 also recommend that you turn off the primary audio so that you only hear the interpretation in Spanish. Hello and welcome everyone to our January 24th, 2023 council meeting. It is now 1.30 and we will be starting our meeting. Seeing a quorum, Madam City Clerk, can you please call the roll? Thank you Mayor. Councilmember O'Crepkey? Here. Councilmember Stapp? Here. Councilmember Rogers? Here. Councilmember Fleming? Here. Councilmember Alvarez? Vice Mayor McDonald? Here. Mayor Rogers? Present. Let the record show that all councilmembers are present with the exception of councilmember Alvarez. We will begin our meeting today with item 2.1, which is closed session. Madam City Clerk, may you please open public comment. Okay, I don't see anyone in the chamber wishing to make a public comment. Will our Zoom host let us know if there's anybody who has their hand raised? There are no hands raised in Zoom. Seeing no one wishing to make a public comment, we will now recess into closed session. Put a lot of work into it. Okay. I'm sorry. We will now reconvene our meeting. Seeing a quorum, Madam City Clerk, can you please call the roll? Thank you Mayor. Councilmember O'Crepkey? Here. Councilmember Stapp? Here. Councilmember Rogers? Here. Councilmember Fleming? Present. Councilmember Alvarez? Present. Vice Mayor McDonald? Here. Mayor Rogers? Present. Let the record show that all councilmembers are present. Madam City Manager, may we please go to our study session? Thank you. Item 3.1 is Santa Rosa annexation opportunities. Direct Director of Planning and Economic Development. I can't get Claire's name right today. Planning and Economic Development Director Claire Hartman will present. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Yeah, my name is Claire Hartman. I'm the Director of Planning and Economic Development. And I'll be presenting for the study session tonight or this afternoon. But there's quite a number of us here to support this item. We anticipate you will have questions and we're all here to support that. It is an educational session. That's what a study session is all about. And we're here to learn about annexation opportunities for Santa Rosa. So just to keep in mind who's available to support this item. We have our City Manager's Office Representative Darielle Dunstan and Jason Nett. We have our Chief of Police, Chief Cregan, Chief Reswip, representing the Fire Department, Alan Alton representing finance, Jennifer Burke representing water, Jen Santos representing parks, and Jessica Jones representing planning. There's many more that were involved in the preparation of the study session. These representatives are here to help us field any questions that we might have. So what we're going to cover today, and I will click through a number of these slides. There is a lot to cover. I want to be able to get to public comments and to your questions and your own comments related to the subject matter. So we're going to go over what brought this item before you today. We're going to talk about annexation boundaries. We're going to talk about something that we learned about called disadvantaged unincorporated communities. We're going to talk about annexation principles and how important those are to set if you were to venture into a city-initiated annexation process. We're going to talk about the timing and the cost estimates, and these are our best educated guesses at this point ahead of any work plan and budget we might prepare, and then our staff recommendation. So a little bit of background. The last time the City of Santa Rosa ventured into a city-initiated annexation process was Roseland. And that started in 2014 and was completed in 2017. More recently annexation has come up as part of our conversation. It came through actually through even our most recent city council goals, which we, Santa Rosa adopted six goals, one of which was housing for all, another one was community and economic vibrancy. And these spoke to an objective to be open and partnering with the county to discuss the opportunities for annexation, whether it's mutual interests. And even more specifically to look at specifically South Santa Rosa, the Moreland area, parts of South Santa Rosa Avenue, and then what we call the Todd Creek or 2010 plan area. And so that really is what kick-started the conversation to date. There were three other sort of, I would say touch points along the way since that goal setting session. One was the city's housing element study session, which I'll talk about in a minute. That happened in June. And then shortly after that, another touch point was we had some interest from a developing team that represented a number of acres in the Todd Creek 2010 plan area and an interest to annex and develop that area for primarily housing, but some other uses as well. And that was a pre-application. So not an application that was filed that we could process, but really a meet and greet and high-level consultation process for that. And then in October, the council was interested in what it would take for the city to initiate and expedite the Todd Creek 2010 area. So that's actually roped into the study session. We were already gearing up for this study session and that fit nicely within the context. So mostly to kick-start the conversation, there was a meeting, a kick-off meeting held with the city and county leadership. So members of the city manager's office, I myself attended, and also the county administrator's office, as well as Supervisor Chair Corsi and former Mayor City Council Chris Rogers. At that meeting, that meeting was important because we were really just at the early stage of how would we approach this topic. And one thing that was clear there was that we had a good experience with the Roseland annexation and there was a lot to be said about that when you put your mind to something that it could be successful in its process but also understanding that there was some successes with post-annexation of Roseland but there's also still a lot of work to do. So just understanding the context upon which the city might be initiating yet another annexation. And we talked about the key principles that were part of that and that comes up a little later in my presentation. And since then, there's been a number of meetings between some city and county staff in terms of process, setting expectations but also the city team of what it would mean to incorporate. So today's session is really just to receive the report. This is a study session so we're not here to adopt anything or allocate resources but really understand what this opportunity is about. But if there was interest tonight to act, there would be questions that staff would have of council. We would need direction on boundaries and key principles and really direction to spend time on an actual work plan and budget. Right now you're getting the best educated guess. Okay, so one of the key pivot points that got us here today even just talking about annexation is housing. Housing is a regional issue. So it came up when we were looking at our draft housing element in June. So what this chart is is a representation of the regional housing needs that need to be addressed by jurisdiction. These are allocations that are brought to us by the state. You can see Santa Rosa's housing needs. And this is for this next cycle. So from 2023 to 2031. And you can see highlighted in pink here is Santa Rosa's housing needs and the breakdown by income category. You can also see where the other cities play into the role of fulfilling regional housing needs. Obviously we have the most in the county where the urban seat and that's appropriate. You can also see that the county of Sonoma has the next highest and that's distributed throughout the county. But obviously there's a place that we interplay with with the county in terms of where those might be located adjacent to Santa Rosa. So in the study session you were presented with a draft housing element and how the Santa Rosa would meet those needs. Now we of course we look within our city limits and our strategies and principles of urban planning and city-centered growth. Walkable neighborhoods and what that. And so you can see here that we did find capacity in that early draft housing element this has since been refined. But you can see that there's capacity to meet Santa Rosa's housing needs. There is a buffer here. There is a capacity surplus. And then back in June that looks tempting to be able to absorb potentially other units. However, this is prior to really a real refinement and this buffer has since been cut in half in terms of the ultimate buffer is much less and you'll see that. But we are still staying to our principles. We're staying on schedule for housing element adoption. It should be before the council for consideration on February 14th. We can meet their target without rezoning sites which is phenomenal. That means we don't have to go into neighborhoods and talk about rezoning their sites. We were able to focus on downtown and priority development areas or transit rich areas within our principles and of course we were able to meet our targets without annexation. And we do need a buffer. It's actually required and we have a reasonable buffer even after refinement you'll see. About the same time we received a request from the county to consider absorbing 1,800 of their units and you can see you don't get to specify which is the income category. It's distributed according to the state's protocols. But at the time it was a bit late in terms of getting that request. There was no funding associated especially with the below moderate units and we know we need to make sure that we plan for that. The support for those units in particular and no analysis or engagement. The council did consider it at length. We had a healthy discussion on it but ultimately the move was to continue the city's housing element as drafted because there is a timeline. You do want to meet the timeline so that you can stay in good standing with the state and we were able to do it and so that was the direction. But you can continue to have a conversation with the county about opportunities for transfer of these funds through annexation and that can happen at any time. That was the direction that led us through this process. I'll start now with the next part of the presentation which will talk about potential boundaries and what options we thought would be good for the sake of study and discussion and then principles and time of cost. In terms of considerations, these are the key considerations in terms of staff trying to get some options for you to take a look at. Community interest is really important. Definitely of those that would be coming annexed into the city because there's an opportunity you do need support for that move if it's if there's a protest hearing you want to make sure you've done your due diligence to engage and educate and this is something that they would support and you also consider your existing residents and what they might think and so we don't have the benefit of a lot of engagement up front but we know that's really important. Fiscal responsibility is this mutually feasible for city and county to make a transfer and then key considerations staying within the urban growth boundary and being compliant with local and state policy and LAFCO policy as well LAFCO is actually the final authority on annexation so we can do a lot of the work up front but ultimately LAFCO will make the decision and LAFCO is our local agency formation commission. So we set a base map so high level here or this is the city of Santa Rosa what you see in the dark blue line is the urban growth boundary is actually set by is actually set by an election so ours was first adopted in 1996 and ran for 20 years but it was re-upped in 2010 through what they would call a measure O and our urban growth boundary is good until 2035 and what that means is development shall not take place across its line for the city of Santa Rosa the elements of this base map you'll see most of it is sort of a brown and that's the city limits so those are incorporated that those residents are within our jurisdiction and then can you see my and then here's an example of sort of a purple tone that's what we call the sphere of influence and so that is an area where it would be predictable that there would be services available for future annexations and development you can see that there are some gaps here where the sphere of influence does not align with the urban growth boundary in most cities it does so this is some work that we'd have to do LAFCO actually has the authority to process amendments to sphere of influence so that'll come up in a little bit later and and I do want to know also there was a fourth thing here this hatch mark this red hatch mark here this is what we call the Todd Creek 2010 plan area so this area is actually hatched in our general plan land use diagram and it has policies that go with that hatch mark and basically it's called the 2010 plan because the policy is you're not to annex it prior to 2010 obviously we're past that but it also has other policies that speak to how and under what circumstances it's to come in to be annexed or developed okay so we went through and vetted five, six, seven different options because there's a lot of talking back to the community interest there was a lot of different interests in terms of potential annexation areas we heard about Moorland we heard about the industrial property south of Moorland and south Santa Rosa Avenue areas that would include the Freedman Brothers property and then of course as I mentioned developer interest in the Todd Creek 2010 area and so one of the things we came up with was those were all contiguous they were all on the same side of the city there's a lot in common so one of the options for the sake of discussion analysis was what we call south Santa Rosa so just to put this in perspective and there's a close up here this entire area of unincorporated would go from our city limits down to the UGB urban growth boundary it's about 1400 acres I guess to put it in perspective it's about the same size as the Roseland specific plan area Roseland was 700 acres for the annexation piece but a specific plan was about 1400 acres which is what this is I'm sorry before I leave that I just wanted for those that are not used to this area so again this double hatch mark here is the 2010 Todd Creek area there's a couple of unincorporated mobile home parks here to the north there on Avenue 101 Yolanda's right here and then coming down south Bellevue this is the more sorry this mouse is really sensitive on the east side of 101 is the Moorland neighborhood and to the south of that and to the south of that is the industrial lands also to the east to the west of the Moorland neighborhood and then on the south side of south Santa Rosa freedmen brothers is about right here and then down to scenic okay the other option was well especially one of our principles was time and cost efficiency one of the things we learned quickly is if you take any one of these little parts there's a lot already that's prescribed with the annexation process and the environmental review process so there was just a lot of efficiencies to couple those all those sub districts together in terms of if you're going to do it you could do all of those at once and then another the other option was well if you're going to do it why don't we at least consider all unincorporated areas and there's a lot of unincorporated areas in Santa Rosa so this would add quite a bit more acres to the options so this one's 3600 acres versus the 1400 and this diagram shows all of Santa Rosa and you can see just graphically all the little hatch marks those are all unincorporated areas most of them are islands I think we have like 30 county islands and then some of which are fringe which means they're not completely surrounded by city limits but they're maybe adjacent to our urban growth boundary and then surrounded by on a couple of sides city limits and here's just a enlargement of part of that so you could see how the things to note on this one is that they are scattered throughout so social economic demographics are just a complete mix so we're looking at lots of different populations that we would want to engage with through the process and then also topographically they're really different and their service needs are different so some of these islands have sewer and water already and some have sewer or water and some of them have nothing so lots of different conversations to have when the degree of impact is quite different and then we didn't do a deep dive into state law and annexation but we did a first run and one of the things that came right out the gate on our first run of looking at state law was something called SB 244 and SB 244 addresses and it protects annexing say high resource areas at the expense of a disadvantage or a lower income community and it defines what they call a disadvantage unincorporated community as a community with an annual median household income less than 80% of the statewide annual median household income right now it's about $81,000 so a household income of 81,000 or less would qualify and we ran the threshold for that with the city's GIS and you can see here in purple which covers quite a bit of the city but you can see it covers the almost the entirety of South Santa Rosa option so that would be something to consider okay moving on to annexation principles so annexation principles are really important because you need to set expectations setting expectations up front is really helpful to know to what level of service are you going to be bringing a new community into the city of Santa Rosa and then likewise what is that impact on your current residents and also principles frankly are important because it helps staff prepare a work plan that meets your vision for something like this so this is just an example you could pick whatever principles you would want if you wanted to venture into an annexation effort we're actually pretty good I think that they are a good place to start if not to keep for any future annexation so one of them is new residents will receive the same level of service as current residents and the second one is levels to current residents will not be reduced in order to provide services to the annexation area one of the things to always keep in mind is that these can be aspirational because it's not like you flip the switch and all of a sudden all the services are there it's something you work towards but by putting the principles up front a part of the process that's your commitment and so this is one thing that we will hear if the city does venture into a new city initiated effort we will be sure to hear that Rosalind's not done yet don't stop paying attention to it okay and then a high level is just how does this process work I'm simplifying it into five phases probably there's lots of different ways to package this but I would just say the first phase is confirming the interest that you would like to venture down the path of a city initiated annexation process this would be the direction of these are the boundaries that we would be interested in processing, learning about key principles you could provide the direction to staff to prepare the work plan and budget and that's where you really start getting into the details and matching up those principles for how do you get there and then you allocate funding to the effort phases would be okay you've decided to go forward you're going to secure all the contracts the consultants that will do the work you start activating that city county ad hoc that you would want to make sure so that there's some cost sharing agreements up front you're starting to develop those things and then phase three is the bulk of it it's the bulk of any annexation where it includes really defining the boundaries doing the legal mapping of the services any of these sub districts or all Santa Rosa effort will require a plan for services and that's the logistical connection of actually serving the area upon annexation because once you flip the switch that's now our responsibility and then also pre-zoning also a specific plan we want to venture to that and then of course the environmental review which typically for annexation that's not a little county island you have a couple of items tonight on your agenda those are completely different scale than what we're talking with any of these options so any of these options would typically require EIR environmental impact report and I can just tell you that the combination of those has the same cadence so it doesn't really matter if it's one of these sub districts or all of them it has the same cadence and that's the bulk of our work and then the future steps is once we're done then LAFCO process starts and they process it and if there's a need for a protest hearing they process that as well and then phase five we transfer the ownership okay so in terms of how long does this process overtake I just spoke to that a little bit again as an example of and we talked about it for 20 years but when we decided to do it it took three and a half years and that's actually quite remarkable and it included extensive community engagement it included a specific plan it included an EIR and it included the annexation and plan for services and again the annexation part was 700 acres but the specific plan was 100 acres we think South Santa Rosa even if you take the entirety of it would be about the same time if it's resourced appropriately and everyone is all for that for the sustained amount of time it takes to process it we do think that the all Santa Rosa option would be a bit longer not necessarily much more expensive but in terms of time probably up to an additional year just the complexity of having to go out to have additional engagements throughout the city and on all those various circumstances I talked about under all these scenarios we would be still looking at the preparation of a specific plan for the Todd Creek 2010 area potentially even wider boundary and that does not take any additional time it's actually a concurrent process that would fold into this three and a half years Rosalind annexation was prioritized so one of the elements that the council had brought up to be added to this item was the idea of expedition like if you want to do it how do we get it done as quick as possible so I would say Rosalind is a great example for that it was an all hands on deck and I mean all staff council and good relationship with the county that's what it takes but we do think that if you did one of these that you know we have the means to pull this off again in terms of the length of time this is going to impact city council goals and our work plan for the city because it infects all the departments it's just something to think about putting it in context with all the other competing interests that you might have not just this year but for the next three years okay now let's talk about cost so again we did not produce a work plan for you tonight this is a study session that would be some future item if that's where you want to go but again looking at Rosalind in terms of annexation there's a lot of similarities and then we'll talk about the differences so in all we expended about the process towards the Rosalind annexation process 1.4 was from the general fund and 650,000 was from MTC a bank grant that supports the planning of priority development areas such as Rosalind we do think that South Santa Rosa would be a bit more complex in many ways than Rosalind so we do think that like annexation of South Santa Rosa would be more expensive than what we experienced with Rosalind again it's not Rosalind was surrounded by the city limits in the heart of our city right so there's a lot of already embedded mutual understanding and information that we had but we have not been engaged so we would have to engage and do that analysis and not just technical analysis but engage with the population that lives there and so and then also this is back from 2014 one thing I will say before I leave this slide because it's good news is that there is an opportunity soon to apply for a specific plan priority development area grant and we this is through MTC a bag they opened up an opportunity towards the end of December this last December and they have application deadline of the end of February and we could be eligible for up to $1.2 million to apply for this it could go to a specific plan and EIR and we think that would probably be what we need to do one for South Santa Rosa so that would be a companion piece it does not obviously cover the rest of the process okay so I'm going to go through these slides pretty quickly just highlight a key thing about again the Brain Trust is the city of Santa Rosa's executive team and all our excellent working teams that put together our best educated guests about things to consider in terms of the cost of annexation so again prioritization if that's important this is how you do it you dedicate staff to champion the project in Roseland the example was at the time I don't even know if we had assistant city managers but we had a different staffing model but at the time they did add resources in the city managers office to champion it again it's a cross department it's a regional effort it's important that it could stay facilitated through the city manager's office and then in addition it's a lot of planning work and so we were able to hire a three year limited term senior planner to process that work and so we would suspect something similar it doesn't have to be exactly this but something similar to this to support the project for the south Santa Rosa the only difference with the all Santa Rosa again could take us an extra year so we would have to compensate for that okay finance so we don't currently have any funds assigned to a future annexation effort or specific planning effort so to sponsor this we would have to figure out what resources would be available I just mentioned one it's great to have a grant opportunity I tell you two weeks ago I didn't really know we had a grant opportunity so we're always mindful and watchful and it just sort of came together that that's great news we have something to apply for it's competitive but I'm always confident we do good work and I feel confident we could we could pursue that we don't have a slide here for you on revenue projections and things and we would that would be part of our work plan and we know that's definitely part of the equation there's obviously revenue potential and there's growth potential for any of these options from the police department perspective we had a lot of lessons learned through the annexation of Roseland and so we would want to reap the rewards of having that experience and doing things appropriate to do another city initiated annexation especially of this area we know how we need to staff and support communities here and so we would make sure we propose that accordingly we do think that we would need an additional police beat we did not ask for that in Roseland that was one of our lessons learned we tried to make do making do is not not where we want to be we want to do a great job and to do a great job we are looking at a new police beat for south Santa Rosa should we pursue annexation fire department we would be detaching from our existing fire protection districts we would be looking to expedite the construction of fire station 9 fire stations come with staffing and equipment so it would be another cost to pay attention to the fire department those are probably our two biggest but we have some others here transportation and public works a lot of lessons learned here annexing roseland great deficiencies of infrastructure in these areas and so we need to make sure we understand where they are and help prioritize and fund and so part of this is to analyze that gap that service gap and then set a plan to really address those gaps and again south Santa Rosa in particular it's just unplanned unstudied and so that's where some of the costs uptick would be is to do that again appropriately in particular very much interested in transit oriented infrastructure alternative to vehicle infrastructure and so we would need to expand our sites for our transit services in particular out in that area for water we would want to review a transfer of responsibility from south park sanitation district to the city that's fine I think we can go through that process that's just acknowledging that there are going to be some challenges with sewer and water and storm water and in particular I think you recently received some updates on new FEMA maps and what not and we were fine in the city of Santa Rosa there wasn't a significant impact in our city limits but we did recognize at that meeting and I'm telling you today that it's more challenging as you go south for adhering to those FEMA maps in housing you saw the map there's a lot of lower incomes in this area of the community and so our housing team would stand up for the challenge but we'd need to analyze what does it need to support this community and there's quite a few more mobile parks in this area