your family because politics is personal I think I have a feeling that that's why most of us are up here because we ran on stuff that was personal I was wondering if I have a a handout I want to pass around the council the two things that I brought to the to most meetings was I wanted to see us maximize on this one and learn from whatever other cities have done and I also wanted if we're going to have oversight that oversight come from the council and that they be appointed by you know directly by each council member gets an appointment on this panel I'm putting up this slide if we can I don't know if it's going to work it's going to work because we look at Berkeley San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland is that a focus issue I could read it perfectly well I wanted other folks to be able to see this as well and San Francisco went out first and they went out with two thirds instead of 50 plus one and they achieved they got shot down by voters because big soda invested heavily against San Francisco to the tune of I'm told anywhere between 11 and 20 million dollars they won the majority 55% and that was in 2014 and then Berkeley came along and really killed it they had 76% of the vote in a 50 plus one election on a one cent beverage tax San Francisco had gone out for two cents that first time on the two thirds and they came back and did it again and one overwhelmingly with one cent I think they were a little bit shy to keep the two cents even though they had the majority the first time Oakland did the same and they also got 61% of the vote I don't know if we're not going to get it it was just a slide they wanted folks to see that are here and I've always been saying two cents we are in the community I believe our values are there and that two cents an ounce is the right way to go and I've been sort of struggling with that in the committee and putting that out there and I'm trying to make the case right now that if you look at what what I would call maybe the homologs the cities that represent some of the values that we represent and what the percentages were in those cities and how they lost but most of them won completely overwhelming that I think we can muster 50% plus one and more if we went to the two cents and I would just argue that and I know one of the consultants we were working with said they polled on one and one and a half cents and they did just there was no difference in that in that poll so we could at least get 1.5 and one and a half cents I would just suggest two and I think we're in this incredible situation right now we've got this couple superpowers over our heads right now in Sacramento you know going back and forth trying to take it out of our hands SOTA got it really involved with the business round table when they started seeing all these beverage taxes you know it's called the ABA the American Beverage Association I guess and they immediately when we thought about this the first time they sent their representatives here to have meetings with all the council members and to basically intimidate us what my feeling was when I sat down with them oh you know we're going to come at you with all this money and why would you ever want to do this and you don't really care about health well that's not it at all we do care about health and in fact that's why I'm hoping to have this on the ballot is it going to be a statement that this community is going to make in terms of health terms because I do think we live in a fantastic community so I would just urge the council to consider the two cents as well as how we appoint an oversight panel and I think an oversight panel is key to making this work well for the public and for the council thank you mayor thank you council member crone council member matthews for the minority opinion I feel like I'm on the supreme court no decision yet this is true I think my lifelong commitment to issues of public health are pretty well known so I'm not going to go over those but I too want to thank the staff for their just extraordinary support on a very short timeline on helping us work through this as a subcommittee there was a lot of really passionate serious work put in Chris put a lot of work into putting into researching what other communities had done in great detail and martin particularly working with other advocates on other campaigns the level of homework that people put into this was really admirable we did reach out as a committee and with staffs help to various stakeholder groups not exhausted but a number of a short list of stakeholders and they took that outreach seriously and gave us their input it was not unanimous in any particular direction but it was respectful having said that the subcommittee was charged as an ad hoc subcommittee for revenue for the city of Santa Cruz and we investigated this as a possible revenue source I want to put that out there the interesting thing about the city of Santa Cruz family of measures is that there are really two motivations one is in and of itself to improve health patterns healthier lifestyle patterns and experience shows that happens when you reduce consumption of sugary beverage drinks people move into healthier patterns so that's a good thing for public health in and of itself they also generate some revenue quite distinct motivations we were exploring it from the position of adding to the city's revenue understanding that the community is very interested in health we did have excellent advice from a number of people who had been involved in successful campaigns in northern California and they were both enthusiastic cheerleaders and they were very sanguine about the opposition that would be rained down upon us if we entered into this and among other things they gave us really good realistic advice they gave us expectations what we should need to expect to run a successful campaign anticipating we'd have a tsunami of opposition from the industry in the vicinity of a hundred thousand dollars something like that for the city of Santa Cruz which is pretty sobering and I believe others would confirm that was the number we were given rather conservatively that's all we'd have to raise locally but the opposition was going to millions how many millions who knows but they were pretty sanguine about that and it would be a no holds barred campaign and they said what you need for a successful campaign you need adequate time, you need strong leadership and you need money and we've well I'll just finish that sentence I have no doubt that the community support for this is here in the city of Santa Cruz and my direction throughout the committee discussions was I think we can build a strong campaign here I think we can do it not in three months and so my own feeling is that has been a strong desire in deferring this building that strong base of community support and coming forward in another election cycle okay then this weekend we get this crazy news that the beverage association is doing a deal with the advocates of the initiative and it has horrible implications and that's just one more confusing factor and obviously it's designed to be a poison pill but the other the other factor that comes to my mind is we have so many high stakes issues on our plate here in the city of Santa Cruz coming up in November we're trying to do stuff on housing so rent control is going to be before us we may have a revenue measure for affordable housing for the entire county we're not sure on the outcome of that yet but really high stakes issues and I think this particular battle would if we go forward require so much time, energy and particularly money to be successful and if and when we do it I want us to succeed my recommendation personally would be that we thank in as many superlatives as we can what the staff and committee put in but that we defer action on this to a future time obviously waiting to see what happens at the state level which again as I mentioned is a confusing 11th hour factor and that we commit to achieving both fiscal stability and community wellness and we particularly urge leadership at the state level to reduce the consumption of sugary sweet and drinks we see that Bill Monning is pushing another bill I think the state level is really where we have to make serious changes here and I believe the state of California can do that against big industry we've done it against oil and plastic and numerous others so that's the direction that I personally am leaning and I just wanted to put it out there so that people knew what they were responding to thanks and I appreciate having this we're doing it a little differently normally we would have questions and answers at this time this is more of the committee presentation I'll ask the city attorney based on the work that's going on in Sacramento let's say there you put this on the ballot and it's successful what's the liability to the city based on that poison pill that you described well the pill you're referring to is the provision about the state continuing to administer sales and use tax and I've been talking to the city manager about that during the course of this meeting a couple ways to interpret that one is that it's intended to go after cities that already have existing sweet and beverage taxes but another might be in the event that charter cities take the position that their police power under the California Constitution overrides the general law that the state would be enacting in this measure in which case notwithstanding that the state would would basically stop collecting sales tax and the city would have to administer that tax somehow on its own so that could be a very difficult outcome also want to point out the possibility that a legislative agreement is not reached and the business roundtable measure gets placed on the ballot and passes in which case we have crafted this measure to conform to the requirements of that business roundtable measure but it would need to get a two-thirds majority in order to pass if the business roundtable measure is enacted because it would retroactively apply to any tax adopted after January 1st, 2018 thank you what I'll do is at this point I'd like to ask members of the public if they would like to speak to this item this is item number 28 the city council ad hoc revenue committee recommendations related to the placement of a general purpose tax measure ma'am you have hold on one moment could I just say we have been discussing a lot of terms and language up here that's a lot of jargon and so I would just if members of the public want to leave a question when they're at the microphone and I will jot that down and we'll get you those answers because our heads are spinning too after this past weekend on this issue and I'm sure that I'm not sure how clear we were in explaining this thanks councilmember crown so I'll be watching for you to jot those questions down okay please begin thank you my name is Sarah Harman I'm a health educator with Santa Cruz County Public Health and I'm also a representative of the Oral Health Access Santa Cruz County I'm a group of local organizations and individuals who have been working on the Oral Health issue here locally for several years we did just release our 2018 report card that I'm sure many of you have received and I encourage you to look over that and I think I'm preaching to the choir with what I have to say but just to add to the fuel for this fire I'm sure many of you know that there's a strong link between the amount and frequency of sugar consumed in the central cavities cavities are the most common chronic disease in children in our country and also a primary reason for children missing school and so I just wanted to and let you know that the Oral Health Access group has additional data and resources as you and when you move forward with this issue we welcome you to reach out to us thank you Sarah next speaker please my name is Jeremy Christensen I manage in downtown just kind of want to offer what's happened in our business in San Francisco where we have had this tax implemented at the beginning of this year you know fundamentally Costco is pretty much opposed to anything that raises prices for the members right our business model is founded on having the lowest possible prices in any given market wherever we're at we don't disagree that the sugar is a large issue contributing to a lot of these factors but what we would forecast for see happening here in Santa Cruz we offer a limited skew environment right meaning we only carry about 4,000 items in the building couple hundred of them are the beverages all of those items because the space is so limited all those items have to perform at a certain level of sales right and in different categories that level is different but what happened in San Francisco we just ended up discontinuing most of these items that these taxes affected and as a result of that business members who we kind of got our start with our wholesale local business owners that shop in our location you think that they would take off to other cities San City San Jose or even just outside of the Santa Cruz city limits for our business we look at our top 20 or so business owners that come in and shop with us and they're responsible for couple million dollars in sales with us that we think could leave Santa Cruz altogether if they can't get their beverages at the right price it makes it allows them to still be competitive so not only would we probably people would stop buying the beverages which in the larger sense is a good thing they would take their tax dollars out of Santa Cruz altogether that's what we experience in San Francisco with their members going to South San Francisco and San Bruno in addition to that we feel like loss of sales is going to be big enough that is worth opening the discussion here that maybe even in our food court where people go in and get lunch to the tune of is that what my time's up? Yeah, thank you bottom line is the food court got rid of all diets went to all diet sodas Thank you, thank you for being here next speaker please Hi there My name is James Goldwin I'm an undergraduate student majoring in legal studies at UC Santa Cruz I also work for the chamber of commerce but I do want to express right now that my views are personal and not those of the chamber simply put as someone who used to work in a legislative office this is not well written at all a simple tax on sugar sweet and sodas is far too vague to have a lasting impact on our community so beyond the impact on the business community which I can't speak on because again personal where's the tax on aspartame or halo or sucralose each of these are more likely to cause obesity, hypertension and diabetes in those who ingest them than cane sugar moreover, corporations, PepsiCo Coca-Cola, Big Soda, etc they've poured billions of dollars into finding alternatives like these for their drinks and in fact most sweetened beverages do not contain sugar as the verbiage says at the end of the day they'll fight tooth and nail to win and if they win, great they're happy, if they lose they don't really bear the brunt the distribution centers do the taxes on distribution I'd ask that the measure be amended either to include all artificial sweeteners in the true interests of public health or recommend a no vote in the spirit of Council Member Cron's concerns expressed during discussion of item 13 I'm willing and able to provide unpaid research assistance to all council members who need it thank you next speaker please my name is Madalyn Domsky I'm a Masters of Public Health student from the University and also an intern at the Santa Cruz County Public Health in the nutrition program and I just wanted to provide some additional background information as well just to fuel the fire as they said a study by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has estimated that the sugar sweetened beverages and fruit drinks comprise a larger source of daily calories among children and teens ages 2 through 18 and daily sugary drink consumption increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and research also shows that chronic diseases such as diabetes are now developing at younger ages kind of like what it's been discussed already and sugar sweetened beverages are also linked to higher calorie intake lower diet quality and weight gain and between 2009 and 2016 overweight status and obesity rates in California increased from 11% to 20% among children ages 0 to 5 and from 28% to 40% among teens and adolescents 12 to 17 years old and similar sugar sweetened beverage taxes in other cities in California like what has been discussed has demonstrated a significant decline in consumption of sugar sweetened beverages illustrating the potential for this type of tax to aid in reducing obesity. Thank you next speaker please thank you Mayor Taraz's and City Council members and thank you to the committee for your work around this issue obviously I should introduce myself my name is Laura Marcus I'm the Chief Executive Officer of Diantha's Community Dental Care I think all of you know me and know that I of course incredibly excited about an opportunity to recognize the impact of sugar sweetened beverages on people's oral health in our community with that said I need to be really clear that I am not certain that this is the time or that we have the resources and not just the time that we don't have the time or the resources so late in the election schedule to pass something like this and unlike a measure like the homeless or not the homeless excuse me the housing measure or the sales tax measure that we're looking at in November which would face local opposition we're talking about something that would face national opposition and like has been mentioned millions of dollars with opposition so it pains me to be someone here advocating and absolutely would do anything I could to support oral health in this community including this tax I have to say I feel like it's a better measure for 2020 thank you thank you next speaker please hi Carol Mulford a health and education advocate really speaking here to say thank you for what you're doing win or lose and I don't know it doesn't look really good but the point is what you will be doing is having a really needed conversation our nutritional knowledge has changed in the last 45 years and so have our health outcomes we didn't have childhood obesity like we do now so a lot has changed and I'd like to take my minute to refer to something that Robert Lustig said he's a pediatric endocrinologist and we brought him here to talk to educators about what's going on with sugar and what he said is educating society alone doesn't work so what you're doing is great but some of us that live through that just say no it doesn't work so you have to take a stand in what you've done to try to regulate this I commend you for it there's been four times that society has had these tectonal shifts one was condoms in bathrooms the other one was bikes and bike helmets and seat belts drinking and driving and the fourth was smoking in public and I think the next one on the docket has got to be sugar 30 years ago people like you would be considered crazy for just you'd be thrown out of office for even having this conversation but public health works to change behavior and we have the data and the knowledge we know that sugar is the toxicity is having a huge impact on society so thank you for what you're doing and we'll see how this turns out but I just applaud your efforts thank you next speaker please Hi I'm Caitlin Manchester I'm a health educator at Santa Cruz County nutrition program I'm here on behalf of the Gold for Health Collaborative we've heard that drinks like soda and fruit flavored drinks that are targeted towards children can have 16 teaspoons of sugar in them and some as much as 18 per serving and I just wanted to provide a visual demo that I do in my classes so this is what the 16 teaspoons looks like and as you can imagine this is well beyond what pediatricians recommend for children and for youth as a daily consumption and we've heard that the teens are consuming these drinks daily in large numbers two thirds and as high as three quarters of teens that are black and Latino drink these drinks every day or more than one drink every day so the sugars being beverage taxes are a growing trend and similar taxes in Bay Area cities have not only shown the decrease in consumption they're perhaps more importantly providing a sustainable source of funding for community health education programming as well as built environment infrastructure spending that can have a real lasting impact such as for parks and for community gardens and these ultimately can help reduce the rates of obesity and other health conditions that we've heard a lot about today thank you next speaker please hi Elise Kazby here first of all I want to thank you Martine for your strong leadership on this issue and that's really helpful for me to see right now other reasons that don't pertain to this issue and I think that both council member Cron and Matthew's comments are really informative about the complexity of this issue so I can't really honestly strongly advocate a position except I do want to say a couple of personal things in about 1995 I read a feminist anthology and was persuaded to the what I thought at the time was a brilliant idea which is if you didn't understand poverty you should live at a low wage and get familiar with it this has had really devastating effects on my own life because being poor is deathly in our culture and so I also want to ask council member Martine if you would also take a strong stand on homelessness because that is an epidemic and it is a health issue and there is nothing I've ever done in my entire life as hard as surviving homelessness so I want to focus this back though on I get food bags at a local agency every single week I take out most of the items because they are too laden with sugar my friend was diagnosed with diabetes I helped save his life I actually was working to separate from him at the time but he almost died and so a number of health providers in the community homeless advocate outreach advocate Chris Youngren Tia Paneet who is now left at Santa Cruz because you can't afford to live here she was a nurse at HPHB they helped my friend get into the hospital but he is really struggling to let go of white flour white rice white sugar so I just want to say I think having a measure on the ballot if it's imperfect could help us have a community-wide discussion and take on some big industry that needs to be put back in its place thank you thank you next speaker please hi mayor and council members I'm Allison with the California restaurant association I represent the central coast and the bay area and I'd like to thank staff for the update on what's happening in the state of California I myself found out about it at like 8 in the morning so I did want to respond to this proposal just to raise some concerns from our restaurant owners within the city of Santa Cruz just first off taxing a singular product that's sold in restaurants will likely drive up costs on all drinks served and the reason for that is because an operator will not price discriminate on drinks viewed equally in the consumer's eyes which basically means like an iced tea that is unsweetened is seen as equal in the consumer's eyes as a lemonade that maybe would be sweetened secondly we're afraid that placing this tax under the financial circumstances will lock it into a budget should a financial crisis like this occur again this tax will remain and something else would be added onto that that is a concern of ours I want to explain why this new tax would be as difficult as it is for a restaurant owner in a sound economy restaurants profit only 5 cents to the dollar which means at best 95% of their revenue is put back into the restaurant so being that they're only working with 5% profits their margin to absorb new cost is extremely thin and for that reason they're just sensitive towards added costs so just keep that in mind thank you. Thank you next speaker please and before you begin is there any member public that has not spoken yet that wishes to speak to this item this is item number 28 the city council ad hoc revenue committee recommendations related to the placement of a general purpose tax measure is there any member of the public that would like to speak to this item okay you'll be the last okay there's one more speaker you'll be the last speaker sir okay please go ahead good afternoon everyone my name is and I'm here to share my support for the sugar suit and beverage tax on the November ballot health and well-being is this high-stakes issue the lives of our young people are important it's heartbreaking having young people become addicted to soda that is their words not mine I currently have a high school sophomore share with me how hard it has been for them to stop drinking soda as well as how it felt when they drink soda after not drinking it for three months for those who have shared that we don't have the time and resources to take this on I ask when will we have the time and resources there's always something going on people in the city of Santa Cruz care they care about the environment they care about people and they care about health thank you thank you next speaker please my name is Michael I'm opening up a cafe here in town the point brought up by the the last lady or the lady before the last lady was that the customers will have have trouble distinguishing why prices have gone up between sweetened and unsweetened products my question is will there be any part of a budget put toward explaining to the public why there's a sudden increase in prices instead of putting all the blame on the operators of the businesses that the prices have gone up keep going if you would like to speak yeah okay we'll answer that question when you're done okay thank you thank you sir is there any member of the public who would like to speak to this item okay seeing none we'll bring it back to the council for deliberation and councilmember crone you wrote down some of the questions yeah that was that one you just give it yeah and I didn't know just the questions just the questions but thank you hey watch for the mic too do you want to the committee want to answer that based on your work will there be any additional outreach should this item pass to explain to the public the increases in price would it take effect I think based on the experience you guys can correct me if I'm incorrect based on experience in other communities first of all the taxes on the distributor not on the retailer the retailer has the discretion how to adjust their prices to cover that added expense so they'll figure that out okay so there's no provision for that there's nothing built in so each restaurant just so be clear will not have to charge this tax they will the distributor it's a tax on the distributor if I may add there's also a exemption for $500,000 gross annual revenues for small businesses knowing that there's a lot of small businesses that could be impacted I guess maybe before there's a motion or something I'd just like to oh go ahead councilmember browns I have a question for the committee my recollection is that when you brought us the recommendation on the sales tax measure we received some polling information about and the sugary beverage tax had been pulled at a 2% rate and it pulled at like 76% I think it was almost it was three quarters and I understand that's without an opposition campaign and there are all kinds of variables but I'm just wondering why you go to 1% given the high level of support that was indicated in the polling I'll take a shot at that I think that was one of the benefits of being connected to some of the efforts in the Bay Area in terms of what they've seen this is so new really I mean local communities and I just before I directly say that's sort of what's the norm essentially is sort of the longer the short answer is that's the norm other states mentioned that Council Member Crowe mentioned have had success with one and a half cents sort of it feels weird to conceptualize but but they sort of said this is a new kind of thing that so you know keep it safe and help and start that conversation with the one set it's not it's a penny you know a penny and out so I appreciated their input on that knowing that our community is incredibly health conscious and clearly supportive in my view in terms of the polling results but it's also this is a local consideration and I just sort of I realize what's happening at the state level I realize that there's so many factors that are unknown and variables with this passing or that passing or this bill going through and that not but this is Santa Cruz saying we're committed to health this is Santa Cruz saying we're going to have integrity with the dollars to go back in terms of community health and well being and we're going to work towards changing and shifting consumer behaviors because of this and that's the beauty of local control as well so I just I just sort of want to highlight that in terms of timing there you know yes you want to have as much you want to have it perfect there's so much going on as we talked about we had measure s we've had number of budget commerce I mean there's a lot happening in the city I know you all know and it sort of like reminds me of what my mom said you can't really ever plan to have a kid it just like there's never really going to be a perfect time right and so at a certain point you just sort of have to take the leap I feel incredibly grateful for the expertise that sat on that subcommittee with me I really want to acknowledge and thank Council Member Matthews for all of her just breath of knowledge in terms of health and in terms of her experience in these types of efforts Council Member Crone same I think there's a lot of passion what we brought before you is a product of many many conversations and compromises and I feel I feel good about what it is if it gets to the point of it being truly detrimental for the city I think we could direct staff to have a special meeting calendar to remove it and prior to the time of August 10th in terms of considerations that might factor in based on what happens at the state level that's nice to know and I think it's ultimately up to the voters and this is us saying here's an option for you okay Council Member Chase then Council Member Crone so I want to thank the subcommittee and all the speakers who spoke twist today I was on the previous iteration of the revenue subcommittee where we discussed this and it was myself Council Member Crone and Council Member Matthews and we actually discussed this at length at the time and we had brought this forward for Council to consider and at the time Vice Mayor Watkins you were really concerned about the amount of time we had to prepare and support this given that and the research actually behind it or lack thereof and so particularly because there is such incredible opposition and a lot of resources that like pour into communities to oppose these ballot measures so I guess I would just really want to make sure that your current subcommittee really feels like this is the time for this because I agree with you I think the polling results are really good this is a community who supports health and I think turns out in droves to do that but I also think that we haven't seen something similar to this where there is such organized and well resourced opposition so I just want to make sure when we bring it forward we're ready to go forward with it and I'm one of the people who is like behind Council Member Crohn who is going let's go for two seconds but I also want to really respect and appreciate the work that your committee did to really weigh in and come with one cent recommendation so I guess I just really want to hear from the committee you really feel like we have the resources the time to make this a winning campaign because let's run a winning campaign if we're going to run it if I may I'll just briefly respond then I'll let the other Council Member say I think you know everybody I spoke into and I've called numerous people from First Five and all the different agencies I spoke to Ray from Community Bridges there's not a single organization that I spoke to that wasn't on board for this so that being said I don't have the foresight to say that I can say that this is the time and this is going to be producing the result that we want to see and you know I think I don't know I mean I can't say I can predict that I can say I have had eager community members eager organization leaders say that they're supportive and they're committed and so with that said I feel good about the timing and sort of to another point and it's also a nice opportunity to educate and so if at all we get an opportunity to educate our community about sugar sweetened beverages and we'll see how that goes I think you know I think 51% in my opinion it would be Santa Cruz's fight to lose that I mean our community is so conscious about health they are so interested in supporting the health and well-being of the community I have faith in the voters personally Council Member Cron Thank you I wanted to follow up on Vice Mayor Watkins what she said about the this is a sort of a nation thing because we have Berkeley in Oakland and San Francisco but back east we have Philadelphia Chicago and we also have Seattle of course city councils in both Chicago and Philadelphia pass this tax in Seattle and in Boulder, Colorado was voted on Seattle has a two cent tax and Boulder has a 1.75 cent tax 55% of the voters voted for that 1.75 the case I was trying to make before about how things are going in other cities I think we can really learn from these cities that we can pass a two cent tax or at least a one and a half cent tax and the last thing I'll say is what would your mom say when is a good time to have twins okay well let me say that I appreciate the committee and all the discussion we've had on this I know there was one presentation and there was a presentation that showed all the other measures that the committee looked at and I guess one we haven't really talked to this point but there was the transfer tax there was the TOT tax there was a variety of things and yet there's been no discussion about what those potential impacts are and how they might be used I really liked the idea of having some sort of committee that looked at how we spend the money we're just on the heels of having a successful measure S campaign where we look at how we're going to fund our future capital improvement program and others I personally would like to see a little bit more of an investment in time and looking at how we're going to be