 Okay. Ready? Ready. Okay. All right. It's just after one 30 and we are going to get the meeting started. And, uh, Bonnie, if you don't mind taking the roll call, Vice Mayor, Council Member Newsome is absent. Council Member Brown is absent. Council Member Watkins. Here. Uh, Brunner. Present. Present. Vice Mayor Golder. Here. And Mayor Keely will be absent as well. All right. Having established a quorum, we're going to go ahead and get started. And I want to thank everybody for attending this study session. We're super excited to have our, um, uh, a special study session just on our dynamic coast to help better understand the adaptive management and help guide our work around West Cliff. Um, we've received a lot of feedback from everybody and especially around, uh, neighborhood traffic. We're not going to touch on that today, but that's something that we can address in the future at future meetings. Today's update is going to be, um, I also like to is going to be, we're going to have the Fairlawn Strategies Group here and we've got staff here. I also want to acknowledge Claire Glogley. She's in the back and Matt Starkey who's out on paternity leave who's attended a lot of garage neighborhood backyard meetings with the neighbors understanding, um, the implications of what's happened with the temporary closure. And as far as one way, two way, no way, that's not what we're here to talk about today. That's something we'll have plenty of opportunity to debate in the future right now. We're just going to look at what's in front of us and some exciting things, uh, moving forward. So with that, I would like to, um, I think we are going to start with the staff, right? Yes. Staff is next. Laura, come on up and start the presentation for us. Thank you. Thank you. Vice mayor Golder and council members, Laura Schmidt, your assistant city manager. I'm very excited to welcome you all and all of our community members here and online to our study session. And we're going to be talking about our dynamic coast and adaptive management strategies. We'll take a little bit of a look back on West Cliff and more the point though is to learn about adaptive management strategies because they will be a foundational knowledge base for decision making for our dynamic coast and more specifically West Cliff. So it's very important for us to have this foundation as we move into the 50 year vision process, which you directed us to do back in May. And with that, I would like to very much. Welcome all of the staff and thank the staff who are the amazing integrated project team around West Cliff, which involves many city departments. Some of who are represented here during the presentation portion of the study session, as well as Feralon strategies are consulting partner in our roadmap and vision processes. So with that, I'm going to hand it over to Michael McCormick, the founder of Feralon, and he will take it from here. Thank you. Thank you, Laura. Such a pleasure to be here. Vice mayor, council. So today's study session, we have a little bit of the history of West Cliff. Obviously, we've heard a fair amount of that. Recently, there's plenty of publications around us. We won't spend too much time there. We're also going to talk about adaptive management and adaptation pathways. So there's a couple of philosophies, but also mindsets about how to deal with uncertain futures. And so much of our dynamic coast, what we're facing is that there are some knowns and there's some unknowns. It's easy to make decisions when we have a lot of knowns in front of us. We have good data. But when we're thinking 50 years out, like with our 50-year vision, we also have an understanding that there'll need to be decision-making frameworks that are grounded in the unknowns as well. So things that will happen in the future that are not knowable now, the timelines maybe aren't knowable. And so part of what we want to ground you in today is that some of that decision-making that you're going to be making in the near future is grounded in those unknowns. So I'm Michael McCormick and then I've also got my amazing team members here, Jim McKenzie and Pratee Rosen, who are supporting this work in partnership with city staff. So I want to take it over to the first step, first slide here. And we have a meeting purpose in front of us, which is a really about kind of understanding the dynamic coast and adaptive management with a primary purpose of enhancing the ability to engage with the community. To kind of understand some of the decision-making around that. And there's a lot of acknowledgement and recognition from our regulatory agencies and partners and coastal management partners that there is decision-making and uncertainty that's required for future-based policy decisions. So some of this will ground us in that. So next slide. And one of the things we have to do, which is probably my favorite slide of all slides, is definitions. So some comic relief in our day-to-day. And these definitions that are in front of us around erosion and armoring, the living shoreline and resilience, these definitions in front of you now are based in kind of authoritative documentation. So it's the state of California adaptation strategy, the safeguarding California plan, and it's in part of the coastal commission definitions. So we have this unique situation where some definitions are used in some cases and some definitions are used in others. And what we're finding