than we're in Roseland and we have lots of programs that can help but we just make sure that we have a good match and that we can offer what we offer any of our residents for parks this area has essentially been unplanned there's again unlike Roseland where it was in the middle of our city and we actually maintained some of those parks that were in the county we don't maintain any parks in south Santa Rosa so we'd study the responsibility for that there would be a transfer of that and then also obviously we need to address the need for new parks and where and how but so there's an engagement process that needs to happen with that okay last but not least planning and economic development to me what we need is we need a strategic specific plan for south Santa Rosa to bring it in and just change jurisdiction and with a logistical technical stack of studies or plan for services it's not appreciating the community that it is it's mixed it's been underrepresented it is underplanned and grossly underplanned lots of deficiencies in infrastructure at least to city standards and so all of that can couple together nicely with a specific plan and those are the only types of plans that you'll get grants for from APEG and MTC because it's the right way to do urban planning and to bring in communities to a city is because it's giving people a choice to build the vision for how they come into the city and transform the current conditions of that area and it will tie everything I just said together with that that concludes my presentation there's quite a few of us here and also online to help answer your questions I guess in terms of a recommendation a couple of things one there is no urgency around this matter we are moving forward with our housing element there is a sense of interest in this topic and I guess our recommendation is to put this interest in perspective you are going through council goal setting I think early March that would be a great time to put this into context for all the other current projects that we're working on and also future projects that you'd like us to work on to figure out how this is all going to fit and then also of course put it in context with the funding opportunities that we have or could allocate to something like this so with that I'll just stop there and those are that's my presentation thank you director Hartman for the presentation and also all of the staff that are available to answer any questions that the council may have looking to council for questions councilman Opreki thank you I have a few questions I'll start with water just because I only have one question about water is there anyone that gives a little bit of a description as to what area South Park water serves how South Park water is serviced and if there would be what the rates are compared to ours if there would be any benefit to the community members that are South Park water if they were just moved to Santa Rosa yes I believe Jennifer Burke is joining us online can elevate her thank you councilmember Opreki and I apologize can you please repeat the question as I was being promoted I got disconnected from the audio no problem so I just wanted to was hoping you could discuss a little bit about South Park water South Park sanitation and the area it serves if there who services that both administratively and the actual servicing of the utility as well as if there would be any how their rates compare to ours and would there be any benefit to the community members that from moving from South Park to Santa Rosa water sure so a number of questions there so South Park Sanitation currently South Park Sanitation District for sewer services only for areas that are in unincorporated pockets of Sonoma County within the city of Santa Rosa city limits or urban growth boundary it is not a contiguous service area so there are a number of different pockets basically if it's not within the city of Santa Rosa city limits but it's a county district so it's a it's a it's a map of area and it has sewer service it's served by South Park with one exception in that when we did the annexation of Roseland we were unable to dissolve the South Park County Sanitation District so any area that was in the Roseland annexation it's a it's a map of areas in the south and western parts of Santa Rosa that South Park serves currently the district is a county district they have an agreement with Sonoma water to provide administration of the district and then Sonoma water has an agreement with Santa Rosa water to provide for the operation maintenance of the sewer system itself so we provide for all of the O&M and report that information back to Sonoma water and then Sonoma water is the legally responsible organization in terms of permitting requirements for operating the sewer system they also collect and do they collect any fees related so we provide that collection for any of the residents in the city of Santa Rosa but that money is then transferred back to South Park for any design review or other parts within the district and then they also collect any rates for South Park customers in terms of what those rates are in comparison it's a little difficult here because they are on a collection that is through the tax bill and so they have a rate that is more heavily on the fixed charge but we'll be moving over more to a volumetric rate over time as part of the most recent agreement with South Park that we did as part of the Roseland annexation we are working with the city of Santa Rosa and the city of Santa Rosa and the city of Santa Rosa and the water so that they can transition their rates over time to be more closely aligned with Santa Rosa's rates so more heavily of a volumetric rate and a fixed rate portion and then eventually move over to monthly billing and those pieces need to occur so we're going to move that district over it's going to transfer from the county to Santa Rosa in the coming years and once that occurs there would be a new board of directors consisting of two council members and one board of supervisors so we'd have to operate it as a completely separate district I will say in terms of information but there is potential that with annexation of the underlying land there's a 70% threshold of the district and we could look to take over the district in a different way that would more closely align them with how we run the sewer system in Santa Rosa so hopefully that answers all your questions but I'm happy to provide any additional details thank you a few more questions Director Hartman you said that there's an opportunity for a grant next month that's a short timeline especially as the city works do we have staff available to apply for that if that is the direction you're given today? yes okay and then with that should we get that grant we have the specific plan slash EIR the corresponding EIR would that be for the entirety of the area that we are proposing for annexation or is it specified to certain areas? that's a great question the grant is for supporting a priority development area so South Santa Rosa and our the city's priority development areas obviously within the city limits so we have a South Santa Rosa we have a Santa Rosa Avenue priority development area which is south of 12 it goes to our city limit line the county has a priority development area from the city limit line to the south point of the UGB one thing we would consider with the grant through the process of a specific plan is amending the priority development area to be coterminous and to expand out we would recommend also out to the 2010 Todd Creek area for example and maybe as far over as Marlin and the industry but yes I guess the answer is the grant would cover South Santa Rosa boundaries to be specifically determined to be keeping in mind that it's supporting a priority development area which is essentially a transit supported community so for clarity could that be the entirety of option one potentially I'm sorry I missed your question could it potentially be the entirety of option one yes okay great and then just because I was a lot of 34 pages of slides of information the economic benefit cost benefit analysis that would be part of the work plan that you bring back before we approve living forward the work plan would set out how we would answer all the questions related to the process so how much staff time needs to support it from beginning middle to end what studies do we need that's one of the studies we would be able to answer some questions just from our own staff teams and then other things we would have to hire consultants to do third party analysis of but yes we would all of that would be part of leaning into the work plan and if I could just add quickly so the the potential grant with MTC a bag just to be clear it would cover the review and analysis to prepare a specific plan and the associated environmental impact report that would not cover the additional cost needed for processing of the annexation itself and plan for services and all that goes into that process so I just wanted to make sure that that was clear yes thank you last question I'm trying to get a view of this map I'm looking at the southwest border of the urban growth boundary and there's there's those corners along Todd road where it jets up to Bellevue and then down I'm trying to get an idea of what streets those are what is actually incorporated in there or if they follow streets at all you want some identification of the south Santa Rosa map and identifying some street names to get context that'd be great yeah okay let's see that's probably me sharing my screen and finding that slide again because I'm looking at it it could be like standish or bane so I don't know which one it is I'm trying to get an idea Claire that's slide 13 thank you okay yeah actually I have some notes on this because I agree I wish there was a few more landmarks here okay so my cursor works so I'm going to start here at the top I believe this is Yolanda this cursor is not really okay at the top of the hatched marks is going to be Yolanda um let's go to the left here you can see this says Bellevue so that's the top hump of that hatched area this is the start of Moorland neighborhood this says Todd road this is scenic and then there's a little lake here is that Petaluma Hill road is this street out here right I'm asking specifically between Todd and Bellevue going up right there what street is that and then the one just to the east of that that goes down towards scenic what those two roads are this right here sorry this is sensitive this line right here is Dutton standish so standish is the UBG line oh the UGB line oh that's standish and the UBG line is Bain perfect thank you councilmember Rogers along the along the same lines the question that I have with the urban growth boundary in particular is does if we take in that entire area does it get down to freed bends not that that's an important question at all for it is important because it has come up from time to time and so like I said one of the things that we were trying to reflect when we were trying to look at different options and boundaries is we keep hearing what about freedmen's well freedmen's I can tell you is right here between Todd and scenic so just south of Todd on the east side of 101 perfect and then urban growth boundaries are obviously very important but so are community separators if we were to take into account the entire jurisdiction how much room do we have in terms of separation from us to the runner park city limits mm-hmm I don't have a map that shows that but there is a community separator between the two cities I don't have the acreage or a map that shows you that but there would be a separator okay so more than runner park it's not massive I could say that the urban growth boundary does go down pretty far south and I appreciate that I got a chuckle from Mr. Bramford and I was going to see if he had anything that he was planning to add maybe in public comment from Lafko's perspective on some of the questions that we have here I don't know if this is the appropriate time mayor or is it possible in public comment thank you perfect so I did have a number of other questions you would talk a little bit about the transfer of arena numbers from the county to the city we've talked about it in the chambers a couple of times you have the two different options ones in the housing element which it sounds like that cart is too far down the road the second is during the annexation and just as a point of clarification I don't want to cloud things too much does the impacted arena units have to go in the annexed area so for instance you were showing the slide from the county of what they would like the city to take does that amount of units correspond with how many units we're talking about in terms of annexation or if we took that arena number from them would it have to be programmed in the annexable area does that make sense I'm not a hundred percent sure I'm following the question I can say what we did with Roseland see if maybe that helps and then we can clarify with Roseland the area that was annexed there were a certain amount of arena units that the county was identifying in there and the city accepted those arena units in addition to the units that were currently under construction so we got additional arena units added on to our total and then also we're counting units that were being constructed at that time to count towards those additional units and so our number if we were to annex this area there the county has identified in their housing element a certain amount of units in that south Santa Rosa area and so likely what would happen is we would take a look at the total number of units that would be added on to the city's arena and potentially identified on those sites we would have to take a look at it and do some analysis ourselves to see if those are appropriate sites but I suspect that would be the number that we would be looking at that's very helpful so the number that the public just saw in the discussion of the request from the county doesn't necessarily correspond to the discussion around that's not what it was prepared for that's correct it wasn't definitely not that specific also keep in mind arena numbers are income oriented so it's not just number of units it's at what level of affordability so you need a lot of flexibility to meet our arena targets city or county doesn't matter it's a lot of coordinated thought to especially to support the below market so I think I think deputy director jones' point the county is undergoing their draft housing element they're just a few months behind us really but they are looking at they have disclosed their draft element and I can say there's 17 sites within the south sanarosa area identified in their housing element 10 of which are proposed for rezoning to up zone not to city of sanarosa standards but a lot for the county and so that would be another pressure point in terms of our interest in annexing is to be more strategic about how those units land and also the arena numbers are all about new housing units not existing residents so it's all about constructing new housing units so I think that's a good point and I think that's a good point of the 2010 annexation area just for context for council why was it determined that that area could not be annexed up until 2010 I'm not sure that we know the specific answer to that question I think it had to do with the it was it wasn't that we were looking for specific conditions to have already been met that we assumed would happen by 2010 that is a good that's an excellent question yeah I'm afraid we're not going to have a perfect answer for that I think I think it was hand in hand an expectation that it shouldn't just it shouldn't just come in it should come in with an integration and not prematurely I guess that's what I feel safe to say otherwise I don't have the information about the exact reason why it was worded the way it was worded where's John Sawyer when we need him so you already you touched a little bit on accounting for public safety and staffing standards of coverage so I appreciate that what's the process or timeline and maybe Mr. Bramford can answer this in public comment if we don't know for the determinations by Lafko on the the duck the D.U.C. and in particular when we have these conversations there's multiple areas within the proposed Santa Rosa area that under the Lafko definition I think all fall within the disadvantaged communities definition is there a requirement of taking all of that or is there an ability to do it in pieces so yeah I believe Mr. Bramford will speak during public comment what I can say is it's about contiguous duck properties when you are annexing so so for example the option to the all Santa Rosa even if those islands are in a D.U.C. or a duck they're not necessarily contiguous to the other parts that you're annexing so we would look at those differently and I would imagine that Lafko could look at those differently but where you are looking at the 2010 Todd Creek area for example and that's defined as a duck per state definition and then right next to it even closer into the city is also a duck if it's contiguous I think it's a hard argument but that's essentially something we'll have to explore I was just curious especially if you're I'm using just as an example Santa Rosa Avenue you got a duck on one side you got a duck on one side the argument could be made that you could do one side and then do the other side right so that's kind of what I'm looking for a little bit more information and does that impact the timeline or the cost or the ability I know we haven't done that level of analysis yet that I can speak though too one of the things one of the criteria options for the sake of discussion analysis was time and cost and the efficiency it is all about the same time to process because that annexation process it's fairly predictable all the steps that you have to go through and the same with the environmental review process so if you do these things concurrently if you do them concurrently you can get the whole thing done in the three and a half years if you do them consecutively there's been spoken about yes that can take a long time because you're going to do it through and could potentially make the first part of what you did outdated so you do need to be careful about how long do you want to be in the process of phasing an effort like this thank you and then my last question and you touched on it a little bit the idea of a specific plan versus not having a specific plan that even if there was not a specific plan there are specific studies that are enumerated like an EIR can you talk a little bit about what studies are required and what additional information you seek to get in a specific plan outside of the required studies I'll start just a quick supplement so the technical studies that described the plan for services that's essentially it so it's addressing water on a very specific level with some context and then you're doing the fire service and the police service so you can have a stack of technical studies that speak to how a newly incorporated area will be served the specific plan is much bigger envelope it's putting it all together it's and instead of how are we going to serve it upon annexation it's how are we going to serve it in the future like what's the vision as it all play out so there are really two different scales entirely in terms of serving a development or serving a newly annexed area versus what's the vision for bringing this community in and how is it all going to interrelate so different scales and different length of projection of what you're studying for and the other thing that I would add to that you're getting into looking at the necessary infrastructure to meet whatever the vision is for the next 20 to 30 years that the specific plan is going out you're looking at how is this area going to develop and how are we going to serve it both with infrastructure like sewer and water and roads and then also the services but it also provides an implementation plan on how not just what is needed but how are we going to pay for it and actually get the work done so that we can build this area up to the vision that was identified in that specific plan and one more important point about what you get at the end of an EIR for just annexation or an EIR for just a project versus a specific plan is you get something that Santa Rosa has been incredibly successful with is when you get a specific plan you have to streamline development you streamline infrastructure improvements everybody gets to use the specific plan for streamlining because it's predictable you've come up with your vision you've agreed on your land use you've agreed on your improvements you've agreed on the growth areas so when you are implementing it all that hard work has been done comprehensively up front and so the state has a specific plan you can get to the other side and it is useful for government infrastructure as well as development and then the community that is the most impacted because they are living in this area of change potentially they know what is what and why and they have an opportunity to voice their opinion about it really fast this reminds me how much additional time does it take to kind of pause so just like with Rosalind we would do the specific plan concurrently with the annexation so there is not a we pause and we do this piece now and then we take up the other piece later it's all done at the same time so with Rosalind we were working on that specific plan which took about 18 months during the time that we were also working on the plan for services for annexation doing the outreach to the community on annexation and then the specific plan doing all the environmental analysis the coordination with the county on how we were going to pay for bringing this area in all of that happened at the same time thank you so much vice mayor mcdonnell thank you so much and I appreciate the presentation so a couple of questions that I have well it's more than a couple you should know that about me by now how will this impact the general plan if with this annexation do we add that into our updated general plan that's a great question so the general plan is about two years in a three-year process we are benefitting from a grant so we are on a timeline but we are nearing completion and we should finish the general plan by fall have it certified by fall of this year the general plan focuses on the city the city limits we do that in context but we do that in context at a very high level otherwise our focus is on the interior of our city and all the urban principles that we have for developing our city and I'm blanking on the next part what was the second part of your question how does it impact the general plan being completed I guess is my question does this get added to it it's supplemental the general plan will be adopted and then the EIR will be certified and subsequent smaller annexations can sometimes be found within the scope of it but nothing of the scale because it's outside the city limits needs a lot more detailed work than any general plan can provide thank you just so I'm clear on the rena housing that the county has identified in their plan are you saying that we not only by annexing this we inherit those numbers from the county plus our own numbers so we're adding to our need to comply with what the state is requiring under that or do we we can't double dip the county can't count what we were already doing and by annexing it I just don't want to be clear on what we're planning to do with these annexations so it wouldn't be an automatic that the city would take the additional rena units that the county has identified in that area that would be through an agreement between the city and the county again we did something similar with the Rosland process and that negotiation The city may or may not take from the county would be through that negotiation process with the county as we go through this full process. Great. That was what I wanted to know is if that is part of a negotiation or if that was an automatic. And I appreciate some of the roads. The map wasn't clear to me exactly where on the west side of Highway 101 that included. So any more detail that we can get on those maps so that literally like if we could drive out and see what we're looking at I think would be helpful for my perspective. I really do appreciate in the presentation all of the additions to police and fire and the need for a fire station. I think that that is necessary. Can you bring us back a bit more around what we'll need to do for streets and parks and all of the other buckets that go along with adding in something to the city. So but I'm glad at a high level we are you know identifying these things. I just want to make sure that when we're incorporating anything that it's everything that we are going to be responsible for in the city of Santa Rosa and adding staff appropriately to be able to serve that so that. And I believe it was one of the bullets said that another area doesn't have to then be. You know not have as much service because of that annexation. The grant just to go back on that how do we comply with the timeline of the grant what action would we have to take tonight or or because it's a study session how do we comply with that timeline. I was a great question. Yes I and that deadline is going to come up quick. Well I think we could still move forward with the grant application process. You can actually do a specific plan without annexation. It's the complication there is that we would be doing a specific plan for property that's not in our jurisdiction so obviously the county would be a lead partner. If you do it concurrent with annexation we're the lead agency it's our project our effort and we coordinate with the county. I do think that you still have an opportunity to discuss this commitment particularly the annexation aspect of it through council goal setting and through the budget. Again we don't have any budget allocated towards the rest of it so that would have to take place. But I'm sorry I'm a bit rambling on this but I guess we would want to hear some direction if you're interested in activating concurrently with annexation and specific plan we probably want to hear that tonight. But I'm different to the city attorney. Thank you director Harman I appreciate it. As it's a study session we're looking for feedback and direction from you all in terms of where you would like to head on this matter. The city does have a grants policy that does allow us then at the staff level to move forward with applying for grant funding and then you know kind of moving forward with subsequent approvals that are necessary at the council level to be able to meet those deadlines. This question is something perhaps to bring back at us the next time but you said that the last time we did annexation it was all hands on deck. And that everybody had to sort of shift work to ensure that this was getting done. My question is more around what will we be doing with the rest of the work plan if everybody is working on this now. And how we'll address that for staffing if there's no budget to set this aside. So just just something to kind of keep in mind I don't think you can answer that today because we haven't given you direction on it but it's something that I would like to see brought back to us so we have a better understanding of the work plan. And then a couple more will any of these areas that's annexation be used for only residential zoning or will we be doing mixed use in some commercial as well in some of these areas. South Santa Rosa has all kinds of land uses currently and has potential to have all kinds of land uses in the future. There are some industrial properties. There's high density. There's low density. And then if you do look at the placeholder designations that are our identify our general plan is very there's a lot of retail business service. Obviously all that would have to be rethought that that just kind of shows you how outdated the land use diagram is for for this area. But there's lots of opportunities for a really truly innovative integrated land use pattern circulation pattern that if you look at the general plan map for the rest to say you see that all that's been articulated carefully. And then you see the placeholder designations that South Santa Rosa has been living with. And then just my last question is I know we just went through redistricting for council. If adding this into the city of Santa Rosa changes our numbers of residents that will be representing. What is our timeline that we would have to bring that whole back like study back to us for redistricting council again and will we be on some sort of timeline for that as well. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead and jump in on that one. We do have a set cycle that we typically use for the redistricting process. So I'd like to just look into it in a little bit more detail and come back at the the next discussion on the item to be able to give you a specific answer. If anything with annexation would change that particular cycle. But my sense is we kind of stay on that. But if it is significant enough we would we might need to come back sooner. So thank you for that. Questions may be appropriate for planning or they may be more in the city manager's purview. So no pressure if they don't fall directly within the planning scope of this. But the first one is if we were to go forward at this time with annexation or looking to annex some portion or all portion of this region at this point in time with this divert resources away from long standing council goals of densification urban renewal and transit oriented development. I think to the first part of that question if we were to pursue something like this it is it is a heavy lift but it does fit into a work plan. So there would be room for other ventures that the city can pursue but we're limited right we're limited to funds and we're limited to staffing. In terms of impacts to our pursuits our urban planning pursuits and our focus on downtown and priority development areas. It could be done in it could be done in alignment with those principles if it's done properly. If it's just annexed in then it's it would be challenged to meet the same principles that we apply in the interior of our city. Specifically what I'm wondering is one would this take away from our urban infill in the core of Santa Rosa and the second is would it create additional sprawl. I think those are good things to be concerned about. Again the housing that you might get in the outskirts of the outer areas of our city are going to be lower densities. They're going to be built by different types of developers. It's a different housing model and it's okay. I mean you want a variety of housing in your city but you also want to increase diversity and options for all residents in Santa Rosa. So it's just a it's a careful balancing act to accomplish both. Again I feel like I'm marketing specific plans but you do get a lot out of them because it asks all those questions and at least provides you a path to like make your best attempt. And we do need all kinds of housing and all kinds of different income levels and different densities. That said you know I have seen lots of evidence that the lower the density the higher the cost of the city and if that's incorrect please do correct. Let me know. No we are still studying it but clearly the efficiency of building urban walkable centers and the epitome being our downtown like that is going to be your best economy of scale for infrastructure and access to services for residents that live in those little walkable modes. One of the one of the principles of our general plan update is to not just rely on downtown for that walkable mode but to create them throughout the city. Not sprawled throughout the city but really trying to be strategic with already a neighborhood and sort of building up from what's currently there. And the same opportunity could work in these areas but I admit it's a challenge. The infrastructure is not already there and our general plan update push we are looking for where the infrastructure is already there and just needs land use flexibility or it could be there. South Santa Rosa is a further gap so we need to get it on par if we wanted to pursue it. So what I hear you saying is that while it is possible to develop this area with the principles that this council has historically had it will take a lot of thought planning and financing. Pivoting over to a question maybe for the city manager. This presentation referenced historical challenges in working with the county's planning department. I do see a representative for one supervisor in the audience here. And I'm curious to know how going forward we might strategize around having positive proactive collaborative conversations perhaps elected to elected or staff to staff. Because this is but one of many issues coming before both the city and the county that would be useful in having a strategic approach to our communications. Thank you. I can't specifically speak from elected to elected but I will tell you on a staff level we have a really good working relationship. I think that's why we've gotten as far as we have today with the study session because we do have a great working relationship with the county from a staff to staff level. Okay. Thank you very much. I do think that perhaps we ought to explore elected to elected communications. I can leave it here because most of my council members have asked the nuts and bolts questions about this annexation process and hopefully one day we will have access to more Santa Rosa sponsored nuts and bolts as a result of this. So thank you everybody for a great presentation. Thank you Mayor Rogers. I just wanted to chime in on on one of the questions that council member McDonald had and you know as as we look at at the grants to start this process and and and that or the situation where we have you know all all hands on deck. I would say that you know staffing is going to be difficult with this and challenging quite challenging from a to be able to pay for the all the services that are going to come from this. I'm listening to this go on what I'm seeing is not just on the on the the front end to be able to move the annexation for on the front end. But you also have the back end site we're looking at. We've done some preliminary estimates with our revenue consultants on the sales tax may be available from that. From a staffing standpoint alone we've pretty much eaten that up. So there's other revenues that are going to be there. And as Claire mentioned before we do have to do a full cost benefit of this but I don't think we we we had the appropriate wet blanket thrown on this and I think that's my job to do. So I just kind of giving a perspective of you're looking at long term costs that that the city quite frankly to keep a balanced budget going forward. I just I don't know how we would do that. Obviously there would be negotiation with the county. But but at this point I'm I'm definitely worried about our ability to keep a balanced budget going through and taking this level of work on to do that. So just for that. This is a follow up on that Alan. Are you saying that you've done a fiscal analysis on a cost benefit so that we would understand the revenue on the taxes that we might be able to receive. And if it's mixed use meaning we potentially can have commercial and residential. Could you figure that out in a quick study or maybe not so quick but actually figure out how much could be driven from revenue from that as well. Right. It wouldn't be quick. What we were able to do is we used our sales tax consultant we gave the the GIS coordinates of what the options would be. They ran an analysis at a high level and we we haven't even vetted those yet. But it gave us some preliminary numbers from sales tax which which I believe would be the largest source of revenue that we're going to have. There's a whole bunch of different revenues that would that that would be affected. But that's our largest. And so I figured we start there and start looking we you know we're still trying to develop all of the staff costs would go there. So there's a lot of work that needs to to go forward on that cost benefit analysis. But where we are right now just seeing that it just seems to where we're we're more loaded up on the cost going going forward. But also just to have the resources to be able to to go through and I don't want to speak for for Claire but I know that they have a full work work plan. So if you're looking at at pulling people off to be able to work on this or to add folks in coming in those are upfront costs that I'm not sure how we would pay for them unless they were grant funded. But but those often have strings attached to them as well. Especially in terms of timing council member staff message received loud and clear with respect to the costs and the staff time on these projects. I do I do confess that I look at the development potential of especially that top Creek parcel and and want to follow up with some council member Rogers questions with respect to the D. U. C. So the the continued the issue of continuous D. U. C.'s and S. B. two four four. Is that the is that the primary or the only reason that we're we're putting together the Todd Creek in the moreland moreland areas. No no that's just one one aspect to that. Like I noted we're looking for time and cost efficiencies and anytime you go through a city initiated annexation process is going to take at least three years. So you could do them consecutively over time. I mean like over the life of Santa Rosa or you could look at doing them concurrently but the the efficiency of broadening the boundaries. You can broaden the boundaries in the same amount of time generally understood. But yes the D. U. C. that contiguous factor through that state law that's something we'll have to look at. So it may be that we don't even have a choice. Right. It's not an efficiency thing. It's illegal. It sounds like there might be more information coming on that soon. I'm curious about that. I'm actually sticking with that for a moment when when we annex Roseland did we annex all continuous D. U. C.'s at the same time. So Roseland was an island completely surrounded by the city and actually it was composed of four islands I think four or five. Anyway it was the main Roseland Island which was the largest and then we had a couple several small islands on the fringe of that. But we took the entire the entirety of those islands. So there was no unincorporated areas that were not annexed that were adjacent to it. Got it. Thank you for that. And final question for me and this gets back to this gets this gets back to the cost and staff time because that's obviously an enormous consideration. Our in theory our developers able to help with with costs and with consulting Tom. We're paying for E. I. R. is that kind of thing. Yeah normally if like the example I gave earlier the applicant team that came in with their development proposal. There's a path for an applicant to to come in and initiate their own annexation so the city doesn't want to initiate an annexation process. Applicants can and we respond by explaining what the path is. Ultimately they'll have to address that D. U. C. issue in their in the analysis in the and in the processing of a of a even an applicant driven annexation for this area. But that's how you get to the analysis is either it's city initiated and we're allocating restaffing and funding resources for us to do that analysis. Because we want to annex or an applicant is doing that and they're paying for their process and based on the scope of what they're proposing. Thank you. Yes. If I could just real quick I wanted to come back to the question that Vice Mayor McDonald had about the the grant. I just wanted to be clear so we do have a deadline for this current grant process of the end of February. But I want to be clear that this is not the only opportunity for a grant through MTC a bag for these PDAs and a specific plan. That same grant process is how we did the update to the downtown specific plan how we did the Roseland specific plan. The North Santa Rosa stationary specific plan and even our original downtown plan. So there is a regular opportunities for these plan development specific plan grants through a bag MTC. I will say that when we talk to staff at MTC a bag they did mention that this round will be less competitive than perhaps the next round. But I just wanted to make that clear. I really appreciate that. Thank you. Council Member o Krapke. Yeah, just to follow up. Can you go over the process of what it would take to designate an area plan development area as relates to what expanding our plan development area that exists currently on South Santa Rosa Avenue to try to incorporate everything. What kind of do you discuss that process. Yeah, the process is primarily through MTC a bags. The city would put together a proposal identifying a boundary for the plan development area. So in this instance, we would look at expanding our existing South Santa Rosa Avenue PDA and a bag MTC has certain criteria for those PDAs and how closely you have to be to transit and walk ability to services, those types of things. So we would need to look at their requirements for PDAs and the boundaries and then we would propose a boundary that would then go to MTC a bag for their approval. Okay, any other questions from Council. Okay, I have just a few questions. The first would be applying for the grant, whether it's a cycle or a different cycle, what it would be the commitment from the city if we were to receive that grant. The financial commitment or time commitment. What would be like if we apply for a grant, what are we telling them that we're going to do like what is the commitment from the city. So we would have a deadline in which we have to complete the grant so we would have certain deliverables that would have to be provided in a certain amount of time and that would all be spelled out in the grant application and our scoping process. You know, the city has traditionally with other similar grants that we have done exceeded or done it faster than what is required by the grant. I believe that the grant requirement is to complete the specific plan within 36 months. And in the past, it's taken us about on average about 18 months to complete these types of plans. Thank you. And a comment was made that we were not done with Rosalind yet. What is the timeframe that we can say we are complete with Rosalind and we are just at a maintenance. Phase. Yeah, I don't have an answer of when we'll be done. Again, looking back at those principles, it's just evening and create an equitable place for all residents of Santa Rosa, whether you're newly added to the city or you've been here for your whole life. So I can't answer that question specifically about when that occurs. That's the that's the aspiration. And so we're just always mindful when you take in an unincorporated community, you're committed. So when the comment was made, we are not done yet. Then what in addition do we need to complete? Yeah, again, it's down to parks, streets, access to water, access to schools and healthy food and all of that. So that's the measurement of service that the city provides its residents. And one of the one of the principles was that all new new residents would have equal equitable access to those things. So sidewalks and street lights and pavements that aren't cracked. Those are our aspirations for our current residents and the principles set an expectation that new residents would get to that point as well. And it's not uncommon for unincorporated areas to have their two county standards, right? So they're not to city standards. City standards are higher in all levels. And then we rely on the county for like the social support. But the physical standards are higher is urban living. And so that's what we're talking about that gap is that's what we're going to complete over time. Thank you. If I may invite the gentleman from Lafko up and if any of the council members have questions specifically for him, because I don't think we would he would be able to answer all the questions in three minutes. Then I think now is a good time to do that before we go to public comment. And if I could just remind you, you can raise the podium up because you do have to speak right into the microphone in order for us to hear you and it be recorded correctly. Thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Mayor, members of the council, I'm Mark Brantford, the executive officer of Sonoma Local Agency Formation Commission. I'll just run through some items that I think address most of your questions. Lafko has not identified any disadvantaged unincorporated communities that are proximate to the city of Santa Rosa. However, we recognize that we need to use a more granular geographic analysis to determine if that's truly so. I'm going before the commission next Wednesday at their regular meeting hoping for authorization to do a request for proposals to bring a consultant on. That would answer the question of whether there is one disadvantaged unincorporated community in southern Santa Rosa or two or more. And I expect that process will take seven to nine months to get that answer. The 2010 annexation area, if you pursue that, we need to amend the city's sphere of influence. And in order to do that, we need to conduct what's called a municipal service review. I would like to press the city to ask for us to go through that process. I will advocate to the commission that we do that at our cost rather than at the city's cost. We need to know what areas you would like to have added to your sphere. I assume that those are all the areas within your urban growth boundary, but that's a discussion for you or a determination for you to make. I would be remiss in not bringing your attention to the two mobile home parks. We have determined that there are over 300 registered voters living in those two parks. That would constitute a pretty serious community of interest who could potentially protest an annexation. So in terms of doing community outreach, I think it would be incredibly important to reach out to those two particular areas. And lastly, I've been promoting this for 10 years now. We would love to see the city address the other unincorporated islands within the city. And I'd be happy to come back and discuss with you the process for doing that. Just so you know, you can simply apply for annexation of those areas, and there is no protest proceeding in order to annex those territories. Happy to address any other questions you might have. Are there any other questions from, yes, Council Member Rogers? Thank you so much, Mr. Banford. Thank you so much for being here. On your last point, I assume that the unincorporated urban pockets, the reason there's no protest vote is because they're fully surrounded. Yeah, there is a provision in our law that governs LAFCO that says LAFCO will approve and there is no protest proceeding for island annexation. So territories that are completely surrounded by a city or special district. Okay. And then for the analysis that you're asking LAFCO for on Wednesday, has there been any coordination between LAFCO, the city, the county on that request? No, there has not. And I will admit to when that law was passed, we looked at census tract data at LAFCO, identified seven disadvantaged unincorporated communities in the county, none of which were approximate to cities. We recognize that using the census tract is to gross a measure for determining those areas. And that is why we're going asking the Commission to authorize a study to look at that in a more granular fashion. Okay. You cited probably about seven months to go through that process. So I'll kick it back to the director. If that is initiated, does that change our calculus at all in terms of timing or resource allocation that the city might be looking at for this process? And granted, it might be way different depending on what that analysis finds. Yeah, I mean, it is a question mark how they will interplay together. Obviously, if you look at the boundaries that includes all of South Santa Rosa, then you have less area of impact of a different determination from LAFCO about what's a duck or how it applies. If it's more narrowly focused, like, for example, the developer's property, we will find out together because we are in new territory with this applying the state law based on more current information. So we will probably be going through it concurrently should they apply tomorrow. All right, I appreciate that. So it sounds like we'll find out if it looks like a duck, if it is a duck. Seeing no additional questions, thank you very much for your willingness to answer our questions. Madam City Clerk, can we please go into public comment? Thank you. We're not taking public comments for item 3.1. If you wish to make a comment in person and have not provided your name to the administrator at the top of the chamber, you can make your way to the podium. If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand and you will have three minutes for your comment and a countdown timer alert at the conclusion of that period. The first speaker will be, make sure I have his name, Jeffrey Janik. Hello, my name is Jeffrey Janik and I live in the unincorporated areas that would be annexed into the city. And we would really like the city services. The county is really limiting on what I'm allowed to do with my property. My parents are older and I'd like to put a grant unit on the property and there's plenty of room, but the zoning won't allow for that in any way. And so the city would help in that area for more housing. And I've also had a couple issues with trespassers and the sheriff's department, they helped, but they, I see more city cops in the area, but they're not allowed to come on our property because it's county. So it doesn't seem dealt with as good as it would be done if it was the Santa Rosa police department, I believe. And also we have a septic system and the city sewer is in the neighborhood, because we're on the county, they are not allowed to hook us up. So I really think it would help the neighborhood become a nicer place and it would be very beneficial to annex it into the city. I think that's all I have to say. Okay, the next speaker is Brandon Roy, followed by Dwayne DeWitt. Good afternoon, I'm Brandon Roy. I own the property at 404 and 406 Bellevue Avenue at the corner of Bellevue and Juniper. I'd like to ask the quick question, just to look at that map again as to what street is on the map, because I think you said it was done at the line, but I believe it's really Juniper that you're focusing to annex on, right? So most of you might know that property at 404 Bellevue has the big burn house. That's our property now. We've torn it all down, it's roughly seven acres. And we brought the property with the intention of making it a multi-unit property, and we want to put 20 or 30 units on the property, but being in county, we can't do that. So I know we're not currently in, I think you said phase one and phase two to be annexed, but could we add that property to phase one or phase two to get it done sooner to make it city property and then we can put multi-units on the property. We'd like to help City of Santa Rosa and add to additional housing to the area, and I think we could really be beneficial to Santa Rosa to do that. Okay? Thank you. Okay, the next speaker is Dwayne DeWitt, followed by Ken McNabb. Hello, my name is Dwayne DeWitt. I'm from Roseland. I believe you should go for option two. I believe you don't have to worry about the support of annexation, as you've seen by these people speaking here, whereas with Roseland, it was quite contentious. Over 30 years ago, the Southwest Area Plan came forward. Most people didn't want to be in the City of Santa Rosa. A county island was formed. That's basically taught in planning schools throughout the nation as one of the examples of poor planning. They did not leave county islands, so please end all the county islands in the city. Go for option two. Along with that, 30 years ago when the Southwest Area Plan was being drawn up, the City of Santa Rosa was in discussions with county employees. The county had a South Santa Rosa services report. You have to remember the dynamics of staff back at that time. The city manager didn't get along with the county supervisor. It was just adversity, whereas now you have everybody getting on the same page. I believe you'll be able to go for these grants with MTC. You should go after them right now. Start now. Don't wait. Get as many as you can. The whole idea, I think, on this situation is that to answer Mr. Rogers' question earlier, the idea of that 210 and why that came forward was because there was a staunch environmentalist back in the 90s and they had some environmental groups that didn't want to see urban sprawl come out from downtown Santa Rosa so the urban growth boundaries were coming forward. They pushed to make sure that the people out further to the south wouldn't be coming in to get the urban sprawl going. That's all behind us now. Go ahead and sprawl. Get going. Do what you've got to do to get the housing. If you have all of the islands ended and you're in a process in which you're all under one jurisdiction, you're not going to find the same dynamic that you had with the Rosan-specific plan with an organized block of opponents that caused contention. You're actually going to have support in which people are moving forward to get it done and you won't have to spend the extra money that you had to spend with the staffing bringing in that assistant city manager, Mr. Regalia, who was at the end of his employment contract and was at the highest pay levels. Now you can use other people, not have to spend that much money. So look at this like it's a win-win all the way around. Annex them all, get them all in, everybody plays together and then I know you at the city council will still try to drive the housing downtown because you keep saying resiliency, sustainability. Yeah, we believe in it. So that's where your housing goes downtown and then you mix it as you go out further. Thank you. Okay, our next speaker will be Ken McNabb, followed by Maggie Luce. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor Rogers, council members. Ken McNabb, representing ownership. Can you speak into the mic? Thank you. Can you hear me? Any better now? Much better. Thank you. Ken McNabb, representing ownership in the 2010 area. First, I just want to thank the council and staff for putting this study session together. We're very appreciative of it and I think the council is asking really good questions and all the right questions. I've been impressed with this discussion. The city's general plans have contemplated annexation of the 2010 area since the 1990s. And now 13 years after the year 2010 has passed, we believe that it is time to move forward with annexation of this area. As you know, we're facing an unprecedented housing crisis with the state legislature imposing by-bite mandates on cities and cities taking ever-increasing creativity or creative measures to address a removal of constraints. If the purpose of this session is to identify housing opportunities or one of the purposes, there is no greater opportunity than the 2010 area. The 2010 area will generate more housing units than any other incorporated area within the UGB. And these are housing units not needed necessarily for your sixth housing element cycle. By the time we get through this annexation process and entitlements, these are housing units that are really going to be contributing towards your seventh and eighth cycle housing elements. The 2010 area is not as complex as some of the developed areas being considered. The majority of acreage in the 2010 area is in larger properties owned by relatively few property owners. You do not have the same challenges that you do with some other areas. There are no needed infrastructure repairs or gaps within the 2010 area that will require substantial investment by the city. And in fact, infrastructure needed to serve new development within the 2010 area is going to be largely paid for by the developer. There will spin some discussions of potential revenues, our back of the napkin calculations. We estimate that new development in the 2010 area will generate over $100 million, yes, $100 million in development impact fees. That is revenue that can be used by the city to improve areas in need outside of the 2010 area. New development in the 2010 area will also increase property tax revenue and create opportunities to leverage that revenue through various financing tools. In summary, I see I'm running out of time here. 2010 area, more housing, less cost, greater revenue, less complexity in moving forward. For these reasons, we request that the council prioritize and proceed with annexation of the 2010 area. Thank you. Next speaker is Maggie Luce. Good afternoon, council members. I'm Maggie Luce. I'm a policy analyst with the county administrator's office, working closely with deputy county administrator Crystal Kerry Harrow. We've been working with the city team on initial conversations as well as with our ad hoc of board of supervisors comprised of chair Corsi and supervisor Corrin, and they both wanted to be here today but are at the county board of supervisors meeting. So I just wanted to introduce myself. I'm here if you have questions and just wanted to express the county's interest in continuing conversations on exploring this annexation. Thanks. Okay, if there's anyone else in the chamber wishing to make a comment, you can make your way to the podium. I'm not seeing anybody make their way to the podium. Madam host, do we have any hands raised in Zoom? We do not have any hands raised in Zoom, nor do we have any recorded voicemails. Thank you. Director Hartman, can we please get the slide up for the direction that you're seeking and if there's anything else you would like to tell us before we start to give that direction? All right, I put the recommendation slide up just a reminder of what we're doing. So it's a study session. You can simply just receive this information and that is really could be the extent of it. But if you want to proceed with work forward, then that will involve our resources ourselves to put things together and respond to what you heard today and directions you want to go, then we would need that direction tonight so that we know what we're working on. But again, the recommendation from staff is to let this information, is a lot of information, let it sit and put it in context with your council goals. Thank you. Council Member Staff. I have a request for a specific action at this time. Thank you. Council Member Rogers. Thank you, Mayor, and I want to thank all of the team that's been putting in the work on this. For me, it will come down to a conversation around resources and availability. I think that it is certainly worth us doing our due diligence to better understand what that would take because the opportunity is too good for us to pass up if there's a way for us to make it work. So even if that means bringing some of this initial information around staffing and budget to our goal setting to talk about it within the context of everything we're trying to achieve as a city, I think that that's the minimum of what we could or should be doing. This is, as we've talked about, within the urban growth boundary. It's a huge opportunity for us to provide much needed housing for folks. And I think that when we talk about more land in particular, it's a moral imperative that we have talked about, that the economics of it might not make sense now, but that's largely because of decisions that have been made over the last 50 years, not just because it doesn't pencil at the moment. So I'd be more interested in hearing some of that. I think I appreciate Mr. Bramford being here to answer some questions. I do think that we need to know a little bit more about the designation that LAFCO is going to make around if it's a duck. I would hate to run a foul of state law. There's your joke, Council Member. And I think that that will give us a better outline for what the timeline looks like. I know that people are anxious to get the projects built and anything that we can do that is concurrent to expedite the process while still providing the same level of certainty and planning I think will always be appreciated. So for me, it's make sure that we keep this moving, make sure that we get to goal setting with an opportunity and so that we don't lose an opportunity to build housing. And then I'm going to throw in, because staff didn't mention it as a request, but Mr. Bramford hit us with a sledgehammer of a hint. I think we also should be asking LAFCO about the municipal services and spheres of influence conversation for the area if that is what we're going to be moving forward with. Council Member Fleming. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you staff for all of your work, Mr. Bramford, as well as everybody's made the time to come here today for this discussion. I think that this discussion gets to the core of what we're about as a city, which is providing high quality services in a way that is equitable and sustainable. And what we find is that we can't do everything at once, but that at the same time we can't put things off just because they're difficult or challenging. To that end, I'm really interested in hearing more information about this, having it come back as part of a holistic conversation at goal setting and allowing the council to have some time to process this information and to integrate it as each council member sees fit into the context of a full budget discussion, as well as a greater understanding of what staff constraints are. So at this point in time, I'm not going to be giving direction on moving forward or not moving forward, but just essentially kick the can down the road and suggest that we all consider it at goal setting. Thank you, Council Member Okrepke. Yeah, I agree with a lot of what my fellow council members have said already. For me, I'm a little bit more aggressive, I guess I would say, with, as you stated, a short window for the grant and your comment that this would be probably a less competitive grant. I personally would like to see you apply for that grant just because of that. And then, yeah, I agree, bring this back to goal setting with as much of a complete cost benefit analysis, because I do agree, while this may cost a lot up front, this is an investment, this isn't just a transaction, it's an investment. And I'd like to see all of that metered out. I mean, we've received public comment from everybody that wants to add an ADU to hundreds of units. And so I think there's a vast interest among the community, the residents that South Santa Rosa move forward. But I would like to see the cost benefit analysis and how that would play out going forward. Council Member Alvarez. Thank you. For me, I'm a product of annexation. And I want to thank you, Claire, for really putting out what needs to be done, whether it's just sidewalks, whether it's parks, whether it's infrastructure. I think it's like an automobile. The work is never done, right? But nonetheless, though, we're speaking of people and it goes way beyond the lift that's before us. We're speaking of hope to an area. We're speaking of inclusiveness. Really, for our residents of Maryland who believe they're Santa Rosans to actually be Santa Rosans. And this is an experience that I had as a person from Roseland. So for me, I definitely do want to keep to you the conversation forward. It sounds like we have the interest from our county partners and we have goals setting ahead of us. So there's no reason to stop now. I would like to see cost estimates as well as potential revenue. And I'll probably remind you of the experience of many of staff during the annexation of Roseland when the tasks seem unsurmountable, and yet here we are. And I'm hoping that this is history being repeated, but with the knowledge of what worked and what didn't for Roseland, moving forward with Moreland. Thank you. Vice Mayor McDonald. Thank you. I do want to say thank you so much for being able to answer all of our questions and for the great presentation today and for everybody who's here to give us even more education on how this annexation process works, especially for those that are new to this. I'm a little bit more ready, I think, to say we should be moving forward for sure on option one. I'm comfortable with that because this has been something specifically with the 2010 plan that has been talked about for years and years and years. So while I appreciate the cost-benefit analysis as we maybe move forward with option two, while I appreciate knowing all the numbers, I do think that there is a sense of urgency and more around the need for housing and to start moving forward with the process. So if it comes back to goal-setting, I guess I would ask that we have the opportunity to really move forward on action. So typically I'm the one that wants all the data and all the risk and everything that can go through it, but it feels to me specifically in these areas that there's been a lot of conversations about this for a very long time. But because we tend to be new and have an overturn, you're constantly having to tell all of us what we've done 20 years ago. So I would like to know, kind of, what's the best plan for us to go? Where should we start? But I'm pretty comfortable for sure with option one, but have some questions more until we get the cost-benefit analysis around adding in all the other unincorporated areas in islands in the city of Santa Rosa, just so we know when it comes to specifically public safety, how we're going to maintain the parks, what we're inheriting specifically on that. And then also what we're going to be able to go back and negotiate with the county as far as what we take in from doing this is something that I will want to know as that comes forward for final review from us. But other than that, I'm pretty comfortable with moving towards annexation. I think it's necessary. And we only have so many spaces within what we have right now. So I am comfortable moving forward with this. Thank you. And my comment would be, you know, I would love to say let's just jump in and do it, but I want to be responsible and I want to be strategic in doing so. So with that, I think we really do need to go through our goal setting and see what our goals are because those are our priorities. And we want to make sure that if we actually start this process or continue with this process that we have the staff and the resources to do so. So Director Hartman, did you receive the direction? Yes. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you staff very much for this presentation and your time. It is 3.59. So we will take a minute stretch break and we will get back to our regular meeting. We are experiencing some technical difficulties, but we will return momentarily. Thank you. If council members can return to their seats, we will begin the meeting. Seeing that we have a quorum, Madam City Clerk, can you please take the role? Yes. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member O'Crepkey. Here. Council Member Stapp. Here. Council Member Rogers. Thank you. Council Member Fleming. Here. Council Member Alvarez. Present. Vice Mayor McDonald. Here. Mayor Rogers. Present. Let the record show that all council members are present. We will now move to item 5, report on our closed session and study session. Thank you, Mayor Rogers. Council did meet today in closed session on one item. That was item 2.1. Item 2.1 was a conference with our real property negotiator. Had to do with the city leasing property located at 983 Sonoma Avenue between the city and the housing authority. Council provided direction to staff and no final action was taken. Thank you. We have no proclamations today. No staff briefings. City Manager and City Attorney, would you like to give any reports? Yes. Thank you. So our in response mental health support team has officially been in operation for one year. In that time in response was dispatched to 2,893 calls. Successfully diverting 1,762 law enforcement and 677 EMS calls. So I look forward to continue expanding that operation in 2023. And the City of Santa Rosa Public Art Program is pleased to announce the installation of Unum by Blessing Hancock in Old Courthouse Square. The public is invited to attend a dedication ceremony on Thursday, January the 26th from 5 to 6. The music will include some music and some light refreshments. More information is available about the project at srcity.org backslasharts. And on January the 18th, Fire Captain Mark Jackson and Police Officer Efren Jalil received the 2023 Lee Averson Public Safety Award from the Santa Rosa Rotary Club. So we want to give a special congratulations to our public safety team. Captain Jackson was nominated for his leadership and dedication to the fire department but also for his significant contributions to operations training and fleet services. Officer Jalil was honored for responding to a call of a six-year-old child who was not breathing and after nearly drowning in a pool, Officer Jalil provided life-saving efforts and the child was transported to a local hospital and fully recovered. So, shout out to the Public Safety Department, Police and Fire and thank you to the Santa Rosa Rotary Club for these nominations and the recipients. Thank you. Thank you Mayor Rogers in terms of a city attorney's report. Nothing in general to report. I would just like to briefly direct the council's attention to this month's reports of settlements and active litigation. There's no settlements over $50,000 to report at this time prior report relative to the report you received at the end of last year. There are 27 cases total on your list instead of 25. That includes two new in the personal injury, dangerous condition category, one new in general litigation and then there was a duplicate that we eliminated from the prior report. But otherwise, statuses have not changed in a dramatic way but just wanted to give you that brief update. Thank you. Thank you. Madam City Clerk, can you please facilitate public comment? Yes, we are now taking public comment on item eight, city manager, city attorney's report. If you are in the council chamber and wish to make a public comment, please make your way to the podium. I'm not seeing anyone make their way to the podium. Zoom host, do we have any hands raised for item eight? It does not appear that we have any Zoom hands raised. And we have no public, no recorded comments for this item either. Thank you. Moving on to item nine, do we have any statements of abstention from council members? Yes, council member Krepke. Yes, I'll be abstaining from 15.1 and 15.2 as I already voted on those as a member of the planning commission. Thank you. Item 10, mayor and council members reports. Are there any council members that would like to provide report today? Council member Statt. Just a quick note to say, I was grateful for the chance to attend the new council members conference in Sacramento with some of my colleagues up here last week. And then in addition, I had the chance to attend the Providence Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital neighborhood meeting last night where we talked about issues related to helicopter noise and pollution in that area. And then finally, two appointments or one reappointment and one new appointment to announce. I'd like to reappoint Dan Galvin to the board of public utilities. Dan has graciously agreed to serve again. And then a new appointment, Ethan Cosgrove to the measure H oversight committee. Thank you. Thank you. Council member Rogers. Thank you so much, mayor. I did also want to thank staff for helping coordinate and really good presentations at the mayors and council members meeting up in Sacramento. I enjoyed seeing our new colleagues in particular as well as our friends from around the county and having good conversations with them. I did want to let the council know and thank our federal lobbyist team who have been very integrated in National League of Cities as well as our own staff here. I was grateful to be appointed by the president of the National League of Cities on Friday to the National League's Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Committee. We obviously have occupied a big space in that over the last five years in particular. I talk about resiliency and climate change and it'll be a great opportunity for us to bring Santa Rosa's voice to discussions and certainly help get our foot in the door hopefully on some of our Environmental Protection Agency funding requests and grant opportunities. Council member Fleming. Thank you. And while I heard we were quite well represented in Sacramento last week at League of Cities I was lucky enough to get to attend the one-year anniversary of InResponse and I want to thank Fire, Police and all of our staff who've worked so hard to make this program an undoubtedly an amazing success. I also want to thank Nancy Wang with the Redwood Empire Chinese Association for a wonderful celebration of Chinese culture for the Lunar New Year. It was really a wonderful experience and my daughter got a heck of a lot out of it and she said, you know, if you weren't there be there be square and so I see a bunch of squares. With that I'd like to make some additional appointments. I'll be temporarily appointing Melanie Jones Carter to Art in Public Places. She's worked tirelessly on the Unum installation and while she is interested and will be serving on Design Review Board we cannot have somebody appointed to two boards at one time so we will have a short-term vacancy from District Four on Design Review Board but she'll be more needed for this next couple of weeks on Art in Public Places so staff can expect to see her there for the next couple of weeks and then on to Design Review Board and then I'll make an Art in Public Places appointment in a couple of weeks. For Community Advisory Board at large I'll be appointing Jeremy Newton a new member of the Junior College community and then for Cultural Heritage Board I'll be appointing Patrick Carney. Thank you very much. Councilman Alvarez. Thank you, Mayor. First of all I'll appoint Mr. Adam Sharon to the Design Review Board. I also want to let folks that we had a great meeting in South Park want to thank Annette Arnold for putting that together. She's really spearheaded what it means to be community engaged for the Southwest area something that we didn't have much of as we just became part of the City of Santa Rosa so I really want to applaud her efforts to organizing her community and our community for the better of the whole. Also great time at the League of California City getting to know each and every one of my colleagues and it was really great to connect at a personal level and understand that we are here to serve our City of Santa Rosa and we are the United Front. On that note if you ever did get the chance though please ask my fellow Councilman Okrepke about Lulu. I assure you it's a great time. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor McDonald. Thank you so much for that Mayor. I apologize I was looking for a couple other names that I forgot at home so my first appointment just to reappoint Kristen Kiefer for the Arts in the Public Place she'll be staying in that role as my appointee and then I have a few others that I'd like to do tonight and I like to take this opportunity to give you a little background on each of the people that I'll be appointing but I have Michael Cook who I'll be appointing to the Design Review Board he's an experienced landscape architect and Michael's provided his design experience in a wide range of clients that includes private and public sector in the downtown area so he has a deep breath and background around architect and design review so I'll be appointing him I have Robin Barthelot who will be appointed to the Board of Public Utilities she grew up in Sonoma County and graduated from Santa Rosa High School before joining the Sonoma County Farm Bureau in 2022 Robin worked at North Coast Builders Exchange for 13 years and has worked in the county on the workforce development and the director of as the North Bay Construction Corp at the Farm Bureau Robin manages several regulatory compliance programs specifically around water quality and supply so I think she'll be an excellent addition to the BPU I will be appointing David Chen to the Community Advisory Board as my appointment he is currently a owner and the president of a small business and works with W Real Estate he is a member of the Santa Rosa Chinese Christian Church and is in the Skyhawk community and has been actively involved in the Skyhawk community as well him and his wife have two adult children and he has one grandchild and my last appointment is Heidi Klein she will be appointed to the Cultural Heritage Board and she's a second generation Oakmonter her parents live there as well and one of the things she enjoys doing when she tours people through Oakmon is to tell them about the history of Sonoma County and pointing out historical facts about where we live she's highly committed to ensuring that our historical buildings and our landscape and historical landmarks are kept in pristine conditions so with those appointments tonight I have a few more that I'll be making next week or two weeks, thanks thank you alright and for my report I will be assigning subcommittees to our council members first being the Board of Public Utilities liaison that will be Councilman Alvarez and Rogers and I have a copy of this for each of you if you can't jot it all down also Economic Development Subcommittee will be chaired by Councilmember Rogers but both Alvarez and Okrepke will also serve on that subcommittee Violence Prevention Partnership both Steering and Policy will be chaired by Vice Mayor McDonald and supported by Councilmember Stapp Long-term Financial Policy and Audit Subcommittee will be chaired by myself and supported by Councilmember Stapp and Vice Mayor McDonald Open Government and Community Engagement will be chaired by Councilmember Alvarez and supported by Councilmember Okrepke and Fleming Climate Action Subcommittee will be chaired by Councilmember Rogers and supported by myself and Councilmember Fleming and lastly Public Safety Subcommittee will be chaired by Councilmember Alvarez and supported by Councilmember Okrepke and I would like to say that we will be looking at our subcommittees in our goal setting to make sure that they align and that we're strategic about how we implement our goals so they may change in the future or they may stay the same but I just wanted to let everyone know that this is what they are for now alright and Madam City Clerk can you please facilitate public comment yes if you wish to make public comment on item 10 Mayor and City Councilmember's report please make your way to the podium Hello my name is Duane DeWitt I'm from Roseland congratulations to the people who've just been appointed but at the same time there's an old model that really helps to make government more dynamic and that's called out with the old and in with the new we've done that with an election and have some new members here one of the things is we have so many old folks on boards and commissions not in the sense of their age perhaps but in the sense of the length that they've been there I've known some people who've been there the entire time I've been coming to council meetings 30 years I think it's really important to get new folks in and I hope that as you folks here continued picks for people to volunteer to serve on these boards and commissions you'll get people who are young and people of color you'll get females you'll get people who basically won't follow the same old story day in day out that we've been facing here in Santa Rosa most of my life let's get something new going then we might get that resiliency sustainability you speak of and that downtown urban density that infill housing that we're all supposed to be striving for but we never seem to get many decades into this thank you I'm not seeing anyone else make their way to the podium Zoom host do you have anyone who has their hand raised in zoom I see one hand raised but his hand's been raised for a while I don't know if it's on this item but I will call Michael Lippelt can you hear me yes we can oh thank you yes I was going to make a comment at the initial public comments but when I raised my hand apparently you didn't get it didn't register so I'm so thankful that I can make my comments now hello Major Mayor Rogers and council members my name is Michael Pelt I'm a Santa Rosa resident and I'm a passionate volunteer with likeable Santa Rosa as you may know in December Santa Rosa was chosen as one of the nine U.S. cities for a grant that will provide Santa Rosa with $50,000 of free technical assistance over the next six months to accelerate our active transportation infrastructure that grant work begins this coming Thursday January 26 when partners from city thread a non-profit micro mobility consultancy will be in Santa Rosa for their first initial site visit we want to express our thanks especially to council member Chris Rogers and city staff especially Rob Sprinkle for helping secure this grant we also want to thank those of you who responded to our invitations to meet with city thread this Thursday if you would like to participate but are not available this Thursday there are other ways you can plug in in the coming weeks please contact us if you'd like to hear more finally let me add that we believe active transportation planning should be orchestrated in concert with many other issues on the agenda tonight including housing as well as other city priorities including equity, climate economic development and more we look forward to working with the city to leverage this important work to improve Santa Rosa for all residents thank you from the friends and volunteers of Michael Santa Rosa there are no more hands raised on zoom and we do not have any recorded public comment for this item thank you moving on to item 10.2 specifically 10.2 .1 mayor's appointments to county and regional and state positions two seconds alright that works we will be I will be recommending appointments for two year more board and commission appointments these appointments are recommended by the mayor and the council has to approve the appointments so I will read all of the appointments initially we will have public comment and then council will be able to approve the appointments in addition to so that would be the JPA appointments in addition to the regional appointments I will also make recommendations and council will approve so now we will look to our city clerk to take public comment on this item taking public comment on item 10.2 council liaison regional appointments if you would like to make a comment please make your way to the podium we have one person yes hello my name is Ricardo Loa can you please speak right into the microphone please so we can hear you yes hello my name is Ricardo and I'm still here I kind of missed my section but it was 3.1 with the urban growth opportunities and I feel like being a part of this community for so long I have first hand like seeing the impact has been being in a rural area instead of a city district and that would include just really bad roads and it also included just like how recently just more shootings and it's been like I feel like it's been through the cause of just lack of police patrol and I feel like with lack of representation and just unappealing economic impact this community has been faced with like from being part of Moreland seeing all that it's just really a pain to even settle there for like new generations that can lead with examples and really help the community thrive you know economically at the school and give LC Island better reputation and just give it a more appealing name for people all around to come and just give everyone more confidence in the area and the school system because right now it's really lacking like programs such as Pioneer among government that are really not that far but have such such reputation just for having like medical programs we somehow just lack that you know and it's strange we used to have many programs in the area and for wood shop but it's the teachers just left they didn't see there would be a bright future in the school and they left and I truly believe that's because in a rural area and not in an appealing place where there is funding and just sidewalks for kids to be on and be comfortable with you know they would have like regular maintenance and so it was my first time here but I really like to have this kind of really have our little islands and acts because it just makes sense to we're basically a part of the city we've been a part of it most of the houses in more than look suburban but they just been just swept into the rug and left to just settle in with all the other all the other all the other like negative factors in the area and I believe we can change that with annexing more land and I remember there's roles that still haven't been paid which is still very strange to me there's so much money going around so much relief and there still hasn't been nothing really done and yeah I appreciate your time I'm not seeing anyone else make their way to the podium I don't see any hands raised in zoom nor do we have any recorded public comment for this item thank you so we will start with our council liaison regional positions again these appointments are recommended by the mayor with the council's approval so I will read all of them and look for a second from council so the first is a bag general assembly that will be myself and the alternate will be councilmember alvarez health action 2.0 that will be councilmember okrepke with an alternate councilmember flimming library advisory board will be councilmember alvarez alternate councilmember rogers l-o-c-c north bay will be councilmember okrepke and vice mayor mcdonald mnc legislative liaison to l-o-c-c will be myself and with an alternate of councilmember alvarez russian river watershed association will be councilmember staff with an alternate of councilmember flimming the WAC water advisory committee will be myself with an alternate of councilmember staff continuum of care c-o-c will be myself with an alternate of staff and lastly gsa santa rosa playing water sustainability agency will be councilmember staff with an alternate of vice mayor mcdonald and for clarification so we can vote on it the alternates for continuum of care are kelly kaikendall and megan vassinger those complete my recommendations for the mayor is there a recommendation for the renewal enterprise district no these are just the liaison regional positions so the j-p-a-s i have to go through a single they each have to have a motion so these i can do all at once though yes come just for clarification there was something that i was serving on with councilmember okrepke could you repeat what that is league of california cities north bay league of california cities north bay i apologize i couldn't hear you with that i'll second air motion for these appointments is there any discussion by council and i will provide council members with a copy madam