using this money moving forward because I'm confident that there would be a successful measure but I also know that there's the legislative cloud that's holding over and I think there's time for the committee to look at it and say okay if that doesn't happen we'll be able to look at this so I just wanted to put that out to the committee to say that there's a variety of other options as well as this and I think it would be good to have more of a comprehensive presentation to see what our options are in addition to what we've already heard on this specific tax measure. I don't know if now is the time to make these comments I was going to wait till after a motion is on the floor there's no motion right now but I can make my so I just following up on your comments I you know I just want to say I think all my colleagues here all know and not maybe not all of you in the room know I am not fond of regressive taxes and I have been pushing very hard to try to get the staff and the Revenue Enhancement Subcommittee to seriously look at more progressive taxation measures I mean we're talking about a tax that if we get it and it doesn't go away may get us $800,000 to a million dollars a year and you know I just have to think about you know Vice Mayor Tarras mentioned the real estate transfer tax just the Goldman Sachs purchase of Outlook Apartments alone if we had a 1% real estate transfer tax would have gotten us half of that in one transaction we are looking at massive investment in inflation of land values and we are doing nothing about that those are progressive taxes that we could put on the table and I so I'm going to talk more about in a moment but I just wanted to say that because I really don't like to lament but you know the decision was made to go this route and here we are with potentially no tax for 2018 and if this goes on in 2020 we can't just keep tapping the well and asking for additional taxes and additional taxes now is the time we are losing revenues off of these real estate transfers we are losing money off of the booming hotel industry in TOT and I really really wish that we had considered those and I hope that you will all take that very seriously I'll have more to say when motions are made thank you Council Member Naroyan I had a question you had mentioned Council Member Watkins the organizations you had approached to talk to about how they felt on this increase and you found a lot of support have we had the opportunity to talk to the folks who are backing the county housing measure because my big concern is would this at all hurt or impede that measure that will be on the ballot and so I wasn't sure if you collected that type of information I briefly spoke to one person that I think there's differences in opinions about ambiguity and what could be an outcome of that and ultimately that person didn't necessarily see it being a challenge but that might not be on behalf of the entire people who are planning it I don't want to speak on behalf of everybody but that's how they felt about it but one of the things we found from the folks we were consulting with is that people educate themselves about the topic that is before them and if they believe in housing sugar beverage tax then they'll flip over that or if they don't they won't and so I think we can also trust in the voters to hopefully look at the issues as they are presented before them and if I can just briefly while I have the floor respond I do want to just really acknowledge what your comments were councilmember brown we had so much conversation around all the different things that we can do in terms of timing the full blown measure S campaign at the time and knowing we had these polling results at this point that's where we landed and hearing that being said that the next and the absolute consensus I believe amongst our group was we need to look at progressive tax measures and that has to be moving forward for every future time within the time frame that we had with what we had the information that we had and sort of building on the conversation that had previously started with the revenue committee before us that's where we landed but not to say there's not validity into what you're suggesting and hoping for and then just briefly on the regressive tax argument I think I was talking to somebody it's a regressive tax for a progressive purpose and I think we see that with tobacco use we see that with other types of use that I'll say I have no interest in harming people who are struggling in our community have an interest in helping them and I will commit to making sure that that's what this revenue will go towards and that's the purpose of the oversight committee to help us monitor and to ensure thank you council member Matthews just a couple of points someone asked and I can't remember who at this point does the committee feel confident that we have the resources to succeed on this and frankly that's the reason for my reticency on going forward at this time no lack of enthusiasm no lack of ultimate support but it's the factors that I mentioned previously time, money and leadership and why did we pick this measure particularly to pursue actively it was one that had been identified as a second choice with the previous revenue committee polling had been done understanding there are plenty more out there you saw the whole grid talking with people who are familiar with local revenue measures how much might you be expected to gain from any of these different measures so it's a whole bunch of factors and I'm all for exploring future ones so right there finally I think it's not worth going through this simply for the purpose of educating the community because it is going to be a very expensive and grueling process in and of itself Thanks Council Member Cron I just want to join the remarks of Council Member Brown in supporting those more progressive taxes I will say just in response to Council Member Mathews I don't believe we polled on the real estate transfer tax we did it some years ago quote from our pollster but he did not poll recently on that and I was a little bit taken aback I thought when Council Member Chase was on that thing I thought we gave him direction to do that but I will admit that didn't happen and I was sorry I'm really excited to see this go forward because I just think like San Francisco they did not do it the first time and they came back and it was received the first time very well, 55% but they went for two thirds the second time they got well over 60% I'm still going to make the case of going to two cents because I think from some things I'm not sure about the housing bond and if that's all going how well that's going and there's other things and I think voters can make distinctions between various taxes and issues on the ballot I don't think that's going to affect other measures that might be on the ballot I would like to see on 28 well there's no motion so there's no motion on the floor so I'm like I won't talk about it yet if it's okay I'll make a motion that we move forward with the recommendation as presented we'll incorporate the suggested language change for the ballot language and I'll also add that we direct staff to agendize a special meeting for August 10th if there are policy actions taken at the state level that would jeopardize the city if we proceed with this ballot measure for council consideration to remove the item I'll second there's a motion by Vice Mayor Watkins and second by Council Member Crohn is it the recommendation that's in our staff report or was there the one that was in the presentation different it's the same with a variation that was just reordering you want to put the ballot question up again can we do that? Council Member Brown I'm despite my reservations about regressive taxes I'm willing to support this motion because I agree with you Vice Mayor Watkins that you know the health questions the health benefits are significant and or have the data shows that but I'd like to ask if the maker of the motion would be willing to accept a friendly amendment to direct to in addition to the main motion to direct the revenue and taxation committee to immediately take up at its next meeting consideration of additional tax measures and their impacts and benefits emphasizing progressive taxation measures including but not limited to an occupancy tax of up to 3% real estate transfer tax and a vacancy tax on investment properties and report back to council at a subsequent meeting regarding progress made in gathering information regarding the feasibility of these and other taxation measures I'm happy to acknowledge that I also just want to accept I just also want to acknowledge that our revenue subcommittee will be at sunsetting so perhaps it's the formation of a new subcommittee to explore these as opposed to have this committee explore those to have the next meeting so do we need to propose and so that would be okay so then I'll shift it motion to direct the convening of a new revenue subcommittee and that that committee immediately take up at its next meeting consideration of additional taxation measures I'll just say based on my earlier comments I mean I appreciate the idea of having the committee look at other ones and I'm not prepared I mean I 100% support Vice Mayor Watkins on the mission and where the revenue would be and I you know I'd likely you know vote at this but I would like to make a bigger picture and a longer process to make sure that we are going to be successful in this and I'll clarify that in the motion language that's in there it directs me to designate the people that identify authors and signers and I'm not going to be available during this period and so I would ask if you know this is successful that the motion be that it's directing the Vice Mayor to identify the authors and signers in regards to the arguments to work with the city clerk on that if you look at the language it's included there but I but I think I I won't support the motion on the floor I'd support more of a longer view to kind of make sure we have a stronger foundation for other tax measures and looking at what the funds would be used for to support city services. Do you want me to split the motion then yes if I could speak to that you have the floor so you can speak to that in terms of designating the authors and signers and it says here working with members of the community if they so choose because it's sometimes been helpful once it gets out of the realm of the council subcommittee to identify the people in the community who can help you suggest and vet signers and authors etc. don't limit it just to three council members at that point cut loose and start we have to ask in there and community members that's what I'm saying but it wasn't referenced in the conversation and as for looking at additional measures a couple of points our ad hoc subcommittee or ad hoc revenue committee will sunset pretty soon and frankly I think we're all kind of fried and we're going to be working on whatever we're working on in the fall and the next cycle we're looking at is going to be 2018 so I think it's probably take a little break and get that group going in the beginning of the year with the new council and really engage more community members I know that I think it was the budget subcommittee involved the stakeholder committee involved in budget choices decisions etc. and I think there'd be real value in involving stakeholders and it wouldn't necessarily have to be with the council subcommittee straight off the bat but again taking a little more time which is I think part of the problem we've had on the last two measures before us but looking at options and how much we're going to gain from them what kind of support do we need to pass them etc etc just exactly what you're talking about looking at the bigger menu but personally I would say maybe give direction to form a new revenue committee in some form in the new year you'll be mayor you can do it okay so there's oh Council Member Cron I support what Council Member Brown said I've seen this now for the two committees I've been on cycles and I would not want it to get lost I would like us to pick it up right away some of us will be working this summer and you know there's no reason why we start hitting the ground running and taking those issues up so I would not I'm not going to withdraw my second on that motion if that's still on the floor okay so you split the two motions right I'll split the two motions based on that is that okay I really would love a restating of both motions can I ask for clarification before you do that yeah sure there is the wording changed to the ballot question that's on the screen there there's also a revised version of the resolution and the measure that was distributed before the meeting I just want to make sure that the record is clear that the revised version is the one that the council is acting on and that incorporates that it does not but it's the revised version with that additional ballot question language yes sorry I didn't ask this earlier but it just popped up in my head when you say sugary beverage that runs the gamut and so are we saying if somebody has 4 ounces of sugar per serving versus 30 there's obviously a big difference are people who try to do low sugar beverages and only have a few ounces of sugar or grams of sugar being put into the same boat as someone who has 30 grams of sugar there's a threshold calorie so we just recall that it's painfully explicit in the definitions okay all right do we remember what the line of delineation is though 289 and go all the way through page 4 yeah there's exemptions it includes any any beverage that contains less than 40 calories per 12 fluid ounces of beverage any beverage sold for consumption by infants which is commonly referred to as infant formula or baby formula any beverage for medical use any beverage designed to supplement meal replacement or soul source petitions exemptions but I couldn't remember the exact number there's about 9 it also exempts any alcoholic beverage which is really funny because that's actually horribly unhealthy mistake councilman is this something where do you have any more questions I don't have questions but I'd like to re-hear the motions be restated and then I do have some comments here so my motion is to move forward with the recommendation before us in the agenda report to incorporate these suggested modifications by legal council to additionally direct staff to agendize a special meeting before august 10th if there are policy actions taken at the state level that would jeopardize the city if we decided to proceed with putting this as a ballot measure for council to consider removing the item I split that motion that's the first motion that's a motion by council member or vice mayor walken second by council member and the second motion second motion is a motion to convene a new revenue and taxation committee and direct that committee to immediately take up at its first meeting consideration of additional taxation measures and impacts and benefits emphasizing progressive taxation measures including but not limited to real estate transfer tax up to 3% excuse me transient occupancy tax up to 3% real estate transfer tax vacancy tax on investment properties and to report back to council at a subsequent meeting regarding progress made in gathering information regarding the feasibility of these and other taxation measures and that was your motion if I could I would add just given the debate over timing I would add to convene a new meeting upon council's reconvening in August okay so it is now that was your motion I accept that and I'm happy to say it okay so that's your motion and also council member crony had this too so it's two separate motions is there any can we go to the vote or is this something where I have an amendment because I want to like I said before the community oversight panel that's on page 28.8 and I would go with a representative designated by city parks and recreation and representative designated by the school district but then I would also add seven council appointees as item C council member gets an appointment to this oversight panel that feeds back to the council so I don't know if you accept that amendment it's vice mayor Watkins I don't accept the amendment I accept the spirit behind the amendment but I don't accept it I do know that this will be a process that we will further refine over time I feel that our conversation amongst the three council members is in discussions with the advisory language as it is written and it consists of a minimum of these nine and I just want to highlight I appreciate your intention behind it but and at the same time I really appreciate the sector representation embedded in it knowing that there can be at large members also incorporated without it getting too too large but really maintaining input and insight from the community from the experts in the fields as well as other community members who want to join the committee so at this time I'd like to stick to it as it's written knowing that it can be refined over time and it's stated as a minimum of nine at this point the other recommendation I would have is to change the one cent resolution to submit to a vote of the electors at November 6, 2018 general municipal election a general tax of 1.5 cents per fluid ounce on distributors of sugar sweetened beverages I think at this time I also you know I appreciate the intention behind it I think it feels good to go with the one cent at this point just knowing the considerations and concerns raised by the council I appreciate your intention I have more time and more commitment to say that this is fully fully my number one project I would say yes let's go for the two let's go for the one and a half but I think the one cent is the recommendation that we got from our advisory it feels like a really kind of a great way to just sort of start the conversation to get in and then pursue from there if we wanted to at another time a future and additional increase so I'd like to stick to the one cent Mayor I'm going to withdraw my second okay so we do not have then the motion is withdrawn is there does anyone want a second Vice Mayor Watkins motion at this time I'm also open for council to weigh in on the one and a half I mean I that's my opinion I could potentially move I just I don't know where the council's stand on that let's step back I'll go to we have the the motion was split council member crown so there was a there were two motions to you with withdraw from also the the the motion that was put forward by council member Brown the work from my walk-ins that was suggested by council member Brown I'll stay with that that motion but can you do that I mean that's a bifurcated isn't that the overall motion and then you bifurcate the motion I don't know thanks prior to you withdrawing your motion if I may can I hear from the council I mean do other council members feel strongly about one and I mean the additional half cent I my I don't think it makes a difference I think we wait I mean okay I think we're leaving money on the table I don't think it makes a difference from everything I've seen I mean okay you know my point sorry so I'll just say I defer to the recommendation of the committee but I was initially on that committee saying when we pulled for it we did have support for two percent so I I would be supportive of going higher if it was the will of the council but I also really respect the work that the committee members put in and came to one percent so I could really go either way okay well I mean if that's the okay sorry so you know I agree with council member chase I you know I would support I think we could go to one and a half percent and I think you know the reason that I think doing it now if we're if we're going to do this now you know we're not going to come back with an increase to the sugary beverage tax so this is our one chance to to get this and so I think that if given the polling that one and a half cents is not unrealistic and so I would I I'd be supportive of making that change I second okay then I'm willing to thank you okay so okay so it's do you have that Bonnie no so instead of the one cent it'd be now one and a half cents and then the other piece was that that you will be designating the three council members authors and signers and as well as working with community members on the ballot measure right okay just want to make sure that's clear to motion the seconder council member okay council member so this is hard I'm you know my health model hat on I support this I know from personal experience unfortunately how horrible sugary beverages are and what it does to the human body my family on one side everyone gets diabetes type 2 whether they're thin or overweight and that I wanted to talk about there were some statements made here that really do a disservice in terms of the public knowing exactly how type 2 diabetes works people don't drink soda and automatically get diabetes that's not how it works you have to have the gene to be a type 2 diabetic so there are people who are overweight and don't have diabetes or people who are of what we would call thin or average size and have type 2 diabetes so I really want to make sure that people understand that you don't just drink sugar and suddenly become ill with diabetes in fact around 20 to 25% of type 2 diabetics are of normal or average size so let's really keep that in mind that sugary beverages are toxic to not just diabetics but all of us anything in the form of liquid sugar whether and I hate to say this ice cream soda anything that doesn't have any sort of other nutritional element in it whether it's fat or protein to counteract the effects of blood sugar spiking is harmful to all of us and I remember as a kid when I'd go to McDonald's remember a medium was at 8 ounce size or there were even a 4 ounce size of soda that's where we really had trouble with soda was the portion size that we were drinking it in and obviously you sell more soda you get to charge more for it it's one of the most profitable parts of a restaurant or somebody that sells groceries the overhead that folks make on soda is really huge and it's like one of the most toxic things that people sell so it's interesting that that's what they make the most money on so on the other side though the pragmatic hat that I'm wearing is I'm wondering you know when you ask people too often for money and to raise revenue sometimes really good measures lose and I'm really worried about the housing measure that's on the ballot for the county I don't know if having this on the measure locally would hurt that ballot measure but I think in order for that measure to win the city of Santa Cruz is really going to have to turn out for it so I do have that concern so I wish I didn't have to vote on this today one way or the other I would really like to do a little more thinking into this but I have a feeling maybe the health model hat will win out today especially because I worked in tobacco education with the California Department of Health and every time you raise a tax on a toxic product a lot of people either use it less or they don't use it at all it's actually been a very successful health model that's been proven to work so up until the point we vote I'm going to make my decision well guess what I think we're at that time oh my gosh okay so we have a motion and a second and where we split this and so let's take it in reverse order the first one is going to be the creation of the new ad hoc revenue committee that was restated by vice mayor Watkins and second second by council member Cron okay any further discussion on that all those in favor please say aye aye those opposed okay that motion passes unanimously now we're going to go to the first one and that's dealing with the motion which was the quarter cent sales tax and is placing the placement of a general purpose tax measure of 1.5 cent per ounce on distributors of sugar sweetened beverages at the November 6 2018 ballot the language is up on the screen that was restated we'll also designate vice mayor to work with the other council members to do the ballot measures and community members regarding the arguments as well as agendize a special August special meeting in the event that the legislation passes and we need to come back and revisit this is that correct okay all those in favor please say aye those opposed please say no so that motion passes with five to two council member Cron, Chase Brown, Naroyan and vice mayor Watkins supporting the measure and council member Mathews and myself opposed okay so thank you for your patience as we went through that I think I appreciate the discussions I heard from council member that they would like to take a five minute break and I know you guys are here we've been here since 11.30 we just need to take a quick break so we'll be front and center and present for the next item which is item number 29 okay thank you for your patience welcome back we are on to item number 29 this is the item for the resolution ordering an election for three council seats on the November 6, 2018 statewide general election and the Santa Cruz rent control and tenant protection act charter amendment to be placed on the ballot and consideration of ordering an impact analysis for the ballot statement a ballot measure what I want to first begin with at the beginning of the meeting we have a portion where we ask council members if there's any conflicts and so at first before we get into this discussion kind of have the council members that where there was a discussion about conflicts please kind of announce those now so we can determine the order were there any council members that had conflicts on this item well regarding the part of number 29 that calls for direction for preparation of an impartial impact analysis by as the city attorney in reference to both myself and council member crone whether ownership of property that would be covered by such an act might constitute a conflict of interest his suggestion was that although not a direct correct me if I'm wrong direct financial conflict of interest there may be the perception of conflict of interest so it would be advisable to not participate in that discussion however the placing the measure on the ballot is strictly an administrative function that ministerial ballot signatures were gathered they met the threshold we put it on the ballot I'd be happy to clarify that okay so city attorney kandadi yes you might recall that back in February when the council was considering the rent freeze just cause of eviction ordinances we had obtained an opinion from the fpc that looked at property interests that that all council members had that might have been impacted in some fashion by that ordinance and the fpc advised that as to council members that own rental properties other than single family residences that they should they are disqualified from participating in the decision that was the decision to place a measure or to adopt an interim rent freeze just cause eviction ordinance there isn't a lot of authority out there for the notion but there is an old fpc opinion that also says that if a council has a conflict of interest on the subject with respect to the subject of an ordinance that the council member is not allowed to participate in a decision to place the measure on the ballot in this case it's a little bit different because the decision to place the measure on the ballot has essentially been made by the signatories to the petition because it has received at least 15% of the registered signatures of 15% of the registered voters it qualifies for the ballot and the council really has no discretion as to whether or not to place it on the ballot so long as the measure isn't clearly invalid under the law and this measure is not the decision however to order an impartial or a fiscal analysis is not a ministerial decision however so in my opinion it is the same analysis that applied to the rent freeze just cause of iction ordinance would disqualify council members Matthews and Crohn from participating in that aspect of the decision so I've advised them and made a recommendation that they recuse themselves from that portion just to be clear the regulations that the fppc has promulgated that have defined what constitutes a violation of the regulations make it a violation to make a decision to participate in making or attempt to influence a decision with respect to which the council member has a financial conflict of interest so it's very broad and it defines making a decision as if the official authorizes or directs any action votes appoints a person obligates or commits his or her agency to any course of action similar broadly defining the terms participating in the decision and using official position to attempt to influence a decision so my advice was recusal would be advisable to that aspect of the decision thank you so that brings this then maybe in the order of the council member Crohn just a couple questions I'm still not the dendrite the synapse isn't there to understand or to get what is the financial issue here that has to do with the impartial impact analysis that council member Matthews and myself are advising us not to vote on I'm just not getting it it's not the impartial impact analysis it's really the subject matter of the ballot measure itself which is the rent control and just cause eviction provisions which just in a nutshell would limit the permissible levels of rent increases that landlords could impose after the measure goes into effect as specified in the measure and and that would apply to any multifamily residential dwelling that was constructed prior to or received a certificate of occupancy prior to February of 1995 I believe so hypothetically if this ballot measure prevailed we wouldn't be able to appoint members of the rent control board either good question but I haven't analyzed that I mean I think that the way I would look at it is that it's you might be able to call that a ministerial action because it's the measure specifically specifies that council members individually shall appoint members to the rent control board so I mean I think that's how I would interpret that but I think it's worth researching that should the measure pass so I would say that I would say that your participation is at your peril or alternatively if the decision is made and a challenge is brought by someone who claims that the decision was tainted by participation of a council member who had a conflict of interest then a reviewing court could make the decision that the decision was tainted and the court could basically discount your vote if the court concludes that you had a conflict of interest and likely would and then the question would be whatever action the council takes if your vote was necessary in order to make it happen then the action would be nullified so for instance if the rest of the council unanimously voted to place or to direct the preparation of an impartial analysis it would make a difference but if it was a simple majority just by I guess four council members because there would be six participating unless council member Mathews decides that she wants to take that same position it would potentially invalidate your vote well you've heard it right if you want me to stay here or go how many people today and how many hands down how many think I should probably leave and I know the stays seem to have it I don't know it's an issue I put a lot of time into you can think about that so let me just go that I want to say that when we talk about these items we are talking primarily about three things the resolution order in the election for the three council members the charter ballot measure and we're going to split the issue for the vote on the impartial analysis impact analysis of the ballot measure that's going to be separate items so what I'm going to do is when we have the discussion take the first two items together when we have the presentation ask for public comment and then council member Mathews will leave when we have the discussion about the impact analysis and then we will hear public comment on that just based on the response and opinion of the city attorney I also like to say that there was some information that was put out there in the public that I heard some of the council members comment on that this was about not voting on something or not putting on the ballot that's entirely false this is really about one we're here the ballot measure met minimum qualifications for signatures so this is a ministerial action we're here just to hear from public comment on this and vote on placing that on the ballot just want to make sure that's clear for the record and I don't know I'd like to ask the city attorney if there's anything else you want to say before we enter into the discussion I think that covers it okay so then what we're going to do is the first discussions we're going to have regarding item 2029 is the resolution ordering an election requesting the county elections department to conduct the election and requesting consolidation of the election within November 6, 2018 general municipal election that is for the three council seats that are going to be up for election this ballot measure on November 6 and then we'll also have discussion about the resolution to include a charter amendment ballot measure entitled the Santa Cruz Rent Control and Tenant Protection Act on November 6, 2018 ballot and direct the city attorney to prepare an impartial analysis okay so we're going to hear that first that's going to be the first two items and so I'd like to bring it up with any council members if there's questions at first council member Cron and basically the word ministerial means that we are just taking something that was turned over by the clerk to us and we are approving it really a way for there to be a winning and losing thing here let me I'll have the city attorney respond to that the term means that if the statutory requirements are met for qualifying a measure for the ballot you are obligated to place it on the ballot so you're really here just to make a formal finding that the measure has qualified for the ballot the evidence is before you and now you have to make a decision based on the evidence that you've been presented any other questions or comments okay I'd like to turn it over to the public for any sort of public testimony are there any members of the public that would like to speak to those first two items the resolution setting the election and then the resolution for placing the citizen ballot measure up for discussion there was a request in advance for a group organized group to have four minutes who would like to speak on this first two portion let me just say