 Good morning, Rafael. Morning, sir. How are you? Fine, thank you. We're just waiting for council member Fleming, and then we'll get to start. So I'll mute out until I see her arrive. Eileen, did you have any indication from Ms. Fleming that she was going to be a little late this morning? I didn't, but if we want to give her a couple of more minutes. Oh yeah. So that would be great. If something has happened, we may need to turn this into a staff briefing. I think that's how we, I think that's how we can continue to provide the participants information, but there would be no back and forth as far as I know. I'm not sure. I remember Ms. Dela Rosa mentioning how to turn a committee meeting into a staff, oriented briefing, but we'll cross that bridge if we get to it. Sounds good. Does two or three more minutes on good at 18? Oh yeah. I'm sure it was just an unavoidable delay. Absolutely. Thank you. And council member Sawyer, you'll have to read that, or are you okay reading that? Yeah, I have that. My only issue is I'm gonna have to be going back and forth a little bit between my various, like going back and forth between the agenda. After I read this, then I'll switch to the agenda and I just have to make sure I get my script right. If I had three screens, I'd be better off. If I could figure out how to use them. Council member Sawyer, if you would like to go ahead and kick this off, that would be great. We'll just proceed as a staff briefing. Okay. And under those conditions, is it still possible to hear from the, for instance, the downtown action organization with Cadence, would we be able to hear from her as well as long as there was no conversation? I believe so, yeah. Okay, good enough. Okay, so I'm gonna go back to my script. Actually, I kind of puts the script into the, it removes the script. So let's, we'll go live and I will, and then let me know when we're live and I'll go from there. We are live. Okay, thank you very much. Well, good morning everyone and welcome to what was going to be a full on subcommittee meeting, but due to a lack of quorum, we will be moving this to a, and there was unavoidable absences on the council side. So we will be moving this to a staff briefing and we will be able to take comments from the various issues on the agenda, but would not be able to move into a back and forth or ask questions. So this becomes in essence a report to those that are listening. So I needn't go through the restrictions or the various rules about how to involve the community in this particular meeting because there will be no public comment. This is a staff briefing only. Given that, I will move to our agenda and the Railway Square Association Community Benefit District Rafael, can you give us a report? Yes, sir. Good morning, council member Sawyer and very happy to see everyone on the, well, actually know that there's at least 31 participants on the call. So this is always a very exciting news to get this participation. So we welcome March with a great sense of optimism for our economic recovery. But at the same time, we want to remind everyone to play it safe while they're out there and the county is beginning to ease restrictions. I do have an update regarding our continued collaboration with the Rebel Square Association and Community Benefit District. And that's been to the continuation of facilitating meetings amongst city staff as well as their various committees with the Rebel Square Association. So most recently on February 17th, we met with Rob Sprinkle from our Transportation and Public Works Department, as well as Jeremy Gundy and the committee that's formed itself to discuss a wayfinding project in the Rebel Square. So it was a great meeting. Rob and Jeremy did a wonderful job at providing feedback and input and ideas on how we can move this project forward. So the next meeting will be getting set up in the next couple of weeks with some members of the planning department as well as Gabe Osborn. So we're very excited to continue moving forward to this idea of installing various wayfinding signs in the Rebel Square area. But to tell you a little bit more about what's been going on in Rebel Square is the Executive Director for the Rebel Square Association, Chris Wilson. And I'm gonna now hand it off to her. So thanks. Excellent, thank you, Rafael. So Ms. Wilson, how are things going? We are promoting Ms. Wilson right now. All right. It's one moment. Thanks Ms. Clary. And for those that are just joining us due to a lack of council quorum, this meeting is being moved to basically a staff report and report items, but no back and forth with the council or those attendees. So this is a, at this point, this is a listening session only. And it appeared, oh, there we go. Chris, if you would unmute yourself, that would be wonderful, thank you. Okay, good morning, everyone. Good morning, council. Sawyer, good to see you. Thank you. We are still very committed to enhancing the safety and the physical appearance of railroad square. Got a lot of balls in the air. We have now hired a designated security for night, every night we've added that due to some increase in vandalism issues that were going on in our district. We've also implemented, I think it started the first, so this week of a street maintenance service that will be coming every week to do more street cleaning, light weeding, general cleaning of the area. So we're really excited about that. We've been doing some, we've put together an ad hoc marketing committee. So we've done some focused radio ads to really highlight our restaurants, especially we did that during restaurant week, and we'll be doing that with our merchants too, to really promote business down there. Those are focused working on updating our website. And then in the works, we are still getting bids for our tree project. This has been a long project, getting bids on what it's gonna cost to trim, what needs to be replaced. Probably we'll be starting on Fifth Street as sort of our template, but we're still getting bids and looking at the scope of the project because it will be including concrete and sidewalk repair. So that's definitely moving forward and getting bids. We are, Rafael mentioned the way-finding signs. Thank you, Rafael, for your help with that. And we're planning still, still in the planning stages of a railroad square farmer's market. I mean, it's a wonderful community activity that can be done safely and to bring back a real farm, local farmers vendor market to our district is a goal. So we are meeting and going through the scope and projects and details and permitting of that. And we remain, also, graffiti remains a constant ongoing issue of removal where assisting property owners with graffiti removal. And we remain to be very strong advocates to maintain and improve the Prince Greenway. So we've, I know a lot of our property owners, our hotels who are really impacted by the disarray, the condition of the Prince Greenway. So we have been advocating for to assist the city in really promoting and trying to get that cleaned up more to bring it back to our community and our visitors who come here to see Sonoma County and we wanna be able to shine. So I think that's all that I have unless Rafael, I've forgotten anything. I know, that's pretty good, thank you for covering it all. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you, Chris, really appreciate it. Thanks. Good luck on your ongoing challenges and successes. Thank you. You're welcome. Next, we will be moving to our homeless services. I take that back. 3.2 is the Downtown Action Organization and Caden's Allison is the Executive Director and she'll be giving us an update report at this point. Welcome, Caden's. Thank you, Council Member Sawyer. Good morning, everybody. I'll try to keep it quick today and start with the usual thank yous for a lot of support from a lot of city departments over the past month. So again, thanks for your partnership and for supporting our downtown businesses during this kind of continuously crazy time. Our business numbers are still a bit on the edge and uncertain, especially since we remain in the purple zone, but there's hope that will be red soon and that will change. We do thankfully have a couple of new businesses coming in. One just opened this past week. It's a new plant store on D. It's a pretty cool little space, so I encourage everyone to check that out. It's got great little plants for home, office, home office, any combination of the three. And we're hoping that once things really start to reopen again and restaurants can have a little bit more capacity and people start coming downtown, that'll help with the homeless issue as well. I think we've seen this in the past when downtown is busy and active. The homeless population tends to stay away. So hoping that we see that again as downtown starts to reactivate. Our business owners have definitely been loving the parking district support around free garage parking in the evenings and first hour and on the weekends. So we're talking with them now to try to find out which components are most important and hopefully working with Kim around some ideas for how we can continue to support them in the parking district over the next year. Our committees are very active right now, which is great doing lots of different work to try to support downtown. Our executive committee was just elected for this year. So serving again are Natalie Balfour and Hugh Futrell as chair and vice chair. Joe Deetson joins as treasurer and Doug Van Dyke as secretary. We have an ad hoc group working to support the county center moving downtown as well as the EIFD. And so we're working closely with city staff and elected officials on that. We have a community engagement committee that has met and is working on both summer and winter programming as well as other general engagement with the community through social media and marketing. And this group is made up of DAO board members but also business and restaurant owners from throughout all of downtown. We wanted to try to get diverse locations represented there as well. Our business development ad hoc committee had its first meeting and is trying to figure out how to best attract and support new businesses in the downtown area. So we're looking forward to sharing more updates around that in the coming months. We've just had our first meeting and have some kind of exciting action items coming out of that. And then our beautification committee or design and improvement committee as it's formally titled is working on three separate projects involving trees, lighting and lay posts. So I think I'll have an update on at least one of those at our next meeting but we'll keep everyone posted on that. Now those three items were priorities set by the board for 2021. We had a couple of upcoming activities downtown where we're still trying to really activate the area in a safe COVID responsible way. So the excellent adventure Easter Egg Hunt is getting ready to kick off in about 10 days. That's happening thanks to the generosity of Bayside Church which is the same group who built the parklets last summer. So they've been great partners in supporting local and downtown businesses. Between railroad square, the Plaza and downtown we have 35 businesses participating. So it's got some really great prizes like a new PlayStation and some type of Nintendo game. I'm sorry, I don't know the specifics around those. Mean much to me when someone says PlayStation but we think we'll get a great turnout from local families because of the really nice prizes that Bayside was able to secure. And it's a fun activity. It's a great way to get to know the businesses downtown with the goal being that you fill your passport with a sticker from each business and then you submit to win prizes. So it's the first time we're doing it but I think it'll be fun and very glad to have railroad square on board with that as well. We are trying to get at least three of our empty storefronts filled with artwork or historic photos thanks to support from museum. So working with them to try to creatively fill some empty spaces and hopefully we'll have those up and going in within the next month or so and it'll be a nice way to again, beautify, bring people downtown and kind of liven up the area a bit. Not much new to report from our street plus team. They continue to dedicate most of their time to issues with the homeless population especially those who are struggling with mental health issues and cleaning up after them as well as helping them connect with services. They have thankfully over this past month been able to work on some longer term maintenance projects like weeding and de-mossing the sidewalks. So it's looking very fresh downtown right now which is great. And then finally just a quick update on Asawa fountain because everyone wants to know how that's going. Still moving forward and we are looking to break ground mid spring but I will share I think at our next meeting I'll have a pre-firm date on that so I will look forward to sharing that with everyone and we'll be doing some fun press and announcements around that as well because that's been a long time coming and I think it'll be a really nice thing to have set for downtown over the summer. That is it for me. Outstanding and I understand I'm going to kind of step outside the box a bit and entertain comments or questions from the community. What I'm going to do because this puts us in a little bit of a strange situation because of how to identify exactly what kind of meeting this is because we don't have a quorum of the council but because we are giving staff report and we are giving reports from various individuals that have responsibilities on these various topics and I am going to read the caution done by that has been prepared by the state of California and then we will go ahead and I will entertain questions or comments from the community on the first three items that we've covered so far. So due to the provisions of the governor's executive orders in 25-20 and in 29-20 which suspend certain requirements of the Brown Act and the order of the health officer of the county of Sonoma to shelter in place to minimize the spread of COVID-19, the downtown subcommittee will be conducting today's meeting in a virtual setting using Zoom webinar. Excuse me, committee members and staff are participating from remote locations and or practicing appropriate social distancing. Members of the public may view and listen to the meeting as noted on the city website and as noted on the agenda. Members of the public wishing to speak during item three public comment or during our public hearing items will be able to do so by utilizing the raise hand feature their hand, it's raising the hand or pressing them. Star nine, again, star nine on their phone they then they will then be given the ability to address the committee. So we don't have a, other than me we don't really need to have a roll call. I have brought the meeting to order and so I will now kind of fulfill the usual requirements of one of our meetings. Is there, are there any public comments on items not listed on our agenda? I mean, do you- Oh, thank you a couple of members. So there are no raise hands at this time. Okay, thank you very much. And are any other kind of comments electronic or otherwise? No, there are not. Okay, thank you very much. So in that case, I'm going to move back go back to my agenda, which is saying download which I don't want to do. Let's see if I can get a copy of this. Rafael, could you move to, since I'm having a hard time getting back to my, to my agenda. Oh, here we go. I just came up. So- Pardon me, I can't remember where it is. Sure. I think that member Fleming is able to, oh, I apologize. I thought it was member Fleming. It's really sad. No problem. We'll just, we'll just keep going as we were then as she may join us subsequently. So let's move back to 3.1 Railway Square Association Community Benefit District Update and also a report from Ms. Wilson. So Rafael, do you have, entertain questions from the community? Do you have any questions on Mr. Rivera's report? Anything Ms. Clary from that report? Any customer, any comments on 3.1 from the community? There are no raise hands at this time. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. So we will skip then. Oh, any, so if nothing on 3.1 we'll move to 3.2. Any community comment on the downtown action organization? Sorry, it does look like Victoria Fleming, Council member Fleming has her hand raised. And she has been promoted. Thank you. I apologize for my tardiness. There's some childcare issues happening, but I am listening and I'm here for- Excellent. Thank you, Council member Fleming. And we're moving along as we should. So we're on course. So thank you for joining us. Are you there? I appreciate it. Council member Sawyer at this time, you can call the meeting to order with a quorum, if you so too. Thank you. And I will now call the meeting officially to order. Now that we have a quorum with Council members, Fleming and myself, Council member Sawyer, on the Zoom meeting. So we will now move to, we've done 3.1, 3.2. We have asked for a public comment, we'll now move to 3.3, which is the home of service programming. And Kelly Kaikendall, our housing and community service manager, will be giving us a report and we'll be taking questions after that. Hi, and members Sawyer, I apologize. There isn't a member of the public who has just raised their hands. That would be okay to go ahead and promote them. Yes, and as long as I would just like to know what item they are addressing. I will have them share that information with us. Excellent. Mr. Steve, if you would please let us know what it is that you would like to make a comment on. I will be going ahead and putting up the timer for you in just one moment. So if you would unmute yourself and just let us know what it is that you would like to discuss, that would be wonderful. Thank you so much. Are you able to see one moment? Are you able to see the timer? Yes, I do. Wonderful, thank you so much. My comment and question is about the downtown action, item 3.2. I've heard some rather favorable comments about the use of parts of the sidewalk and street for serving meals. Is there any effort to extend that activity after the pandemic requirements loosen? Is that your only question, Steve? Yes, it is. Okay, thank you very much. We will have an answer for you in a second. Any other hands raised, Ms. Clary? There are no additional hands raised at this time. Okay, at this point, I'm not really sure who I should ask this question of. Perhaps it's Raphael. What is the status of the Parkless and do we have a status that we can share at this point or are there too many questions about the future of that program to answer it at this time? If you'd like, I can answer that. Yeah, excellent. And if need be, I mean, I think the screen is on your desktop. Oh, I apologize. And if need be, we might need to have Caden Tinkle also talk. So we have been in discussion about what is going to happen for the future. Caden's has been doing just a phenomenal job in reaching out to all of the individual businesses to understand what their desires are. So right now only the 500 block is closed still and we're looking at that. And then depending on what's happening with the reopening we may consider through the Downtown Action Organization and all the merchants downtown whether or not we want to close for seasonal opportunities. And if there's a way to do something where if we can have say barricades that move and traffic is okay with it to have movable or maybe only part of the week closed. Caden's, do you want to unmute and add anything to that? I don't have much to add but I appreciate Steve your comments. We have gotten a tremendous amount of public support for the outdoor dining and we've been able to keep it going on the blocks that have been reopened to through traffic. And we hope to be able to, I know the city is working on a permanent parklet program. They've been great at kind of helping everyone get going as fast as possible so that they can stay open and in business. But I believe there is a permanent parklet program on the way. Yeah, I apologize. I think I was thinking about just the street closures in terms of the parklets. The parklets are allowed to be in place but in this temporary manner until our tiers change. And in the meantime, yeah, we are working on a permanent process. The biggest key to that is making sure that they're ADA compliant. And so it's a little bit more complex for a permanent solution. So I'm curious. So with our current programming and the size of our sidewalks, et cetera, we would actually be able to accommodate traffic or would traffic be closed wherever we have parklets? No, we would be able to accommodate traffic. So outdoor dining on the sidewalks is allowed by right. But you have to keep an adequate pathway available. But what you would do for the street is just have it in the parking areas and so it's using what would have been a parking space for additional outdoor dining. And so if it goes beyond that, then the streets are closed and that's what I was addressing earlier. But if it stays within the parking space, then you can have traffic but you have other requirements in order to allow for that on a permanent basis. Okay, excellent. Thank you for that. Council member Fleming, any questions about this topic? Yes, I have one question, which is do we, as it seems that we will be changing tiers potentially in the next couple of weeks, will there be a gap in the ability for us to continue the parklets or that it's been offered during this time or will we be able to- Council member Fleming, did you hear that question, Rae said? I think I heard enough of it. So yeah, I mean the issue, even if we changed tiers, indoor dining is still severely compromised. So we have allowed the outdoor dining until there's more normalcy. We will probably have to address some of the issues like if you're at 25% then does that, like the more you gain an indoor dining, the more it may affect our ability to continue to allow the outdoor without a permanent solution. But at this time until indoor dining is allowed at like 100%, and then we have at least a pathway to address the additional outdoor dining. Thank you very much. Thank you, council member. Ms. Cleary, any other questions from the community or anyone else? Thank you, council member Sawyer. There are no raised hands at this time. Okay, thank you very much. And thank you, Ms. Dilarosa. So if I don't hear any other questions on 3.1 or 3.2, I am gonna move to 3.3 with our homeless service programming presentation by Kelly Kaikendall, housing and community service manager. Kelly, are you ready? There you are. We will, we're promoting Kelly right now and I will go ahead and share your presentation. Thanks, Eileen. Just waiting for it to clear that up. Good morning, everyone. Sure. So I'm Kelly Kaikendall. The slide here says housing and community services. I recently moved over to the city manager's office and I'll be providing a brief update this morning based on a study session that was provided to the full council on February 9th. And just to touch briefly on the move to the city manager's office, Sean McGlain, our city manager is really interested in working with cities in Sonoma County as well as the County of Sonoma to develop a regional strategy to address. Homelessness tends to my move into the city manager's office. Next slide, please. I do wanna say that Keynes and Sergeant Wolfe provide that the committee and members of the public with really great updates on homelessness and efforts to address homelessness in the downtown. And so I'm gonna be joining these meetings as needed to provide the committee and members of the public with updates on the city's broader efforts to address homelessness and not just specifically to the downtown. This slide here provides an overview of the study session that was provided to council. I'll be brief this morning. The full presentation to council was over 20 slides. This is seven and I know that you have a full agenda this morning. So the study session covered these primary areas. We touched on the city's strategy. Tier one, work plan priorities and progress and I'll cover those in the next couple slides. Our existing programs and COVID-19 response programs. Tier two, work plan prioritization and then staff, we sought direction from council on next steps. Next slide, please. So this slide covers our existing programs. I won't go into each of them, but just say that the city provides funding and support in five broad areas for day services, emergency shelter, a street outreach and encampment response and resolution, housing support and community-based solutions. There are a lot of acronyms here. I'm not gonna take the time to spell them out this morning, but if you have any questions about any of the information in the slide or any of the slides you can reach out to me directly, I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. The city's current budget for fiscal year 2020-21 is approximately $3.8 million and that is for program, direct program support as well as administration of these programs. Next slide, please. The city has implemented a number of programs in response to COVID-19. That includes non-congregate shelter at the Sandman Hotel. Going back to March of last year, we had to downsize our shelter, the Sam Jones Hall Shelter operated by Catholic Charities to comply with