city clerk may we please call the vote yes thank you mayor one moment okay councilmember okrepke aye councilmember stat aye councilmember rogers aye councilmember fleming councilmember alvarez aye vice mayor mcdonald aye mayor rogers aye that motion passes with seven ayes for the joint power authority recommendations we will start with sonoma clean power authority and we have councilmember rogers with an alternate of councilmember fleming second madam city clerk can you please call the vote moving a little fast for my clicking okay and that was seconded by councilmember rogers yes okay councilmember okrepke aye councilmember stat councilmember rogers aye councilmember fleming aye councilmember alvarez aye vice mayor mcdonald aye mayor rogers aye that motion passes with seven ayes moving to sonoma county transportation authority regional climate protection authority we have councilmember rogers with an alternate of councilmember okrepke second madam city clerk can we please call the vote councilmember okrepke aye councilmember stat aye councilmember rogers councilmember fleming aye councilmember alvarez aye vice mayor mcdonald aye mayor rogers aye that motion passes with seven ayes next we have our zero waste sonoma formerly known as sonoma county waste management we have vice mayor mcdonald with an alternate with staff of jolly henwits and i'm looking for a second from council second madam city clerk may you please call the vote councilmember okrepke aye councilmember stat aye councilmember rogers aye councilmember fleming aye councilmember alvarez aye vice mayor mcdonald aye mayor rogers aye that motion passes with seven ayes lastly we have our red renewal enterprise district and we have council members alvarez and fleming with an alternate of councilmember mcdonald was that second by vice mayor mcdonald yes thank you may we please call the vote councilmember okrepke councilmember stat councilmember rogers councilmember fleming aye councilmember alvarez aye vice mayor mcdonald aye mayor rogers aye that motion passes with seven ayes we will now move to item 10.3 sonoma county mayors and councilmembers association city selection committee this item requires a two step process for a two step process to add it on to the agenda so i'm going to ask madam assistant city attorney to walk us through that process thank you mayor rogers you're correct this item did not appear on the city's preliminary agenda so as a result prior to consideration of the item we need the council by motion to find good cause to consider the item notwithstanding the fact that the item did not appear on the preliminary agenda in making a finding of good cause is the fact that the deadline for submission of the letters of interest from the various jurisdictions was february 13 and the city did not receive the letters of interest until the afternoon or sorry of january 13 which was after the publication of the preliminary agenda in addition the mayors and councilmembers meeting to make the appointments will be on february 9 and council does not currently have another meeting scheduled between now and then so staff would recommend that the council by motion find good cause to hear this item notwithstanding the fact that it did not appear on the preliminary agenda thank you thank you madam city clerk can we please take public comment before we put a motion on the table we're now taking public comment for item 10.3 if you are in the chamber and wish to make a public comment on this item please make your way to the podium i've not seen anyone make their way to the podium i do not see any hand raised in zoom nor do we have any recorded voicemail public comment on this item thank you may i please get a motion from one of the councilmembers to add this onto the agenda i'll make a motion to find the good cause for us to add this to the agenda and some context for councilmembers i think it was five years ago we actually missed one of these where we didn't have it agendized and then the mayor at the time Mr. Corsi could not weigh in in favor of his councilmembers who were seeking positions and we actually had one position that was tied as a result of only having eight mayors who could vote so i would make a motion to add this to the agenda to give instruction to the mayor second motion made by councilmember rogers and seconded by vice mayor mcdonald is there any discussion from council seeing none madam city clerk can you please call the vote councilmember okrepke councilmember staff councilmember rogers councilmember fleming councilmember alvarez vice mayor mcdonald mayor rogers that motion passes with seven ayes now we are able to proceed to item 10.3 I will read I will read that's a lot I will read all of the positions and the letters received and we will take public comment and then we will proceed so abag executive board we are looking for an alternate to fill a seat with what a term that expires in june of this year and we have one letter from steven zulman in sabastopol sonoma county architectural preservation and open space district citizens advisory committee we have one seat to fill which was vacated by a former councilmember and that term expires two years from the date of appointment and we have two letters received from toad lands who is from cloverdale and our own mark staff from santa rosa third we have the north bay division executive board with one seat to fill the seat was vacated by our former councilmember john soyer and we have one letter received and that was from jackie elward from run up park next we have our child care planning council of sonoma county we have one seat currently held by councilmember victoria flaming of santa rosa and that term expires three years from appointment and we have one letter and that is from the county council councilmember roger and that term expires february 2023 and we receive letters from melanie bagby of cloverdale and our own chris rogers of santa rosa and that is from the county councilmember roger and that term expires february 2023 and that is from the county councilmember rogers of santa rosa next is local agency formation commission we have two seats and plus an alternate to fill the seats that have been vacated and we received four letters of interest from sandra lowl of sonoma susan harvey of catari Zulman from Sevastopol. We have Sonoma County oversight board committee and we're looking for an alternate to fill that vacated seat and we have no letters received to date. We have remote access network ran board. One position must be filled by a mayor and we have no letters received to date. Lastly we have the Bay Area Quality Management District Board. We have one seat to fill and we have one letter received from Brian Barnacle from Petaluma. It is also recommended that if late nominations are received or if the city council committee or mayor and council members board recommends an alternate that the city council authorized myself or their designated representative the authority to vote on these late nominations or recommendations at the city selection committee meeting or mayor and council members association board meeting. Madam City Clerk can you please facilitate public comment on item 10.3. We are now taking public comment on item 10.3.1 appointments to the mayors and council members association various boards. If you wish to make a public comment on these item please make your way to the podium. I'm not seeing anyone make their way to the podium. Let me see if we have anybody on zoom. I don't see well let me see. I don't see any hands raised in zoom nor do we have any voice recorded voicemail public comment. Thank you. So we will start with our a bag executive board. I'm looking for a motion from council. Seeing none it looks like we will not be making a recommendation for the a bag executive board. We will be moving on to item 2 Sonoma County architectural preservation and open space district citizens advisory committee. Madam Mayor we'll go back if you don't mind. I'll make a motion to have you support Steven Zulman for a bag considering he's the only candidate or if something comes up because I know he's going from multiple boards give you the latitude to do whatever's in the best interest of the city while you're in the room making the decisions in the votes. Second. So we have a motion made by council member Rogers and seconded by council member Fleming. Madam City Clerk can you please call the vote. Councilmember O'Crepkey. I councilmember Stapp. I councilmember Rogers. I councilmember Fleming. I councilmember Alvarez. Vice mayor McDonald. I mayor Rogers. I that motion passes with seven eyes. We will be moving on to our next item which is Sonoma County architectural preservation and opens space district citizens advisory committee and we receive two letters of interest. I'll make a motion to support Mark Stapp from Santa Rosa for the seat. Second. We have a motion from councilmember Rogers and a second from I believe councilmember O'Crepkey. Any discussion Madam City Clerk can you please call the vote. Councilmember O'Crepkey. I councilmember Stapp. I'm staying. Councilmember Rogers. I councilmember Fleming. I councilmember Alvarez. I vice mayor McDonald. I mayor Rogers. I that motion passes with six eyes with councilmember Stapp abstaining. Moving to our next one North Bay Division LOCC executive board. We have one seat and one letter of interest. I'd like to make a motion to support councilmember Jackie L. Ward from Rotor Park to fill the seat of North Bay Division LOCC as an executive board member. Second. We have a motion made from vice mayor McDonald and a second from councilmember Fleming. Madam City Clerk may you please call the vote. Councilmember O'Crepkey. I councilmember Stapp. I councilmember Rogers. I councilmember Fleming. I councilmember Alvarez. I vice mayor McDonald. I mayor Rogers. I that motion passes with seven eyes. Next we have our child care planning council of Sonoma County we have one seat and we have one letter of interest from Steven Zulman. I'll make a motion to appoint Steven Zulman to that board. Second. We have a motion from councilmember Fleming and a second from councilmember Rogers. Madam City Clerk may you please call the vote. Councilmember O'Crepkey. I councilmember Stapp. I councilmember Rogers. I councilmember Fleming. I councilmember Alvarez. I vice mayor McDonald. I mayor Rogers. I that motion passes with seven eyes. Next we have our Sonoma Marin area rail transit commission. We have two seats available and it looks like we received two letters. I'll make a motion to appoint councilmember Rogers and councilmember Bagby to those positions. Second. I have a motion from councilmember Fleming and a second from councilmember O'Crepkey. Madam City Clerk may you please call the vote. Councilmember O'Crepkey. I councilmember Stapp. I councilmember Rogers. I councilmember Fleming. I councilmember Alvarez. I vice mayor McDonald. I mayor Rogers. I that motion passes with seven eyes. Moving on to our city selection committee we have the local agency formation commission. Two seats available in an alternate seat and we have four letters of interest. Sandra Lowe of Sonoma County. I'm of Sonoma. Susan Harvey of Katari. Jeff O'Crepkey of Santa Rosa and Steven Zulman of Sebastopol. Would anyone like to make a motion? I'll make a motion if you don't mind Madam Mayor. I think with a number of qualified candidates it's going to take multiple votes at the meeting. So my motion would be for you to support first and foremost Jeff O'Crepkey and then give you the latitude for your second vote to do what's ever in the best interest of Santa Rosa. I second. Madam Mayor I'd like to put a second motion on the table please of supporting Jeff O'Crepkey and Sandra Lowe. Then if it goes to complications giving you the latitude to do what's in the best interest of the city. I second that. We'll vote on the second motion first. All right so we have a motion from councilmember Fleming in a second from Vice Mayor McDonald. Madam City Clerk may we please take a vote. I ask a point of clarification. Do we need to name an alternate or are we giving the mayor the latitude to name the alternate based on how the voting goes at the meeting? With my motion I'm fine to give the mayor a full latitude to make on the alternate vote. Thank you. Councilmember O'Crepkey. Abstain. Councilmember Stapp. Aye. Councilmember Rodgers. No. Councilmember Fleming. Aye. Councilmember Alvarez. Nay. Vice Mayor McDonald. Aye. Mayor Rodgers. Aye. That motion passes with four ayes. Councilmembers Roger and Alvarez voting no and Councilmember O'Crepkey abstaining. Moving to our Sonoma County oversight board committee we have no letters and we have a vacancy for an alternate. Madam Mayor I'll make a motion actually for this one and the ran board if we can since there are no letters if a motion is made from the floor at the meeting that you have latitude to make a decision in the best interest of Santa Rosa. Second. I have a motion from Councilmember Rogers and a second from Vice Mayor McDonald. Can we please call the vote? Councilmember O'Crepkey. Aye. Councilmember Stapp. Aye. Councilmember Rodgers. Aye. Councilmember Fleming. Aye. Councilmember Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor McDonald. Aye. Mayor Rodgers. Aye. That motion passes with seven ayes. Lastly we have our Bay Area Quality Management District Board. We have one seat with one letter of interest. Would anyone like to make a motion? I'll have support for Brian Barnacle. Second. We have a motion from Councilmember Rogers and a second from Councilmember Fleming. Madam City Clerk may you please call the vote. Councilmember O'Crepkey. Aye. Councilmember Stapp. Aye. Councilmember Rogers. Aye. Councilmember Fleming. Aye. Councilmember Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor McDonald. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. That motion passes with seven ayes. It is also recommended that if late nominations are received or if the City Selection Committee or mayors and Councilmember's Board recommends alternates that the City Council authorize the mayor or the designated representative the authority to vote on these late nominations or recommendations at the City Selection Committee meeting or Mayor and Councilmember's Association Board and I know we did it for the two items but I just moved. Thank you. We have a motion from Councilmember Rogers and a second from Councilmember Fleming. May we please call the vote. Councilmember O'Crepkey. Aye. Councilmember Stapp. Aye. Councilmember Rogers. Aye. Councilmember Fleming. Aye. Councilmember Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor McDonald. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. That motion passes with seven ayes. We have no minutes to approve tonight so we'll go on to our consent items. Madam City Clerk can you please read the consent calendar. Thank you Mayor. Item 12.1 is a resolution pro housing designation program. Item 12.2 is a resolution fifth amendment to professional services agreement number F001275 with NWC Partners Inc. for grants management support. Item 12.3 is a resolution sixth amendment to memorandum of understanding number F001324 with the county of Sonoma. Item 12.4 is a resolution modification to the appropriation of the state of California Department of Housing and Community Development's infill infrastructure grant program funds for the downtown Santa Rosa qualified infill area for the capital improvement project portion of the grant. 12.5 is a resolution split bid award request for quotes 22-50 and issuance of federalized purchase orders for fixer cable and supplies to BNH international LLC and Anakster Inc. Item 12.6 is a resolution design build contract award and budget amendments for the fire station five resiliency and relocation project. Item 12.7 is a resolution approval fourth amendment to general services agreement F001690 Arbe cultural specialties Inc. Item 12.8 is a resolution approval of amendment to purchase order 166742 with day management corporation doing business as day wireless systems for maintenance repair and inspection services for existing communications equipment. Item 12.9 is a resolution approval of parking agreement with 10 E Street LLC for residential parking in connection with mixed use development. Item 12.10 is a resolution approval to extend the term and increase compensation of purchase order 166287 with northern coast officials association. Item 12.11 resolution fourth amendment to general services agreement F001904 to extend the term of the contract and increase compensation with Sonoma Dyne design apparel and promotions Inc. for temporary staff uniforms and camp sports apparel. Item 12.12 resolution approval of amendment to blanket purchase order 167656 to increase compensation with creams dismantling Inc. Item 12.13 resolution first amendment to agreement with work care Inc. for wellness services for the police department. Item 12.14 resolution authorizing submittal of a grant application to the California State Parks and Recreation Department's division of boating and waterways boating facilities grant program for the Lake Ralphine non-motorized boat launch facility improvement project. Item 12.15 resolution extension of proclamation of local homeless emergency. Item 12.16 resolution extension of proclamation of existence of a local emergency relating to the threat of community health posed by COVID-19 and item 1217 resolution making required monthly findings and authorizing the continued use of teleconferencing for public meetings of the city council and all the city's boards, commissions and com and committees pursuant to assembly bill 361. Thank you Madam City Clerk bringing it back to council. Are there any questions? Vice Mayor McDonald. I have a question on item 12.2 and then I'd like to pull item 12.7 under 12.2. My question is just simply do they actually write grants on our behalf or are they managing the grant to make sure that we are completing the application process properly as well as meeting all of our deadlines on reporting periods. I'm just curious what this particular contracts for. I'm happy to just jump in briefly on this one. I think it is a mix of kind of grant support and then some general written assistance as well more broadly but I know staff will I can promote more detailed explanation as we can promote Yuri Kozlin please. Yes can you please repeat the question? Yes my question was simply is this part of a grant writing process that we contract for or is it somebody who's managing our grants making sure that we're meeting the deadlines specifically on reporting and staying in compliance within the language of the grant. What does this group do for us is what I'm curious. NWC has a wide variety of background and knowledge around grants management and federal requirements. They do not manage our grants specifically. We have a grants manager who does that in the office but there are times where we need to augment our existing staff. This contract was one that's been a multi-year contract that we use less than you know 10 to 15,000 per year and and and so it's they're just simply meant to augment our the work that our team does. Just so I'm clear on what we're approving we're approving a $200,000 contract for somebody that we use when we need but we only pay for that contract when needed. We're not giving the $200,000 upfront. Okay thank you for that clarification. I see Jason nodding yes. Yeah and and just for a little bit more detail there the 96,000 of that has already been expanded so we're looking to extend the contract by another hundred thousand just as a means to prevent ourselves from having to over the part of the reason they there was additional amendments is that we had to we were doing small incremental amendments to the contract and this one's meant to save staff time and do and go ahead and do a hundred thousand dollar incremental or a hundred thousand dollar amendment to to enable us to not have to do some of the smaller amendments like we did in the past. Thank you. Are there any other questions from Council on the calendar? All right Vice Mayor. I'd like to move approval of items 12.1 through 12.6 and then 12.8 through 12.17. Second. We have a motion from Vice Mayor McDonald and a second from Councilmember Rogers but we are not going to call the vote yet because we're going to go to public comment so Madam City Clerk may you please facilitate public comment. Yes our first speaker will be Dwayne DeWitt. My name is Dwayne DeWitt. I'm from Roseland. I want to start at the end of this long list 17 items. I believe that it's important to try to keep the teleconferencing the hybrid meetings alive in the future as the governor is going to lift the lockout and allow meetings to be all in person. It's proven to be quite helpful to have these hybrid meetings and involve people from home. Back to the beginning 12.1 support this effort. I'm hoping that it will be something to make sure we get the housing downtown that you've talked about for decades. Support 12.4 also because that states that there's a chance to get infrastructure improvements downtown and I'm making sure that that includes Sebastopol Road out to Dutton Avenue which is now included in the downtown specific plan. On the 12.6 this I can't support this. This is so expensive. This is a hyper inflated construction project that doesn't need to be this big big boondoggle. This should be cut in half in terms of how much is being spent for this. You can get fire stations down here on Steel Lane like you proved at the old car wash in for just a couple of a million dollars. So this thing is really milk in the public trough. The 12.7 I want to speak on that when it comes up. Then as we go deeper into this idea of these long consent item situations of saying you've got all these items to speak on. In the past it was pointed out with the Brown Act and the Keen Act that it's important to have as much public input as you can get on these different items and yet you're loading the agenda so much with items that people can't speak on each of these because they know you only get three minutes and that just cheats the public out of the opportunity to really participate in these decision-making processes. The extension of the proclamation of local homeless emergency is very important. You've got people out on the Georgia Trail who are getting moved out today under force and that's something that needs to be spoken about more often as to what's going to go on to try to help to end that type of problem. The COVID-19 situation if you read in any of the scientific journals is become endemic. The scientists are basically saying they expect it to be here in the future and every year now we're going to be treating it like flu. It's with us for the long haul as a health care worker I think it's good that you folks keep these emergencies in place but you might want to say hey we're going to treat this now like the flu and we're going to do good things for COVID. Last but not least I want to thank the new mayor for doing her best to make sure and get Santa Rosa representatives on the various bodies. Thank you. I'm not seeing anyone else make their way to the podium and the chamber we do have one hand raised via Zoom. Joshua Shipper let me the host would please unmute him so he can speak. Okay can you hear me okay? Yes we can. Great thank you. Good evening Mayor Rogers council members and staff my name is Josh Shipper I'm the director of special initiatives with Generation Housing where we lead the movement for more diverse and more affordable housing. I just wanted to very quickly take a minute to strongly support Santa Rosa seeking the designation as a pro housing jurisdiction which was item 12.1. We are really excited that this status will open Santa Rosa to new funding opportunities for housing transit and infrastructure from the state and we believe there's a lot the city should be taking credit for. We also think that while the city's housing element process is still open the city can still add policies that meet that pro housing criteria before final approval so we really think this is the time to get those policies incorporated and because the designation is awarded based on a point scale the higher the points the more competitive your grant your subsequent grant applications are so we urge the city to seek maximum points where possible. The total number of cities that is that have been awarded the designation is adding up I think it's about seven as of January and there's more in the pipeline and the more awardees there are the more of a liability that lower score can be and that higher score will entitle you to to more funding in several of the grants so taking that time to develop a strong application will go a long way towards helping win Santa Rosa more funding from the state and there's just a couple of things we would encourage you as you begin this process we just ask that the council support the planning department staff as much as possible by committing to specificity and timelines on each of the proposed policies because maintaining that designation over the course of two years depends on enacting them and we also lastly just encourage you to reach out and begin a dialogue with the department of housing and community development their their input is great and they're really welcome to starting that dialogue so again we strongly encourage it and we thank you for your guidance host do we have any more hands raised via zoom there are no more zoom hands raised and we have no pre-recorded comments thank you we have a a motion on the table from vice mayor mcdonald pulling item 12.7 in a second from council member rogers if there is no further discussion madam city clerk may you please call the vote council member okrepke aye council member stat aye council member rogers aye council member flaming aye council member alvarez aye vice mayor mcdonald aye mayor rogers aye the motion passes with seven ayes vice mayor mcdonald would you like to put a motion on the table so that we can sort of see what discussion so we could discuss it yes thank you item i'll move item 12.7 second we have a motion on the table from vice mayor mcdonald in the second came from council member okrepke is there any discussion from council vice mayor mcdonald thank you mayor um so this particular contract reminds me of a contract that came to us last month about um contracting out for services that used to be potentially in house so my question to you is um this contract as i read it looks like it's for emergency surgery uh emergency surgeries emergency services and does it include any type of preventative maintenance meaning do they come in and and maintain our trees or do we have any type of preventive maintenance as part of this one million dollar contract can you guys see me okay i can yes we can thank you hi good evening council and members of the council i'm brandylin trammel i am your purchasing agent for the city of san rosa that's an excellent question vice mayor mcdonald and no it does not um in 2018 this was a contract that was let through a lowest responsive bid opportunity and the scope of work really runs around emergency services only and it's utilized by all city departments when they need to call upon it um we've just seen an escalated amount of service required of late as we all have endured the flooding and wind events of recent so there was an additional need here in the last several weeks so hence the reason to add an additional 300 000 for the funding looking back through the years it um the vendor has not increased their pricing and we were running about 150 or so thousand dollars a year in these services so the departments and their supervisors in those departments are the people who call upon this contract only when they need it thank you for that answer um i guess my question goes back to the same line of questioning i had last month where have we done a fiscal analysis to bring some of these services in home and if we look at that and we're looking at more of a preventative as opposed to reactive um to these types of emergencies because we don't have people going around consistently working on trees so um i could see us paying an inflated amount because it is an emergency at that point if we're calling people in versus do we have people on staff that are working on this consistently so have we done that type of fiscal analysis to bring these types of contracts back to the city of the savannah rosa and increase workforce that's also an excellent question um it wouldn't be in the purview of purchasing to actually do a study like that i am not sure if um assistant city manager nut is in the room or not the heaviest users of this contract are water capital improvements on occasion and wrecked park which has recently moved back into a different piece of the assistant city manager's portfolio so there is a year left on this contract and i'm not sure if that kind of fiscal analysis is underway within that division i thank you vice mayor jason nut assistant city manager so uh the the concept of evaluating internal versus contract is something that we're in the process of working with the finance department on in this particular case the type of work