that by show of hands okay once you step up here to line if you're not going to speak you step aside so that we can see who's going to be speaking and Ms. Hawkman who you're going to be speaking for four minutes on this as part of your group we have no comment about the ministerial action it goes to the ballot so the ballot measure that's being placed and also the setting the election for the three council seats that will be up in November November 6th not the study in partial impact analysis okay that's going to come okay I'll do my best let's do this let me let me say this right now what we're talking about is setting the November 6th 2018 election for the three council seats so the action to place the citizen ballot measure on that same election those are the two actions that are going to happen right now and so if you'd like to speak to that you need to line up and I'll give you time to speak for public comment how many people would like to speak to what I just said in regards to this action now one person okay ma'am you can step forward and you have two minutes hello my name is Emily Sinclair I understand that there's a ministerial duty to place the ballot measure if that conforms to statutory guidelines but I'm not at all sure that these guidelines have actually been established because there's certain provisions in the ballot measure item 18 supersedes which suggests that this ballot portions of this ballot measure may be adopted even in the case of it not receiving a majority vote in constitutional guideline code 2 I believe it's F specifically states single subject ruling which is that no ballot initiative may contain incremental or cognitive provisions based on the proportion of those received so I do believe that this should be looked into and another issue that might be looked into which has just been mentioned I'm not really aware of the particulars is that the city council members may not be actually entitled to place the initial seven member rent board because of the various interests demonstrated but I do believe that city attorney would have a measure of insight and I would suggest that along with an economic analysis you also will order a legal analysis of the topics as included in the initiative because I think some of them may not conform to constitutional statutory guideline thank you very much thank you for your comments is there any member of the public that would like to speak to this item at this time any other member of the public sir are you walking up to speak or are you just walking okay well thank you if there's no other member of the public that wishes to speak you'll be our last speaker you have two minutes afternoon Ed Silvera I had a question regarding what if we wanted to verify the signatures on that petition what if we the community wanted to verify to make sure the signatures were all verified would you be voting on this no matter what this evening or maybe Tony the attorney could advise us on that thank you that closes the public comment period on these two items and the question is whether or not the signatures need to be verified if there was a question on the validity my understanding that not only the city clerk went through an extensive counting of the original raw signatures and then it went to the county clerk for them to verify actual registered voters that are within the city and so there has been a verified count of those signatures that's been completed is that correct the county elections official conducts a detailed analysis of the petition signatures including verifying that the names there on are registered voters in the city of Santa Cruz and also that the addresses that they include on the petition are correct and consistent with their voter registration and there is an exhaustive process that is undertaken to ensure that the account is accurate and that's been done in this case based on Mr. Silvero's comment if there was a question regarding that process on the validity of the count what would he do I'm not really able to advise Mr. Silvero on that I haven't researched that topic in preparation for this meeting I'm satisfied however that the county elections official has done her job thank you okay seeing no other public comment on this matter I'm going to bring it back to the council for action I'll go ahead and move the recommendation before us I'll second motion by council member Matthew second by myself is there any further discussion okay we'll all those in favor please say aye those opposed that motion passes unanimously okay so now we're up for the item that the city attorney briefly educated the council members on there was a conflict for council member Matthews who will be leaving and also council member Cron council member Cron council member Cron if I could just say we have the same situation I'm choosing to take the city attorney's advice okay thank you no we did earlier so thank you sir and when you have Cron will you be leaving or what's your decision I think I will leave but I think it's going to be in pretty good hands up here so I trust y'all okay great thank you very much so the next item up is consider and provide direction to the city manager regarding the preparation of an impartial impact analysis of the Santa Cruz rent control and tenant protection act charter amendment and so there's in our agenda packet there's a description about the process to have an independent cost analysis of the ballot measure this came up in an earlier discussion to have a better understanding of what the housing impacts were other communities have looked at this as a way to kind of understand what the impact of the legislation is and so that is up for discussion now I'll ask the city attorney to provide any other background yes this is based on elections code 9212 which authorizes the city council to order a special impact analysis for ballot measures generally and the purpose of that is when an ordinance is submitted to the council for or considering placement on the ballot that is not a charter amendment so a measure that would amend the municipal code statute gives the city council the ability to order this impact analysis to further look into the details of the measure to provide information to the council and the public concerning potential impacts of the measure in and then to decide whether the council should adopt the measure as presented in which case it has the same effect of having voter approval or place the measure on the ballot for consideration by the voters a charter amendment is different in that if it receives the adequate number of petitions to qualify for the ballot under the elections code the council is obligated to place it on the ballot there's no provision authorizing you to consider just adopting it without going to the voters and so that being said there may be some merit to having a further analysis done of the measure because there's nothing to prevent you from ordering a similar type of report that provides that information that would be useful to members of the public perhaps as they consider whether to support the measure at the ballot box so that's basically the thrust of what's presented here to show the council order preparation of an impartial impact analysis the staff has outlined four separate topics that from the staff perspective would be pertinent to the discussion thank you are there any questions or comments on this particular aspect at this time Catherine and Ryan one thing that I've seen our folks approaching us saying what this impact report will calculate and what it won't and I know it's clear in our packet we have that or what it could focus on could you focus on maybe what it wouldn't cover and what it would or is that something that the council gets to define yeah well I think you're right the council gets to define it I think this would basically be an analysis that probably compares this measure to other rent control ballot measures that have been adopted by other cities and analyze the impacts of those measures I think the one variable that this report really can't take into account is since this measure proposes establishment of an autonomous rent board that would make a lot of the significant decisions as to how this ordinance gets implemented you know the rent board's decision making as the ordinance gets implemented will have an impact on things like fiscal impact to the city so I don't think it can be an accurate prediction but it can be useful information as to how other cities ordinances or rent control measures have impacted those cities in regard to these various categories of information so are we looking for the council to look at all of these different options of what we'd like this financial you know if we go ahead and go forward with the financial implications report could do we get to pick and choose what's in this list or do we pick all of them or yeah if you look at the if you look at the yes it's the second page of the staff report it lists the various categories that are covered by elections code section 9212 but clearly not all of those would be applicable here for instance impact on the uses or impact on agricultural lands open space traffic congestion existing business districts and developed areas designated for readout vitalization you know that that's probably not applicable to this type of thing impact on the community's ability to attract and retain business and employment I don't know so yes the council has some discretion as to what to include also staff's recommendations for topics that that it views as pertinent are also listed as items one through four on the on the second list right okay you know I read the packet obviously I just know that folks on both sides of this debate have approached me and asked me what this report couldn't could or would not cover so I just wanted to clarify that Vice Mayor Watkins I just had a quick question in terms of impact is it looking at positive and sort of potentially challenging impacts or what's sort of the spectrum of impact yeah I think it's intended to look at both I mean what you know depending on the question but yeah it would be what would be the the impact I think neutrally when we're the other two you know whether it's renters or whether it's landlords or whether it's the city so I think the intent isn't to sort of focus on the negative impact but what would be the actual vice council member chase getting late so the if this report were to get done what happens where does it go so typically they're presented to the city council so what we would do is because we don't have the expertise in-house we researched some of these that have been done there's not very many that have been done on rent control but there have been some but it would be typically presented to the city council we'd have to hire consultants the consultants would then present their findings and the report would be issued that be available to the public to review and again for the council to ask questions and for the council meeting if they wanted to do that but basically like available through the city only it's not part of the ballot handbooks or anything like that that's right I don't envision that this would be included in the ballot materials so it would be just information that would be available to the council and the public it'd be on our usual website or that kind of thing you know we had a discussion I know it's see Lee Butler here the planning director we had a discussion a long discussion it was about two years long about short-term rentals and other issues around what the impacts were of those and how those affect our housing I guess my question is how does the community how does the council get informed about what the impacts are of this apps in any sort of view I mean what this is the first significant you know ballot measure I think I've had you know since I've been in on the council for the last seven years this is one where it's one where you know there are impacts whether you want to agree with it or not whether you support the ballot measure or not how do you educate the council members the voters about what that means I mean where is the role I think there's a cacophony of competing opinions about the impacts of rent control and numerous studies that have addressed it but most of those studies appear to be put forth by either supporters of or opponents of rent control so I think at least the intent here would be to obtain a more neutral impartial analysis for the council and for the public and generally in the absence of some kind of report it would just be the campaigns that would generally provide the public information and I guess my other question would be in terms of when we look at something like this who evaluates the potential liability to the city for some of these is that something that the city attorney does in terms of ballot measure what the impact is on cost or how it would work I mean let me just back up because we had this discussion when we had the housing subcommittee recommendations for the emergency measure and that was to put a pause so we had a discussion about this to educate the community about what you know the rental crisis and impacts of rent control and you know arguably that may education hasn't happened where we haven't had that sense of okay what are the impacts how do we understand what this means to Santa Cruz whether you're a renter or whether you're a homeowner or a prospective resident here and so I guess my question is just more even for the council how do you have that education what form does it take place I mean is it just about the community to get independent analysis to inform what that decision is yeah council member Brown in my opinion there is no way we can get a truly independent analysis virtually impossible unless we fly somebody in from Mars it's just virtually impossible people have this is a political issue and people have their perspectives on it so I you know I appreciate the sentiment but I just don't see how that's possible so that's my short answer I'll have more to say I guess maybe even what's the process to obtain data even if you're looking at positions just to understand what these things impact so I mean I guess no I understand there's definitely different sides of the argument but understand how you kind of evaluate something a thoughtful way to get the information and that's kind of what I feel is the intent of this so on that question how have these been done and you said there was a few other examples where these types of analysis have happened in other jurisdictions is that correct Jimmy repeat in terms of you're saying that there are a few examples of having oh impartial impact analysis done on other measures how were those used in those examples as Tony mentioned there's been it just depends on the decision making process of that community most of the 9-2-1-2 reports are done in the context of the elections code so it's when the council is having to decide whether to place the measure on the ballot or to adopt it and so you see a lot of those there's been other cases like for example the one the just conservation report that was that I've seen was in the city of Santa Clara I think it was who the council commissioned that in the context of the council towards adopting an ordinance or themselves doing that so I think it just depends on really what the council's wishes in terms of providing some additional information and what process is being used any other questions or comments at this time okay how many members of the public wish to speak to this item can you get a count I'm sorry I think it's city of Fremont not city of Santa Clara it's going to be at least 30 if not more okay 30 people I'm going to go still with two minutes on this for comment so for those of you that aren't going to speak that are lined up I ask that you sit down for those of you that are ready or want to speak please line up so we can get accurate count of who's going to be addressing this on this matter there was one group that requested the additional time to speak at the beginning and so I'm going to ask to represent your organization if you could give the name also when you start you have four minutes thank you I'm Nora Hockman I'm with the Santa Cruz rent control and tenant protection campaign I would just ask that those people that are with the campaign here today to give you an idea those folks that are sitting if you could stand and those that are standing if you could raise your hands those are thank you to the point we don't believe it's possible to commission a neutral independent impact analysis consultants can be gotten on both sides of this political line we have them the other side has them we think the other side has already put forth a name that's already a member of the other campaign we do not have consultants like that we'd have to go out and you know find them the question here is one of impartiality and neutrality you can't hire a consultant to lead to conclusions you can only collect data that illuminates the potential for conclusions even if they're political conclusions you still have to be data driven we don't think it's probably possible to put a price on that element of the ordinance that is silent and that is the revenue for a rent board we don't think it's possible to put a price on parents having to pull their kids out of school every year and move because they have to chase rent we don't think it's possible to put a price on finding new doctors for those families who moved out of area I mean I could give you a pretty good long list of what is not possible to attach revenue to a list of items that are in your staff report some of which are only mildly relevant others of which are completely irrelevant the question is how will the community get information about this very important measure well there are two campaigns up and running that are ready to take that information to the public we have an obligation to take the information to the public that's how people vote for things so rest assured the campaign for rent control and tenant protection we will go to the voters we would expect that the opposition will go to the voters so people are getting educated thanks to your vote on the rent freeze, tenants are already experiencing what it's like to hold their rents down we thank you again for that we do think there's a solution and that solution because we believe that an impact analysis will be by definition prejudicial I don't know how it couldn't be I don't think there are really neutral consultants on rent control including on our pro rent control side those are people that live to serve the rent control movement just like there are consultants that live to serve the anti rent control movement they're called the California apartment association they got a whole big statewide organization designed for that so rather than do that let the campaigns educate the voters and if there is to be a statement by the city included in the voter guide aside from one side or the other and all the rebuttals and the signatories for endorsement let's use I don't know what that meant because I didn't catch the color of the light it went to red that means stop so you could just you could wrap up if you don't mind instead let's use the language that's included on the petition which we quibbled with it was written by your city attorney there is not a word of it that was written by a pro or anti-campaign and I hand these to Bonnie now for distribution to you thank you next speaker please next speaker you're up ma'am I'm calling the lady up next next speaker please my name is Shelly Kniep can you speak into the mic please my name is Shelly Kniep the housing blueprint subcommittee spent over a year carefully studying housing and potential policies the detailed and highly analytical report was really well done staff and council are to be commended on this report in the matter of the rent control measure this harmful and overreaching measure could both scare away future housing investment and drain the city general fund by having to support the rent control board the initiative tech says quote the rent board can demand city resources end of quote but it does not any address any parameters further the measure will regulate all Santa Cruz properties in Santa Cruz when most cities only regulate apartments this might be way more expensive than other jurisdictions we ask that you please vote today to commission a study for the financial impact of this overreaching measure it is important to be well informed with clear information right now we're living in an atmosphere of unintended consequences as what we're seeing happening at our border it is very important to understand right now according to realtors over 160 people have been displaced from their rental homes not apartments but rental homes that have been sold or placed in the market for sale since the emergency measure has been passed thank you and I hope you'll vote too do this study thank you next speaker please Hi my name is Glenda Looning the rent control measure is a sweeping law that would affect all of Santa Cruz it's overreaching and seeking to control single family homes and is similarly overreaching and creating a powerful and unchecked rent board that can demand city resources since this is a permanent change to the city charter voters deserve to know what it will cost and how it will compete with other city priorities like public safety and recreation I support an impartial analysis of the rent control thank you next speaker please my name is Elena Ramer I'm a lifelong resident of the city of Santa Cruz and a graduate of local public schools I've worked in this town as a junior lifeguard instructor and a rescue swimmer for your fire department and I currently work as a math teacher at Harbor High School I hold bachelor's degrees in economics and mathematics and a master's in education and my studies in economics have helped me understand that an economic study will always define you as financial worth it will define desire and need as who is most able to pay it will not count human suffering as a cost instead costs are only missed opportunities to make more money so you'll understand why I'm skeptical of how the proposed study will present the issue if you do decide to study this matter I hope you will study the experiences of my childhood friends who have left their home and their community because they could not afford to live here I hope you will study the experiences of my coworkers teachers, janitors and classroom aides who have been evicted and become homeless sometimes for months at a time before they could find a new place that they could afford teachers in this town homeless for months because they could not find a place to rent and I hope you will study the experiences of my students 15, 16, 17 years old who work full-time jobs even though that is illegal they find ways of getting around it because they need to chip in to pay rent all the while being full-time high school students and I hope you will consider that people like me will eventually be tired of paying a thousand dollars to share a room in a house and we will not stay but I don't think that your study the study as proposed is going to present those facts so I hope that you will find a way of spending that money in a way that benefits all of us thank you thank you next speaker thank you next speaker please my name is Marshall Kniep thank you for hearing me this afternoon I'm a homeowner, a rental housing provider in Santa Cruz and also a principal with a management consulting firm here I can assure you that you can get a realistic estimate of what it's going to take to manage the rent control initiative our firm does this kind of thing day in day out and the consulting industry is fully prepared to help you prepare a reasonable estimate but I think that the voters of this town seriously need an estimate of what this is going to cost I've heard estimates of anywhere between two and six million dollars based on what other cities have experienced and although some of that will be provided by fees provided by landlords it seems very likely that we'll have some impact on the city budget so I encourage you to let the folks of this town know what a reasonable estimate of those costs would be but what is known for sure is that the initiative as has already been stated provides for an autonomous rent board that's outside of your control or the control of any city agency and they can set their own salaries they can impose as per funds from the general fund and other sorts of financial matters which will certainly have an impact I'd also say that when I talk to my neighbors and I talk to them a lot what I hear for them that they want the city to spend money on is more police officers to handle our crime dealing with homelessness and fixing our streets and sidewalks and not another expensive and out of control bureaucracy thank you very much before we get to the next speaker I want to just remind everyone we've had a lot of discussions on this and whatever side of the vote you are on let's be respectful for everybody that's speaking today so let's not have like snickering or comments in the back and let's just be respectful of the comments and listen so that we can not take it in and we'll take action but I appreciate if you take that sort of approach as we continue thank you so next speaker please Ann Marie Debra Morton Santa Cruz resident I am your impact my name is Ann Marie Debra Morton I'm from UCSC in theater arts in 1988 this is my first city council meeting and my third attempt to live in Santa Cruz I never ever imagined that I would show up at a city council meeting I'm sorry Chris and Cynthia had to leave I'm a single mom I work three jobs Pajaro Valley unified school district college teacher's aid in music private care on the weekends I'm here because I've been a homeowner and I understand both sides of the coin what I don't understand is why does it take three jobs to live in Santa Cruz plus my son is also working our Cypress Point apartment studio is 1750 plus 140 for utilities adding car insurance etc you can do the math I'm here because I seriously cannot imagine myself taking on a fourth job I'm here because I have reason for hope Santa Cruz is a community worth staying but at what cost a fourth job let that linger but please don't let that linger too long because one day you'll wake up and the local hearts of your community will be gone thank you next speaker please next speaker good afternoon council members I was once a happy resident with something that if most if not all folks take for granted thanks to the modern rental market for acquiring basic living standards getting a studio in the city of Santa Cruz a zero bedroom apartment is up for sale at nearly 1800 per month sublet rooms are seen up for sale throughout the city of Santa Cruz at nearly $1000 per month today nearly marks a year and a half since I was given a glorious gift three days after Christmas happy holidays due to the deferred maintenance such as that mold growing in your closet and a leaky roof your landlord of five years is evicting your family later on said landlord took it upon himself to move into said unit and renting it out their old one for nearly twice the rent imagine someone taking your room and turning it into their office what's more is the stress of moving in the winter rain with haste in order to make the 30 day move out deadline it takes a month at least to find a new place around here not to mention you look at most affordable housing and you're going to see at least 10, 15 20 applicants looking for that same house kind of discouraging previous landlord only hiked rent at $20 to $40 per month per year reasonable Cyprus point on the other hand hikes it up to $200 per month on average and that's if you do an 18 month lease this is absurd paying more for less I want to grow here in this community and continue growing for the past seven years like I have but it not with this current trend of belligerent costs it makes it hard today in front of our city council is an opportunity to fix this problem or at least at minimum start a proper community conversation and vote as a vote is casted upon this item I hope to see change in improving the rental market I speak in favor but oppose the study as our city is financially constrained remember that fiscal emergency thank you next speaker please good afternoon my name is Danny Drysdale I'm a life long local and a tenant a strong supporter of rent control and I firmly agree that an impartial study of this issue is completely impossible to claim it would be is assuming that economics and sociology are hard sciences where we can easily quantify how much of each side that we're giving credit to and we know that's impossible it would be very easy to go find the right consultants that would give one opinion and very easy to find different consultants to give another but if you vote today to go forward with this what voters will see when they research this issue is the word impartial next to what cannot be an impartial study so even if the results came out in our favor that wouldn't be fair at all to any of the voters and it would be deceiving them so I really hope that y'all do not go forward with this and instead go with the proposal made earlier by miss Hawkman and I think I also just want to name that it's really frustrating coming up here again and again and again and speaking to council and hearing tenants come up here and tell these really touching stories and then seeing landlords come up here landlords that are against rent control and talking about their bottom dollar talking about the cost the financial cost to the city and then asking for a financial cost impact analysis instead of like understanding that the deeper cost is something we're already feeling thanks I just have a quick question I just had a quick question to last speaker you mentioned you know the impacts for tenants are you speaking you mentioned you're a resident in the county okay is there same impacts there as they are here yeah okay okay thank you next speaker this is a very very difficult issue rent control was tried three times I believe it was in the 80s Mike Rockin worked on that and then he became one of the gentrified socialists that is at many times really forgotten what it's like to be a hardworking person in a very expensive community but what I'm really trying to get out here is we need a fair shot okay so I'm going to paint a context we are living in empire we've been a great peace activist about our times just reminded us there are 800 military bases most of them are not welcome in the countries where they are that the United States has around the world this is hugely expensive and now we're getting down to trying to afford to live because homelessness is deathly and I could talk about that but we've also gone through black listing a total destination of the left in the United States of America that's why a lot of far-right pundits were calling Obama a socialist which he is not and the problem of lack of education in the United States compounds everything including the measure here what I'm trying to say is when our leaders like MLK and Paul Wellstone and many many others get killed for being a leader on the left we really have to look at the context of where we are with this going down the Metro CEO who was chosen by whoever's behind this city council Alex Clifford and I don't mean Sandy Brown and Chris and some of the other people here but there is a power block here that's very far-right, very reactionary they chose a Metro CEO this guy doesn't like public transportation and this is a part of the public housing policies that are being passed so trying to get down here you guys are not capable of an impartial study public housing blueprint subcommittee sorry Sandy I know you didn't like it and you said that is a giveaway of all our public lands downtown where we could build public housing and so I absolutely know you can't do anything impartially sorry city attorney thank you next speaker please hi there council members thank you for your time I just wanted to reiterate that the city right now on the city side we really need to understand what the impacts of this measure are going to be for the city and for the voters if it's passed right now under 21.06 of the measure the city must advance the initial funds to cover this measure we're going to have the cost of elections we have initially seven board members that are going to be paid an executive director, hearing officers a legal staff, housing counselors pension costs associated with this in the city of Berkeley this same board running it annually for the 2017 year was $5.1 million $4 million of that was just in staffing costs I don't know what the one here would look like but I think we all would like to know how expensive it might be for this city and also the analysis should include if Costa Hawkins is repealed and that repeal will be on the November ballot what the impact would be because then we're talking about not regulating just rental housing in the city of Santa Cruz we're talking about regulating every housing unit here and I have no idea what that might cost but I think we should look into it and ask for that independent analysis and as it's written once it passes the city council has no oversight of this board nor the cost associated nor what they pay their staff or members or the board so your grasp here you have no control over it so understanding the cost up front are very important to the city so please take the time to do it thank you next speaker please Hi there my name is Fred Antacchi I'm a real estate broker I'm also a property manager in the city of Santa Cruz and what I want to speak to is the fact that I think sometimes people get the idea that landlords slash housing providers and realtors don't care about tenants we don't have any interest in that in fact I think what happens is we get frustrated because here we are in a situation where we see this as a problem because when people talk about the stories about getting displaced and having to move it's a problem because there's nowhere to move to it's fundamentally a problem of housing supply and we know we live in a no growth place we know we live in a place where like I think Mayor Chase said when you're mayor everybody wants housing we all in favor of it just not anywhere near us it's not a problem housing costs are high land costs are high there's a lot of no growth people but that is really the problem and so this effort although well intentioned and I completely understand what the heart ache of people who have to move from the beloved community this is not going to solve the problem it's going to actually make it worse and that's borne