particularly is so many grand opportunities are in front of us from NOAA, from FEMA, from Army Corps, to the Coastal Commission partnerships, to other activities. That these different agencies, whether it be state or federal agencies, use different definitions for different things. And oftentimes a grant application the city is writing for one thing won't have the same definition for something as a grant application that's going into another agency. And so living shoreline, for example, is an example of nature-based solutions. And nature-based solutions you've heard a lot about over the past six months or so, eight months, is one of the most complex definitions because there are so many of them. And really and truly what it means is that nature is playing a role in restoration activities, in management activities, and there's a lot of different ways to build on that. And so one of the things that we're looking at doing with the 50-year vision is further defining that for the purposes of the city. What does it mean for the city to have nature-based solutions as a part of the portfolio of options ahead on the vision, on adaptive management, and also in relationship to this dynamic coast? How do we work together with nature to manage our coastline? So we'll go to the next slide. And this isn't a question that's new, right? 50 years ago, 1963, is one of the times where we had 20 different failures along West Cliff. There's plenty of clippings going back further than that, and certainly since then. And there's a recognition that West Cliff has been changing in time and memorial. Oftentimes we are grounded in our current reality, but also acknowledging 50 years from now, thinking 2075. That's exactly 50 years ago, back to 1963. So we're having some of the same discussions that they were having in 1963 about managing the coast, dealing with erosion. At that point, they were talking about two feet of erosion per year in some areas of West Cliff and certainly other parts of the city. And all across California, there's been significant changes to the coastline over the decades. And so one of the things that we're trying to do through this longer term visioning is do what we can to understand what the modeling shows us about that. Understanding it's not going to tell us everything we need to know. So we need to put some systems in place to allow us to make decisions without the full data now to make those decisions. So we're trying to prepare and be proactive about the disasters that may come and help reduce the number of disasters. While also being able to make informed decisions following disasters and really be proactive and support long term resilience as a part of the recovery efforts. And this has been a big part of the discussion over the past eight months, but really getting ahead of that in future scenarios. So next slide. And obviously there's an inflection point this past year where there was significant damage. Some of the places that were impacted previously were impacted again. There were also a number of locations that were already on the list to be repaired. Funding was not yet available. Planning was in process. Design was in process. However, the storms got ahead of us. The storms got ahead of us and hit these points again. And a few of these places were some of the same areas affected back in 63 and previously. And so it's a chronic issue in some of these areas about how to maintain that infrastructure longer term. While also acknowledging there's real limitations to what the city can do based on regulations from the Coastal Commission, based on state requirements, funding limitations is a very real issue. Things that maybe the state was funding back in 63, which was basically a one quarter city share, one quarter state share, 50 percent federal share of some of those recovery efforts may look different in the future because of policy changes that are taking place now in the state and federal government to shift the burden on longer term resilience away from federal and state coffers back towards local government. So, you know, some of these are some of the more complex discussions that we'll have in the next six, eight months as we're leading towards that 50 year vision. There's a recognition that although we have policy constructs now that sometimes we're able to lean on for recovery efforts, those same policy constructs and funding of avenues may not be the same in the future. So we need to think about alternatives to that and really help create a resilient funding source here locally as well. So a couple of key documents and policies, I think you've heard this before and obviously as the city council, you've seen the vast majority of these policies come through, these documents come through, but also acknowledging some of the decision making by the city was adopted by previous councils. So we have a long history in the city of Santa Cruz on being a front runner, on sea level rise, on climate change. There's global recognition of city staff and city policies and programs around climate change and how effective the city is dealing with climate change. While at the same time, nature serves us a curve ball at times and as well as the city is in thinking about the future, also getting ahead of those environmental conditions is really important. So the West Cliff Drive Adaptation and Management Plan recently produced after a significant amount of public engagement and a really