that that the contractor is doing is typically work that would be larger in nature than what our internal staff would do even if we were to bring it in house it's really difficult for some of the large trees that we have to either utilize work around remove um it it's it does require a certain specialty and a certain type of equipment that having internally is just going to be outside of our general purview like with other construction activities and so there is value in having a contract service so that they can provide those a higher level expert but we are in the process of evaluating whether or not there's some methodology to consider shifting some of our day-to-day services in house but we're not at that point right now and this particular contract provides the services that our staff need in order to make sure our community is safe can you give me a timeline of when we will have that analysis of when we'll be able to start having conversations about adding staff back in and reducing or getting rid of these outside contracts thank you for the question vice mayor at this time we're not assessing the tree contract we are going through some of our green space and weed abatement so we're taking those one by one but at this time this is not on the on the schedule so as we move forward i guess it goes back to this is my same concern that we are outside contracting on some of these services that i think we need to start looking at bringing back to the city of santa rosa and increasing our workforce so i will not be supporting this motion tonight because i think we need to stop adding amendments continuously to these contracts until we do that other work thank you any additional discussion from council before we go to a vote i know that we have a late public comment and i would like to give you the opportunity to speak sir if you thank you my name is no no no no no no we already did public comment on consent we have a late public comment pulled 12.7 off we did public comment on all of it he he is making public comment on 12 7 mayor since this it was pulled for separate okay um doing can we yes thank you right 12.1 hello yes sir um i want to address uh regarding the pro housing policies you have i want to address the downtown specific plan as related to the housing element plan you create the roberts district was created as part of the downtown stationary specific plan and it was given a density of six point of floor area ratio the moale property which is the same distance from railroad square as a roberts district and it has a two point of floor area ratio the roberts district is designated as part of railroad square however it is separated by railroad square by an elevated four lane freeway and it's separated from rosalind by a two lane street uh six point oh floor area ratio by definition comes out at 258 units per acre in the city will accept 50 percent of that which is 129 units per acre that cannot that is not realistic uh in construction costs the city of santa rosa and snoma county does not support the rental rates that would take to develop uh structured parking podium buildings at a two point of floor area ratio a one point would be acceptable and that would allow for a four four four to five story ground up apartment buildings with surface parking i'm proposing that blocks two and three which is the ones on both sides of roberts avenue in a roberts district or both sides of railroad tracks in roberts district be amended to a two point of floor area ratio and on those six acres we could get 250 apartments both affordable and market rate i've had developers walk away from the properties three times in last year because they cannot achieve the six point oh uh floor area ratio and especially it not being part of the downtown core or even in railroad square it's on the other side of two freeways from downtown um it's uh it doesn't make sense and if we built 250 units on this blocks two and three that would help incentivize a developer to come in with what will be required to develop block one which is a block in the corner of dunton and spass four road we could get incentivize a major grocery store like somebody like safeway to come in there and do the development which would contain structured parking and then we can stack five stories of apartments on top of that but as it sits now as i've been told by major developers here in san aroza we won't see development in the next 25 years at that zoning uh if we want housing built i'm proposing i can get 25 250 units built in the next two years if we could correct the zoning i know the zoning was done to satisfy the state elements uh uh right in the numbers but i need you to wrap up your three minutes and i know the clock up there okay thank you that was my spiel at this point in time thank you thank you we will now have public comment for item 12.7 mr duit vice mayor i think it's very important that we bring back our own arbitral team we used to have a lot of good people working to do tree care here in san aroza and due to budget constraints in the past we basically cut that department totally out and that's not a good thing obviously there's always going to be a concern about costs my concern today though is that this money goes out of the area these people from berkeley may be good at what they do but we also have good arborists and agricultural people here in san aroza specifically they should be the ones that are taking care of our trees and especially on the parks the parks team it's got a good young team they're doing their best to try to keep up with what's going on we should make sure and get as many young interns this summer people coming in through the teens especially the north coast conservation corps and the americore people get them working with us get a lot of this done for a lot less expense and you've got that for under a minute thank you thank you any more public comment in the chamber seeing none and seeing none on zoom madam city clerk may you please call the vote yes thank you mayor council member hi council member staff hi council member rogers hi council member fleming hi council member alvarez vice mayor mcdonald no mayor rogers hi that motion passes with six eyes and count and vice mayor mcdonald voting no thank you we will have our first public comment on non-agenda matters and then we'll move on to uh item 15 our public hearings so madam city clerk may you please facilitate our public comment on non-agenda items instead if you wish to make a public comment on non-agenda items agenda item 13 please make your way to the podium hello my name is de wayne de wid I'm from roseland the recent rain showed that stormwater retention is needed rosland creek is an excellent spot in which you could be trying to get grants and funding at both state and federal levels to do stormwater retention in that creek basin sonoma water actually owns a property at mcminne avenue on the bridge over rosland creek this is a spot where you could start to get county involvement to bring county funds forward to help with water retention and the cleanup of the stormwater remember this stormwater goes out to the laguna de santa rosa often it's polluted by uh pollutants that come from cars that's difficult to clear your unless you have some sort of slowdown of the water what's really important is that the toxic remediation that goes on with these types of situations has been a hold-up in the past to getting things done here in roseland we have a project up on sabbastopol road after the 2007 sabbastopol road urban vision plan that project came forward known as rosland village redevelopment toxic remediation has been the hold-up they have not been able to clear their situation with the regional water quality control board to get total clearance on the properties there think of how it would be in other properties if they don't get cleared up it's been almost 30 years since a group was put together by city and county local government officials also the state at the regional water board called the citizens cleanup coalition they came forward at that time to help work on these issues because of the junk yards in our area acme auto records west god's auto records and others that stormwater pollution was bringing automotive toxics out into our water and contaminated the underground aquifer contaminated wells created numerous problems which led to a red zone designation for a large group of roseland residents and their properties essentially redlined them and kept them in a serious dilemma so now we're here at this point where you folks could take the lead and say you know what we're going to reach out to the county some of water and say give us some money to look at that small little spot that you already own the water agency owns it in a sense it's their easement to work with you to try to limit that stormwater pollution and also go forward with stormwater retention approaches clear out cement from creeks do positive things to slow down the water flow out to the Laguna de Santa Rosa thank you very much I don't see anyone else making their way to the podium in the chamber zoom host do we have any hands raised in zoom there are no zoom hand raised and we have no prerecorded comments for this item thank you madam city manager may we please proceed to item 15.1 thank you item 15.1 is a public hearing the boat bowden annexation prezoning properties at 46 46 badger road and 999 middle rincon road uh senior planner monay and we'll lead the discussion okay thank you good evening mayor rogers and members of the council the item before you today is a prezoning for two monay can you put the microphone a little closer to your mouth thank you is it better now yes thank you so the project before you today is a prezone for two properties into r16 zone industry these two properties are located at 46 46 badger road and 999 middle rincon road both parcels are currently both properties are currently developed with a single family dwelling units and accessory structures there are no new developments proposed at this time and the approval of this prezoning would allow these two properties to annex into the city so these properties are located in north eastern corner of the city within a county island here is a closer look at these two parcels with existing single families and accessory structures and here is the prezoning annexation boundary map that shows two properties that are proposed for prezoning about the project history so in 2019 the property located at 46 46 badger road had a septic tank failure that needed to be replaced in order to make the residents habitable however sonoma canyon would not issue a septic tank permit due to the location of the septic tank being too close to the creek as a result the property owner had to apply for a utility certificate to be able to connect to the city sewer system in um november 2020 the utility certificate application was approved and sonoma canyon local agency formation commission also known as lafko approved an outside service area agreement with the condition that the owner needs to apply to the annexation the prezoning application was submitted to the was submitted by the applicant in 2021 and the property owner at 999 rincon creek also joined this annexation and last year in october 2022 the project was presented to the planning commission which recommended approval to city council as for above the general plan and zoning the general plan land use for both parcel is low density residential which allows a density range between two to eight units per acre and it's mainly intended for single family residential uses and this prezoning to r16 is consistent and would implement the general plan land use designation so the project has been reviewed in compliance with the california environmental quality act and qualifies for four exemptions staff did not receive any comments or questions about the proposed project and with that it is recommended by the planning commission and the planning and economic development department that the council introduce an ordinance to prezone the properties located at 46 46 badger road and 999 middle rincon road to the r16 zoning district and that was my presentation i'm available to answer questions if there are any thank you for the presentation council do we have any questions seeing none we will now open the public hearing adam city clerk may you please facilitate public comment if you wish to make a public comment on item 15.1 please make your way to the podium i'm not seeing anyone make their way to the podium do we have any hands raised in zoom on this item there are no hands raised in zoom and we have no prerecorded comment we will now close public comment seeing no members of the public that wish to speak i will bring it back to council to see if there are any comments seeing none council member flimming if you would please put a motion on the table indeed i'll move an ordinance to the council of the city of san aroza pre-zoning the properties located at 46 46 badger road and 999 middle rincon road also identified as assessors parcel numbers 182-120-034 and 182-120-035 respectively to the r-1-6 single family residential zoning district file number an x21-001 and waive further reading of the text second i have a motion from council member flaming in a second from vice mayor mcdonald madam city clerk may you please call the vote council member stab i council member rogers i council member flaming i council member alvarez vice mayor mcdonald i mayor rogers i that motion passes with six eyes with council member okrepki abstaining thank you for the presentation we'll be moving on to item 15.2 madam city manager item 15.2 winkler winkler annexation pre-zoning of property located at 1600 manzanita avenue um city planner christian we'll deliver the report thank you good evening mayor rogers vice mayor mcdonald and council members i'm here to present the winkler annexation pre-zoning annexation project file number an x21-002 at 1600 manzanita avenue this is to pre-zone one property for annexation into san aroza at 1600 manzanita avenue into the rr-40sr rural residential scenic road combining district and the action is by ordinance recommended by approval at the planning commission for the project history on october 14 2021 the application for utility certificate was submitted due to a failed septic tank and seepage pit and they were unable to locate another proper location on the property for a new one they then submitted a pre-zoning application in december of 2021 and it was then approved with a condition from lafko to annex the parcel to san aroza on october 13 2022 the planning commission adopted the resolution uh and is recommending approval to the city council to adopt an ordinance to pre-zone the property here is the project location in the northeastern quadrant of the city and here is a close-up aerial of the project site here is the current general plan and zoning for the site uh the county it's currently county rr b620 and is proposed to be our r40sr rural residential scenic road combining district um this is also general plan land use designation very low density residential this is the annexation boundary map and it shows the property proposed to be pre-zoned this is the street view of the project site the proposed project has been reviewed in compliance with the environmental quality act and qualifies for categorical exemptions under sequel guideline sections 15 301 existing facilities section 15 304 f minor alterations to land continuing on the next slide also reviewed under guideline section 15 319 a annexations of existing facilities and section 15 183 for general plan consistency at this time there were no issues identified and no public comments have been received uh it is recommended by the planning commission and the planning and economic development department that the council introduced an ordinance to prezone a property located at 1600 manzanita avenue as our r40sr which is rural residential scenic road combining district if you have any questions my information here is listed thank you thank you for the presentation do we have any questions of staff on this item seeing none we will now open our public hearing madame city clerk if you wish to make a public comment on item 15.2 please make your way to the podium i'm not seeing anyone make their way to the podium and it looks like we have one hand raised pablo wrote us the interpreter i think we may have someone coming on host can you please um enable pablo's um ability to speak yes hello council good evening my apologies for the interruption um in today's meeting however i was booted from my internet and i just needed to be promoted back into the interpreter room apologies for the inter inter interruption okay thank you pablo i thought we had somebody on the spanish channel wishing to speak so we do not have any other hands raised um to make comment on this item nor do we have any recorded voicemail public comment with no additional or no members of the public wishing to speak we will now close the public hearing and i'll bring it back to council to see if there are any comments seeing none council member alvarez if you would please put a motion on the table thank you mayor orders of the council the city of san rosa pre-zoning the property located at 1600 manzanita avenue also identified as excessors parcel number 181-030-005 to the our residential 40 sr real residential scenic road combining district zoning district file number a and x 21-002 and wave further reading of the text second we have a motion made by council member alvarez and a second by vice mayor mcdonald madam city clerk may you please call the vote thank you mayor council member stab hi council member rogers hi council member fleming hi council member alvarez hi vice mayor mcdonald hi mayor rogers hi that motion passes with six eyes with council member okrepki abstaining we will now recess for council to take a short dinner break and we will resume at 6 15 thank you it is now 6 15 and we will be returning from our recess and madams sing a quorum madam city clerk may you please call roll council member okrepki here council member stab here council member rogers here council member fleming here council member alvarez present vice mayor mcdonald here mayor rogers present now we will move on to item 14.1 madam city manager item 14.1 city council city council legislative advocacy policy lawn peterson chief communications and intergovernmental relations director will lead the discussion good evening the mayor vice mayor and city council it's a great to be here i'm excited to be presenting this particular item we've been working on this for some time and we're going to kick this off so i wanted to provide some background on this the city council has not updated this policy since 2013 in that time the city has formed the communications and intergovernment relations office in addition to that we hired a intergovernment relations and legislative affair officer in 2020 2021 we kicked off our first federal platform and then in 2022 we did both the state and federal platforms and we're back tonight to go over the policy in relation to this to to legislation the purpose this provides the mayor and city council with principles and directions to guide the position for the city of san rosa staff as well as the council on behalf of the city and it enables us to be nimble quick and sustain engagement in all areas of legislation in both platforms next slide so this this policy update provides us the ability to streamline our approval process process when taking official positions on policy also gives the mayor authority to policy positions and i want to just clarify if that proposed action is in line with the council's platforms and it also clarifies that the council will have legislative platforms in both the state federal on a consistent basis so with that the communications and intergovernment relations office recommends that the city council approve resolution updating the council's legislative advocacy policy 000.040 and that concludes my presentation thank you for that presentation i'm looking to council to see if there are any questions yes council member rogers thank you mayor a couple of quick questions a lot if you don't mind sure in the resolution i flagged two things one is to your point we've now created new positions in a new department at the city and we've built that into the resolution do we need to have any language in there that says or a comparable position just in case we ever go through a restructuring or if there's somebody else like the position hasn't been filled and maybe that's a question for the attorney instead madam city assistant city attorney thank you council member rogers um i to the extent that staff is comfortable with that kind of change in the rest of council agrees it's always fine to incorporate you know or or designate you know or as designated by the city manager by the mayor etc so yeah it can be a good idea because position names do change okay i'll probably uh offer that as a suggestion for what council should should change the second question was on uh one of the elements of it was we have to adopt the policy by december 31st or the platform exceeds me by december 31st and as much as i'm an advocate for that getting out ahead of it to be able to offer our perspective to members as they're coming in oftentimes we don't actually know what legislation has been introduced until the end of january or middle of february depending on like for instance the state's legislative calendar and so the question that i have and also every two years new members take their seat at the beginning of december can we or should we build in some flexibility there so that they're so that the mayor if asked to take positions on new legislation that's been introduced that we don't handcuff them by saying that we had to have approved our policy or our platform by december 31st does that make sense it does and my understanding it's a of that the physical year so it would be the entire year so i see so does it so if december 31st does it roll over to the next year then is that your reading of it yeah so it'd be like from now so like for tonight if we approved the policies i'm excuse me the platforms we would basically have the entire year to work on that and approve them so that gives us the entire year the flexibility last year we did the platform on the 25th so today we're coming in early a whole day early on the 24th we're crushing it with the platforms so but the intent is to to allow the entire year to to for that flexibility but i mean to your point we're really coming in at the early january to align with both the state and federal legislation so but we could amend it to maybe the first quarter or as you know adjust that language as needed to make it more clear yeah i think i'd be more comfortable if we set the date a little bit further out that doesn't preclude you from taking a position or the mayor from taking a position on bills but it would then remove the requirement that the council acts by a certain date in order to be able to operate the the platform okay do you just are you recommending then just to remove the date completely and just have it i'll say i'll say by goal setting would kind of be what i would say for council okay it will be added in the we can add it in the motion so you know what changes that we're making all right and this is his motion so he will add it uh council convenient convenient council member Fleming yeah so since we're talking about tweaks and adjustments here in this portion um so that perhaps we can prevent a series of friendly amendments and second motions i was just curious to know if there was any practical reason why the council couldn't be notified of might my notes are up here be notified of this of these letters as soon as they go out rather than in the council agenda packet if that would create any brown act issues more specifically i'm thinking like an item 14.1 legislative policy section c2h uh request something like at the end of the sentence and all members of the city center as a city council for informational purposes it just seems like odd that we would have to wait to see a legislative position until the next city council meeting agenda packet is issued so if i understand you correctly so you want to see the letters before they are submitted to uh either the state or federal uh or or as they are all right i'm just curious to know that would create a tremendous burden for staff council member Fleming can you clarify your ask yeah the the letters um when they're issued that the the the council would be copied on the letters at the time of issuance got it is there a problem with that occurring no not at all we can add cc's to all or all the letters yeah yeah that's what i thank you that's what we're just talking about too okay yeah that makes sense i'm in then in section c3 out of section under the any action letter position taken sorry i keep losing my notes thank you for your patience um any action letter or position taken by the mayor under this section should be reported out to the full council in a timely manner the purpose of this is just so the council knows what's happening when it's happening yeah okay thank you that's it yeah absolutely you're welcome vice mayor mcdonnell yeah i guess i'm reading um december 31st thinking that you have it as a proposal brought to us usually in january and that we'd have until the 30 no later than the 31st of the year that fiscal or that year calendar year i should say not fiscal year so if we're going on a fiscal year be different is there anything around like at the change of term for the mayor because it doesn't say how often this is brought forward is not what i'm seeing in this it just says prior to the december 31st of each year so we would be at the very beginning of the year if you're doing it in january i'm just curious when it's been done in the past and is that why i mean that it doesn't make sense to not keep december 31st to me because it's a that's a whole year to do it and that's fine and i actually i really appreciate your question because you looked at it completely different than i did that's shocking what i what i read when i read it was the legislative year begins the first monday of december and that we would have until december 31st to adopt the the thing so i can understand i can understand i read it as a calendar year yes and so that we would have time after the legislative session starts to be able to hear introduction of bills and act on those pieces of legislation but no later than the end of that calendar year you would be bringing it to us correct that's how it's supposed to be yes and it's it's i think it's meant to be annual and that it's timely without having to put a exact day that it has to be something our intent is to come at the beginning of the calendar year when the legislative session starts and be active so we did it last year on the 25th it's this year on the 24th and so we'll be looking annually to come back before council at the beginning of the year after we do our outreach to the department and to council with the platform and the updates yeah i'm i'm fine with not adding the amendment then my concern was really looking at it from a legislative calendar year standpoint to make sure that we had more than 30 days for for you all to analyze bills and bring us recommendations some bills don't even come out until february or march if they are trying to be just spot bills at the beginning of the legislative session and it's the concern what we like to um go to public comment so we can have put a motion one more question and then we can have discussion right now we're just doing questions thank you on the on the letters that are going out would those not be public comment already they're already um they're already to the public by then if you're sending them over to the legislature so there would be no violation of brown act correct correct they're already public record yes okay thank you it's getting pushed out exactly you're welcome all right are there any additional questions from council seeing then madam city clerk may you please facilitate public comment i'm seeing no one um in the chamber for public comment we have no hands raised on zoom and no prerecorded messages great um councilmember rogers may you please put a motion on the table and if we need to have discussion after we get a second we will do so yeah absolutely and thank you both lawn and scott for your work on this i will move the resolution with the two changes the first being uh that we add in or designate or the designate wherever we've referenced the zero position the second is a clarification that when the letters go out that council members perceive that information as well and i'll wait for the reading of the text second we have a motion from councilmember rogers and a second from vice mayor mcdonnell um is there any additional discussion all right madam city clerk may you please call the vote councilmember okrepke aye councilmember staff aye councilmember rogers aye councilmember fleming aye councilmember alvarez aye vice mayor mcdonald aye mayor rogers hi that motion passes with seven eyes thank you very much we'll be