out by studies in cities if you look at what's happening in other cities when you pass rent control and you put the burden on the backs of the landlords and that's already happening now with people selling single family homes that are rentals and believe me there's plenty of buyers from over the hill who we probably mix feelings about that but there's plenty of buyers who will come in and buy those homes and take them off the market so it's borne out by studies you don't create more housing by rent control you do not and so the real truth is we're behind efforts to build affordable housing how do you do that you got to get money from somewhere we could talk about that you got to raise money probably through taxes through other reasonable fees landlords would probably support that much more than the kind of price controls that ultimately backfire and reduce housing supply and as far as this economic study I think you owe it to the broad community to do it because you know people shouldn't be afraid of it you want to live in reality and know what the impacts are across the board thank you thank you sir next speaker please my name is John Harker I've lived here since 1972 and I have a degree in economics from UCSC which is why I came to Santa Cruz in the first place I also I think the fundamental problem is one of lack of housing that's causing a lot of other distortions and problems in our society but this particular issue we're talking about here is should we do a financial study about the impact of this measure and I just can't it's kind of boggles the mind to not have any divisiveness about the issue of doing a financial study it is financially responsible it is fiscally responsible it is a fiduciary duty to figure out what the impact of something that's going to cost millions of dollars in the city budget is going to do and it's also a little bit surprising that the proponents of the measure are so afraid and it really fears the word of having a public study done so which is that if you want to get some objective facts the rent control boards on all of the other cities that have implemented it such as Santa Monica and San Francisco have done similar studies and they publish reports every year about their costs and the impacts on the city and we can just look at those studies which are done by the impartial rent control boards and get an immense amount of information and factual information about this and we'll see you sir. Next speaker please. My name is Jim Weller I think most of you know me as the great historian Zinn, Howard Zinn once said it's not possible to be neutral on a moving train that's why what we're hearing is an array of opinions suppositions and in some cases outright falsifications we're in a political mode we're in political campaign mode the city council will have no decision to make regarding the ballot measure that will be up to the voters in November it's up to the voters the voters will make their own decisions based on their own investigations to the best of their abilities all of us will the city council has nothing to say about it it's not responsible to spend thousands of dollars on a so called impartial study that can't possibly be impartial as someone's already said the social sciences are not predictive exact sciences they don't predict anything verifiably the laws of nature can be verified and predicted social sciences can only estimate human behavior as we all know is unpredictable so I say it would be a mistake to commission this study it's only use would be to provide a basis material for propaganda and falsifications for people on both sides of this debate now I'll remind you that I am a person who is responsible to my congregation for leading the development of a housing project that four years from now we hope will provide affordable housing to 90 people in this community I'm engaged with partners, developers who are concerned about the effect of this measure and so am I but we do it by our own investigations and we don't look to so called professional consultants to tell us what's going to happen thank you next speaker please my name is Barbara Charles it's just not true that your proponents are afraid of research or facts or we don't believe that it is possible to get that kind of information from this kind of study ma'am I need to hold for a second we had someone step up and based on the two council members oh I got it we'll give you back a few minutes I just want to be clear I love democracy thank you sir I just said it's not true that proponents are afraid of facts research studies we love them and both sides of this campaign are going to be looking at all of the studies that are out there and trying to get that information together and get it to the people we're basing our actions on exactly those kinds of studies and as a proponent of rent control I have been totally convinced by reading some of these studies it's going to be a good thing for our community why else would I put my time and energy into such a thing I wrote you a letter with five really good points I thought for not wasting $70,000 on such a study first of all how can it be done in four months that would be hasty no original research can be done in four months there's a lot of good studies out there already rent control has been around for decades and decades there's no reason to do that again there's already going to be a highly disproportionate amount of money spent on the anti-rent control part of this to add $77,000 which will probably add further weight to the anti-rent control arguments just isn't fair the pro-rent control people are already going to be scrambling on a very unlevel playing field and then the real crux to me is the way we use the word cost it was really fascinating to me to watch the teacher who talked so emotionally and passionately in such an informed way about her own life and how it was costing her friends the loss of home, the loss of community that's the cost the way proponents use the word cost and then right after she spoke this man came up and said it would be a very good idea to have a study on the cost he meant a very different thing by cost so I just hope in deliberating you'll think about the two meanings of the word cost thank you next speaker please next speaker hi is it okay if I don't state my name or here's what I'll say I'm a city resident I've lived here for 37 years I'm a long-term renter and I'm a public school teacher and I just want to start by saying that just standing here puts me at risk I wanted very much to speak at the February meeting and I was afraid to because I didn't know if the temporary ordinance would pass and thank you very much for passing it it saved me from my fourth 9% annual rent increase and so I just want to say in terms of power balance that just speaking at meetings is riskier for some people than others what I'd like you to consider is who is calling for this allegedly impartial study and does that group that's calling for it most strongly truly represent both sides of the rent control debate and if not then it seems the council will be allocating public funds for a study that benefits one group's political interests and in that sense it is not impartial I wonder if you do vote for it if you can assure all of your constituents that this expenditure will consider the economic impacts on the community if the initiative doesn't pass not just if it does pass but if it doesn't pass as a renter the research that is really important to me to conduct would be to analyze the impact of removing the temporary freeze should the initiative fail how many people will be displaced how many teachers who are struggling to stay in this county will leave I work in Pajaro it is very hard to make a living I'm approaching retirement and one of the biggest questions on my mind is can I afford to retire in the community that I've served for 26 years as a teacher and so I would urge you not to spend the money on this study I agree that there's plenty of research out there that the reform voters can weigh it for themselves and if you do do the research I hope that those four areas that were mentioned include the impact of the initiative not passing on long-term local renters thank you on that point I didn't know at our last meeting there was well two meetings ago there was a recommendation from the housing blue committee about looking at an ordinance for exorbitant rent increases and that is something that will come back at a later date after public meetings but that is something if you live in the city that would be something that would be but that will be come up at a later date thank you next speaker please I am Carol Foster and I just wanted to say that you know we're all living in a time where there's all this fake news and nobody seems interested in getting the facts and we have a president that's railroading through policies and as a lifelong native Santa Cruz and I am extremely disappointed to have one of our council members state that there's no need for a study we don't need any information let's just push this thing through I begged it different there are plenty of impartial people there are judges, they're impartial there are impartial people in the world and I'm sorry but I do want the facts I'm a taxpayer and I want to know how 5,000 units that are going to be covered by rent control that's what my understanding is how are 5,000 units going to pay for 7 people on a rent control board? 1,000 a piece? That's only $5,000 what is the impact going to be? Every day I practically open that sentinel sat at this meeting tonight where are we going to get the money to pay for all these things we have to pay for so I want to know how much this rent control board is going to cost I think that's important we're in a fiscal crisis we need to know how much this is going to cost $70,000 may be a drop in the bucket compared to what that rent control board is going to cost us and we deserve to know the facts and impartiality is different than facts there are facts how much this board will cost how much are you going to charge people how will this work what are the fiscal impacts going to be on the city that's black and white thank you next speaker please I'm back and I want to remind the council and our observers that I am a housing provider I am for rent control and stabilization probably through my observation at all the council meetings since November I've not heard from one single landlord who said they were opposed to rent control the issues are really the rent board that's the big one so I'm going to ask you a few questions would you buy a home without first getting a home inspection of course not would you have a medical procedure done before having the appropriate studies no you would not and would the city permit building a second story deck without getting a structural engineering report of course it wouldn't we and many many others are strongly in favor of the city contracting with an independent impartial agency to conduct a study on the fiscal impact of the rent control measure results should of course be shared with the public a majority of economists agree that rent control diminishes the number and quality of rental property and that's already been proven we are confident the city study will bear this out we have a trust in our government recently city voters approved measure S I don't believe this increase in sales tax considered the anticipated high costs of a rent board this concerns me the monetary gains of measure S could easily be wiped out by a rent board this alone should motivate the city to consider the true economic impact of a rent control measure that includes this rent board would you knowingly launch our city into potential chaos with significant unforeseen unintended consequences of course not please approve an economic impact study of the proposed rent control measure it makes so much sense to do so thank you next speaker please hello my name is Elena Cohen and I'd like to say that the stories that we've heard of challenges for people who are renting in Santa Cruz are heartbreaking and it's really important for us as a community to try to do what we can to make affordable housing available and one of the reasons that I really support the impartial income the study is that I feel that each side thinks that their position is the one that is going to help protect renters the most and I understand the concern about can something be truly impartial but part of your recommendations were that you would have community forums and community education and I view this effort to have this study to be an opportunity for all sides to evaluate what is a result of this study and to be able to ask questions, ask questions of each other's sides and positions so that we can make a more reasonable conclusion ourselves I really disagree with the statement that the only reason to have this study is so each side can use it as propaganda I'd really like to try to have trust in our city council and a compassionate community that says that we really want to get at the truth and we want to work together about getting a policy that will actually help more renters than it hurts thank you very much Hello everyone my name is Laurie Palmer I'm from the city of Santa Cruz and a property owner and I'm very much in support of rent control and I'm very much against this idea of a study and that is mainly because of what will be absent from that study and a number of really eloquent people have spoken to the ways in which a financial analysis cannot register what is going to be lost and that is not something that a study like this can actually represent if someone can tell me how those effects on the loss of diversity in our community economic diversity racial and ethnic diversity because of this incredible cost of living here if someone can give like really concrete figures to what will be lost and so that's why I feel like this study will inevitably be biased and I urge you not to vote for it thank you My name is Debbie Gould I'm a resident and also a homeowner and I also strongly support rent control and I oppose this ostensibly impartial study I think people have already said why it is impossible for it to be impartial I think if the city council ends up putting out money for it the city council would be siding with those who want the study who are those who are opposed to rent control and that would make the entire study even more impartial less impartial so I really think if you want to spend $70,000 given the imbalance of power in this campaign already you could give it $35,000 to the rent control people and $35,000 to the others who already have millions we really could use the side who supports rent control really could use that $35,000 Thank you Next speaker please Next speaker Good afternoon council members thank you for allowing us to speak today My name is Rose Marie McNeer I'm a real estate broker have been for 42 years and sometimes because of my work in the councils and the Board of Supervisors and so forth in government affairs I've spent a lot of time watching history happen and one of the things that's very important is that we be very cautious of opining on things when perhaps we don't have the expertise that was mentioned about if you're going to build a three-story building certainly you want your structural engineers and if you go to a doctor you want to know you want to have an expert there to assist you are any of you really economists are any of you actually mathematicians it's numbers it's two plus two is four it's not an opinion of what someone thinks about the violation of what transpires once it occurs and I have seen that for 42 years I've watched it I've watched housing not happen and I'd like to see more of these folks that are in this room have housing have an opportunity to own housing and it is possible if we get together I remember a time when we were gathered as a group called creative solutions and we had a lot of really great ideas but somehow or another the regional housing needs assessments that we had got balked and stopped and didn't happen so let's find out exactly what the impact is I know the Berkeley rent control boards about a budget is four million dollars a year now we got a four million dollars here that could be real real tight I don't know for sure exactly what San Francisco's is but I'm told that it's similar Santa Monica and so forth so we have to really pay attention to the impact of what will happen when we do this first people in will be fine after that it will change thank you next speaker please my name is Jeb and I'm a labor organizer in town I've lived here for 17 years and I wanted to add on people have said a lot of things about what is left out of a study like this and one thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is the fact that in this election we are asking the voters of Santa Cruz to do something that they haven't done in a very long time and that is going to be very complex they're not just voting on rent control there are going to be three potentially three housing related issues on the ballot that they have to decide there's going to be the cost of Hawkins repeal there's possibly this countywide housing affordable housing thing and there's this to separate out the rent control issue from those other three things and I think one of the things that we should look at to these four metrics that the city staff has said that we should give numbers on is I think to artificially simplify the question for voters and I think that as Martin said we should have faith in voters to be able to parse these things there's very smart smart people on both sides of the issue well and that are going to be making arguments over the next few months about affordable housing how do we deal with rent control what happens if cost of Hawkins gets repealed do we think of these things together or not we're asking voters to do a very complex bit of mental calculation and I don't think that a study like this is going to help that I think it is going to reduce it to some numbers which can then just easily become talking points for one side or another it degrades the debate as far as the other thing that I want to quickly add is that it's going to be given that the conversation here is at a time when most people who are affected on one side of this thing can't actually come to this meeting so I'm already a little skeptical there and I see my time is almost up thank you thank you you have a little bit more next speaker please I'll take his hi my name is Viveka Jagadishan I am a city resident I have two pieces of really interesting information that I'm sure all of the landlords who have spoken will be very happy to hear I'm reading to you from an email from the mayor of Mountain View who's quoting the city manager and it's information about how much their rental housing committee cost and it adopted a budget for two and a half million dollars which was funded by a rental housing fee of $155 per unit to fund this budget that's $13 per unit per month the city appropriated a budget for the act that was a million dollars a million and $51,000 and the actual out of pocket cost of the city was $431,600 and the city has now been fully repaid the amount that was owed it actually cost less than was projected and so yeah the city was fully repaid and it cost the city $431,000 initially and that's the city of a similar size with a comparable rental population other interesting piece of information I don't know if Greg Larson is the person that's being considered for this but if he is I hear that he likes Santa Cruz Together which is the organization opposing this on Facebook doesn't sound very impartial to me if you could ma'am hello ma'am can you forward that e-mail that you had or whatever you were referring to next speaker please hello council members I'm Fazz also Santa Cruz resident I want to thank you for bringing this up before the community I just want to say that to the landlords here today specifically those who are against rent control your tenants live on a daily fear they will be priced out from their houses that there is going to be some kind of retaliation for this bond measure but in general the affordability and the rate at which people are leaving this community is a daily fear that tenants face and unfortunately that is not something that can be quantified in an economic study because it's missing that psychological cost that exists here in the community unless a study like that considers those psychological costs to people who live here I don't feel like going to be impartial because it will be purely economical so while I do respect the intentions of it I would really urge the council not to support this study and I really like the recommendation that was made a few that woman made about using the money to support the people actually need that money and need to need to be able to live here so thank you next speaker please Lynn Renshaw the city council is facing a potential permanent change to the city charter this is a very serious matter requiring study while this is a city initiative the city will be responsible for the fallout in the interest of transparency the city must study the fiscal and economic impact of the rent control measure for example the loss of thousands of rental houses will not just hurt the majority of renters it will hurt local business and many of the speakers here should realize that rental houses are not price controlled and can be sold it's highly unusual to regulate single family homes the way this measure does mountain view the example just given does not regulate single family homes few jurisdictions do this makes the situation more complicated and the exposure to litigation higher those costs should be estimated measure s is expected to raise 3 million in annual revenue to rescue the city from a fiscal emergency and fund police fire and parks and recreation will the cost of this expensive and unaccountable rent board exceed this gain will we be trading off public safety to pay for the salaries the rent board chooses for themselves when we reach 2020 and the cost of city pensions and health care make even more tradeoffs necessary how much of a burden will the rent board be these questions should be answered by a complete study of the impact in the last hour several of you expressed city budget concerns several of you said this measure will cost millions every year these are numbers that can be added up thank you thank you next speaker my name my name is Joe I'm a renter and local business owner I'm here I could tell you a sob story about me and six others getting evicted from a house that was supposed to be demolished to make a triplex that is now just standing there vacant but I really just have a question and that is who is deciding who runs the study and I can I ask that pause for a second this portion it's a public comment you can ask your questions and when you're done speaking we'll get an answer after all the speakers are done okay sorry I'm using this no no problem go ahead I have another question I guess my comment is that I think the voters should know where this information is coming from and that's it hey thank you let me just I'll say this I'll ask the city attorney and manager in response once if there's an approval for the study it would go to the city manager's office or general it would be a request for proposals that would be submitted back to the city for approval and then it's a public document so it would be something there to the council for review and action at some date in the future okay thank you next speaker please hold on for once you spoke at the earlier you you're up okay so on the topic of the economic analysis this isn't a single subject issue it's not about how much the rank control is about the fiscal investment climate the how this ordinance will affect housing across the city in general terms. Chamber of Commerce recently meeting, they made very clear that investment funds are on the sidelines. There's no, virtually no investment going on for new housing construction because of this. There are several studies. There's one from Stanford University recently, they were made very well qualified. There's a study from the Bay Area Council economic study that was recently brought in in Alameda, which is also very comprehensive. And these studies go into depth how the rent control affects communities, low income communities, of housing providers, communities for new housing in many ways, there are large and significant effects. Now you're looking at the rent control primarily as a welfare program that will benefit a certain percentage of low income, long-term renters in the city, mainly those living in older housing, which is about 20% of the 20% living in the older housing, perhaps half of those might be people that would actually really need something like this. Those benefits can be estimated, they're several million a year. What you're talking about is actually completely reforming the basis of the fair market practice. This is going to cost hundreds and hundreds of million in capital equity and hundreds and hundreds of million in investment. You need to figure out how this thing fits together. You know, make something effective. Thank you, ma'am. Next speaker, please, and before you begin, is there any other member of the public that has not spoken that would like to speak to this item? Any member here, and I see you guys lined up. Anybody who's not lined up, and I see Lassa, any other members of the public that have seated that wish to speak to this item and haven't yet? Okay, go ahead. I'm John McKelvie. I want to reiterate the fact I don't think that I know anyone that is in Santa Cruz that opposes rent stabilization, and I just think that's something that really should be recognized. Having said that, the proposed impact analysis doesn't need to be overly complicated. The two questions that need to be answered are whether the proposed measure will make existing housing more affordable and whether it will increase the number of affordable units. I feel pretty confident about the answer to those questions, but should the council to decide to pursue a study, I hope that their consultant will be reminded of several things. Editorials in advocacy journals are not research. Anecdotal and vague literature reviews purporting to discredit thorough and well-supported studies are not research. Biased position papers based on self-selected and narrowly drawn demographics are not research. I think it's really ironic that we are here discussing whether to study the impacts of a measure after it's already been moved to the ballot. I also think that more information almost always leads to better decisions. I support the council's proposal for an impartial impact analysis of the impacts of the proposed measure. Thank you, sir. Next speaker please. Pat Kittle, Santa Cruz. What I'm about to say, you guys have heard before, but what everybody else has said here tonight, you've also heard before, so we're basically just going round and round in circles about something that's far bigger than what we're able to realistically deal with. We can talk about poor people being taken advantage of by rich people, but truth be told, you take the average poor person and make them a rich person, they will behave like a rich person. That's just human nature. I'm not supposed to say that, but that's human nature. So what is the big picture? The big picture is that you can't have endless growth in a finite place, and this is a finite place. Santa Cruz is, Santa Cruz County, California, the whole earth is a finite place. Endless growth in a finite place is crazy. I mean, the pursuit of it is insane. Even the enabling it of it, which is what you're doing is insane. What we really need to talk about, and I'm talking to people who will tell me later, I really like what you said in there, but they're afraid to say it themselves, and I can understand why. There's massive intimidation against what I'm about to say, but open borders is why we have these growth problems. The United States would be heading in the, and California, and Santa Cruz would be heading in the direction of sustainability if it was not for immigration. Does that make me a hater? Well, if that was all you got going for you, call me a hater. I hate growth. Pause for a second. Pause for a second. Okay, everybody, let's just listen respectfully and go forward. This is your time on the floor, okay? And I just like it. Is somebody talking to me here? If you could continue and wrap up, you have a little bit more time, I'd just like you to continue. I would like to too, but is somebody interrupting me? Is that what's going on here? No, they're not. I'm interrupting you right now. I know you are. Please continue. I'm used to having people take cheap shots at me, and I won't put up with it. So if that's what was going on, talk to me later. If it's not, okay, you're just being implied. Anyway, people, you need to tell the city council that open borders and its sanctuary city policy is insane, and it's not gonna solve any of the problems we're talking about here tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. We got something to say, ma'am. No, just walk on about it. No, please, sir, hold on, ma'am. Next. I'm Cynthia Berger from Santa Cruz, Tennis. I just wanna say, as far as the accountability of the rent board, you're right, it's gonna be so unaccountable. It's gonna be exactly as unaccountable as you guys, but it's gonna have a lot lower, smaller budget to deal with. It's gonna be an elected board. So I also wanna say if the city of Mountain View had a million dollars from the California Apartment Association and Landlord Lobby against its rent control campaign, which it won, and I think that we'll have a similar amount here since Lighthouse Bank is one of the major contributors to anti-rent control. So I would say like if those are the people who put forth this idea, then they can get their study paid for by their big money. And nobody's doing data collection right now on the renters who are benefiting from the rent freeze and just cause for eviction. So I would say let me give you an impact statement. Rent went up 2% instead of 20%. That's really easy. And that's a big impact for people who call me. And after this rent freeze passed, I got a slew of calls to my tenant hotline, which is the only one in the county, which I do for free, so pay me. So anyway, they were from the county and they're like, oh, are we covered by rent control? Oh, man, can my landlord put my rent up this much? The rents went up after the rent freeze in the rest of the county. So you protected people here. You protected a lot of people, 15, 20,000. I don't know how many. And I wanna thank you for doing that. That was courageous. I also wanna say, for those of you who wanna put forth housing if you're compassionate, but you have to stop putting forth housing as a solution. We don't have time to wait for supply. Overnight elections have a great effect for tenants and they take effect like your rent freeze fast. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Next speaker. Good afternoon, everyone. I was... You hear me? We put it for a pause for a second. Working. I don't think it's on. It's on. What is? They're testing one, two, three and zero. Texting one, two, three. What about the other mic on the other side? It's on, right? Testing one, two, three. I'm not allowed today. Okay, can you hear me now? Oh yeah. I can hear myself now. That's much better. Driving here today, thinking about what I will be saying in the front of all of you. Believe it or not, some of you are very fond to me and I really have a lot of appreciation for you. And I was thinking just like, how possible is this that with all the things that my people has to go through in this moment, you guys are basically deciding to invalidate the vote of 10,782 people in this county. And that you are putting it or somebody's here putting it that this for fear. This is not for fear. We are not asking this for fear. We are asking this because we are tired and we are at the brisk. We are at the end of this road. You can hear the teachers. You can hear the people. I came back to Santa Cruz because my support system was here. But my kids could not pay the rent in here. And now all of them are out of here. What I'm trying to preserve in here is my community. A community, I have put a lot of heart into building it. When people say that you are gonna, we are gonna have to hire more police officers. It's not gonna be money to help homeless people. All these issues are precisely we are trying to create a safe neighborhood. A neighborhood where the people can grow older and the children can stay there. And the children will take care of the elder people. And everybody knows each one in such a way that when somebody drives into that neighborhood, people will know them. I ask you right now, does anyone of you know your neighbors? Know each one of them? That means because you own a house. That's the difference between you and us. We cannot have that. Now we're talking about the stories. You, Cynthia, spent seven months the last year in that greatest story that you have very concise, very precise and with a lot of information. Steve McKay has spent the last four years of his career going through neighborhoods, talking to people, making a story, $7,000, it's a lot of money. Let's put it to the firefighters. Let's put it to policing. Let's put it to bathroom for the homeless. Let's put it where it really counts. It's not that we are afraid for this story. We are not afraid for that. We got 10,782 people in three months. Do you think that we won't be able to get that again? We will. We will because people don't need you here than talking in here. So I don't know why these discussions are all, you know? And I even had to come here and hear people insulting my people, which is really something really low, okay? And that's exactly what we immigrants had to deal with every single day when the landlords are here. And I know now all the landlords, let me just say this. I know, David, that I already hear this, but let me just say this. I was asking for signatures and I got many landlords to sign the petition, okay? So it means that not every landlord is against it. And just as it was said before, you know, it's gonna be the opportunity for both sides. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Let's, let me just do a reference check. Is there any member who's in this vicinity right now who hasn't spoken that wishes to speak? Okay. Anyone? I know you're a last speaker. No, she is. I wasn't gonna say anything, but there's something that hasn't been covered is that what I am seeing is in a lot of ways this is going to shift some of the demographics of Santa Cruz. You have to make investing in rental housing attractive because it's a pain in the neck. You know, one of the people described it as owning toilets. And so it's gotta be more than just simply the cash on cash return. The way things are getting set up is with not being able to sort of negotiate and find a balance with your tenants, people are, you know, it's easier to put money in the stock market. It's easy to invest in property in places that where things actually cash flow. You know, I have a very low loan on my property, but I don't get that much cash back. I would be better off if I had that balance in a bank somewhere at one and a half percent. So what we wanna do is to make it attractive for both sides. We're not looking at it. We act like rent control or know nothing about housing is the only way to go. What about getting funds for silent seconds to get teachers and people that are in that bracket into housing, building housing that will go into that, that part of the market or even rehabbing housing that can be suitable for teachers and families. You know, we are so overwhelmed with the homeless situation, we're losing a good part of our resources here, which are, you know, there's some fabulous people here. They just don't get paid a lot of money. You know, we could raise the salaries of teachers of, you know, the people that are in that, you know, 40 to $100,000 range. I think at this point in time, it's $117,000 is what is considered low, lower income in this area. You know, how many people make that much? So I just want you to think about other solutions other than rent control. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Okay. You were our last speaker of, well, the last public speaker. Now we bring it back after a close public comment back to the council. And I want to thank everybody for being respectful, listening to each other during this discussion and having this conversation. I'll just tell you that, you know, up here, each of us are residents of the city. And I can just speak confidently that each of us either know someone that's experiencing, you know, a housing challenge. We live with them, we're related to them or we are experiencing that. The costs here are extremely high. And I just think that's unquestionable. The housing costs are high. We're in an environment right now that's unprecedented and Marina has been described earlier as a housing crisis. And, you know, I'll just say that in my opinion, without data, I don't want to fly blindly into our housing future. I want to make sure that one, we have information to have an understanding of whether or not we are able to make sure that we know what impacts are. And for me, having data about what an impact is isn't just about the cost because when you look at someone's rising rents and someone who makes a certain level of income, there is a definite impact in my opinion, right? We all feel that impact when our wages are flat and the housing costs increase. And so when we look at costs, they are both social and economic. And so I know that this is something that there is obviously based on our public comment, so many different viewpoints on this, but it's something that I feel like it's worthy of a discussion here. And I'm happy that we heard your viewpoints and I'm happy that we're now gonna hear from the council on where each of us kind of land on this issue. So I'll start with you, Council Member Naroyan. So for just the purposes of how we proceed, do you want a motion put forward and then discussion or should we discuss first? Well, this is the point where you would, there's motion and deliberation, deliberation, so whatever the will is of the council right now, that's... Okay, so we're open on that. All right, well, I would just want to say first, I just have to denounce the earlier comments, sir, that you made about putting down open borders and people coming over. I mean, I'm sorry, I can't, I know that's not your main to what we're discussing, but there's so much rhetoric and hatred right now. I just had to denounce your comments. Okay, sir, I'm gonna give you, so hold on pause for a second. I'm gonna give you a warning, sir. You can't just yell out, hey, she's making a comment. Sir, I'm gonna give you a warning. She made a comment just like we were up here listening. Sir, I'm gonna ask you, I'm gonna just ask you to I've given you a warning, okay? Let's just keep it down, okay? Can I respond later? No, you can speak to her afterwards. This is not a time to get into a dialogue. We're up here now, we've closed the public comment. You have your time during public comment to have your remarks, you get another, once we finish here, there'll be another two minutes available. Okay, sir, I'm gonna give you a warning, okay? This is not a time to have a discussion. Thank you, go ahead. I mean, population issues, I couldn't agree. We've gotta discuss how many humans are living on the planet, but it's not like a United States issue. Its population issues are much more complex than that. And on a day when the Supreme Court ruled that certain people from certain countries can't come here, and one of those countries is from a place, a branch of my family came from, Iran. My family, my mostly female relatives looked at the writing on the wall and said, we're going to lose our human rights if we don't move. And my grandmother sponsored them, and thank goodness they were able to come here and raise their daughters without the oppressive rule in Iran. So when you make those comments, it's very personal for a lot of us. So let me move on to the other, the thing that we're here to discuss. So the question before us today as a city is whether or not we commission an actual study to, and what it's been called a non-partial analysis about what's being proposed via the rent control ballot. And we're not here to talk about the virtues of rent control that did get into the discussion. And I just wanna say that I do share the concern and alarm at the rate of the increase in rents. But when it comes to rent control, there are many shades of gray on what people think will work and not work. So I just wanna make sure that we understand that, that even in disagreements with this ballot measure, there's a lot of, I think, agreement that we don't like seeing rent go up at the amount of the increases that they've gone up. At the statewide level, when a ballot initiative is proposed, the legislative analyst's office and the Department of Finance are required to complete a joint analysis of the initiative's impact on state and local government finances, even before the signatures are collected. So it's not a standard that we're foreign to to have this type of analysis. And I think many of us can agree, some of the statewide initiatives that have passed have been pretty horrible and have had really negative impacts on local government before this requirement was in place. So, you know, going forward, I wish there had been a much better analysis done about Prop 13. I do want this study. I agree this ballot proposal is definitely more than just a financial issue and that the analysis needs to go into that. I'm concerned about unintended consequences. I'm concerned about unforeseen consequences. The fact of the matter is the rental market in Santa Cruz is a lot different than let's say the rental market in San Francisco. We tend to have more mom and pop renters. In fact, I believe they're the majority of people who rent here, not people who own giant 3000 unit, you know, 30 story complexes like you would find in San Francisco that are owned by, you know, corporations. So I think the fact that we have, in my opinion, a different rental market than a lot of other cities is really important that we have this study. This is also a ballot initiative. And so ballot initiatives, when problems do come up with them, you have to have another ballot initiative to fix it. And so I think we really need to tread carefully and need to really be aware of what we're getting into before we vote on something that's as monumental as this. So I'm gonna support the analysis but I think it's important the analysis be more than just financial. It needs to, I think the suggestion is pretty good in here, what it covers. And I'm open to hearing from my fellow council members on what else they think might make it a better analysis. So are you making a motion? I make a motion that we move forward and have the city commission a, let me say this properly, sorry, an impartial impact analysis of the proposed rent control ballot measure. I'll second that. Okay, is there a further discussion on that? Council move around. I won't be supporting the motion for a variety of reasons. I'm not gonna talk about my position on rent control. I think by now most of you all know what it is. I've been lauded for it and I've been attacked for it but that's not the matter at hand here today. The matter at hand is whether or not we are going to commission a study at the cost of potentially $70,000. So here's my first reason for opposing this motion. We can't afford that. We are nickel and diming foster grandparent, Meals on Wheels, our parks and rec programs. We are talking about cuts to public safety. We were talking about all kinds of things that we just can't afford but suddenly we can afford $70,000 to pay a consultant for a month's work to provide us with an analysis that will be at best limited and at worst biased. And I'll say it again, I don't think that there's a possibility of having an impartial analysis. I am a social scientist. I have done large data survey research. I have done qualitative research and I know that there is always bias no matter how hard we try to avoid that and we find what we want to find. So I also question the, I want the question answered about who the potential consultant might be and my understanding is the only consultant that's done one of these for the city of Fremont is management partners and I do believe that there is some question about their position, their principal's position on rent control. So I just don't see how it's possible to find a consultant that's not biased. So with respect to the raising this as a section 9212 item, my understanding having talked with staff, these are generally used in cases where council has a discretion over whether to put an initiative on the ballot or adopt it directly and this is not that case. We have already voted to put it on the ballot as per, as we are required, we're required to do. So I think it's really up to the voters to decide and I think that there will be plenty of information coming out from both sides of this campaign. I think there's plenty of information out there if you want to get it. If you want to see a pretty good study, look at the city of Fremont study. There was commission that management partners did. I looked at it last night. It's very illuminating and it can give you a good, pretty good sense of what we might expect, but that was done when the city of Fremont was considering whether or not to consider rent control. So there's really no precedent for this and so that's another reason and I think that I'll, for now I'll just leave it at that. I just don't, well, and last but not least, when I said there's no impartial analysis, I apologize, Mr. Kandadi for, because I do think that the analysis that you put together for the ballot is about as close to impartial as we can get and I think that that's plenty for us, for the voters to go on and if the voters want to find more information, they'll find it. Thank you. Thank you. Council member Chase. So I'm trying to kind of, a lot of things happening. I was a little surprised to see this come forward because I never, I don't recall a discussion on this and as being, having been involved in the housing discussion, not just on the housing blueprint, but for the last, at least six months of when I was mayor, I read a lot of studies, talked to a lot of people about rent control, like I said many, many times, most people who I heard from were in support of rent control but didn't know almost anything about it, but the information is out there and their information is out there on both sides of the issue. So I'm a big supporter of getting information out there of engaging with the community, of having them get the information that they need, but I think what's tricky about this at this point is this is not an initiative that the council brought forward. This is an initiative that happened in the community by folks who gathered signatures to put this on. Now there's folks who are in support of it, those who gathered the signatures and signed and those who are against it and a lot of the discussion that has happened over the last six months, people have come to many of us, I'm sure, certainly to me, asking me to take a position on it and asking me to say, well, what is the council gonna do? And I said, well, the council's not doing anything on this except for waiting to see if the signatures make it and here we are and we had an obligation to do what we did today. It really is in the community's hands, which is where I think it belongs and that's one of the things where I, again, big supporter of data and reports, I think that there could be really good information potentially if we really had the time and could get an impartial report on that. I do think that the horse has left the barn. If we were gonna do that, that would have been something that the council, I think, should have taken a position on before that. We haven't taken a position except to, which I'm glad that we did, do the rent freeze so that we could have a discussion in the community, which means that those who support and those who oppose can put as much energy, money, time, whatever resources in it to get the information out there that they want the community to have. I don't think at this point I feel confident that we could get an impartial report to give and I also think it makes it really confusing given that this is not an issue that the city put out there. This is something that the community initiated, got the signatures for and got it on the ballot and now the community gets to engage with it. So I am generally a person who is absolutely in support of more data, more reports, but this is not gonna be one of those times where I feel like I can support this. I guess this is a part where we have the opportunity to engage and have discussion on it and I really feel like it's difficult to say you can't take a position because this also, whatever decision is made, does have an impact on our city's future in terms of whether you're pro or con and I really strongly feel that it's important that everybody one, express what their opinion is because I think it's something where I just think that the city's is something that we as stewards of the city represent what that future looks like and I'll tell you, I personally even, I read every document we had on that housing study that we had, I looked at all the committee groups when they talked about teachers weren't able to find housing and locals that were being displaced by students and I frankly, I'm greatly concerned about how we protect local residents and their families and their ability to make Santa Cruz their home in the future and there are impacts in whatever way you vote, right? And so I think that to say that there aren't and it's something where that's like stepping aside and not answering the question, whatever you stand on the issue and so for me, I wanna make sure that one, we don't enter into a decision in a future where we're not engaging in having the discussion about well, what are those things? How are we educating the public? Because I remember when the housing blueprint committee came forward and brought forward the proposal to have a freeze, a pause as it was called, it was an opportunity to educate the public about this, to show what the impacts were. That was how it was presented and at that point I supported it because I felt like it's important to have this discussion to show what the impacts were, to understand what they weren't and we can have that discussion about when it came up and I feel that that is something on how we had the discussion. So, I just think that this is something where we are able to at least have more information rather than last to kind of have an informed decision, not only as a council what the impacts are for the city or stewards of the city's resources but also for the community to show what those impacts are for the housing. So I just wanna make sure that this isn't something where I don't think you can just say it's up to the people because the people are the ones that need to know what the impacts are of the vote and what the impact is for the city's future. I feel like I'm in your position where my brain is sort of spinning around this all. As somebody who craves information, who wants to do all of my homework and always have the best information possible, I appreciate the intention and I also recognize the concerns raised sort of for the healthy skepticism, the timing, et cetera. And this is sort of me thinking out loud so forgive me if this isn't very clear. I think when you start to look at where the staff is proposing that we consider for general areas, number one to me stands out really strongly and that it's really looking at a general analysis of the operation and administration of the ordinance, including the rent control and just cause eviction policies, the rent board powers and duties and the interaction with the obligations on the city of Santa Cruz's policy operations and administration. That to me seems like aside from two, three and four, which is really getting into where I think you can probably draw on a lot of information to get kind of inconclusive evidence in terms of where people fall in that and think that's sort of partially where you kind of start to see those divides. That seems to me like you're really trying to prepare for what you might need to prepare for in terms of administrative functioning. And so I see that as somewhere where we would want more information or maybe you're not following and this isn't making sense. But that's me. No, it is, no, I'm totally understanding it. Okay, because I think when you start to get down to two, three and four, then you start to get into, I don't know. I mean, I'm not sure if you've, I've ever read anything that's really impartial on really the impacts of rent control. I mean, economists, I don't know. I've read a good amount, but maybe it's out there, I'm not sure. But when you think about what, as a city, we want from this information, aside from this being a community conversation in terms of how the voters want to go, I think we really do want one, which is what can we do administratively in preparation for the impacts this might have on our administration functions? I mean, that's sort of my instinct. I mean, I'll leave it to the council if we want to consider that as part of the discussion. That seems to me like we could probably get a fairly, kind of, I don't know, maybe cheaper version and sort of, I don't know, hopefully impartial. Council Member Brown. Well, I agree with you about the item one being something that is probably worth exploration. I do believe that that's something that could be done in-house. I mean, our staff will be best equipped to be able to say how they feel it's going to affect them and not to give you more work, but you are getting an assistant to the city manager. So that might help. Please give me a vacant position. So I know, but nobody's there right now. So I mean, I feel like that's the kind of information that we could get from within the city rather than contracting out for that. If I could just, and just to be sort of, if not confrontational, but just to sort of be on the same point that you mentioned earlier, though, would you trust that if it was from the city? I mean, if we're having sort of a healthy skepticism of information, does that weigh true for that potential source of information? As much as it weighs true for their analysis of any activity that the city performs, yeah. Council Member Chase. Yeah, I'm supportive of the idea that you put forward Vice Mayor Watkins. I guess I would want to hear a little bit more from city manager perhaps on what this would look like and then also maybe comment on Council Member Brown's suggestion of is this something that could be done in-house or is it something you would want actually to have? My preference would be to have a consultant do it who has more experience and in rent control or has done similar kinds of analysis because we don't really have that in-house expertise. And I think to, again, the scope, you can adjust accordingly and that will have an impact on price too. But I think I would prefer if we have somebody that we can rely on that can dedicate the time to do it and would be able to have some background already and knowledge that they can start off with and then do the required research and analysis and then put it together. Just to follow up on that. Do you feel like you can find somebody who's, like you would say is impartial that doesn't necessarily has that expertise and could do the turnaround at the time? Yes, there are firms that do these reports so we do a request for proposals and which is a process we'd write up what we want and what the scope would be and then we would get proposals and evaluate them based on the qualifications, the scope that they submit and the qualifications and typically what you include in the proposals is who's going to be the team that's working on it, their qualifications, their background, their level of experience and what they've done. We do that all the time. So that we can do, we do all the time and so you evaluate based on the most qualified vendor and of course we also looked at, we would look at a conflict of interest like for example, it's certainly true that management partners has done this work and that Greg Glasham has mentioned works for them but he's not a principal in the firm and I don't know if he would necessarily, he wouldn't necessarily be the person assigned to it. They work on any number of projects for any number of things. So we would have to, we would again get proposals and ensure that the individuals that are included on the project team would be qualified and would have the required expertise and experience to do that. Council Member Naroya. I just say this is a little twilight zone-ish because as a council member, I think this is the first time I'm being told to not seek out more information as opposed to make a decision without more information. I can't recall a time when I've been asked to not try to seek more information out and making a decision. So it's a little strange to me. I agree, I probably would not be a good idea if we do go forward to have management partners just because of what people have mentioned already. So I would be all in favor of just if we're gonna have it be impartial, which it obviously is supposed to be. I would say that that probably is not a good hire. And then I just want people to remember that part of this, it includes an evaluation of the direct and indirect fiscal impacts to renters. So we do have that in there. I think that's an important thing to know. I think it's important to know what's gonna happen by the housing marketplace and housing supply in regards to renters, which is what this study calls for. And it also calls for how is it going to impact housing development? And I can tell you both nonprofit and for-profit developers have problems with what's being proposed on the ballot measure and trying to understand, it says in here the effect of housing development. If we go forward, we'd like to break that down into nonprofit and for-profit housing development. I'm really concerned. I wanna see more housing development, but particularly for nonprofits. So I feel these are things that are really reasonable to get an analysis on before voting for what will be an incredibly monumental change in Santa Cruz. Any further discussion? Councilman, our city manager, Bernal. I was just gonna say that these are sort of, again, when staff brainstorm basically some of the potential topics is what we came up with. Now, it may be the case that on some of these there's not sufficient data to do that. So there is a set of sort of minimal things that can be developed. Like for example, obviously comparisons. Those are things that you can obtain. You can sort of see how this would compare with other recently adopted ones. You could also identify some potential advantages and disadvantages of certain pieces based on the ordinance. You can also do some cost estimates of the fiscal impacts. Those are things that you could probably do. In terms of some of the technical aspects of implementation and databases and all that sort of thing. But some of these other questions related to market conditions may be more difficult to obtain. So I think we'd have to work closely with a consultant to realistically assess what is actually doable with some of these. But these are generally the areas that seemed that would be worthwhile exploring again. Okay, so should we maybe define what we'd want to be analyzed at this point? That is the point. All right, so to add to my motion, I would like to include these suggestions here. Include an evaluation of the direct and indirect fiscal impacts on renters. I would like to know the housing marketplace and effective housing marketplace and housing supply for renters. And I would like to know the impact on future non-profit housing and for-profit housing development. What does that mean? That means will, I mean, will this encourage or will it dissuade developers from wanting to build new housing in the city of Santa Cruz? That's what I mean. Council Member Brown. How would that be determined? I mean, for that matter, I'm gonna ask people who are housing developers and ask them if they could operate under these. But no, I'm talking, you're laughing, but non-profit developers too, folks. I'm not talking about just for profit. Can I say this? Do you mind? Sure. I have heard, I know there's proposals from different jurisdictions and school district as far as looking at how we do housing developments and school areas. I have heard there's impacts on different areas and types of developments. I don't know if you wanna keep it broad and say whether the measure will increase affordable housing or whether the measure will make housing more affordable. Those are more general statements to see if you can do, but those are areas where I think they do matter and it does matter about whether or not we can produce more housing and so that is important information. Council Member Brown. They do matter, yes, but those are entirely subjective because they're projections. There is no way to objectively identify positive and negative impacts on development. It's impossible to do because it's projection. Economic modeling may tell us something, but as we know, economic models are often wrong because they're models about, they're not based on the ground reality. So I'm just having a hard time figuring out how we're gonna actually get the kind of information, I understand the intent and I just don't see how it's possible to get the information in a credible and impartial way. So I really just can't support this. Okay, Vice Mayor Watkins. What would you anticipate this timeline being? I mean, considering we are up against the clock here. Right, so typically these are done in 30 days, which is a factor that also makes them more expensive. However, in this particular case because it's not a technically a 9-2-1-2 report. There's no deadline, again, typically so the council can come back and decide what to do whether to adopt the ordinance or put it on the ballot. So you have flexibility there. So my sense would be that you'd want something certainly before the election, sometime before the election. So it could be 60 days if you want it. So that would be July, August, that would be available in September if you wanted to do that. Or if you wanted to do six weeks. So I would recommend in between six and eight weeks would probably be reasonable. But you could ask for 30 days if you wanted to do that. Council Member Chase. So I couldn't, I'm not gonna support the motion as it stands, but I was interested in supporting what Vice Mayor Watkins proposed, which was number one, which to me feels appropriate for the city to be analyzing the impact on operations, administration, things like that that are internal and are saying from the city's perspective, these are the things that we need to look at so that we're prepared for what happens if this passes. I could support that. But two, three and four, I agree, those are ones where there are very well respected folks on either sides have done research on this and they are partial. They are taking a position on one side or the other. And I feel like if we end up going that route unless we're just doing a meta-analysis and saying here's the things here and I mean I just, I don't know how we do those things truly being impartial on this when we have to this point really been in this impartial position. And now we're saying we want to continue to be impartial but we're taking a position that feels entirely impartial. I mean partial. So I just kind of feel like that's my position on this. I can support number one but I couldn't get behind the other ones at this point. I understand. I just think it's hard to be impartial when there are impacts. And I'd say like even if you look at number four, the evaluation of the effects of rent control ordinance in other cities. I mean, that is something, I mean, I don't know if there's been a summary of all the evaluation or how it's been compiled. I've never had it presented to me in terms of what the evaluation of the effects of rent control ordinance in other California cities is. And I actually don't have issue with number two, the assessment of the effects and impacts of the housing marketplace, specifically on renters and landlords, housing supply and availability and demand and housing development. I mean, when I spoke, I've met a couple of times with the proponents and talked about like when you have rent control, what are the impacts when, you know, let's say we have a high student population here and does it create an incentive to rent primarily to a student rather than a longer term tenant who's a local. And so, and I get it, there's a need to produce more student housing here, but are we going to displace our existing locals when you have controls that are put in place that affect our housing costs for them where maybe a landlord is not as willing to rent to a family or a local employee because they want someone that's not gonna be there as a permanent tenant that's gonna be in and out. That's just my opinion. And so I just, I could like to have something that kind of looks at that and gives me some information to help guide a decision. Council Member Brown. Again, I understand the intent and the social scientist in me is just gonna keep coming out. Those are empirical questions that can only be answered in reality on the ground when they happen. There is no way that we can project that just by talking with developers or, I mean, for that matter, I have a whole list of other people we could talk with to try to get at certain aspects of this, but none of it is going to give us the answers that we really seek, which is what's gonna happen. And we only are gonna know if and when the voters decide to support rent control or not. Council Member Naroya. I'm not willing to take that leap of faith that we just, let's see what happens, especially when one of the major goals that came out of the housing committee is that we have more affordable units available. I really wanna know how is this going to affect that goal, which has a huge impact on who can stay in town and who can't, and whether our teacher aides or teachers or hell, even doctors for that matter have to drive here from, I don't know, Prudendale or Fresno to be able to work. So I think, when you say it can't be completely impartial, well, you can say that about everything. So let's not analyze and let's not speculate, let's just do a Hail Mary and hope it all works out. I can't do that. Vice Mayor Watkins. I was just gonna say that. I was just gonna say that. I think that these are really healthy questions to ask about this. I mean, this is exactly what we want people to be thinking about before they vote, right? And I really also wanna acknowledge Council Member Chase's original statements around, this is a community effort. These are two campaigns trying to inform the community on the pros and cons as they are trying to advocate for and let that stay in the community, in my opinion. I think I, I mean, I hear, I'm all for information and I just, I feel somewhat reluctant to sort of step in in a way at this point, other than I think we wanna know administrative functions of the impacts it would have for us as a city. I mean, in terms of the campaigns doing what they do, yes, that's a beautiful process. Let that be. That's how our process works and that's fantastic. The other questions we do wanna ask those questions and I hope voters are healthily looking into them because I think they're really critical and depending on who you talk to, you probably will get a different answer from. I am skeptical that we can get that information. I'm skeptical, I haven't seen the Fremont one, so I am a bit skeptical in seeing that, but I do wanna just say when this originally came forward, I thought it was really reasonable for our city staff, which this is brought forward by our city staff, to ask for how this operationally and procedurally and sort of structurally will need to be considered. I mean, that to me makes total, total sense. I think the other stuff we're sort of just sort of stepping into something that's already in the community, the community's hands, in my opinion. So I like idea of number one. Council Member Brown. I think I said it before, but I'll try to say it another way. I don't understand why the council would vote to use city dollars to conduct an analysis on a matter that is going before the voters. The city council will not be making another decision about this. So it's really not the city's responsibility to provide that information. And so we already voted to put it on, I mean, we had to and some of us wanted to, but it's going to the ballot. And so the city council is gonna do no more on this. So I just can't support doing an extensive study. I can understand the point about wanting to get a better handle on what this might mean for city operations. So I'd be willing to support a very limited, and I, given the city manager's suggestion that this can't be done in-house, I'd be willing to support a very limited contract, but that's about it. One. Council Member Naroy. I'm looking at the reality of the conversation, because that's one thing I always like to claim, that I do look at reality. I don't see the support here for the proposal and the staff report. I am willing to withdraw my motion and... I think that the support is for number one. Right, that's what, no, no, but my mind was to be more extensive. My motion was more extensive. So I'm willing to withdraw that motion and support a motion to go forward and do an impartial analysis on point number one, which I'll read, general analysis of the operation and administration of the ordinance, including the rent control and just cause eviction policies, the separately elected rent boards power and duties and interaction with and obligations on city of Santa Cruz policy operations and administration. I'll second that and say that I also agree that, I mean, I can count to three on this one. And so I feel like I would like to go further and have some more information, but I totally respect the process and the council's discussion on it. And I feel like this has been a healthy discussion. It's been probably one, we haven't had I think more discussion on this item in a long time. And this is probably one of the biggest issues that the council has faced in, I think in at least a decade or since the desal vote. So I just wanna say that I would like to see further and for whatever it's worth having staff compile information for us regarding other rent control ordinances and other cities to like at least share with the council members here so that we have that information is helpful for those contacts. I can get you that for free. Well, I mean, I said from staff, but I do think it's important that we, they were educated, right? This is about educating ourselves as well as the electorate about what's going on in this. And I'm so sounds like that we have a motion and a second on this. I just wanted to get clarification. So as I understand it, it's one and that includes, because it's not explicit here, but that includes a fiscal impact to the city is operations is what you're getting that correct. General, if that includes fiscal, that makes sense to you. Okay, just wanna make sure. Okay, okay. So there's motion, a second. Is there further discussion on this? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, that passes unanimously. Okay. Okay, we're gonna take a break for like three minutes just to kind of like regain our composure and get back. And we're gonna go to oral communications. Are you coming right back? Yes, we are. Three minutes, we'll go back to oral communications. Okay, we're back. And let me get my agenda. At this point, we're at oral communications. Oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not listed on today's agenda. Are there any members of the public here who wish to address the council? Any members? One, two, three. Anyone else? Oral communications, okay, we have three. Would you stand up on the side and we'll line up? If so, please line up to the right or to my left. You will each have two minutes to speak. And I'd just like to make this announcement out of respect to other members of the public, many of whom are not accustomed to speaking in public. I'm gonna ask that members of the public to please refrain from clapping, cheering, booing, hissing, or other similar types of behavior that might discourage all members of the public from stepping up to the mic to have their views heard. Sir, you have two minutes. Pat Kittle, Santa Cruz. I just talked to council member Cron during the intermission. I asked him if he'd be willing to put the... Can you put the sign down, please, sir? Can I do what? Thanks. I asked him if he'd be willing to put the sanctuary city policy that the city enacted to a vote on the ballot. And he said, yeah, I think it would pass, yeah. Yeah, I'd do that. I said, what if you didn't think it would pass? And he said, oh, well, correct me if I'm wrong, Chris. After you're finished. Oh yeah, when I can't respond. Yeah. So anyway, I'm basically talking about what we've got. Two of the members, this is typical. People don't want, the city council typically either interrupts me or has to go wee-wee when I speak. We've got a sanctuary city policy, which in effect invites over 7 billion people on the earth to move here and we'll give them a sanctuary. If you object to that, you as Rachelle, councilwoman Rachelle just did to me an hour ago, she started calling me a lot of names and the mayor threatened to kick me out if I responded to it. This is the kind of behavior that we're subjected to if we try to argue for a sustainable city, which means we can't have endless human population growth, which a sanctuary city policy inviting 7 billion plus people to move here makes inevitable. Rachelle, are you even listening to what I'm saying? Are you listening to what I'm saying? I'm not going to interact with him because this is oral communication. Well, she's busy typing, obviously she's not. Thank you, sir, your time's up. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Charles Gregory Carranza. If you'd speak into the mic, sir. My name is Charles Gregory Carranza. By profession, I'm a solar energy contractor. I have been since I went to college at Cabrillo College and I graduated and also went to law school over the hill and I raised a family in Capitola for 19 years. I was a single father and I exhausted my funds. Now I'm homeless, okay, you're chasing me, trying to kill me, okay? A group of people, a paramilitary group. And it's just not me, it's other people too. I'm being protected by the FBI. I can't leave, okay? I can't leave. The issue is that the police, I support the police 100%. Their help, they help me, they're protecting me. I live on Locust Street now and I can't leave. The police are not making reports from the attempts on people's lives, people that get hit, people that get hit with bats, homeless people. I'm on some kind of website where people see me and they honk their horns at me and flip me off. I paid my taxes. It's welcome to please me at all. Hey, if I have to, I have legal experience and I'll go to San Francisco Federal Court and I'll file a wall off to go to San Francisco. Gonna make your reservations because I don't have anything else I don't know what else I do. They won't leave me alone, okay? This guy in the motorcycle that works over here, the water company, every night, man, he chases me. And they pound on my van. Thank you, sir. I'm injured from, I'm injured, I'm already disabled, I'm injured from what they did. Next speaker, please. All right, counsel, I'm Brad Snyder. So we just talked about, pause, please. Okay, go ahead. You've been through something. We just talked about, you just talked about, sorry, we, you just talked about rent control, which is, you know, parallel with affordable housing. I just got, you know, some kind of disturbing information. I sauntered into the rental office at 555 Pacific and asked them, you know, how much units were and asked them about, you know, if they had measure O units, they don't have any measure O units, which is what the other Barry Swenson development was required to do. And I don't know, I don't know why. I mean, maybe the city attorney could inform me on why that is no longer applicable to rental units' developments. But they were 2,400 for essentially what I was paying, I think 777 for $800 roughly for, you know, so 2,400 is almost twice what the people are paying at the highest, the highest rental rate. And they're the same exact units. They're teeny, they're smaller than this enclosure before the council. Like it's, I mean, they're just really small little rooms with kind of a largest bathroom and that's about all there is. And you're getting, I mean, you're asking 2,400 for that. And so I think you guys should look seriously at the developer that you, you know, seem to kind of be, you know, it's kind of the darling of the city here, like with all the developments, seems like this new development is gonna be really similar. It's gonna be overpriced really tiny units. Because I lived in, I've lived in two of his buildings and then I've seen the units at the new building and they're exactly the same kind and size even down to the cabinets, which are the same cabinets that they use and the other ones. And these are just really small. Well, I haven't seen the cabinets in the 555 Pacific. Maybe they're nicer cabinets if they're charging 2,400 or 2,900 for one bedroom. So it's just really kind of outrageous. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please. Hi, Elise Kesby. I just want to be able to use my time right now to be able to at least attempt to appear coherent about some things that I really just don't get enough time. Like, I mean, everybody doesn't, including y'all, to be able to really speak sometimes or inquire into what we like. And this is the, you know, imperfect process. It's called democracy. I just wanted to say for the last 22 years I've been an activist and I chose to do that because I had a lot of questions about things and actually when I first started, it was about 1995 and I had about five questions that I would ask a lot of people and virtually nobody could answer the question except when it came to vegetarianism. Everybody had an answer about that but there was a lot of benefit. And I now have firm opinions about that but what I'm really trying to get to tonight is, you know, as an activist you're sort of out there on the fringes. There's all kinds of activists from all sides of the equation. So what I wanna talk to just briefly right now, my point is really about democracy and these housing issues. There's so much more that I wish I could say but when the Housing Blueprint Subcommittee presented on the 12th, it was so hard to follow such a really large amount of information. So drawing from my activist career and I think this is important. When people have not had a healthy career as activists and you're already activists in one segment or another so you're always biased but when people haven't had that it's hard to build political knowledge. So I'm gonna write out a time here but what I wanted to say is I am not happy about the Housing Blueprint Subcommittee and I want a copy of the timeline that was put up on the monitor but I have not been able to find it in the city council agenda portion. Thank you, Elise. If you leave your email address on the booklet over there we'll make sure we get that slide sent to you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, that concludes oral communications and we are now up to item number 30 of 33. So we have a few more items to go and nice to see people back for this item but this is on Measure You and the council communications regarding the LRDP. This item is an agenda item that's brought forward in light of the results from Measure You in their most recent election and also in light of an upcoming meeting that will be held on June 2018 regarding the large long range Development Plan advisory group meeting. And the intent of this is to have an opportunity for the council to weigh in on the current discussions regarding the vote results for Measure You as well as to kind of provide some direction moving forward in how we kind of use that information in our communications, working with the university in regards to kind of the development of housing policy and to inform our discussions moving forward regarding the impacts that some of the housing issues have on our city. So I'd like to at this point ask if the co-signers of the agenda item, council member Cron or council member Matthews would like to make any statements. Thank you. Well, success. The city council did put this measure on the ballot and we don't have the final results but the indications are that it is passed, will ultimately pass overwhelmingly in the high 70s. And so the question now is how we convey that message and any other additional information to the advisory committee at its upcoming meeting. And I would like to suggest at the very least that we convey formally the written copy of the ballot measure, the text of the measure. I've reread it several times recently and it's right on point. I think it conveys exactly the message that we want to put forward. No additional growth. Mitigation of the impacts already, any future growth, et cetera, et cetera has to accommodate and provide for mitigations prior to growth, et cetera. It's all in the text of the measure. I'd like to convey that formally not only to the community advisory group but to all the university personnel involved in the long range development plan and the regents and the office of the president. So let's just get that out there with the city. Official insignia and signature on it. Also I'd like to ask the staff in the interim over the break to be thinking about the resources that we may want to make available to track, weigh in, get legal advice, et cetera. This is gonna be a long process, we know that. And our progress in the past, our achievements in the past for any kind of mitigation from the UC system were achieved with legal action. I think we're in a different dynamic now but I think the main thing is to get our citizens voice clearly on the record and to start looking at the resources we might need to implement that in the most effective way. I don't have an idea right now what that would be but I think at the very least, city attorney, city manager and planning department staff in collaboration with other local governments, community members and frankly other host communities could be very helpful to us. Thank you. That's just where I come down on it. Council Member Cron. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to know, is anybody here from the university representing the University of California Santa Cruz? Just wanted to, okay, thank you. I put it out to them that we're gonna talk about this today. I just wanted to see if they said anybody. I agree wholeheartedly with the remarks of Council Member Matthews. The three of us, the Mayor, Council Member Matthews and myself, the city manager and our planning director, Lee Butler, met to discuss this item and then how to move forward and I think that we came to the conclusion that we'd like to see some also advice from all of you on what we should take to the university. What we should bring up, one of the ideas we had was maybe showing some slides in a way of how is this affecting our community? How has the university growth affecting our community? Population of Santa Cruz and population of the university and where the lines are and how they've grown. I like the direction that Council Member Matthews was talking about, staff thinking about resources weighing in, getting legal advice. I'd like to take it also a strategy on the regions. How do we address them? Working with George Blumenthal on that and where do we go with Bill Monning, our State Senator and Mark Stone, our Assembly Member and getting there. I mean, several of us have met with Mark Stone already but I think that he sees this vote now and that's something that he was watching and can see where the community's at and can hopefully represent us in Sacramento. And I think that it would be nice to hear the Council how we should go to this meeting. This meeting is on this Thursday at one o'clock over at the Museum of Art and History. I was hoping that the mayor could join Council Member Matthews and myself along with City Manager Martin Bernal and our Planning Director and maybe have our Planning Director make a brief presentation along with our mayor. That's the nature of the agenda item. I thought we maybe have some discussion if there's questions you have on this. We'll go to the public if there's any comments and then come back or I can go to the public now if you'd like. Go ahead and do that. Is there any member of the public that would like to speak to this item? I believe there's at least one. Okay, please go ahead. Thank you very much. I'm John Aird and Chair of the Coalition for Elimiting University Expansion. And as some of you know, I've been working on this ever since the last go around, which was in 2005, which ended up with a lawsuit and then finally a settlement. First off, I'd like to compliment and say how much we appreciate the action that this Council took to put this ballot issue on the measure. Otherwise, we wouldn't be where we are. And I think that's been great. I also think that your representatives, Council Member Matthews and Crohn, have been active, strong participants in the Community Advisory Group, and that's been great. Santa Cruz doesn't agree on much as you could just see in the last issues that you dealt with, these complex issues. People come in from all kinds of perspectives. And on an issue which concerns education, which this community is strongly behind, almost universally, for it to come down with a 76 or 78% saying, enough's enough, we don't want the university to grow, is a compelling statement. It's a mandate for leadership by the Council, and so I'm glad that the Mayor and the City Manager will be meeting with us on Thursday. I would like to make three points and then pass out something that's in more detail that I've circulated previously, I think, to one or two of you, but I'd like to just make sure you all see it. I think the City needs to back up. It's no growth position with facts. You need to establish more than just pictures with some facts as to what the rationale for no growth, because that's going to be substantive to the, can I take two more minutes, one more minute? What if you can wrap it up, or if you have something that you can hand out to us? Okay, let me just make two more comments and then I'll hand it out. You just need to wrap it up. Okay, the second thing you need to demonstrate, right out of the box, that you're actually committed to doing what the voters, the mandate of the voters, and finally to make it a very high priority, and I agree with the comments made earlier to put some resources behind it. So with that being said, let me... You can hand it out. Thank you. Make sure you've got the copies. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hey, so the UCSC is pretty much doubled in size since I was a kid and would go up there and hang out on campus, and a lot of that's happened in more recent years. And so it feels like it's an acceleration, an increasingly, increasingly type moving thing. And so I think a lot of people in the university, I think it's apropos that the measures measure you, because this really is about the university, and it was measure L and M, or something way back in 2009 or so, I don't remember, but again, I don't know what the limits are on those past and the university pretty much got told, hey, kind of cut it out, and they're still at it. But one thing is if the state gets broken up into three different states, it'll have to change the name to University of Northern California, Santa Cruz. And then we'll also kind of renegotiate a contract. And when I thought of that, I thought, well, we don't really have a contract with them, but we sort of should. We sort of should have a contract with them. We sort of should have it be a very public process on what exactly they get to kind of shove down our throats. Like, I mean, a lot of the development that goes out there, it's massive. And just like my earlier comments about the rents at 555, a lot of the people that they rent to are students are willing to pay those just extortionate rates. And it'd be really nice if they would kind of, I think freeze enrollment. I think enrollment's way too high already. And thank you. I think he just coined a new word. Which one? Extortionate. I think extortionate. Well, no, but extorbinate. And I thought you were going to do this. Oh no. Next speaker, please. I think Measure U is great. It's really encouraging. It seemed pretty democratic. And my earlier sort of put down about Mike Rockin, I noticed that Mike was on one of the top, he was listed as having been on the committee or something that put Measure U across. So that's also encouraging. I just want to say a couple of things about this. You know, I think we've all heard these stories that, oh, people have always believed in the end of the world. There's always been those conspiracy theorists and there's always been those people who are really into like gloom and doom and calamity. The truth of the matter is that we are facing, I think it's the sixth massive extinction of life other species. And we are absolutely dependent on these other species. There are coral reefs that are dying. There are many animal species. And most of all, there are forests that we need. And it's as if these species, these life forms, are extensions of ourselves. So when we cut trees, and I'm sorry if this seems really basic, maybe too elementary for what you all already know, but a lot of people out there really still don't understand that their basious matter on the face of the earth and trees are extensions of our lungs. Our ability to breathe has a lot to do with trees. The reason I'm saying this is that you have to be standing on Mission Boulevard, Mission Avenue to understand how many redwood trees are being cut and taken on flatbed trucks. If you had the time to stand there, you would see that. And I'm pretty sure that this is completely unhealthy for our community and the earth. So I'm glad about this. I just want to quickly add there's a base of campus. There's a wildlife corridor at the base of campus. Dean McHenry loved it. And he said we should never develop it on that. So thank you. Thank you, Elise. Are there any members of the public that wish to speak during oral communications? Any other members? Casey Nunn, I'll bring it back to the council for the next item on our agenda. Oh, excuse me, I got caught off on this one. We're still on Measure U. Number 30. Oh, what? Moving right along. I think there's some consensus here already. I've heard it. We're Measure U, council communications regarding the LRDP and I'll bring it back for council action. We would love to hear from the rest of you about what you'd like us to take to the university if they have some input. I mean, I know that I was on the agenda report and I'm open to hear from other people. I mean, I think this is one thing we talked about earlier. It's kind of having more of a joint statement. One of the things that I feel is kind of a general statement that I felt like I wanted to put out there is that we as a city need to address the present crisis before we start thinking about new growth. And so when we think about that, we think about the quality of education, housing, housing and transportation. And we've learned from our experience or prior experience the importance of the cost, knowing the cost of those impacts. So I think that's a place where I feel like we need to kind of tread lightly and look at those impacts as we kind of consider engaging with the university on this very important issue. I'll just say also, this is just the beginning. The LRDP will get released and I think that's where the meat of the discussion comes into play. One of the things that Christopher mentioned in our discussion was how can we, that we should affirmatively put on the table, how can we support the local university leadership staff and students in their desire to mitigate the current UCSC impact as well as limiting future growth. Because that's one of the things to me that's been so instructive on the Community Advisory Committee is the voices of active alumni, of faculty, of students who in addition to the city are saying we're feeling the impact so severely already. Help us recover as a university and as a city from the current impact before you go forward with more. So I think in some way putting out the offer to find some shared solutions, some kind of an olive branch because obviously we are gonna go seriously after the LRDP, EIR, et cetera, all that stuff. Anyway, I just wanna add that comment. But firmly represent as Mr. Erard said the results of the election. Yes, oh totally, that's what we start with. This is what we're representing. The university has their interests that we're gonna represent the folks who voted or the people of Santa Cruz. So that's what I would start out with. I think if the mayor wants to come and be the spokesperson, that's entirely appropriate. Convey the text of the ballot measure, the results which are overwhelmingly overwhelming that we again express our concern about mitigating the current impacts that we will be asking our staff to advise us of resources needed on the timeline to respond to the LRDP. And I think that's it. We don't have to do the whole EIR response at this meeting, but we just give a short message I think is probably more important. Thanks, I'll go Vice Mayor Watkins and then Councilor Moran-Olias. I like the proposed direction, thank you. And I would just be interested in hearing from them on what they plan to do with the information, knowing that this is our city's sort of response to the proposal. And so I think that's ultimately where we wanna get in terms of how are they gonna, I mean, at this point, how are we gonna use that information and how are they gonna take that into account moving forward? And I might also just ask of our planning director particularly and Rachelle, to the extent you know what other host communities are doing, what resources, what connections we may wanna be making, it's not too early to be exploring those. Now I had the privilege of going to an international town gown conference recently at Ohio State and really interesting, just getting examples of how other cities are working through this, other towns. So I'll be sure to share that knowledge, both here and with other people in the community. But what I think is really important to set the tone is that as a city, we are not against the master plan for higher education in the state of California. It's a wonderful, audacious goal. But I think it shouldn't be at the cost of host cities, having to no longer have housing for people who work in certain service industries or heck, even doctors, I hear, have a difficult time finding housing here and lawyers. So I think that's a really important message that we still support the vision, which was a really good vision, but that there needs to be perhaps other universities or satellite campuses that it just can't, we can't just keep stuffing people into what we currently have. And that there are a couple campuses that are available for growth. But like UC Santa Cruz, if they grow, they need infrastructure from the state to be able to do that. Right now, the model's been just educate as many students as you possibly can. And by the way, we're gonna cut your operating expenses by 60% over the past 20 years, which is what's happened. So they can't continue on that course and then still have respect for the cities in which they operate in. So I think going in with this really clear view, look, we love the master plan for higher education. It should be accommodated for by our state and we more than encourage our state to go forward and build more campuses or increase the capacity at ones that can still be increased. And yeah, and I'll just say Cynthia Chase and I, we worked hard on the language. No, I think it's really good. I just want to add that. And it's there. Item number two is right there, it's all there. Yeah. How much does this ballot measure differ from the one that appeared previously? Like the one, you know, when we first put that to the vote. I couldn't tell you offhand, there are many similarities, but some substantive differences. Was this, was this a, this was drafted independent of that or did you, did you reflect on that prior ballot measure? I can't remember. We had the other one there and it was a starting point, but you know, there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then. Council Member Brown. So I'm not feeling particularly creative right now. So I'm not, not sure I have a whole lot to add. I mean, there's, you know, a lot has been said. I mean, I think the measure speaks for itself and I really appreciate all the work that has, that other council members have put in and staff has put in to get us to this point. And I'm really pleased with the election outcome. I, you know, I like the idea of visuals. I like the idea of some additional data in a presentation. It's a very short timeline to try to put that together for Thursday, but if y'all can do that, I'd absolutely support it. He's been working on it. Okay. Go for it. I also really appreciate Council Member Matthew's point about putting resources into this. I think this is going to be, despite the fact that maybe the, you know, the local administration may be closer to our position than the UC Regents or the UC Office of the President. You know, we, they still face the constraints of, you know, that are put on them. And so, you know, I think that, and they have a whole lot of support. They have something like 10 consultants, I believe. We're working on this. We have, you know, part-time council members and, you know, and so, you know, I think that we really ought to take seriously the idea that we put some resources into this. And I'd like to see us, you know, I think the county is also having a conversation about that. And, you know, I think that if we put some resources together, we might be able to perhaps hire somebody who could be liaison, you know, who could help us, shepherd us through this process. And so, you know, I'd like to see something like that happen. I know we're, you know, and I just said we shouldn't hire a consultant on our last agenda item. But, you know, but I think this is really important. And so, you know, I'd like to see us take that very seriously. And when we say resources, actually, you know, budget for that and find some help. Can I just, I'm busting here at the scenes. Councilman Royne, go ahead. All right. The International Town Gantt Association, we just joined it. They have people on staff and resources. So maybe we should start there and see what help they have and see what our membership can get us. So, yeah. In addition, though, I agree having additional resources available to kind of pursue this even more directly related to what's going on here, I'd support that. So. As do I. So, I'd also like to say the, we do have legislative affairs staff that's in Sacramento. And I think it's important that we put this on the table for them in terms of what task we give them to kind of investigate what are the levers to help influence the decision making here. And also I would encourage we want to make sure that all the council members are engaged on this when there's opportunities to meet with electeds or go to Sacramento, we do so. The League of Cities is having a conference that was on our agenda earlier today. And I know that council member Matthews and I are going, but that's also an opportunity to go out there and meet with electeds that are in Sacramento that, you know, are engaged on this issue. When is that? I thought it was in Long Beach this time. No, it's in Sacramento. When is it? Oh, the fall meetings in Sacramento. The League of City, the annual meeting. It's the annual meeting, but the one in, delegates meet the conventions in San Diego. Long Beach, in Southern California. Long Beach, yeah. Yeah, in Southern California. Council Member Crohn. I appreciate everything I said before. I mean, what Council Member Matthews said, I just think that there's no time to lose right now. I think that we need to have a set of actions and a kind of timeline because the university has like eight or 10 people working on this stuff right now. I mean, they're going all the time, full-time jobs. And so I just think that we're, of course, swimming upstream, but we need to at least swim upstream a little bit and not just float down and be overcome by the stream. One thing I was wondering if we should target, look at our housing costs. You know, we had this gentleman just at the podium before talking about 555 Pacific, which is arguably probably the new ceiling of housing in Santa Cruz. I think it's about 3,200 for a one-bedroom. And when I went there, I visited with Council Member Brown, and I think they allow three people to be in that, was it one bedroom or was it a studio? They allowed three people in. That's for a one-bedroom, too, for a studio. And so at 3,200, you divide that by three. Still, the university housing for a triple is more than that. And it just shouldn't be. It's about $1,100, it is $1,100 per person without the food thing. So I'm just wondering how much, and I think our committee agreed that housing is probably the number one issue that we're confronting right now, and there is water and there is traffic, but housing is probably right there. How much should we talk about that with the university? Like, is there a way for them to run their housing? Why does housing cost so much on the university campus? I just, in fact, I found a thing on the internet. They suggest that it costs $14,400 on campus, room and board, but only $10,300 off campus. That's their own figures. And Council Member Matthews. I think we want to draw this to a close. And I don't know that if you necessarily need a motion or do you want to take the sense of the group? I think that we're receiving an update on this and consider a motion direct that Council are their long range development plan representative. So I think that I'm comfortable with the flavor that we have right now. And also, if you would send to me in writing or we could consult later and we could kind of draft something and we'll let you know how it goes afterwards and we'll absolutely, as Vice Mayor Watkins suggested, request a response and that will be distributed to the Council on receipt. And just in regard to this last point, that screenshot that you put on the other day at our meeting is pretty striking. The comparative cost, yeah, dorm fever is a cost of living in town. But I think really in the five minutes that we're going to have on the community advisory group for this presentation, just a couple of well-placed images that would be striking and say, we're presenting the problem to you. I mean, we can't expect an answer at this meeting, but. And also the viewpoint and perspective of the residents. Absolutely, that's what we lead with, yeah. I just want to quickly add how much I appreciate Council member Norean's comments that this is not us not valuing higher education. This is us taking into the account the impacts it has. And I just, I appreciate you saying that but by the way, we