social distancing requirements. So we moved, we downsized by about 60 beds and we moved any at-risk individuals. So those most at-risk exposure to COVID-19 over to the Sandman and we continue to provide non-congregate shelter there. We operated or opened a new program at the Finley Community Center at the parking lot, the safe social distancing program and that ran for approximately six months between May and November. And that was set up as a safe alternative to street encampments for persons experiencing homelessness during the pandemic. So there's a picture here, you can see we provided tents. There were sanitary facilities, mobile bathroom, shower, trailer. It was managed 24-7 by staff or private security. There was also on-site medical services and an ability to work with outreach workers to connect individuals with county safety net programs. That program cost about $680,000 and was operated by Catholic Charities. We recently completed an emergency shelter expansion at Sam Jones Hall. So I mentioned we lost 60 beds. We recently restored those through the construction of a sprung structure. It's a pre-fabricated structure and that's in the parking lot at the shelter. That's restoring our capacity, the 60 beds that we lost and the cost to construct that as well as the first six months of operations is approximately $3.1 million. So you can see in the slide on top of our existing program budget of $3.8 million, the city has also invested approximately $10.3 million in COVID response. Majority of this is being funded by the city's general fund. However, we have submitted an application to the Federal Emergency Management Agency FEMA for reimbursement for, we're hoping for the bulk of the funding that's been put up for these programs. Next slide, please. Just one moment, I apologize for the delay. Thanks, Arlene. So tier one, tier one really is our existing programs and then our COVID programs, which I just covered. I mentioned that we completed the program at Finley, ran that for six months and it was very successful. We served over 200 individuals during that time. Mentioned that our FEMA reimbursement application, that process is underway. Here's a picture of the sprung structure at Sam Jones Hall and we are now moving people into that structure from our encampments. And then now that we have this sprung structure up at Sam Jones Hall and we've restored our shelter capacity, we're looking at ramping back or ramping down the number of hotel rooms that we have at the Sandman Hotel. Next slide. And really the goal or the purpose of the study session, in addition to providing the council and members of the public with an update on where we're at with homeless services, was to get to seek input on our tier two work plan priorities and those are outlined in this slide. So we've identified additional improvements out at Sam Jones Hall related to the sprung structure. We're calling it phase two improvements. We presented some ideas around a safe parking program and overnight safe parking program for individuals living in their vehicles and RVs to safely park overnight and have access to sanitary facilities and potentially wraparound services. That would be on city property and then alternative shelter, that would be similar to the program we implemented at Finley. Also, similar to what the county is doing out at Los Galicos or the trailers that they have at the fairgrounds and that would be a 24 seven program, what staff were calling a managed camp. Again, potentially on city property and then in RV parking ordinance, our transportation and public work staff presented this to council. And really that's about implementing some restrictions on overnight parking throughout the city. So these were the four key areas where staff sought direction from city council during the study session. Next slide, please. This is my last one. So just about to wrap it up. So next steps in terms of what we're doing, we're gonna continue with our existing programs. We're gonna continue of course with our COVID response because we're not quite through this pandemic. And then we're in the process of, like I said, during the February 9th council study session, we sought direction from council in these four key areas. So we're in the process for the first three and there are some estimates identified in this slide. For the first three, overwhelmingly I think that the council supported proceeding with further improvements out at Sam Jones Hall related to the sprung structure, a concept of safe parking and alternative shelters. So what we're doing right now is we're evaluating resources, potential resources for those programs as part of the city's annual budget process, which is underway for the upcoming fiscal year. And I imagine we'll be going back to council. At some point with another item related to these first three programs. In terms of just a couple more takeaways to mention, I mentioned that we had council support for these three that we're working to identify resources as part of the budget process. And I would say the overarching feedback that we received from the council is that, yes, they're interested in implementing new programs in response to homelessness, but we really need to look at this from a regional perspective. You know, what is the county doing? What are the other cities doing when we really need to be working together on this? Because, you know, homelessness is not a problem just in Santa Rosa, it's prevalent throughout the county. And, you know, we need to work together on this and also be looking at other resources, not just the city's general fund. With respect to the RV parking ordinance, the takeaway that I have from that is that the council is not ready to proceed with that, with the RV parking ordinance at this time, would like to see some more services to assist individuals living in RVs and vehicles before we implemented such an ordinance. And also to look at what other cities and the county are doing related to, you know, RV parking ordinance and enforcement. So that's just a, you know, a quick overview of the study session that was presented to council and certainly council member Sawyer or Fleming, if I missed anything in terms of, you know, staff takeaways related to council feedback, please feel free to share that with the group. Thank you very much. Council member Sawyer, you're on mute. Sorry about that. Regarding social distancing, and I know that we are, you know, always balancing people's privacy and their ability to have a little more space than what can sometimes is provided in a shelter. Given the sprung structure and as the COVID concerns start to wane, are we going to be able with the 60 beds that we were just bringing back online because we lost 60 because of the social distancing with some kind of adjustment to that amount of social distancing, are we actually going to be able, ultimately, are we going to be able to increase our capacity by not having to have people so far apart so that we can actually accommodate more individuals both at the standard structure and at our sprung structure? So council member Sawyer, right, it does, the sprung structure does allow us to restore to full capacity and comply with social distancing. And the sprung structure itself could accommodate more than 60 beds. So that is an option that the city would have. I think we'll have to evaluate, you know, if that's the best, you know, option for the facility and the people that we're serving there and the promise that we've made to the community, you know, over the years we've continued to increase capacity at Sam Jones Hall. And I know that's been a concern from neighbors in the area that we continue to do that. So yes, we could do that, but I think we need to think through in terms of, is it the best option for programming and then making sure that we're also doing community outreach to seek input on, you know, further expanding the shelter. Yeah, it's not as easy as just putting in more beds. So yeah, I appreciate that. Council member Fleming, any questions at this point? Done, thank you. Okay, thank you very much. So Ms. Cleary, do we have any questions from the community? There are no raise hands at this time. Okay, thank you very much. Well, if there are no questions from the community and no questions from council, thank you Kelly very much for that report. It's interesting that it's good to keep us posted so that we see the, not only the efforts, but the costs of those efforts as well is no small sum. And I hope that our