moving to item 14.2 madam city manager item 14.2 2023 federal legislative platform director peterson will also be leading this discussion and if you could uh introduce your team members please absolutely uh yes so uh joining me tonight is scott alonzo he is the legislative affairs officer for the city of santa rosa um we're going to be going over scott's going to take over this presentation uh in coordination with um our legislative partners scott oh yeah so let me do that real quick on the the platform um so the purpose of the legislative platform is to communicate the city's federal policy um and projects and priorities to the public our conditional delegation at congress and our federal agencies thanks scott um it also provides guidance and direction to city staff um and our federal representatives regarding the city's federal funding and priorities and so this really sets the direction as we've been meeting with you and getting feedback and putting this all together it allows the city staff to work on that i'm going to turn it over to scott um to take over the presentation and introduce um our legislative partners good evening mayor rogers and uh council members we have uh representatives from mmo partners joining us this evening from washington dc by zoom we have john o'donnell and karyakas pagonas who have uh worked with us for many years now and i will turn over them to go over this slide and introduce themselves uh thank you scott good evening uh mayor rogers vice mayor mcdonnell members of the council and city manager smith we're glad to be with you tonight um we've met most of you i think uh earlier this year or last year in july when we were there visiting but there are some members of the council that are new and we've not met so i want to take just a moment excuse me to um introduce ourselves uh our firm uh mmo partners which is stands for murray montgomery o'donnell partners has been in the business of representing local governments in washington dc since uh 1980 and at the start of our firm we represented four municipalities who we continue to represent since 1980 that's the city of albuquerque city of phoenix city of oxnard california and the city of oklahoma city uh we're proud of the fact that we've represented over that length of time and we have considerable experience uh in representing local governments and dealing with federal agencies and congress over that period of time uh we have a strong approach with both sides of the aisle here in washington which we have found to be very beneficial in terms of the work that we do with congress and with the administration whichever party is in charge of the white house and over that period of time i think we've built up a very strong record of a return on investment for the investment our clients make in our services so uh with that said i would ask our vice president karyakas begonis to take over the presentation uh thanks thanks john i think scott you were gonna go into the highlights is that correct yeah i was just going to touch on a few of these and karyakas if you want to jump into that'd be great as well just wanted to highlight a few of the overall funding that we received at the federal level through formula and competitive funding so formula funding is out funding that we get allocated directly to the city which is just over 64 million and just over half that was competitive you'll see there's some still some covet relief that we got last year and just wanted to highlight the sandman hotel reimbursement a 4.3 million that we worked with alan alton and his team on to get um mmo partners was instrumental in helping us move the needle with fema to actually get that money through the door and so that was a good success in early 2022 and then there was some federal legislation that we waited on you'll know there in the italics senate bill 3011 which allowed for arpa money covet relief money to be used for infrastructure projects so it brought in the definition which allowed that money to to be used for more things and we were weighing in on that we were active in those negotiations and then you'll see some information down at the bottom on wildfire resiliency we have that eoc earmark of one million dollars in there because we actually didn't receive the money until uh or congress didn't approve it until last march so even though we applied for two years ago congress didn't actually approve it until last march so there was a delay there just wanted to highlight some of the the emergency roadway recovery money that we received nearly five million dollars and then the fire act was passed and signed into law in december of 2022 that the city was very active participant in with senator pedia and his team to see that through the finish line and karyakis will touch on that as well during our presentation karyakis or john anything to add on this first slide okay great and then just some other uh these are all kind of formula funding allocations uh we did want to highlight the 4.3 million dollars that santa rosa city bus got for the uh electric vehicle replacement we got a 4.3 million dollar through the federal transit administration which some of you saw back in december when we did the ribbon cutting and city bus staff did an amazing job of securing that competitive grant through fta and ray tell us came out here our regional administrator to take a look at those buses back in december so that was a huge win for the city and city bus staff and then you'll note down at the bottom are water and energy resiliency through the water resources development act we received authorization for 19.4 million for water and wastewater infrastructure that still needs to be appropriated so that's a two-step process working with the army corps in congress but uh mmo and santa rosa water uh put together this application and and we were successful with congressman thompson uh who who spearheaded our request and then lastly our another earmark we were successful in 2021 in applying for but again we didn't get approval until last year was the federal earmark for in response so i just wanted to keep those highlights uh karyakis or john anything to to add on those the old Scott thank you the only thing i would add um not not not small is that you know the the highlights here uh really do represent i think a a team approach uh city manager when she came in in january was pretty clear with us about you know making sure that uh the city's positions were advocated for and without the the council's approval on on the platform and your advocacy and the great work of city staff and and last but not least obviously the work that the congressional delegation uh has done on behalf of the city over the past year is really why this is successful so scott thanks for for highlighting that okay and then i'm going to turn it over to to karyakis to go through our proposed federal priorities tonight and we can uh dig into that thanks scott mayor rogers vice mayor mcdonald members of the city council and city manager smith as lawn pointed out earlier this is the third time we were coming before you with a federal platform i'm very excited about that that's something that you know we worked with the city over the past couple years to really get this up and running for the first two years that we were working with the city was really on on recovery response and really being responsive to things coming at us this is really a step in a more proactive approach where the city has time to to really think about and be strategic about how it pursues federal policy changes and and advocate advocates for for federal projects so really excited to be here presenting this third iteration of of the city's proposed federal priorities the first of the seven sort of categories that you'll see is wildfire prevention hazard mitigation resiliency and recovery this continues to really advocate for legislation and funding that really focuses on mitigating and really being proactive on preventing impacts from disasters and also advocating for programs like the cdbg block grant disaster recovery program which right now is is really authorized or appropriated as as needed so there is legislation that was introduced last congress that will would codify the program as you might recall this this program was able to provide about in total over 72 million dollars for the city post the 2017 disasters 38.4 million of which was for multifamily housing and then 34 million was for disaster mitigation and recovery some of which I think are being used for things like your fire station five rebuild and other other projects in the city so it's a really critical program again there's been efforts to try to codify it and and we continue to to push for that advocating for funding for improvement in iPause integrated public alert warning system it's something that we've been working with the city to make sure that this system is is up and running and certainly you know responsive to changes in technology and then also last but not least as Scott mentioned earlier the fire act really did start was supported by Senator Padilla but really did start in Santa Rosa about a year ago when the senator met with the mayor with Mayor Chris Rogers at the time and Chief Westrop and city staff to to talk about and make improvements to to the Stafford Act and and really improve ways that which FEMA can help cities recover post wildfires and as we know certainly not the easiest process but have made some significant progress in making those changes which will start this year when when FEMA begins to implement the program so you know on the relocation assistance that's something that the city will have to continue to weigh in with FEMA as they again implement the fire act but again that's why this is on on the list for this year next slide please surface transportation is the next category and supporting of funding for the infrastructure investment and jobs act which you all probably know is the infrastructure bill or bill that you know was signed into law last year certainly provides a huge investment in transportation some of which the city is receiving the formula programs coming through the state and then through your regional partners other funding is coming through competitive programs like Scott mentioned through the through FTA the city did secure 4.3 million and currently additional funding for things like Herne Avenue and like pet over crossing so we're going to be continuing to to monitor those programs and as they come up we're currently working with the city to identify potential opportunities to leverage federal investments in infrastructure and transportation infrastructure in particular to build projects in Santa Rosa next slide please can i interrupt for just a moment and ask john to please mute himself if he's not speaking sorry we're getting feedback thank you thanks mayor under water and energy resiliency again i won't read this verbatim but calling for support and monitoring of regulatory efforts around water sewer storm water programs including the drinking water and clean water revolving loan funds both of which receive the a very big increase in funding through the infrastructure investment jobs act that funding comes through through the state and through formula but but also available for local governments to apply to the state to receive grants and or loans depending on the state's criteria continue to advocate for low income household water assistance program funding that funding was made first available through the cares act and then through ARPA which really helped low income households offset some of their water and wastewater bills during covid it's something that we've been working on with some of the national associations like NACWA national association of clean water agencies which i know the city is actively engaged with and it's something that will be continue to work with them and others to promote should the council support this this policy support for funding and resources for drought relief response support and community outreach and education included including grants and funding for the bureau and and EPA again those are two federal agencies we've been working with i know the city and city council member at the time mcdonald and mayor rogers met with EPA recently in november to talk about city programs and we also did meet with the bureau back in november and have plans to do so in the first quarter of this year to talk about the good work that santa rosa is doing to conserve water especially during drought i know you all have had some rain recently so that's good but we'll continue to reach out and advocate for for funding for programs that the city is doing in those in those two areas next slide please a climate change and sustainability again the city has long advocated for programs that reduce impacts of greenhouse gas emissions the white house certainly led on efforts in the congress passed the inflation reduction act which invests significant amount of funding in programs to help communities reduce their impacts on on air pollution etc something that i know the city has been certainly a leader on and we're certainly tracking those announcements as they come up right now agencies are are standing up programs as we heard from EPA back in november continue to support for funding for the energy efficiency and block grant program that's a program that was first stood up during the obama administration and funded again in the infrastructure investment jobs act department of energy just released allocations this is a formula program the city's allocation is about 210,570 for for this program and the the application process is is just beginning and i know the city is on top of that and will be applying to to receive that funding continue to advocate for funding to convert the city's municipal vehicle fleet to zero emissions including charging infrastructure and implementing the conversion i think the city is certainly looking at planning funding and and other funding to to help evaluate what's necessary to to do that conversion and we're certainly going to be focused on on that during the year next slide please housing homelessness and economic development again this is an area i know the city has and the city council has made a top priority this is continuing to advocate for formula programs like cdbg and home emergency food and shelter voucher programs and also a continuum of care which provides funding for homeless assistance to the cocs around the country i know the city's active in the coc locally and again this is an area where congress has invested and does continuously or has over the past two years increased funding for homeless assistance and the last piece of this is extending housing credits so low-income housing tax credit is a major program that you know helps communities build affordable housing that program did get an increase over the past couple years congress was trying congress tried to extend the increase for li-tech in the last congress but did not get around to it but will certainly be on the agenda for this year reauthorization of economic development administration programs specifically their public works program is is a competitive program that congress funds on an annual basis at various at various funding levels so we'll continue to advocate for for funding for eda and its public works programs which really do invest in things like expansion of water lines anything really that you can think of that would help small businesses in santa rosa either stay there or or expand and that's an area that we've worked with this with the city on trying to advocate and identify projects that might qualify and help small businesses in santa rosa there's a there is legislation that was not introduced last session but i think will be on the on the agenda for this year to reauthorize eda and also trying to include language that is responsive to communities that have been impacted by multiple disasters taking a lesson from the city next slide please public safety again this continues advocacy for federal funding to support safety and emergency response operations firefighter equipment and training community engagement and education police hiring and training and possibly fire station construction funding advocate for funding for community violence and gun violence prevention programs and seeking funding for public infrastructure including a regional training facility regional communications infrastructure like radio towers prime lab and other technologies to improve community safety in santa rosa next slide public health this is new this year i think because of the where we are with covid this was sort of more from our covid section last year into a public health section but really aimed at keeping funding in place that was appropriated by congress to local governments to deal with covid there there has been some discussion on the hill about looking at some of those funds and perhaps recapturing funding that has not been allocated so that's something we're watching closely in fact treasury department today reallocated some rental assistance funding that wasn't being utilized to areas that needed it and and we're using it so there there is a constant look at covid assistance and we're certainly keeping our eyes on that as well so with with that that concludes this portion of the presentation scott i will kick it back to you thank you karyakas i appreciate that very nicely done with that the communications and intergovernment relations office recommends that the council by resolution adopt the city's 2023 federal legislative platform and my self scott and mmo partners are available for questions thank you very much for that presentation looking to council to see if there are any questions seeing no questions we will now go to public comment there's currently no one in the chamber if you are on zoom and you would like to make a public comment please raise your hand seeing no hands raised madam city clerk are there any voicemails for item 14.2 there are no voicemails for this item thank you very much councilmember rogers can you please put a motion on the table uh yeah madam mayor uh i will move approval of the legislative platform i do have uh at least one suggestion i know other council members probably have some suggestions as well on amendments my suggestion will kick one council member out of the meeting so perhaps it's best that i bring it up after they get a chance to respond to the rest of the platform can councilmember rogers get a second a second that all right we have a motion from councilmember rogers in a second from vice mayor mcdonald any discussion before we begin discussion i just wanted to thank our team in washington for your excellent work and before we get into the the nitty gritty of it all and just let you guys know how much we appreciate all that you've done to bring dollars home it has been tremendously helpful to have your support and your partnership thank you thank you save my comments and questions until after chris works out what is sounds like you wanted um probably mr o'crapki to make his comments councilmember o'crapki um yeah i am i'm good with this presented the only thing out the one thing i wouldn't mention is um uh last year we had some help from congressman tomson in regards to ghost guns and and some crime fighting was stuff like that um under the public safety portion it will i know it's a lot more difficult at the federal level but is that something that we get to incorporate into there uh yeah we councilmember we actually just met with congressman tomson and atf last friday with chief gregan and had a great hour-long conversation and the congressman is laser focused on this and uh chief has pledged to work with him in the council to make some recommendations on funding opportunities that we may have available for technology needs uh as one area on ghost guns and atf also reviewed some regulatory items that they're working on at the federal level and in the congressman's pledge to follow that and hear our feedback so we had a very productive meeting and we'll continue those conversations with his team locally and in dc thank you are there any additional questions comments or discussion all right so we'll go into the discussion now if that works for you madam mayor and i did want to be respectful i know that we have a colleague who is a fire survivor who can't be involved in some of the discussions we have and so i appreciated giving an opportunity to have him weigh in on other things we do as a community we are still rebuilding and there is legislation that periodically comes up that is geared at helping people recover from multiple disasters uh and we had one uh recently it was hr7305 that was reintroduced uh i don't want to call out the specific bill when we talk about things on the platform in case it does change but the thrust of it was to follow the state of california's lead and not uh collect taxes on the fire victims trust and the dollars for recovery that are intended to go towards people recovering and so i think that it's our responsibility as a community to continue to support folks as they're going through and as opportunities like this pop up so how would we reflect that level of support within our legislative platform before you continue as this has been brought up since i am a claimant in the fire victims of pgd in the fire victims trust i should probably recuse myself yeah you can leave now okay thanks um yeah so we can amend the the platform to have some breath that would allow this type of behavior from the city to advocate in those aspects so i mean we can do an amendment or if we want to change the language or have something specific yeah i think calling out continuing to support people as they recover in some fashion because the other example that i'd give is that we have a lot of small businesses and nonprofits that took out additional loans during covid and if an opportunity popped up for us to advocate for uh those uh loans either not accumulating interest or being waived as has been suggested i want us to be nimble enough to be able to have the mayor weigh in on those conversations agreed yeah and i guess we could leave it a little broader to accommodate that and and not follow the specific bill but just follow the state's lead in these type of efforts that accommodate both residential and business yeah and i don't even think it needs to be uh state lead i'm i'm perfectly happy with i mean i trust the mayor that if she's supporting legislation that there's especially in consultation with staff that there's a positive impact on our community i'm very fine with that oftentimes i find we're ahead of the state okay um we could so i don't know how we write that that in there um but i'd be interested in that yeah i think we can work work on some language with mmo partners on the wildfire section and just add a new bullet uh there i think would be the cleanest way to to look at that perfect yeah and then curious this is uh really a question for you one of the things that sort of expected and we've talked about it a little bit is preemption legislation now that you've had a changeover in at least the house in terms of party leadership do we have anything in the platform that really speaks towards the preemption legislation and for the public uh what we do see sometimes is when states like california get ahead on issues whether it's climate change whether it's other uh things that are priorities seeing congress come in and remove our ability to do things differently and and one of the key examples that currently is being discussed is um uh of all ridiculous things gas stoves uh because places like san aroza have made the decision to build new housing uh all electric and zero carbon uh and so now we do see the potential for prison uh prison hey excuse me preemption legislation coming in to say no actually states and local jurisdictions can't make their own decisions about these sorts of things councilmember rogers yeah i i think there's some room here where we can you know perhaps add some legis language that would you know oppose efforts to preempt uh that would preempt local uh policies and uh authority to to do um you know policies like you just mentioned so i think there is some flexibility where we can add some language in here for sure perfect i really appreciate that and i did want to say thank you to to john to kiri akis you guys have been wonderful to work with uh especially over the last couple of years we've called on you a lot and you've always been there for the city so i wanted to say thank you wanted to say thank you to our federal partners uh as was pointed out to me earlier it's actually congressman thompson's birthday so it seems appropriate to thank him as well as senator pedia congressman huffman and everybody else who works on behalf of san rosa's residents so thank you guys thank you for your your efforts councilmember flue me yes thank you my thing is small um and probably not small to deal with but it's small in the grand scheme of things and i mentioned it when we spoke last it's about hud rules when i speak to landlords who would like to rent a section eight voucher holders one of the reasons they cite that they don't do this is because it leaves them fully on the hook for utilities and i'm hopeful that we can advocate with hud and staffers as well as our federal delegation to have some movement to change the the funding structure around that so that landlords might be more willing to accept section eight voucher holders and not be fully on the hook for utilities thank you are there any additional questions or comments from council vice mayor mcdonnell thank you mayor so i have a little bit more specific bullets throughout this document and starting on page two under wildfire prevention and hazard hazard mitigation resiliency um and recovery i have a bullet and you can word it any way you want but the gist of his gist of it is to advocate for funding that um we ask for additional funding to be appropriated for emergency areas such as parks to have proper bathrooms ADA compliance and to be properly equipped during emergencies so i know there's funding at the state level i'm not sure if there's any funding available at the federal level i'm going to ask that that be inserted in there when we've talked to partners at the state level there are municipalities that have gone after grants that help to prepare our emergency evacuation sites to be prepped and ready for that and i think because of all of the issues we've had in sonoma county specific we might be primed to be able to get those some of those grants but i'd like to have that inserted in this document and i'll ask for it to be done on the state one as well under surface transportation i'd like to add a bullet to work with the u.s. department of transportation and local schools on potential funding for safe routes to school programs and grant opportunities to increase safety for children to walk and ride their bikes to school to promote climate resiliency as well under housing and economic development i'd like us to add to support the child tax credit reauthorization and full implementation that was done under the american rescue plan that particular item has been suspended but it reduced child poverty by 40 percent because of the support that it did for families so i'd like us to advocate for that to be part of our platform because of how it supports families in our community and then under economic and uh development i have also um well that's the same one sorry about that increase awareness and promote increased funding to child and adult care food programs ca cfp summer food service programs and community food systems to promote use of local foods in the national lunch program for children to support our local agriculture and businesses and those would be my additions that i'd like to see us incorporate in this document as we move forward on our advocacy work thank you are there any additional questions or comments seeing none madame city clerk can you please call the vote yes assistant city attorney could i just make a quick clarification in terms of the motion that is on the table and what changes are being incorporated into the policy if you don't mind i was just is does the motion incorporate all of the changes i want to make sure that we're capturing the the full scope here yeah so i'll make sure so what i heard was uh for me the general support for fire victims and small businesses and nonprofits who are recovering uh preemption legislation i heard from councilmember fleming hud regulations i heard from council excuse me vice mayor mcdonald uh the emergency services funding in parks and other areas uh the child and adult food programs the safe routes to schools and then the child care tax credit renewal and and i know that uh vice mayor had some specific language and so i don't know if you want to capture that or if it's captured on the video and we can put it in later whatever you want to work with so it's a motion to kind of modify the um the policy in those key areas and delegate authority to staff to incorporate the um verbatim request and then also in the areas where we don't have a verbatim request to