do get 10 to 15 minutes according to an email exchange I had, at least with Sarah Latham. Leave a morning more. How many people are going to be speaking and how long does the meeting go for? It's a two hour meeting, one to three. Okay. This has just been added to. We're on first and then the Chancellor and Executive Vice Chancellor will respond or give their viewpoint of what's going on. Great, and I'll just say this, since we're not going to take a motion, we're just receiving this discussion. I'd like to thank both Council member Matthews and Council member Crone and all the other participants that sit on the Long Range Development Plan advisory group that are kind of informing the Council action on this. And also, I know that in the past, Council member Crone has taken copious notes and minutes and sent them back to us as far as what he's doing and oftentimes checked in as far as the status of that. And I appreciate that, keeping us informed about what you're doing in that committee and how we can get engaged further. So I feel like this is a good movement and an initial movement to help communicate where we go next. And I might, do you want to meet one more time? Yes. Like tomorrow. Like tomorrow. No, I mean, I think just to refine this with planning. Not to be tomorrow evening, but we could talk offline about time. But it was my thought to have actually a print document. I know a print's old school, but you know, it makes an impression you hand it out with the text of the ballot measure and the election results as we know them to date and both the ballot question and arguments and the full text of the measure. I bet a lot of the people honestly haven't read that. So it'd be good to just enter it into the record. What about a happy but firm letter from the mayor's signature about the bullet points we just talked about? A cover letter. I think that's fine. Cover letter. Thanks. Maybe we could highlight particular sections of the ballot measure there. Figure it out. Yeah. All right. So thank you. I think that covers it unless there's any other discussion on that. Just a quick follow up. In terms of, I don't wanna put a standing Measure U update item on every council agenda, but given the timeline and I think Mr. Erich's point about kind of coming pretty strong out of the gate after passage of Measure U, if we could perhaps bring this back so to consider the availability of resources at a council meeting in August, that would be really helpful. That is true. Having a motion on the actual direction on that would be helpful just so we know we're all on the same page. Well, that was part of what I suggested here, so. Let's do that. Can we do that to like, excuse me, to invite them with their response that Vice Mayor Watkins is looking for to come back to address the council in our second meeting or something in August? That to me is a different issue. I guess if you want me to just put a motion on the floor. Yeah, let's do that. Okay. We direct the mayor to attend the upcoming community advisory committee. Encourage maybe. Encourage ask. We request the mayor to represent the city, the upcoming community advisory committee meeting to convey the results of the recent election on Measure U and convey the ballot language, arguments and results in writing, along with a cover letter to the committee members, asking them to forward it to the regents and office of the president, as well as local electeds. That's one thing that we ask our planning and legal staff for information on the next steps in timeline in the LRDB process, including what resources might be necessary for the city to represent its interests. Is that general enough? Yes. That we emphasize the impact, particularly of university growth on our current housing crisis, current and anticipated. And that we ask, there are two more things that we put forward our willingness to support local leadership staff and students in their efforts to mitigate the impacts of present UCSC to mitigate current UCSC impacts and to limit future growth. Second. And there was one more. The resources, did you have that? I did that, that was up there. I think that gets it. Thank you. What about reaching out to county member who were talking about maybe partnering with them on resources? Copy the letter and then engage later. Yeah. And what about what council member Brown said about coming back to us? That's what it was. Yes, and I'll just say that's my motion and my expectation would be that when we come back in August, we can have just a little, I'm kind of an update on where we are. And then also, so there's a motion to second, also the long range development plan, you know, you report every other meeting as far as what discussions you've had. That's also an opportunity to update the council. Committee is going to sunset at some point. Okay. Yeah. Well, we'll find another one, but that's one way to provide those updates. Okay. I think this is enough. So there's a motion and a second. Is there a further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. We're next up to item number 31 of 33. That's the Interim Homeless Facility Planning. Okay, so this is the Interim Homeless Facility Planning. We have Suzy O'Hara, Principal Management Analyst, and Tina Scholl, Assistant City Manager that are presenting. Good evening, council members. Mayor and council members, Suzy O'Hara, Principal Management Analyst, with the city manager's office, and I'm here with Assistant City Manager Tina Scholl to provide this update and answer any questions that may arise. Realizing that this is the last or second or third to last agenda item on a very long agenda, I'll try to keep this relatively brief, but this evening I'm going to be going over four specific areas. One, an overview of the program goals and objectives. I'm going to provide a timeline and direction review. We've actually been talking about this for a little over a year, so, and have received direction from council along the way, so I'm going to try to reorient you to that. Going to provide a plan update and current opportunities that have arisen since the last time we had this discussion, ultimately making a recommendation to continue the River Street Camp through the end of August, and we'll talk about the rationale around that. So kind of to reorient you to the program goals and objectives, generally speaking, this program, specifically what we've been talking about over the last couple of meetings, the Interim Homeless Facility, is set out to expand and replace our existing homeless action partnership funded North County Winter Shelter Program to provide low barrier year round emergency shelter services. Low barrier, we've talked about this many times. What we allow at the River Street Camp are pets, partners, and possessions, and those are quite frequently barriers for folks who are trying to enter into shelter and we would expect those, that low barrier model to continue into the next phase and then last phase as well. The expansion and or actually starting day use services, providing up to 150 bed capacity from the existing 110 beds at the County Winter Shelter, I mean sorry, at the North County Winter Shelter, through a phased implementation. So as you'll notice here, and we've talked about quite a few times, the phased implementation is the starting of the River Street Camp in February, February 28th to be precise, having a bridge solution, the Interim Homeless Facility, which we've talked about quite a bit, that brings us from the River Street Camp or transitions the River Street Camp to the permanent facility. So as I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation, we have been talking about this for quite some time and that really commenced in early May of 2017. It's hard to believe that that much time has passed, but that was the time of which the Council engaged with the Homeless Coordinating Committee recommendations, adopting the final report, including 20 recommendations. At that time, you also directed staff to prioritize year-round shelter. Later in that month, during your budget hearings, you also directed staff to allocate $100,000 towards an interim shelter project. Fast forward several months, February 13th, just before we opened the River Street Camp, you directed staff to support the three-phase plan and open the River Street Camp, of which we did at the same time that we closed the Benchlands encampment, April. So we've been to you guys quite a bit. We discussed a plan for implementation of the Interim Homeless Facility and you approved that plan. And then the last time that we had a comprehensive check-in with the Council, and this is in addition to the city manager's reports, you provided additional direction that we've really been focused on over the last couple of weeks. That is to finalize the operator contract negotiations and budget. Reach agreement with the HAP jurisdictions on the funding model. We'll talk more about that as well. Engage with the governor and our state officials on the governor's May revise, and that's either through a letter or through direct conversations. You recommended that the mayor send a letter to the board requesting funding commitment and full partnership on outreach and siting, as well as determine those siting options. So I'm going to provide an update on where we've been since May 22nd and opportunities that have arisen since then that we really want to be exploring over the next couple of weeks. So with regard to the plan update and current opportunities, with respect to the funding model, obviously it's critically important for us to understand how much budget is available for this program through the HAP jurisdiction. So that's the city and the county and the city of Scotts Valley and Capitola as well. In response to the mayor's letter that was sent to the board of supervisors on May 25th, the county administrative office put on an agenda report for their June 12th agenda asking for the board to commit to partnering on the next phase of the program as well as partner with the city on the outreach and siting discussion. The board did approve that and then further, since I did this presentation, approve their budget today during their afternoon session. We are still awaiting a board letter from the chair confirming that support but we do expect as I mentioned in the staff report a support level of around $500,000 but that's for both North and South County and also support of the extension of the River Street Camp until we're able to transition. Yeah. Financial support and policy support? Financial support and support on the outreach and siting. So that was part of their motion. What specifically do you mean by policy support? Because it's still gonna be in operations there and on the city. So didn't we have county staff that was? Oh, so service and fiscal support, yes. So we also expect the half jurisdictions of the city, county, Capitola and Scotts Valley to support the interim homeless facility and expect the funding model will be proportioned at the same level as the current North County winter shelter until that funding model is evaluated. That is one thing that the board took up and we're waiting the exact language around what they directed staff to do but they are wanting to look at that funding model proportion and have a conversation about not necessarily adjusting it but reaffirming where we're at with that. So as you'll notice in the slide that the county takes the 51% share, the city 35, Scotts Valley seven and Capitola six. Is there just a question about Watsonville? Is there any reason why they're off that list? So they don't currently fund the North County winter shelter. They have their own shelter projects in South County. So with regard to the update around current opportunities there's two that I want to speak about today. One is that in reviewing the program model in transitioning from emergency shelter services to a robust navigation center model, the concept of how much case management and housing navigation can our budget support and what is an appropriate number of staff to have to ensure that there's a full complement of services has come up in our conversations. And with that, our conversations with county staff has really focused on there is a host of existing case management and housing navigation staff that the county currently supports and how do we ensure that those resources are being most effectively utilized. That will be something that we need to focus on over the next several weeks as we think about what type of program we want to deliver in this community. In addition to that, the state funding, we are expecting state funding on the order of $8 to $10 million to flow into the county sometime probably in January. That is a significant, obviously, level of funding that could very well help drive what type of program we will be purchasing in this community for North County, especially around the supportive services that we can provide in terms of phase three, what type of building and property we would be able to find and purchase. And so that, understanding the exact levels and how that money will be flowing in is critically important as we think about the program design. I have a quick question. Very quick question. Is that amount anticipated at one time or you can never project forever, but some kind of a long one? It's one time funding. Yeah. Is it going to the county or to the city or both or we don't know yet? It's gonna be dispersed to the COC, the continuum of care, is that correct? And currently the way that the language is stipulated in the budget, it's for cities that have declared and counties that have declared a shelter crisis. So fortunately we have done so. So the county and the other cities in the North County Hap as well as Watsonville have to consider making those declarations as well. So with regard to the siting options, as you all know, our discussion around siting has been very met with a ton of community interests and opposition. So at this time, one of the reasons we're asking for an extension of the River Street Camp is to conduct a comprehensive outreach program and communication strategy with our community. For several reasons, we need to engage with the community on the level of need. What are we really trying to achieve with this program? What type of shelter program and day use services program are we recommending? And also talk about site compatibility efforts that we would be making in order to ensure that the program can fit well in with the community. That engagement process will ultimately inform the program model objectives and design, siting and neighborhood compatibility requirements for the interim and permanent facilities. And so this is one of the reasons why we're asking for an extension as well is to really put a little bit of a pause. I mean, we've been moving at a fever pace to try to engage with the community on this issue. So with regard to next steps, what we would be doing while you guys are on recess is finalizing the county and cities of Scotts Valley and Capitola Fiscal Year 2019 budgets and funding commitments with a homeless action partnership prioritizing the use of the new state surplus funding for homelessness with the county develop and begin implementation of a community outreach process and ultimately build a final interim homeless facility plan. So our recommendation for council consideration today is to extend the camp two months until August 31st. And I note that I provided a bit of an update or Martin provided a bit of an update on our outcomes. And since that meeting just a couple of weeks ago we've actually housed three more people. I mean, we've had exceptionally high rate of placing people in housing. They're in terms of the neighborhood compatibility. We've had four calls for service at the camp in the last four months, all of those within the first two weeks. And a few of them not related to necessarily to the campers that we have conducted outreach over the last couple of days to ensure that the neighbors know that we're requesting this extension and overwhelmingly have received positive and supportive feedback from the neighbors as well. And so I just wanted to provide that context as well. So with the extension to the 31st that gives us time to really explore the state funding, begin to conduct this outreach process, work with the HAP jurisdictions to solidify the funding model and allocations. And then should we come back on August 14th with a recommendation for the next steps? Wonderful, we'll hear feedback and get direction on that. And should we come back on the 14th worst case scenario with something that we can't recommend moving forward with that at least gives the camp campers and staff two weeks notice if we have to wind down the camp. So that concludes my presentation. Any questions? Thank you. Are there any questions from the council at this time? One question is, could you refresh my memory? How do we go from 60 beds plus 90 to 150 interim? Like why, how was that number chosen? Is that part of my presentation? Or is that from? It was right. I handed that out, I'm gonna bring it up later. That's not from. I was in this thing. Okay. So what I, no, that's okay. I just, I don't have that in front of me. So I wanna make sure that I have an opportunity to respond. So what we are recommending and what we did, the request for information around was a program to meet a capacity of 150 beds between both locations for the North County winter shelter. There's a capacity of 110 beds. And really when we end up coming with a recommendation to council as to what we think phase two will look like, that will be site contingent, operator contingent. We think we will, I mean, our preference would be to match the 110 bed capacity and increase it if we can. But that's really constrained by many different factors. Any questions on this side? Councilor Brown. A quick question, and perhaps I missed it because I'm starting to not track as well as I went earlier in the day. So in terms of the state funding that we're expecting, can you just talk a little bit about, is that a formula based upon, and what's the formula based upon, how we're getting to the expectation of eight to 10 million dollars? Tina might have more information than I do on this, but it is based, the current recommendation is based on your pit count. And so the number of homeless individuals in your COC, which is our entire county. There have been other legislative bills that have been recommended that have different funding formulas, but I think where the governor is gonna land is based on the count, if I'm correct. Maybe you said this, but what date or how soon will this money? My understanding is early as January. And I understand that the governor came forward with like 340 or something and the legislature raised it to 500. Was there an issue with, that was already, it's not gonna be vetoed or anything, it's already agreed to? I don't think so, but I do think the one time funding is not necessarily the 600 million. I think the one time funding is probably the 359 that we've been talking about with additional funds that are included in next year's budget on top of the one time funding, which is a surplus from last year. Thanks. I have a couple of questions. One, when we looked at, thanks for the background because I think it's important to kind of see where we came from. It was back on May 9, 2017, that we had the homeless coordinating committee's final report and recommendations. And Bonnie, if you could put up this one. This one. That was the recommendation where it established kind of the council work plan as far as looking at this issue and what steps were going. So I mean, I'll have to say that having within a year setting up the things you did was impressive. I mean, it was on short order, got quite a bit done. One of the issues also is that we looked at the idea that this is a regional effort and we're trying to address our crisis here, which I think has felt acutely in our downtown and throughout the city and taking I think proactive steps to address this. What happens though is when it got referred for the work plan activities, there's been a variety of kind of discussions, but I just want to make sure that I'm on the same page with the council as far as where we are as a group in terms of the movement forward and beyond at our current emergency shelter on River Street transitioning from San Lorenzo. And if you go below, the motion and direction was clear that we're going to work out on it, but I think the details weren't really kind of like explicit as far as where we're going. If you go underneath, I wonder if, if we start looking at, we're starting to think about a pretty significant commitment in terms of our staff time and resources that are expended in support of the program activities. And I know when we talk during the budget and our ad hoc budget committee, there is no real cost center that looks at how we track this. And especially as we think about the governor's budget where they're looking at potential funding, I think as we talked about previously, it's important to whenever possible, track this information, track these costs so we can request reimbursement where it's appropriate. And if we don't have that, we're not going to be able to at least seek reimbursement for the time. And I think there's quite a bit of staff time that Tina and Suzy and I assume Martine is spending on this issue to address this situation. The other is, well, I'll go down, skip the second bullet right now, but I also think it's important that, and I, you know, maybe I'm off on this from the rest of the council, but I just wanted to bring this up. You know, the homeless subcommittee met for quite a while and came up with recommendations that the council supported. And, but do we know that those are the best practices? Are those the ones that we want to think are going to be the ones that are going to be most impactful for addressing it? I think it's good to have, you know, at least a check-in to see, are we moving in the right direction to address the crisis here in this area? Because we are going to be looking at putting in some pretty extensive investments and also changing in some of our, you know, land use in certain areas if we're thinking about building out a facility like the Navigation Center that's proposed. I haven't heard any sort of, you know, kind of report back as far as, you know, what that would look like, but I just wanted to kind of just bring that up with the council just as an issue that, you know, we want to make sure that we are on the same page and if we need some additional review that we kind of seek that out. So we're not just, you know, moving forward and, you know, eventually having impacts that maybe we questioned some past decisions. And the other related to kind of the second bill and the fourth is, you know, one of the council directions at that point back and when we made the first step forward in terms of addressing the homelessness crisis was to take a policy position of the city to continue towards working towards efforts that seek equal participation from all jurisdictions for homeless services and programs, both in terms of funding and the locations of services. And I guess I wanted to just have a better understanding of we've got two proposed services, the North County and the South County. And I'm not sure how that strategy kind of plays out regionally. Does when there's services on, let's say from 41st Avenue, do those all and every part of the geographic area to the West, does that become something that then is placed in the North County in Santa Cruz? Everything currently from let's say 41st Avenue to the East to Watsonville, does that become the place where everybody goes out for shelter services? Because if it is, I think I want to understand what is our kind of regional approach to how we address these things. Because I think if we start to look at developing a facility like what's being suggested on a year-round basis, I think there needs to be a sense of having a number that maybe we look at as maybe the North County, we have a geographic area in each part as the homeless subcommittee kind of recommended that it's geographically dispersed because I could see us overbuilding in one area and not maybe understanding what those impacts are if we concentrate them in one location. So if you could put up the second chart, I just went through the board report and it gave a little bit more information in terms of the bed spaces in Watsonville. I had never seen what the numbers were in Watsonville currently and proposed. And then also what we're proposing here and what's considered for Santa Cruz. These are all based on the winter shelter numbers. So currently for the winter shelter, there are 110 beds I understand at the armory and all the facilities that are operated in the city. But I wanted to have an understanding where we're going on this on a regional basis. So we're not putting out an RFP and potentially thinking that we're gonna site them all in one location, site the facility in one location and looking at more of a regional approach as we originally had in our policy direction. So my question is, first of all, how does that regional approach fit in with the facilities that we're proposing now? Are we just instead building, are we just building a Watsonville and a Santa Cruz model? Is that what the intent is? Or are we looking at some other different strategy on how we address this on a regional basis? Our current conversations with county staff and the HAP jurisdictions is really focused on the demographic that currently uses the North County winter shelter. And I suspect that demographic surges here and he might be able to provide additional information. I think he's still here. He is. He's been here all day. Serves in large part the city of Santa Cruz but also does, it is funded by North County jurisdiction. So I'm quite certain that people come from different parts of the county as well. In terms of the proposed interim facility as well as the permanent navigation center, it's likely that those will be referral based and those referrals will come be driven by a number of different factors. Gee, kind of where the person is from within the county might be part of it. Their medical vulnerability, their impacts to the community in terms of behavioral issues, all of those things potentially could come into play in terms of who's the referral agency. And so I would suspect that we'd be kind of mimicking the model of the North County winter shelter in terms of who utilizes the services. So in terms of Watsonville, they're looking at an additional 20. Are they considering a navigation model but just on a scale of 38 beds or what is their proposal? I really can't speak specifically to what their intentions are but I know that the Salvation Army currently runs the 18 bed shelter. There is an emphasis on increasing their bed capacity as well as also having day services at the existing site of which the Salvation Army is able to accommodate. It is not a huge site so they don't have a ton of additional space for shelter capacity but I would not imagine, I mean that program is supported by Capitola and the county exclusively and Salvation Army as well. I would not imagine that they would necessarily be taking North County people. And I guess I just wanted just to point out kind of like the breakdown on these. So we are looking at one, the available land area in Santa Cruz, Watsonville and the unincorporated area and the population basis of those. So when we think about this, I mean obviously we've been discussing and taking leadership but how are we kind of identifying this on a regional basis? We're kind of making these decisions kind of focused basically on the city but I do think it's important that we kind of open it up to kind of have more of as we originally intended I thought from when we first took the direction that it's a regional kind of effort. Yeah and I think what I would suggest is that I think this public outreach process will help inform what sites are potentially available. We obviously went through quite an extensive process to identify a few sites here in the city as well as in Mid County and that raised a lot of concerns. And so I think really part of the intention of having that community outreach process is to look at what's compatibility with all areas of North County to see if there's favorable sites that might work. I guess my question is I want to make sure that when we look at an RFP that's not just limited to one location in the city. It's that's shared. We're not looking at citing it in the city. It's just that that's a model that we're looking at shared across the county. Is that the understanding? Are you speaking about an RFP for the permanent facility or the interim facility? Well both. Well we would not be doing an RFP for the interim facility. We already did a request for information for operators and we received three letters of interest for that. So from the perspective of the permanent facility absolutely I mean we would have to be returning to the county and the hapture restrictions around how we would plan on what would a regional program actually look like in terms of where it's cited and who it's serving? Yeah like if there's someone that's homeless in Capitola let's say. I mean is that something where you'd have someone that would then go to the North County shelter. I just understand you and what you know how the regional approach is in effect. Are we and how we cite it? So that's kind of some areas where I feel I'm still unclear about where we're going and that's why I wanted to bring it up based on the decisions that have been made to date. We haven't really delved into kind of that regional approach. It's more we're kind of looking at citing it and expending monies that well I'm not sure where our end game is. Okay yeah and I think just kind of what I talked about earlier with regard to the demographic that's served and funded by the North County winter shelter. So Capitola is part of that funding model as well as Scots Valley. Unincorporated areas of the Valley as well as Mid County would likely be served by a regional North County program. Okay well that's where then I think that I mean I'm interested in like serving you know as many people as we can to address the crisis regionally but I want to make sure that we also you know this is a regional shared approach and it's a shared responsibility I think and I want to make sure that we're not looking at a site that we're building to address you know the entire area from you know Capitola 41st all the way over to Davenport or to through the Santa Cruz Mountains in the Valley. I think there is a need to kind of say well how can we approach this and address this in a more collaborative way where we are looking at ways to think about other spaces that may exist in outside of the city limits where there's sure a lot more area. Council can provide that direction for staff to bring forward in our negotiations. Council Member Narayan. I think we actually have already provided that direction in our homeless report and you know obviously we have another partner that needs to buy into that but I get the I mean I understand if I understand it correctly you know that we are looking for regional solutions and that not everything is to be focused in one area geographically. Yeah absolutely I mean that was part of your recommendations from the homeless coordinating committee and in addition the letter from the mayor from the 25th did talk about a regional approach. I think what we might be grappling with is there's a distinction between a regional approach to have an economy of scale to serve as many people as you can in one facility versus a regional approach where you're talking about ensuring that each jurisdiction you know shares the burden of siding a facility in its district. And I mean obviously you know there's the ideal and then there's going forward and doing our best on that and so I think you know we are trying to do that but you know it is to be acknowledged that when they take the point in time count you know half of the homeless folks don't live in the city so there's need outside of the city and I think it's just important to remind folks of that. Absolutely. Council Member Brown. Well first I just assert it looked like you wanted to make a comment on this topic so I don't know if it's appropriate to invite him up to say something and then I have a comment. To help us understand. Use the mic though, okay. I'm not good at this. The regional, the idea is a good idea of getting groups together and stuff but you couldn't, your shelter would have to be so big to be able to get all the people that are homeless in Watsonville too. I mean your shelter would have to be hundreds and hundreds of people that you can't make a shelter that big. You can make a shelter that can cover a good number of people here and the more numbers you can get the better but the people in Watsonville don't want to go to a shelter here. They want a shelter in Watsonville. There's a big issue between the two parts of the county. There's a lot of focus on North County stuff and South County feels like they're left out in a lot of ways but they actually have a different demographic for their families, for their single adults. We have significantly more chronic homeless in North County. We have more that are more going for the benefits kind of thing and more on the mental health kind of stuff and need more of the supportive stuff and they're more of a, I don't know, sorry for the stereotypes, more for the go out and work kind of thing. Like we had to re-change, like I'm on a bunch of committees and stuff and like Project Homeless Connect, we had to take out the word homeless for South County because they wouldn't go. Like it's just not something they wanted to hear even for those people getting services. It's more of a get up by your bootstraps. That's South County. South County. So it's a different, it's a different demographic and a different way of speaking to the different groups to make the thing work. There are more questions on that regional thing because I can talk about a couple different things that you've said. And I know that there's a point where when you do have too many people in a shelter, you just aren't effective in serving them is what I've been told. Like, you know, you don't wanna get to numbers where it's like 400 people in one spot, that it's almost better to have smaller numbers and more spaces. Is that true? That's why I'm here. I hear that idea. I would say you can have a bad, it's culture. It's the culture of the community, of the ordinance. You can have a bad culture of six kids in a group home and it can be just a riotous place. You could have hundreds of people, in the city of Santa Cruz and it's a controlled place. So it's always about how do you control culture as you're growing your numbers? The same thing that you did for the River Street Shelter. Bring out a few people first. You get it a little solid. You bring in some more. For Winter Shelter, I was really proud. Reboly gave us money so that we could have an incentive plan. Do four chores of cleaning bathrooms and I'll give you a $10 gift card for Safeway. So clients all over the place is how can I help? So it's all about how do you create a culture so that people are invested in letting someone know if someone's drinking in the bathroom? So as your numbers get bigger, it's still just paying attention to the culture and making sure that you're on track and not missing the ball and you don't know the rumors of what's happening around there. So numbers can be big and numbers can be okay too. Thank you. Yeah. Council Member Brown. So I just have, now I have a comment, but so I just, I wanted to say, I'm heartened to hear that the Board of Supervisors has agreed to partner with the city on outreach and siting and the contribution, the financial contribution is obviously really important to our efforts here in the city as well. And I agree that there is, this is just a kind of some thoughts of not going anywhere but just a thought for today, I suppose. The economy is scale and we could build, we could get 90 more bed spaces in the city of Santa Cruz and still need sites in the county. And so I think that we wanna look at, for me it's a both and kind of enterprise and so trying to work with the county to find sites outside of the city that may be more effective for populations in particular unincorporated parts of the county. I mean, the San Lorenzo Valley is pretty long ways away and if they had a shelter, I'm sure people would stay in the valley, right? So, and I know that it's messy and it's expensive and it can be more costly to do it in a more decentralized way but to the extent that we can kind of work with the county to move in that direction, I think it will be beneficial to the people who need services. Any other discussion on this side? No? Comments? Can I just make a couple fact comments? Were you lining up to speak it? I was gonna speak but I can answer a couple of the questions that you talked about. You know what, let me say this. How about, you know, you'll have, because we have other speakers, I'll give you some time if you wanna take some time if you wanna speak right now. So, how many people would like to speak to this item? One, two, three, four. I like to give, huh? What's our time frame? Just in general. Well, beyond where our time frame was. So, we were supposed to finish earlier. But I'd like to say, I'd like to give two and a half minutes per speaker on this one just because we're ready. We're only gonna do 1024 after this. No, no, no. If you want to, you can stick around. Okay, sir, you had 10, two and a half minutes. Just on the Salvation Army for Watsonville, they're already at 38 beds. They're not adding any more to that. They had, I think before they were running it when it was Pajaro Rescue, they only had like 13 people show up at a time. And as soon as they opened, because they're running it differently, they went up to 38. And people, if they get there at a certain time, they have a bed reserved, like as long as they show up by the right time. So, they're currently 38. 