reimbursement percentage is high. So thank you very much for working on getting as much of that reimbursement as possible. I know that that's a major part of our endeavor. Thank you. So Yvette, thank you very much. So we'll then move to 3.4 public safety. Sergeant Wolfe, are you there? Yes, I am, good morning. Okay, well, you wanna give us a report from your perspective. Yeah, so some of this has been heard from other people speaking, but both the downtown corridor and Red Road Square, both sides of the freeway have definitely been experiencing an uptick of vandalisms and graffiti during the nighttime hours. I have placed an extra patrol request for those areas, although they are still occurring. And we're looking at some kind of creative options that may or may not help. I'm optimistic at this point. Hopefully we catch the people responsible in the near future. Trespass letters we begin distributing. We do have our attention is kind of divided right now as we have some large camps we're focusing on, particularly on Industrial Drive in Jennings Park. But we've gotten most of those distributed and most collected and we'll continue with that. It's just taking a couple of weeks longer than it normally does. The underpasses remain an issue. Public Works is continuing to do weekly cleanups and they're doing a great job out there. With the movement of people from the camps, we are seeing a slight uptick where I'm able to identify six individuals from the industrial camp that did move to the underpasses. And there have been some impacts on the community around there. I've received reports that one property owner lost a couple of tenants because they were frustrated with the circumstances at the underpass. So we're trying to triage that as best as possible while managing some of these other camps. In general, Cadence was right. We are definitely hoping that as things open, we can draw people to the downtown area just to mirror what she said. We do see when there's more traffic in the downtown area, a decrease in some of the behaviors that we see when it's more empty amongst the homeless population in particular. So that would be great from our perspective. The greenway following our cleaning of it, it's definitely not perfect but it's staying relatively clear compared to our past experiences there. We're trying to stay on top of it and I'm in contact with some of the community leaders in the Olive Park neighborhood as well as some of the business owners on the railroad square side. And I've gotten some pretty positive reports back. Again, it's not perfect but there were some issues with drug sales going on there. Now that the population has decreased there, we've been able to do a little more enforcement as time has allowed and it's still happening but to a much lesser extent and I think it will be something we're able to stay on top of a little bit better. And just to touch on one thing, kind of tied into what Kelly said too, the Finlay social distancing site was pretty successful with our population at the underpass. The last time that got cleaned up, a lot of people accepted it. I believe we actually filled it at that point and still had some interest just so people are aware of that. The last thing I'd like to talk about is the city has started a group, the debris removal team. It's a function of public works and they've only been going a couple of weeks but it's a pretty amazing system. Members of the community can either call or go online. I believe online is ideal and submit the ticket for areas where there's trash and it gets added to the list and they come out and I don't know what the response time will be as it grows but right now it's been working out really wonderfully so far as far as identifying areas where there's been a lot of trash left and getting that cleaned up. And that's all I have to report. Okay, thank you, Sergeant. No, I'm gonna open up a can of worms for this question but the condition of the Prince Memorial Greenway has disappointed me and I'm sure other council members and members of the community who have long wanted to be able to use that space and that path freely and safely. Has there been conversation about video surveillance on that particular city asset and whether or not that's something that could really be considered? I know there are all sorts of concerns not the least of which those brought up the ACLU but I'm wondering if there wouldn't be an opportunity to use that those tools to help dissuade some of the unfortunate behavior occurring on the Greenway. Personally, I love the idea. It has been brought up fairly extensively from both community members, members of Railroad Square, the Hyatt and those areas most impacted. It does bring up concerns related to cost. It got brought up in the downtown subcommittee, I believe, it may have been a year to 18 months ago and there were some talks with City IT so it has been looked at once. It would be great to pick it up again, absolutely. It was just the issues associated with both video storage and then how well it could be monitored but I will say that we've seen it be extremely effective in the past. Courthouse Square is a really good example of it. Right after we put the cameras in Courthouse Square, we were able to view them from our office and if anyone doesn't know, we have certain tools like we have electric motorcycles that enable us to respond very quickly down the creek trail or to the square or office located centrally downtown. So we'd see things like people shooting up on the camera that we wouldn't have been aware of because we weren't there and we'd respond and literally be there within 30 seconds and it helped because within a couple of weeks people realized that if they were engaging in those behaviors there, they were getting arrested very quickly. It was very effective. Right, I appreciate that. Well, something for a future conversation again, I just oftentimes looking for tools to help mitigate certain situations doesn't mean that they would necessarily be there forever but I think there is a place to minimize at least for a period of time, mitigate some of these behaviors that make people feel uncomfortable using that asset and that pathway. So thank you very much for the answer to that question. Council member Fleming, any questions for Sergeant Wolff? Just wanted to tag on to what you suggested and throughout the thought about the cameras that are in courthouse square that stream to YouTube and just say that, I know that people aren't glued to watching the square all the time but that I was curious to know if the fact that there are cameras on the square that are just generally viewable by the public make any difference because I know that I turn it on from time to time to see what's happening down there and just curious to know if a similar program could be implemented in the high use public zone. I think it would look a little different. We don't get a lot of calls if any really related to the public cameras. Most of what we have is just observed by us or our dispatch where we have the cameras up and are viewing them. But I think it's because of the angles and distance with the ones in courthouse square. I believe if it was arranged somewhat differently it could be an effective way that people from the public could call in if they saw things. Thank you. I thought maybe it just might not just people watching but the sense of people knowing that there are eyes on might change the outcome but I appreciate that there's a lot of factors that go into it. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Fleming. Any other comments, Sergeant Wolff? No, that's it. Thank you. Okay, any comments from the community? There are no raise hands at this time. Okay, thank you very much. Well, in that case we will move on to our update on, oh no, it's the shared mobility services presentation. Nancy Adams, are you on? I am. Good morning. Can you hear me? Excellent, good morning. Yes. Good morning. So I just kind of want to introduce this topic and I'm going to hand it over to Dana Trey. She's a planner with the Sonoma County Transportation Authority here in Santa Rosa. So I'm just reminding the subcommittee that I made a presentation, I guess it was back in late November or early December about we're looking at creating some shared mobility devices for Santa Rosa and the study session that was presented to the council in November as well and the council gave staff some direction to create a pilot program and then establish some sort of regulatory framework. So it's kind of, we're on two different tracks here. So staff is pursuing that, but this is the bike share grant that the Sonoma County Transportation Authority and the Transportation Authority of Marin received about three years ago. So these two initiatives are kind of running in parallel, if you will. So I wanted to just update the council subcommittee on the bike share process. And so I'm going to at this point hand it over to Dana. She'll go through a few slides and then I'll wrap up once she's done. So thank you. Thank you, Nancy and good morning council members. I'm Dana Chiray with the Sonoma County Transportation Authority. And I'm here to talk to you about the bike share program that we've been planning, excuse me, with our partners in Marin and cities along the current smart corridor, including Santa Rosa. So bike share provides an on-demand access to a network of publicly rentable bicycles. It's designed for short one-way trips and it provides an innovative and flexible personal public transportation service with automated checkout. Next slide, please. So the Sonoma County Transportation Authority partnered with the Transportation Authority of Marin on a grant application for bike share implementation through the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. Through the application, we established goals highlighting bike share as a new first and last mile solution to smart stations, supporting vehicle mile traveled and greenhouse gas reduction goals, economic development, reduced automobile dependency, new opportunities for low-cost active transportation and healthy lifestyles. Next slide, please. We were awarded a grant to implement a two-county system focused around the phase one smart corridor. The grant covers a pilot program in the seven cities along the current corridor. So Larkspur through Santa Rosa and we're working with these seven cities plus smart and Golden Gate Transit for program development and siting on transit districts properties. The system network will be established through a combination of a technical analysis and input from the working group and the public. Next slide, please. So here's an overview of the process to date. As Nancy mentioned, we received a grant award in late 2017 after which we released a request for information to confirm the latest technologies, models and cost basis as they have been changing quickly. And then we followed up with a request for proposals. And out of eight proposals, the panel recommended Gotcha Mobility and we executed an agreement and began system planning and partner coordination process last year. We have had some COVID related delays but anticipating, we anticipate launching the system later this year. Next slide, please. So late last year, Gotcha was actually acquired by Bolt Mobility which is another micro-mobility firm but the program management team we've been working with their product and the agreement has remained the same. So the program with Bolt Mobility includes a system of 300 electric petal assist bicycles and a three-year pilot program. Bolt provides station-based system with modular bike racks or a stenciled parking hubs to better manage parking. And the rental equipment is on the bicycles so the bicycles can be located through a smartphone phone application and can be checked out through the app or by using a clipper card. Pricing and membership options will include pay-as-you-go option, monthly memberships, bulk purchase discounts for employers or institutions and student and low-income memberships. The team we're working with has extensive knowledge and experience in the shared micro-mobility industry and they offer unique equipment. The electric bicycles use a small electric motor in the front hub to give you a boost while you're pedaling and the bicycle will close come with a front basket and an integrated lock. The tires have puncture-proof inner tubes and magnesium alloy wheels which among other features make them more resilient to the elements while they're outside. The batteries are in the down tube and are swapped out when they get low on charge. So the bikes are GPS enabled allowing riders to locate them in real time and to initiate a ride, all you need to do is scan a QR code that unlocks the front wheel cable lock and riders are charged according to the time they use the bike and based on their membership plan. So there will be an option to scan a clipper card connected with your account to the RFID reader on the bicycle as an alternative to using a smartphone and we are looking into physical signup locations so that unbanked riders can pay in cash ahead of time. Next slide please. So last week we released an online public survey to collect input on parking hub locations which will be used along with a technical analysis to inform a parking plan and distribution of the 300 bicycles throughout the system. The SCTA distributed the survey to a broad list of stakeholders, our newsletter, social media and websites and the city of Santa Rosa further notified the community through the city connections newsletter and on social media. As of yesterday, I was informed that there were 324 survey entries throughout the proposed system which is really great input in the short amount of time. The survey allows people to drop pins and locations where they would like to see the bike share hubs and to provide input on how they imagine using the system. The survey will be open through March 19th and it's available on the SCTA website. Next slide please. So while we have the survey out, we are working with group members on, our working group members on presenting updates on the program to various committees and we are getting close to finalizing a draft coordination agreement that defines the roles and responsibilities for all of the parties involved and how we will work together. The participating agencies are also preparing council agenda packages which way they will present to request operational approval of the system. As the survey input is received, Bolt is reviewing the input and how it compares with the technical demand analysis. And once the survey is closed, a public input survey will be prepared. Next slide please. So the next steps in the process, once each jurisdiction, or once the jurisdictions have provided operational approval for the system, Bolt will use the parking plan to begin infield site planning and permitting. Bolt will set up a local warehouse space and begin the local hiring process. This will lead to the launch of a marketing campaign ahead of system launch, installation of the system, equipment, activating customer service support and holding launch events. And after deploying the program, we will be collecting data to evaluate the effectiveness of the program on a continual basis. Next slide please. So with that, I would like to thank you for your time and interest in this item today and I'm happy to respond to any questions you might have. Well, thank you, Dan. I do have a question. I hope it's a simple one. I just wanted to kind of get a sense of the scenario. I get off the train, I access a bike, I go to Memorial Hospital because I have some tests I have to get performed. I go in the hospital, that's party A. Party B walks out of the hospital after getting some tests performed and they see my bike sitting there, the one that I had originally hired. They see that bike and they say to them, oh, good, I can use this bike to take me downtown and they take the bike downtown. Is that how it works? And then I come out after my tests and there's no bike there. So I don't understand how it really functions. Is there a simple way to tell me how it functions under those circumstances? Yeah, sure. So there's really two ways that that could work and the hope is that we will have enough bicycles in the system that there will be a set of bicycles in your scenario at Memorial Hospital so that when you drop it off there or you could essentially return the bicycle and somebody else might take your bicycle but there will be another one there available for you when you get out of your appointments. So of course that not knowing the demand and how people are gonna use the system yet, we don't have 100% certainty of that. The other option is that you would be able to, sorry, put the bike on hold and so essentially keep your trip going if you know it's gonna be a shorter trip and then that would guarantee that your bicycle would be there. It would make it unavailable to somebody else who is looking to use the