be able to kind of add the bulletin as as staff sees appropriate to accomplish council's objectives yeah i'm just quickly going to look to staff and to our lobby team to make sure that doesn't create any unintended consequences for us to include these i don't see any i mean this you know this platform allows us to support oppose or watch um it doesn't mean we have to take action so we can look at all these particular things and if it's something that we see and allows us to look at those and we see that it's to everything that council has asked for we can bring that forward and look at it evaluate it and take action as needed and and mayor gives you enough flexibility okay yes cool yep sounds good for the motion then madam city clerk may we please call the vote one moment council member staff i council member rogers i council member phleming i council member alvarez i vice mayor mcdonald hi mayor rogers hi the motion passes with seven eyes six eyes with uh council member okrepki abstaining okay we will be moving to item 14.3 and if i can ask staff to uh let council member okrepki know that we are moving on to the next item madam city manager may you please introduce the item thank you item 14.3 2023 state legislative platform director peterson peterson is uh i'm going to deliver the report thank you thank you city manager uh i'll wait for krepki see that as a way thank you we'll just wait one second we can proceed thank you you're welcome thank you all right so we'll be going over the uh state legislative platform now the purpose of this platform just like the federal one is to communicate to the state's policy and projects and priorities to the public state legislative delegation and our state agencies it also provides guidance and direction to see staff and to our state representatives regarding city state funding and policy priorities that being said i'm going to turn it over to scott to introduce our state legislative advocates and partners good evening mayor rogers and council we have sharon with us from reny public policy group in sacramento she is here by zoom and uh wanted to introduce sharon and she can go over this slide and then we'll jump into some of the highlights in the platform hi good evening madam mayor members of the council sharon consolvis i'm the director of government affairs with the reny public policy group um we came on board with the city in the fall of 2021 and really we hit the ground running in terms of developing and updating the state's legislation the city's um state legislative platform meeting with your department heads and really took um were very active in um this past year um we're a relatively new firm but all of us come from local government my colleague dan hutchings was the labor and employment lobbyist for cal cities i worked as a capital staffer for 10 years before um lobbying on behalf of primarily local governments and um our newest colleague elissa still hi she came to us from the special districts association as well as having just served a term on the city of lincoln city council and really with um between our team we really have a strong hold on all issues that are important to local government such as housing and land use which has been huge the last couple of years um public safety revenue and taxation as well as governmental operations and um also we've got um senior advisors most notably dan carrot has spent 30 years with cal cities and provides a lot of technical expertise in um negotiating um funding opportunities through bond efforts great thank you sharon for that and uh we're just going to go over some quick highlights and then jump into uh the proposed 2023 platform you'll see that on the state side we're very active on policy matters we waited on 22 pieces of legislation in 2022 our ppg and our staff tracked 675 bills so just a wide variety of legislation from solid waste to affordable housing to public safety to wildfire mitigation so just a tremendous amount of areas we're tracking um in the good news for the cities that we achieved the desired outcome on 18 of those 22 uh measures so some of that was supporting legislation some of that was seeking amendments some of that was uh opposing um the other one to highlight here uh is our state earmarks um we were very successful working with our state legislative delegation senator mcguire assembly member wood and then assembly member levine uh securing 12.5 million dollars in direct state earmark requests certainly that'll change this year with the proposed budget deficit that we're seeing in sacramento um but last year we had a much different situation so uh we were able to seek funding for uh the new fire station eight uh the rosalind library and then a water um with for santa rosa water a program to expand their uh high efficiency appliance install project uh which is great so that was from assembly member wood uh for 1.5 million and we're working with the state agencies to now secure the funding so uh that's taking some time through the department of finance uh because they just presented the governor's proposed budget just a few weeks ago so that's what they've been focused on uh but we've been tracking that down to ensure that we get that money in the door this year uh sharon anything else you wanted to highlight on this slide not on this slide okay great well i will turn it over to sharon these uh slides like our federal slides are not the entire platform these are just some of the highlights from each issue area but you have a copy of the the complete platform as well before you so i will turn it over to sharon to run through uh some of these key areas great thank you well um you know just to kind of rehash what's already been said um the legislative platform really serves as a living document that we review every year we want to make sure that it's a reflection of the current council and the city's priorities and it's a very collaborative process so we've been working on um potential updates since the end of session in september of 2022 meeting with members of the council as well as every department to really um ensure that all the statements that are in the platform are still relevant um things that have been achieved we try to update and um just edit it to a point where it actually um impacts the city and reflects the work that you guys are wanting to do and again we try to keep the statement somewhat broad so that it allows the city to be nimble in taking positions when things are moving really quickly so in terms of wildfire prevention and recovery hazard mitigation resiliency we looked at all um all aspects where hazard mitigation and recovery is necessary including um earthquake hazard mapping policies and funding um that would help further the city's community wildlife protection plan looking at ways to minimize the frequency of the electric power electric utility power shutoffs it's been raining for like a month straight but we do live in california and understand that we do have um year-long fire season and then looking at supporting legislative and regulatory efforts to um minimize those psps shutoffs um and then i did make a note of um vice mayor mcdonald's comments regarding emergency evacuation so i don't have the full platform in front of me but i will make sure that we've got something along those lines included in there and then the next slide regarding administration human resources and risk management we always see um a number of bills in this area so um one of our priorities to support legislation to advance workplace diversity equity inclusion belonging we had this in our platform before but we added the term belonging in order to make sure that it's um as inclusive as possible and then um always looking at supporting legislation and advocating for the fiscal health of the city and its um pension obligations going into budget deficits you have to really look at what kind of responsibilities the state is going to be throwing at low at the local government on the local level and then um lastly the last priority is to really just you know make sure that we're looking at regional efforts to increase efficiencies and decrease costs and that includes fire services so um under governmental transparency and public access this has been a huge topic um really i think covid brought to light the um how we could do remote meetings and how it can increase public access definitely expect to see some efforts again this year we're already um hearing rumblings about various proposals of how that might be addressed so we want to make sure that we um the city has the flexibility to have public meetings and be able to provide access to community members in the ways that allow them to fully participate also looking at opposing any kind of legislation that incentivize increased litigation a lot of times you'll see bills introduced that have um you know a right to um a right to litigate as a means to kind of negotiate things down but it still ends up being very problematic so we keep a close eye on those as well as um legislation pertaining to the public reference act but on the next slide um under economic development looking to support funding mechanisms with economic development tools not just to entice businesses to come in but really anything that can further um the other thing the other types of incentives that bring businesses and including housing child care and things that are important to employees looking to support policies that encourage working with other cities and counties and government agencies and really developing economic clusters as well as looking at incentives that would preserve and enhance a favorable business climate climate under environmental climate change and sustainability there is um it's been a huge priority for the administration as well as the state um every kind of every policy really has climate change as an umbrella over it so we're looking at um you know climate adaptation plans looking at combined benefits of air quality water quality housing infrastructure and public public health and how they all combine together um also looking for supporting funding opportunities for transportation housing and economic development and um electric infrastructure upgrades the purchase of clean fleet vehicles this one has been a huge priority but also because of the deficit it's one of the areas that are being subject to some of the largest cuts so this is something that I anticipate us working on quite a bit this upcoming year and then lastly maintain the enhanced local authority and economic flexibility where solid waste and recyclables are concerned with the implementation of SB 1383 there's been some delays with it I think everybody's looking to comply the best way possible and that means maybe not a one-size-fits-all necessarily if you could go to the next slide please under water quality and water supply your water department works really closely with aqua and as a result we have a large um we do a lot of work on the water end looking to increase the availability and funding for water conservation water reuse technologies recycled water water storage ground water storage um I think what's our priorities really encompass is the fact that it's not just one solution that identifies water supply that it's really a mix of a lot of different methods and then approving streamlined approval and permitting processes advocating for funding to support the continued operation of the Potter Valley project and provide protect that water supply and the resiliency of fisheries and then like I mentioned working with the coalition of water agencies um for various um appropriations to different funding programs housing and land use planning this has been a huge issue we've seen well over 60 bills and I think in the last two years being signed um in this regard um some of the city's priorities the city is a good actor on housing they are looking for multiple ways to develop really kind of in that transit oriented downtown manner that the state really is trying to push so under our priorities we have strengthen local agencies legal and fiscal capability to prepare adopt and implement plans for orderly growth um all these laws don't mean anything if things just kind of get hung up and then new housing is being built support legislation and housing measures to preserve and rehabilitate existing affordable housing create efficiencies within CEQA to help support local discretion and planning efforts to limit delays there's actually already been a bill introduced in this regard that we're going to be taking a closer look at and then also supporting legislation that lowers the state's cannabis excise tax under homeless Smith um looking to increase funding for ongoing operations of permanent supportive housing although we have a deficit the governor's proposed budget does still have this as one of its primary focuses with a lot of um with funding still going towards some of the key homeless programs additionally under priorities it's to increase state funding to prevent and reduce homelessness specifically in santa rosa and sonoma county looking at mental health and substance abuse needs of a person experiencing homelessness that helps with the ongoing cycle and then allowing local flexibility for those state funding programs under recreations in parks looking to advocate for non-competitive per capita funding where um cities and local agencies are granted um funding in order to deal with deferred maintenance of their existing parks also looking to support housing related parks program which is a great program under hcd that used to require that neighborhoods had parks and then oppose policies that um would have road funding for community service programs that would negatively impact outdoor spaces natural resources any kind of thing that really promotes physical activity and people getting outside and then under public safety um really the city's done a lot of great work in this realm so i want to continue to advocate and strengthen community-oriented public safety policies looking for looking at addition being able to hire additional police officers whether it's violence prevention programs gun violence prevention um funding and initiatives i expect to see a lot of that this year as well as the issue that we discussed in the previous item regarding um 3d printing and the selling of ghost guns um also looking at seeing if there can be um advocate for increased funding for um something specifically for in response that would benefit the city um there are some programs through the department of justice that we are going to advocate for and then also continuing to support policies that increase the accountability and transparency of law enforcement agencies and personnel under fire and emergency services um this has also been a pretty hot topic for a number of years we've talked about it a little bit already but continuing to support efforts to improve the coordination of the psps events so that um residents and businesses they all aren't just left literally in the dark um looking to encourage regional collaborations where firefighting efforts are concerned that includes hiring firefighters as well as emergency operations personnel and paramedics and then an issue that always seems to come up every year but to continue to advocate for local control of emergency medical and ambulance services under transportation and public works really to increase funding for all transportation projects this means not just your standard um streets and roads resurfacing projects but also transit oriented um capital projects zero mission buses charging infrastructures by glane sidewalks um all areas that have are being proposed to be cut right now and are already very competitive as far as grant funding goes and then advocate for policies for equitable access for transportation system users and make sure that there's funding for those disadvantaged communities as well as support policies and regulatory efforts to preserve net neutrality increase the funding for broadband including middle and last mile expenditures and then under public health we wanted to broaden it a bit it was very um last year when we were working on this we made a very covid specific because there was a lot of funding tied directly to covid as we come out of it we still have mention of covid but um wanted to include or a state public health emergency so should there be any other type of public emergency it does not hinder the city's efforts to receive direct or flexible funding and then also advocate for assistance to communities to help with emergency response operations related to a public health emergency um specifically vaccine distribution and testing great thank you so much Sharon really appreciate I know that's a lot there's a lot of activity going on in this space and we're very active as Scott mentioned the amount of bills being tracked this year and we can we're looking to do the same um for this year um with that the communications and intergovernmental relations office recommends that the council by resolution adopt the city's 2023 state legislative platform if there's any questions myself Scott or our um legislative partner are happy to answer any of those or take amendments thank you very much for that presentation and I'm looking to council members to see if there are any questions councilmember rogers thank you so much Sharon good to see you uh you touched on it a little bit with open government and I'm just wondering is there any appetite in the legislature to really deal with um accessibility with the brown acts and I know folks have brought forward different uh proposals on how we might be able to maintain some variation of I am trying um I will say so one third of the legislature is brand new so we have a lot of members um as freshman members that don't want to tackle this um subject matter largely because the assembly local government committee the chair and the lead head consultant it's a non-starter for them they weren't even happy with ab 2449 from last year um because they don't want to touch the brown act at all that being said we've passed legislation where they want more diversity on boards and committees and commissions and usually it's those positions that feed into council positions but it's really hard to get folks to do that if they can't be remote um so one of the efforts that is being discussed is to make it on a non-decision making level um I do think that if we don't have any kind of efforts this year it's really a lost opportunity because we've shown that you can increase public participation you can conduct remote meetings and um you get more folks involved in the government yeah I appreciate that and there's a an interesting juxtaposition like our our council not too long ago had somebody who was on maternity leave and had to post the agenda to be able to participate including their address at the same time the legislature's introducing bills aimed at uh understanding threats and violence towards elected officials so there seems to be a disconnect there but thank you for answering are there any additional questions from council councilwoman plumi yeah I did have a question um there was a line in there that says um you know basically anything that reduces local control over employee relations issues or mandates newer enhanced local government employee benefits um and then another line that said drives up the costs of municipal elections I mean this is all kind of in the weeds but I'm wondering can we get some examples of what it is that we're we're fighting against here sorry just to clarify you're talking about on page three under opposed legislation for the administration section yeah yeah I'll I'll start in the chair and if you want to jump in you know there were some bills uh last year related to emergency services there was a senate bill that was going to try to mandate uh when employees either had to report to work during a disaster and so that was a bill we were watching and concerned about so some of that language would address our ability to watch that type of legislation and potentially weigh in that was a senator dorazo bill and so I think that was that was one avenue we were we were worried about there um and you know I think it as when we follow local government the assembly local government committee they're oftentimes proposals through that committee that may impact a local government's ability to offer benefits or impact current benefits so that was just language there to cover that potential scenario okay that was actually the example I was going to use as well Scott yeah unfortunately on that on that dorazo senator dorazo bill the bill did change so it was amended pretty significantly and the sit we were okay with those changes and so was cal cities I mean there was numerous local government coalitions watching that bill as an example and unfortunately those amendments were agreed to and it was improved okay and then on the drives up the costs of municipal elections what what was the example on that one sorry to put you on the spot but I know um make sure that we're that was yeah that was language we actually had in last year we kept it in I don't know if the city clerk has any comments on that but my understanding was it was just in relation to the California Voting Rights Act and any sort of state mandates through that in terms of how we would administer any local election without state reimbursement okay so the state wants us to perhaps better adhere to the California Voting Rights Act and for financial reasons we're thinking about opposing that it's a possibility it's just something that we would we've we've seen in the past so it was just safety language for us to evaluate that if we were to come up again yeah and while I really appreciate our opposition to unfunded mandates that's one that I'm you know based on principle I think that we ought to consider removing the the language around municipal elections there and just ask that where where there is regulation about it that the state strongly consider adding funding to support the legislation or regulation rather than opposing it flat out okay okay yeah we can we can remove that okay thank you I don't know Sharon do you have any other comments on that no I was gonna um say the cleanest thing would probably be to remove it rather than get too much in the weeds and if an issue did come up it's something that we can bring to council sounds good thank you thank you are there any additional questions or there's no questions all right we will now go to public comment we have no members of the public in the chambers at this time if you are on zoom and you would like to make a comment please raise your hand seeing no hands uh madam city clerk do we have any voicemails for item 14.3 we have no recorded comment for this item thank you so much bringing it back to council council member rogers can you please put a motion on table sure I'm happy to move approval of the legislative platform for the state with one change I'd like to add in a bullet point on the public safety section to reflect our efforts around sideshows and supporting the folks who are trying to corral that we've we've seen that as a significant issue and I think we should definitely make sure that we fully call that out that's my motion and then I have a couple of comments when appropriate second council member rogers did you also want to incorporate or the subtraction of the language that council member Fleming proposed or yes I saw that as a given but thank you for asking thank you all right so council members who has comments vice mayor mcdonnell thank you mayor just like the last document if you just start on page two under wildfire prevention and recovery hazard mitigation and real resiliency I'd like us to add a bullet to address the state insurance commissioner riccardo lora about the cancellation of fire insurance and rates for those that are living in the wooey and ensuring that we focus on a fair market cost to fire insurance for those living in the city of santa rosa it's been a problem since the cow fire maps have gone out specifically in my district so I'd like us to make sure that we're advocating for that and then also just like in the last document I have advocate for funding for additional funding to be appropriated for emergency areas such as parks to have proper bathrooms and to be properly equipped for emergency use in the event of an evacuation so same language as before just under that same bullet under um let's see under um administration human resources and risk management I hadn't and I don't know if this is the appropriate place for it but I have to advocate for full funding on mandated programs required by state or any government agencies I'm not sure that we get um fully funded for the mandates that the state is requiring for us so I'd like us to start advocating for that they require it they should pay for it and I'm not sure if that's how it works but we should still ask under economic development I have several of them around early childhood education one is to support and advocate for increased funding for childcare early child care programs and increase funding for those in early childhood education industry to advocate and support legislation that incentivizes those going into the child care and early childhood education industry by supporting their education and expanding opportunities for those seeking a career in that industry to support and advocate for full funding for all educational programs impacting families and children to support and advocate for all children and adult nutritional programs to support early childhood literacy and advocate for funding for local libraries and funding for family engagement programs that support literacy and biliteracy programs on page six under water quality and water supply I'd like to advocate for funding for infrastructure improvements at all city water sites under land use planning and housing advocate for a redesign of legislation of redevelopment money under public safety and police to increase funding for restorative justice programs that impact children and youth under fire and emergency services to advocate for funding for infrastructure and building a new fire stations under transportation work with local schools and advocate for safe routes to school grant programs to support children and families walking and riding bikes to school and that's it through the mayor can I ask a clarifying question to the vice mayor for thank you for for the land use section on the redevelopment agency can you just clarify in terms of like restarting that or a new new redevelopment yeah I'd like them to go back since it's not something that they currently do they've gotten rid of it it's not working they're requiring us to do things but I think what we need to do is redesign how it's done and distributed so we need to advocate that we bring that back for something that could work now we need to start talking about it so unless we start advocating for it it's not going to happen okay thank you thank you are there any additional comments from council members I just have a quick clarifying council member oh crepe key yeah I just have a quick clarifying question for the vice mayor in regards to Ricardo Lara the insurance commissioner to the dy what was your request so some of our community members are getting their fire insurance cancelled and their fire insurance is coming back more than doubled than it was last year so I'd like us to advocate with the state insurance commissioner that we address this issue there were things that were done specifically during the emergencies but that has expired and so I think we need to work with him on perhaps a state stepping in to put a cap on how much their fire insurance could go up or address that when the state is making the maps updated that the people in those communities aren't suffering because they're of an unintended consequence are there any additional comments or questions from council saying none I just have one and I believe it's on page for economic development I would like us to advocate for and or take a look at transitional child care programs the income level seemed to be very low so it definitely puts some of our families in our community in a bind when they're not able to afford child care so transitional programs seeing no additional questions or comments we have a motion and we have a second madam city clerk may you please call the vote and for the record I accepted the suggestions from my colleagues thank you council member staff I council member rogers I council member alvarez council member fleming I vice mayor mcdonald I mayor rogers I the motion passes with seven eyes thank you thank you very much yeah moving to item 14.4 this item has been moved to our February 14th meeting so we will not be addressing that item we have completed our public hearings for the night we have no written communications and we will now go to our last public comment on non-agenda matters item 17 there are no members of the public in the chamber if you are on zoom and you would like to make a comment please raise your hand seeing none and there's no voice mills so it looks like this meeting is adjourned thank you so much