38 for Salvation Pajaro Rescue Mission has it. But, well, just to be blunt, I meet a lot of people that won't go back to it. It's just run a little more religiously. You have to go to their stuff and some people just don't want to. And is the middle 150, if the winter shelter is that accurate and unincorporated county? So, that 50 and 60 thing, that's the difference between the Salvation Army site and the, on Seventh Avenue, the VFW, that's actually unincorporated. So, it's just, there's matte space for 60 and there's matte space for 50, like the fire marshal said, we can only have that many. And there were a couple months where only one of those was running. So, you actually didn't have 110 the whole winter. Like in the beginning, we only had one site and at the end, we only had one site. Also, though there are those numbers, people don't go to it because of the barrier issue too. Like, just to be clear, like how a place is run is how many people want to go or want to deal with it. The having to check in at certain times or who's running it or how the whole thing is done changes your occupancy rates too. So, maybe then I was mistaken. So, the 50 and the 60, that's winter shelter. That's the 110 total winter shelter that's proposed for this, that we're thinking about for this new facility that's under the phase two, is that correct? That's the current capacity for winter shelter. So, when we talk about up to 150, that means those, the 50 would then transfer from the unincorporated county to this one proposed facility. Is that what you're thinking? Yeah, so that is the intention is to basically terminate the winter shelter program because that only runs 152 days out of the year and replace that with the regional year round shelter. Okay, so then that will go to zero for unincorporated county if it's not cited there. For the proposed bed increase, yes. Yeah, okay. Unincorporated just meaning it's on 7th Avenue. Like, yeah. Yeah, right. There's no particular. Yeah, what I'm just looking at, yeah. Okay. And I wanted to say also that as you're talking about the money for case management and stuff and that's great, like thinking money and stuff, but think your outcomes also because as money is spent, it's not always spent well in for case managers for doing homeless stuff, 16 bucks an hour to go in on the way that most of the agencies in town pay for it with no expected experience, with no particular training, the same people who get hired for case managers get hired for housing navigators so you don't have outcomes of people getting staffed. So just realize that on the how that money is spent and how you do the contract and whether you put in some more money for higher case management with higher expectations within the contract of what the case managers need to be experienced to do. That changes what your outcomes are, how people get housed down the line. So just you spend less money, doesn't get it better. Just to put that out there. I think, you know, I'd like to turn it over so we have our comment on this item. Is there any other discussion up here now? So we'll turn it over to the public comment, sir. You have two and a half minutes. Oh, again, Brad Snyder. I'm not gonna use two and a half minutes. I just wanna say, you know, it's been four days since we had the longest day of the year and now the days are just, you know, just getting a little bit shorter every day. And so, I mean, right now, lately, it's been actually really, really kind of a nice atmosphere on Pacific Avenue in terms, I don't think it was the new orange bikes that you guys put in downtown on Pacific Avenue. It's been, and we're talking about the interim shelter. And I think that has part to do with, I personally wouldn't say there, you know, if and only if I was homeless, I would not stay at that place with the barbed wire around it. I just don't like the style. But I think it has helped. I mean, I've talked to many people. I had the misfortune, good fortune of staying with Serge at the winter shelter this last winter. And I have nothing but respect for Serge. I pointed to Brent, there he is. And he, you know, he did a lot this winter and Brent did a lot this winter. And I think they both should be on some kind of advisory board. And you guys should give them an official, some kind of, you know, recognition for the work they do in our community. Yeah, that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. You need two and a half? That would be great. Thank you. I really appreciate it. This is an issue that's really hard for me to talk about because as somebody who got a good education, who came from an affluent community, who took pride in my family upbringing, becoming homeless was, it was very shameful. And I think that this is a situation that we're in. When I went to look for services, I had also, I went as a person who had worked in the mental health field. So I was going to be an art therapist. I thought this would be a nice gentleman-womanly career where I could do activism on the weekends and get a good paycheck. And then the Reagan cuts hit and I was in the foremost state to develop my career at that point, which was Massachusetts. I had a degree in philosophy as a BA, so I understood that I didn't have the best degree, a human services degree, to be going into getting credentials as a therapist, but I was doing it. So when the cuts hit, it was very, very difficult for everybody because essentially our field was privatized. So what we're still facing is this problem. At the same time, the country has gone through a rabid kind of global capitalization that has been very tough on all families. Gabor Mate is a very good psychiatrist to read about the stress on single women and families. What I'm trying to do again is sort of paint a big picture. Homelessness is such a huge national problem. And so for any one city to deal with it, it is of course hard. Nevertheless, I think there's problems with the regional approach. First of all, I want to say that as a person who was homeless, mainly out of the fact that I came from a situation where a battering occurred, it was of a psychological nature and I decided I had to heal. So it shouldn't be so tough for a person who's trying to heal and becomes homeless to have to live with, and I'm sorry for the labels here, but really hardcore drug users and very difficult behaviors, I was molested by a young woman and I actually didn't report it because she was a heroin addict and an alcoholic who drank on my, on our, anyway. This time is not gonna work, but which is to say if you hire, I'll just focus on one point. If you hire people with college degrees who are educated, that would help a lot. Secondly, think about the bus. How are people gonna get to these navigation centers? And lastly, I think you should turn the NIAID building into a housing for the most poor people and you can still have plenty of other properties around the city for more well-to-do people. Thank you. Thank you, Elise. Next speaker, please. Council, mayor, city manager, Brent Adams. I directed a nonprofit called the Warming Center Program. We pick up the slack for the city and the winter shelter in both South County and North County on the extreme nights. We go to 40 people in Watsonville, we did that regularly. We do as many as 80 and we're scalable to 100, 150 in Santa Cruz on the coldest nights. I want you really to bracket that and realize that heavy lifting is being done. And so, also, so when you're considering a population and the share number of funding you're talking about, I really encourage you to have a scalable mindset and think about the Warming Center as your backup plan rather than trying to keep it obfuscated in the shadows like we're seeing or a lot of other programs like, we heard that the AFC, social space communities, came to the city and the county with the 50 car 100-person parking program negated it. There are lots of things that are possible. I encourage you to try to design concepts. I know you're way down the lane here, but every dollar is capable of helping every person who needs shelter, not a lock box that only the people who find themselves and it gets, that's what we've seen with the winter shelter. And then this last year, we were partnering with the winter shelter over the last year, year and a half to do their street outreach. And we're keen to know the numbers. It's still, we can still bring way more people in who need shelter. We don't have the right culture. We don't talk about homelessness in the way that we really need to to serve the people who need services. And the way we're doing it, I assert, also when we have triple spending on some of the people in the camp, we didn't ask our people from here. We have many people from out of the area in the camp on downtown streets team. We're spending a lot of money. We forgot to, we said the magnet effect doesn't work, but we're actually creating a magnet effect here. What I encourage is the mindset of more with less to the point if community really understands it around design concept, you can do everything with nothing. If you design it well, we were seeing very poor design here with the River Street camp, incredibly poor design. We have to hear a puff piece about success rates. It's not true. Most people are left out. Lots of people from out of town are in that camp. I want to, I assert better design, less cost, more effectiveness. Thanks. Thank you. Okay, that concludes our, is any member of the public who wants to speak to this item? Okay, please go ahead. I didn't see you up there. No problem. My name is Lisa Stiefelmeyer-Leong and I am a resident of Paradise Park Masonic Club. So I want to, the PowerPoint presentation was wonderful and whoever was responsible was very informative, wonderful job. So I wanted to compliment that. However, I noticed in the presentation that very recent during the past week, I believe outreach was conducted with neighbors. So my question is, was Paradise Park Masonic Club contacted by the outreach team during the past week as well as other local neighbors? Because if so, with whom did the outreach team speak with in Paradise Park? Because I certainly wasn't contacted. And I live full time in this private club. So I'm wondering who in our private club exactly was contacted by the outreach team? Are you done with your comments? No. So anyway, I have children. These are pictures of my new grandson and my teenage daughter. Paradise Park is filled with many, many, many children in the summertime. Many part-time vacationers have cabins in Paradise Park and children roam Paradise Park freely without supervision. They go to the beaches along the San Lorenzo River. We have small little beaches. And this is a place where many, many children are, in the summertime, many, many children are in this private club. So this interim, this idea to extend the lease from June 30th to August 31st is totally not, in my opinion, not good appropriate neighborhood compatibility. Only my interest is the children of Paradise Park. Being one mile, this River Street camp for the homeless is exactly one mile from our club entrance. We don't have a gate. So anybody can walk in, bike in to our club until we have a gate. We don't have the funding right now. So this is a very, very poor, compatible, poor compatibility choice to extend the lease during the summertime. That's just my two cents. Thank you for your comment. I appreciate it. First of all, before, if there's any comments or something, I'll ask Serge to maybe comment on a point that was made, but first, was Paradise Park contact as part of the outreach and as our ongoing outreach so that there's probably some other future communication that may take place? So we have a set of parties we've been engaged with ever since we were contemplating the opening of the River Street camp. So back in January, and we were focused on the adjacency. So we're talking about the property owners immediately adjacent to it and the ones. So we went to the north. So that set of residences that share a fence line with the River Street camp and those properties and up to where the road starts to bend and there's no more residences. And then a mile up is Paradise Park across the road with Metro and there's an apartment complex up on Vernon Street. We've been engaged with them throughout with rain. Susie made a personal visit in with them yesterday and with the tannery folks. So we've been maintaining those contacts of the immediate proximate neighbors to share with them. And so that's what we've talked about. So no, we've not spoken with Paradise Park at any point. And a reasons for that is we were just focused on the immediacy of neighbors and also the model design. So as a reminder, there are no walk-offs and walk-on. Clients or residents in the River Street camp can only come off and on by bus and we have security and we watch the perimeter of the fence so we don't have folks walking off and walking on. And in fact, feedback we've received from the property owners just north of the River Street camp is that there had used to been this regular traversing of homeless individuals going up to Sycamore Grove and back into downtown. And they have reported that actually with River Street camp opening, that has discontinued. So they see there's actually less homeless foot traffic and that's been borne out over time and also been verified by the immediate tenants as well. So that's been our experience. We've been, as you know, our commitment been watching this very carefully. Thanks. And Councilman would chase that comment. I actually was gonna ask a question Tina answered. So thank you. Did City Manager, you have a comment? You're leaning towards the mic. I was just gonna say earlier today I was talking to the manager of the apartment complex who was here actually speaking on the previous item and she made the delivery to come up and talk to me and essentially mentioned that that they've actually seen an improvement and was very complimentary of the city, keeping their word and that it's been worked really well and that she was fully supportive of extending it. Actually, she said you should keep it there permanently. Okay. So that closes the public comment portion. I'd like to ask Serge if there was an issue, I think that was raised that you wanted to speak to you specifically. Sorry. I'm going up to San Francisco next Thursday to see one of their navigation centers. So I just wanted to put out that if anybody wanted to go on a tour and get more information because navigation centers, you guys were talking before about bed space and reserving beds like River Street Shelter by Encompass. They have a contract for mental health and they save five beds for them. They have different navigation centers in San Francisco and one of their ways of doing it is anytime they clear out an encampment like in some sort of park or anything, they give them a warning and they say Monday we're clearing you out. We have reserved enough beds for all of you if you wanna go there and you wanna get case management stuff. So they sort of do these things together. There are a lot of different styles of how you run your shelter and how you save beds, whether there's walk-ons or whether there's referrals so you don't have that story about Dominican hospital and the guy coming out. So I worked really hard for winter shelter to be able to have connections with the ones that put out people in the middle of the night. If you could tell me, I think I saw in a report that the San Francisco, the navigation center is about 75 people. Is that what the number was in the report that I saw? Yeah, there's a few different shelter ones they have but the one which is actually a sprung shelter thing. Yeah, they had 75 and they let dogs in at one point like I was asking how many dogs? They had like 37 dogs there at one time. Like it's sort of crazy. Hey, thank you. Okay, sorry. But if anybody wants to get in touch with me for next Thursday. How about maybe through Susie? Maybe email her and then if people are interested they can contact Susie. And thank you. So that closes out the public comment portion and we'll bring it back to the council. I just had, I know I see the recommendation and you're kind of like focused on that but we're also kind of looking ahead in the next steps. There was one of the slides. Do you know for the RFP, is that something that's being looked at as being designed where there's multiple kind of structures like where you have like a 75 bed, two 75 beds or so that you can at least get some different proposals out in regards to what would be the cost. So at least we're gathering the information by potential service providers rather than it being considered as like a single operation. Is that something that's been considered? Well, as I mentioned earlier, we're not gonna go out with another RFP for the interim site or program. But in discussing the letters of interest from the folks who responded, there's several drivers to bed capacity. One is just the level of staffing that's needed. I think there is a threshold that you go over where you become more ineffectual in terms of the delivery of services that you're trying to meet. And so we've heard that from each of the respondents that we really do need to be considerative how big of scale we're thinking about, even though there's significant need here in Santa Cruz and in North County. And then also as we think about sites regionally with the county through this effort with outreach and siting, the bed capacity is really site constrained as well. So one thing I also wanted to mention that Serge also talked about or Brent actually talked about was, this is just the conversation about replacing the winter shelter. The city and the county as well as the haptic jurisdictions are also engaging in discussions about how to serve other demographic populations of homeless or veterans, people that reside in their cars and RVs and through the safe parking program. Those conversations are ongoing as well and could additionally add additional bed capacity in different locations that we're not talking about today. Vice Mayor Watkins. Just because you mentioned the subpopulations, I have been connected to the youth homelessness prevention and maybe Serge could probably tell you the name better than I can at this hour today. But I think it'd be great to know how we're working with them and alignment with them in terms of their resources and their needs and seeing how we can kind of further continue that if we aren't already, but just kind of wanted to throw that out there. Yeah, I mean, ironically, Serge and I had a discussion today. He sits on that committee about, Encompass did receive a grant to supports shelter services for our youth population and they're in the process of trying to figure out a site for that as well. And so I think there is opportunity to coordinate and think about all these different demographics and subpopulations that we're trying to serve. And also when you say that, this is the winter shelter we're talking about, creating a year round shelter. So it's not just a matter of like a limited period. So I think it's a bigger question about how we kind of manage it here in our jurisdiction. One of the things I want to know is how we kind of track not just the cost of this particular operation, but the supportive costs. I know we've had different allocation of public safety safety staff that's been addressing issues for the River Street Shelter. I'd like to know like one that we're making sure that we're tracking those so that if we cost out what something like this is going to cost, we get the true cost. Yeah, so I think you mentioned that at the last meeting as well. And one thing that I wanted to share with the council is that we do have in kind resources coming from both the city and the county. And those are being tracked in terms of the time that folks are spending staff time. In addition to that, we deployed the EOC to close the encampment and open the River Street camp. And that obviously with a deployment of the EOC that's highly tracked in terms of those expenses. And so Mayor Taras, it's when you asked, I think at the last meeting about whether we could potentially be reimbursed for those operations as well through the state funding that would be something that we would be looking into. Well, I mean, I know this is something where I support this recommendation. I support the work you do, but I also like to look at this additional direction so that we as we start looking forward, we're starting to track what our costs are so that when there are these opportunities for reimbursement, we can seek those out and request them. Also, as you know, we haven't got the response yet from the county in regards to our last correspondence, but look at how this particular measure plays into like a more regional approach where siting is also taking place in the unincorporated county for maybe some of the issues that Serge mentioned for mental health services or others that we're feeling acutely in parts of our city and also parts of the North County so that we can better address the needs, you know, on a regional basis. And then also directing some sort of independent review so that we look at when we're going forward, we have a check-in. And last, think about this from the last council policy direction that we're looking at a phase two that's consistent with the policy direction where there's equal participation in siting and funding. So while we are increasing the funding, that money doesn't necessarily be, it doesn't need to be like fully utilized for a site in Santa Cruz if we have it. If there's other locations, we wanna make sure that it's a regional approach and it's great to see that increased investment in looking at this problem. Do you need a motion or this is something? Yeah, I do believe we need a motion for the extension and if there's any additional direction that council would like to provide. Well, I will move the staff recommendation and I wanna thank you for the report and the answer to all the questions that we asked. In regard, is there a second, I guess? Oh, shoot, I was gonna do that. So a couple of things. I mean, I feel like the first two bullets are included in the additional direction are included in previous direction that we've given. It's basically what staff's been working on. So would you say? Is that true? So yeah, as I mentioned, we are tracking those in-kind costs and in terms of the second bullet, obtain a response regarding the county's regional homeless program activities, I would expect that to be a combination of the letter that you receive from the board in addition to further half discussions and directions and certainly the two by two committee could take that up as well. But we have received recommendations through the homeless coordinating committee to have that regional response. We do have a cost element set up just for this program. Yes. Okay, great. And then the third one, all the recommendations that we have go at least through the HAP, if not through also the county's other homeless, I can't remember the title of it, Homeless Governance Committee. Right, so there is, that's a regional body that has members of every elected body and then also staff and nonprofits and actual folks with lived experience who are part of that. So that is evaluating the recommendations from any of the municipalities as well as the county. So that feels like that's covered there because they're always looking at grant opportunities, best practice, funding sources from federal and state sources. So that feels like that's covered. I guess I'm thinking now in terms of from our city's investment in terms of what we're doing as a city, we just recently consulted with management partners during our ad hoc budget committee to look at how other counties and cities are investing in different programs. And we've seen that sometimes there's the examples that were provided counties take the lead on this program. And then also we discussed the idea of whether or not cities directly purchase services and we're finding that most don't. So it's a matter of getting an independent review, not necessarily from those that are current providers in the county. What that look like? It might, I'm just, I put it to staff to look at what kind of options are out there. And it's not, there's no time on constraint on this. It's a matter of just as part of our movement forward in this that we kind of have some sort of review of the program activities. So we're not just kind of moving forward in a way where we're not checking in to say, hey, are we doing this in a way that's gonna address this crisis in a way that's gonna see some results? Well, if what you're proposing is what you just said, I'm more in favor of that. This has actually obtained an independent evaluation which is different than looking to how we're spending the money and check in periodically. Well, I think it's a comprehensive evaluation. One cost money, one is then. It may cost money, right? We're spending, we're gonna be spending quite a bit of money on this over many years. How much direction do we need to give tonight? I'll ask the staff. I just wanna make sure. We don't have these updates very often and I just wanna make sure that we're. We have them in every council meeting. We have them in every council meeting. Not where we're given directions. Not where we're given directions. Months. Months. We're really months. We have had this on the agenda every meeting. I mean, obviously for the purpose of ensuring that our camp residents know that there is an extension and that we are adequately staffing the camp, we do need direction on the extension through August in terms of the remaining bullet points that's really at your discretion. If I could offer what we can do because I do have a multitude of questions that far exceeds the time this evening. An attention span I think of many of you is maybe what we can do is look at these things. And when we come back to you on August 14th, do a little bit of look and kind of help characterize what this could be because I, yeah, I do have a lot of questions about this as well. What it would cost, what it would look like, what the scope would be. Is this like on the third bullet, is this about looking at the recommended program activities? Is that just our interim shelter or is it the entire homelessness coordinating committee recommendations because Mayor Torontis referenced that earlier? So I think that that scope is vastly different in magnitude. So we'd wanna take a look at that. So if that's agreeable to the council, we can take a look at these and as part of your update on the 14th, maybe offer some more information. That sounds great. Okay, we're happy to do that. Okay, so there was a motion by Councilor Chase and it's seconded by Councilor Brown. Councilor Brown? I was gonna say it's not like a big game changer might be getting that $8 to $10 million and putting that to service and the homeless. What's this for capital? Yeah. You have the housing bond also, I think. Yeah, the housing bond too. Let's we're ending up the year. We've got a new council that's gonna be coming on and so we have a new work plan. So that's something that will eventually come up. So anyways, that'll be something a future council can't do. You're gonna be spending your time on that commission. We just start the work plan. It's two years. Okay, so we have a motion on the floor in a second. Is there any further discussion on this? Okay, although some favor, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed. So that passes unanimously, including the comments. Thank you for the feedback search. I appreciate it. So yeah, we're well over. We're at number 32 and that's the council meeting calendar. We've already added a special meeting August 10th, 2018. Is it an automatic? If it's necessary. It's before August 10th. It has to be, yeah. I would like, do you want to weigh in on that? I would like to briefly discuss that. We got an email during the day that the and the fix, the legislative fix to the initiative is on its way to approval. So when is the deadline for the governor to sign that? Soon, I think. Yeah, it's soon. And so what we want to do though is have maybe by the end of the week, but we would want to do, I talked to Tony about it, we probably want to have a little bit of time to do some analysis on the Charters, the Charter City question. And so, I mean, we would want to schedule something as soon as possible. I don't know if we could do something like this week. You know, we could, we need some time. But my point that I don't need to know right now how long it'll take you, but my thought is and won't be necessarily won't be the leader on this issue, but if there's the decision that there's a poison pill in that state legislation, just in fairness to the people who would be putting together a campaign, that decision should be made ASAP because you don't want to ramp up and get people involved and raise money and just say, we can't do it. So. I have a question. The city attorney, is there any way like we, we're still here at the meeting. Can we add like a motion that if there is that poison pill you that automatically will be removed so that we can at least make that as direction now so that you could just let us know by maybe email or do we, can we take a vote on that? I think it has to be done by resolution. Is that right? Is my understanding from the. That was the advice that I got since you guys were adopting it by resolution that it would. My only thought given the timing and that you don't want to spend over a month getting people ginned up for a campaign that's not going to happen. That there should be a quick consultation about how deep into that question you want to go. And I know David, you'll be gone most of July but most of us will be here. And, and honestly, I just think that's the only fair way to proceed. Yeah, we can schedule something as soon as possible. Soon as possible. We'll have some more information certainly later this week. And then have an opportunity to look at it and we'll do something as soon as possible. Okay. So did you have other items too? No. So, you know, we have item 33 and I just think it's always nice that we. Sorry, we did add the special meeting for the city manager evaluation. August 16th, yeah. 16th, okay. So there's that also. Yes, it's not on there, but. It's not on there. It's not on that one, but it's in your calendar. Okay, so then those are the only two. Oh, well then we don't have an August 10th. We'll hear back as far as the schedule meeting, but we do have an August 16th. It's already scheduled. So that closes out 32. I'm going to say we have 33 working to provide updates from council. I think let's, let's get an update back when you return from vacation. That sounds good. I was looking forward to it today. Martin. Yeah. Martin. An LRDP. Yeah, you appreciated that. You guys get a good start. All right. Good thing we didn't have an evening session. Yeah, we just, we just did. David's really good at avoiding those evening sessions. We'd be done early. I did this one just for Chris, just to go a little later because he's always saying I don't go. Yeah, yeah, I know. The meeting is adjourned. Absolutely. What?