bicycle and would hold it until you need it again. So it's given the pricing plans that's probably not gonna be something you could do all day but for running errands and things like that, you can certainly put a bicycle on hold. Excellent, you've answered the question well. Thank you very much. Council Member Fleming, any questions from you? No, none at this time, thank you. Eileen, any questions from the community? Eileen, do we have you? I apologize, I was on mute. We do not have any raised hands at this time. Okay, thank you very much. Well, thanks for that presentation. It's a very illuminating, I was curious as to how, in basic terms, how the process works. So thank you for those answers. I look forward to just watching this unfold. It's going to be very, it'd be great to see a bunch of those blue-green bikes roaming around town. So I look forward to the testing. So moving on to 3.6, which is the maintenance of Courthouse Square and Tim Fennegan, are you on? Yes, good morning. Good morning. Good morning, Council Member Sawyer and Council Member Fleming. Crews have been really busy down at the Greenway this past month. We did, after we did the clean up, the homeless clean up down there, we had crew spend a week, now a week plus doing graffiti removal. So the first initial week that we were down there, we spent over 350 hours, man hours and over $1,000 of materials paint. There's some small equipment purchases that we had to do to do that project. So it looks really well right now. And I'd like to echo the other presenters on just the presence of activity down there by our maintenance staff, along with creeks, clean up crews and SRPD, just the presence alone helps out that situation tremendously. So with that being said, that initial cleanup went really well. It looks good down there, but it is going to be something that we will continue to address moving forward and continue to try to stay up on that graffiti abatement. So that's taken a lot of time for our staff to do that. So after being able to do that, we did have the crew do some hula hoeing down on the square, some weed removal and the DG around Corel Square to try to get some of those pesky weeds out from the DG and not get too big or too ugly looking. So luckily we hit it at the right time and those weeds just came right out with the hula hoes. So it wasn't too much work and it does help out as far as the long-term weed control of that DG. Wanted to follow up a little bit. We did a meeting with the Railroad Square Association. We did take a look at some of the trees down there at Depot Park. We were asked to look at doing some pruning. And so I was able to work with our contractor a little bit and I was given a number of a little over $10,000 to do the pruning of 20 of those pear trees and around Depot Park. My hope would be to do it was in house crews because it's definitely something that we can handle but it's just a timing thing. We're just stretched really thin and when you end up spending 350 hours on the greenway it takes up a lot of time trying to do other maintenance activities. So the hope is still that we can do something down there. There is no hazard to those trees, which is great but it would definitely spruce up that park a little bit if we were able to do some of that pruning. So that's a work in progress. Let's see, had a chance to meet with the downtown crew the Streets Plus team and it was great communication with that group. It sounds like they work great with our downtown maintenance crew as far as communication, dealing with graffiti and other issues. So it was kind of a meet and greet between us and exchanged contact information and it went very, very well. Want to remind the community about the Bollard project that's gonna be happening there alongside a third and fourth at the square that is scheduled to start this week or excuse me, next week, sorry, excuse me, next week. So you'll be seeing some of the fencing go up and moving some materials in and of course you'll see the work happening starting next week. And they were talking that they would probably have a lot of demolition done possibly by the end of next week. So that will be moving pretty quickly. The have plans to try to do some turf renovation in the square. I need to work on a schedule with that to communicate and talk to all of the other groups and organizations, stakeholders and how that would affect other things in the square. That turf, it gets beaten up pretty hard. We had original plans last year to do some rehab in that area but given with the pandemic and COVID kind of stopped that from happening. This would be the perfect time a year to do it to try to do some receding, filling in some holes, weeding, it just would take a little bit of time to do that. The work itself wouldn't take too long to do. However, trying to get grass to sprout and be able to root and be able to withstand the abuse that it would take would take a few weeks just depending on weather and everything else to get established. And then the longer that you could actually leave it the better that would have chance to survive. But putting a snow fence around the courthouse square for a month or two probably is not gonna work. So we'll do the best we can with what we have but I'd like to try to get that scheduled if I can here in the near future. Just wanna give a little bit of update. We are in the process of hiring some staff within our parks department. We had approval and in the process of hiring one maintenance worker, two groundskeepers and a crew supervisor, which is great. We need the help and we have plenty of work out there. So able to bring these people in we'll be able to provide better service throughout the community. And then finally just wanna put it on everyone's radar that we're working on plans to open up restrooms within Santa Rosa in the parks department. We're looking at when we're gonna be moving to that next lower tier, the red tier and trying to gear up for the cleaning and the sanitizing that's needed due to COVID making sure that we can fulfill those obligations and following CDC guidelines. So that's on the horizon. I think everyone's excited about things opening up and we wanna be ready when we're able to do that and be able to provide that service again. So with that, if anybody has any questions. Well, that's a great deal and thank you very much for that real comprehensive report, Tim. And there's lots to do. And at the same time, I appreciate the spirit of your teams can do attitude. You have a lot on your plate. Council member Fleming, any questions or comments? None at this time. Thank you so much for all of your hard work. Thank you. And back to the community. Any questions or comments from the community, Ms. Clary? We have no raise hands at this time. Okay, thank you very much. Well, again, our thanks, Tim, for everything you're doing and good luck with the lawn in Courthouse Square. I know it's a challenge and I assume that you're using one of the toughest types of lawn material known to man for that particular space. It is overly loved, which is a, maybe that's a good problem to have, but I know that it's a challenge for all involved in maintaining that space. Yes, yes we do. Thank you. Thank you very much. Moving on to the parking program. Kim, are you prepared? Yes, I'm here. Good morning, everyone. I'm a parking manager for the city and I've got a brief update for you. I first wanted to talk about the continued impacts we're experiencing from COVID. Paid parking, I resumed on July 1st, 2020, with several parking discounts in effect. First-hour free in all five garages. Garage parking is free after five o'clock Monday through Friday. There's free garage parking on Saturday and Sunday. The first mobile payment parking session that is used by a party can receive a credit of up to $3.15 in value when you use the passport parking app at a parking meter. And if you haven't taken advantage of that, the code to use is ParkSR. Value zone meter rates were reduced to 75 cents an hour through December 31st and returned to $1 an hour on January 1st, 2021. And meter reservation fees have been waived for temporary parklets. The estimated revenue reduction to the parking fund since July 1st due to these parking discounts is about $200,000. Parking activity was slowly rebounding through summer and fall, but dropped significantly in December and January when outdoor dining was again shut down. Since outdoor dining has resumed, we're seeing an increase in transactions in February. The council approved the extension of the discounts in December until the county reaches the yellow tier or June 30th, 2021, whichever comes first. The garage reductions did not appear, do not appear to be changing parking behavior. We've compared the year over year percentage usage of all of the parking options. And we're seeing the same proportional split, 30% of the transactions continue to be in the garages, 15% in the lots and 55% at on-street meters. While the proportional use of the parking spaces is the same, the total volume of activity is down by about 60%. February was the best month for meter activity showing a drop of 50% over last year. Permit sales are down by about a third and revenue is down 54% year over year. Revenue reductions from COVID are continuing to have an impact on the parking fund reserves. The available fund balance on June 30th, 2020 was 8 million and is expected to be 7 million on June 30th of 2021. We're expecting a partial recovery in fiscal year 2122 with revenues bouncing back to the fiscal year 1920 levels, which in fiscal year 1920, we lost revenue for three months, April, May and June. With full recovery not expected until fiscal year 2223. It's important for the parking fund to rebuild its reserve balance to fund the necessary capital improvement projects to extend the useful life of the garages. For any of those of you listening who don't know the parking fund is an enterprise fund and is required to be self-sustaining, generating sufficient revenues from parking user fees to cover operations and maintenance and capital improvement costs of the parking program. I've got a few project updates for you. We're expecting approval of a building permit this month for the new parking equipment in the garages. So we're hopeful that installation will begin in April and should be completed by July. The new equipment utilizes barcode scanning technology and will eliminate the use of magnetic strike tickets that we're currently using. In addition to being easier and less expensive to maintain the barcode technology offers new opportunities for validation. For example, the Roxy theater plans to have a barcode printed on their movie tickets, which can be scanned to provide validation in the garage. The existing equipment is 20 years old. So we are very much looking forward to having new reliable system in place. We also have structural repairs underway in four of the garages as was identified in the 10 year asset management plan that we have provided by a structural engineering firm. For the next eight years, we've got about $13 million worth of identified capital improvement projects to be done in the garages. And the work that's going on right now is expected to be completed by the fall. And then lastly, we've got new multi-space meters being installed. These new meters use your license plate as a credential so you no longer have to walk back to your car to place a receipt on the dash. These new meters have been installed at the seventh and Mendocino lot across from the post office. And yesterday went in under the freeway. The rest will be installed in the next few weeks. That's what I got for you and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Thanks, Kim, appreciate it. I don't have any questions just to comment and thank you for everything you're doing to try to minimize the negatives and accentuate the positives. It's a mixed bag, but it's a real challenge to go through this pandemic when faced with the realities of parking downtown. Ms. Fleming, do you have any questions or comments? I don't have any questions about the parking except the thank you to Kim and her staff. And then unfortunately, I do have to jump off of this call at this time. I'm so sorry to the staff and listeners for the interruptions today. No problem, we'll get through it. Thank you for attending when you could. Okay, thank you so much, Mr. Sawyer. You bet, take care. Okay, thanks Kim very much. And we will move on to a report 3.8, Ms. Thompson. Hi, thank you, Council Member Sawyer. And hello everyone. I have a very brief update for special events and the public art program. As I've been reporting at the most, well, several last subcommittee meetings, most events and event permits will continue to be suspended. And at this point that will go until the state and or county directives lift those restrictions on large events or provide guidance on large gatherings, which we currently don't have. If you are following the blueprint for reopening, there's a kind of clear gap in guidance for gatherings. The only guidance is to limit to three households. Obviously that does not really make sense for any kind of large permitted events. So we await that guidance. We have created a matrix to help us look at the different tiers of reopening and what types of gatherings and public spaces that are permitted by the City of Sanders that could take place. But again, it kind of is very restricted by the current guidance and health orders. For the public art program, briefly I will share that the public art program annual work plan for fiscal year 21-22, which would start July 1, was recently approved by the Art and Public Places Committee and includes the implementation of recommendations from our newly adopted strategic plan, which is a four year plan running, well, three and a half year plan running from now through fiscal year 2024. Some of the items that we will be tackling in our first implementation plan, first year of implementation, will be kind of general categories such as community engagement and input, including building stronger relationships with community organizations, building and sustaining community participation in public art programs and development, building an advisory board for the public art program. The area of governance and administration, we're hoping to focus on partnerships, funding and prioritizing maintenance for all new public art and prioritizing transparency and accessibility for our programs and opportunities. In programming and projects, we're looking to do a public art audit to see where public art is throughout the entire city, not just city funded or city commissioned public art. We are going to be opening up new grant opportunities for arts organizations as well as for individual artists to work in neighborhoods or do projects for communities that have been overly impacted by recent crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and fires. Again, partnerships and maintenance are our high priorities in our programming areas as well. We also will be launching some PR and marketing for the public art program, better utilizing our existing communication tools but also maximizing our outreach, doing more social media and comprehensive marketing campaign with improved website access and other ways to find out what we are doing. So that is kind of in a nutshell what we're hoping to start tackling in our first year of implementing our new strategic plan for the public art program. Lastly, two quick items. We have a current call for artists open for the Fifth Street parking garage that is still available for artists to apply. If you'll go to the website, srcity.org slash fifth street garage art, you can find out more about that project. And then finally, the National Arts Program which is one of our annual art exhibits and competitions usually hosted at the Findlay Community Center and funded by the National Arts Program Foundation is online this year. Please check out the online exhibit including 198 pieces of art by Santa Rosa residents or city of Santa Rosa employees at our website, the inside out there website. So the address is insideoutthere.com slash national dash arts dash program. You can also find it from the main page of the insideoutthere.com website. So that is my update for today. Thank you for indulging me. I went one minute over. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you, Ms. Thompson. That sounds like a lot of good news and thank you for all your efforts. You know, art is such an important part of a community and I really, at any time we can increase our number of exhibits and maintain those exhibits. You know, it's all good news to me. So thank you very much. I appreciate it. And council member we became a staff meeting as soon as the council member Fleming departed. Good point. Thank you very much. And I believe that this staff meeting, if there are no other comments from staff, I believe we will bring this meeting to a close. Thank you all very much. Thank you.