robust scientific and database analysis process is a really critical part of this evaluation of the current policy within the city. We also have the local coastal program and a really active coordination happening with the Coastal Commission right now on partnership. It's not just about them being a regulator, but they also want to be a part of this solution. So they are aware of a number of really significant and valuable case studies across the state and nationally, and they really want to bring those resources in. And then the local hazard mitigation plan, which staff is currently updating to reflect the current reality of Santa Cruz, but also the current policy requirements of California Office of Emergency Services. And then there's the West Cliff Public Works Plan, which was intended to really create a container for bringing all of those prior emergency permits that has been processed forward into a state of agreement with the Coastal Commission to be able to create a launch patent for future initiatives in the city in agreement with the Coastal Commission. So there's a lot of work happening behind the scenes. And I'd like to hand it over to Tiffany, Tiffany Wise-West, to talk a little bit about some of the things in process and how some of these documents are connected to each other. Thanks, Michael. Good afternoon, Council Vice Mayor. So I wanted to just touch upon quickly the West Cliff Drive. What the goals of the West Cliff Drive Public Works Plan were? Michael mentioned one of those, and that was to resolve the emergency repair permits. There are a number of them that are outstanding, that need to be resolved with the Coastal Commission. So that was the first goal. The second goal was to get on top of the maintenance and bring kind of level up, level set, all of our infrastructure, whether that was stairwells, repairing riprap. And then lastly, the third goal was to set forth the options that were available to us on different segments of the coastline on West Cliff Drive for the future, knowing that we had incomplete information, regulatory uncertainty, in some cases lacking community support. So the intent of West Cliff Drive was a living document, a starting point, that we would need to be continuously revisiting, and as we saw with what happened at the beginning of the year, that's happening right now. Also on the local coastal program, that is being amended right now to, or being updated rather, to include a Beaches and Bluffs chapter, which is a new chapter in that plan. Right now it's at Coastal Commission for informal review, but you'll be seeing more of that towards the end of the year. And then as Michael mentioned, we are also updating the local hazard mitigation plan and climate adaptation plan. And one of the benefits of doing that right now is that we're able, this is so important to align across these documents so that there aren't conflicts in policies and programs and projects that are set forth. The last thing I'll mention is that between the West Cliff Drive Public Works Plan and the local coastal program, they actually share objectives that were developed with the community, with council, with our technical advisory groups, and the Coastal Commission, importantly. So I wanted to make that clear because that is a really solid foundation for us to work from both with our community and the Coastal Commission. I'm going to pass it back to Michael now. Thanks, Tiffany. Next slide. And, you know, just to highlight the ongoing complexity of policy development in the state of California is there is always one to two, maybe three or more documents in progress by city staff in order to meet compliance timelines. Many of the efforts in the city, the policy documents have three, five, seven-year policy update cycles. So not only do we have these plans that need to be connected to each other and cross-connected and cross-referenced and internally consistent, but there's also this constant evolution of those documents to reflect state policy updates, federal policy updates, funding pathways for that work, because let's recognize the policy doesn't get implemented unless there's funding available to do it, whether it's general fund revenue or special funds or grant funds that are coming in from the outside. And that's just a reality of not only do we have a dynamic coast, we have a very dynamic policy landscape, and many of the regulatory agencies are constantly updating their own policy guidance on how to meet those regulatory mandates of those agencies. So it is a constant conversation. And also recognizing that in the world of the city of Santa Cruz, there's a jurisdictional boundary. You have authority over a certain area. Climate does climate change, extreme storms, atmospheric rivers. They don't really care about geographic boundaries so much. And so the reality is there's this leakage out across the jurisdictional boundary into the ocean down below the mean high tide line out into neighboring communities into the county. And there's multiple organizations and collaborations working across this region and across the state to start grappling with some of these consistent, really challenging vexing issues that not just the city of Santa Cruz is dealing with, but all communities in coastal communities in particular in California. One is the Regional Climate Project Working Group, which Tiffany is the co-chair for, working across the three county, San Benito, Santa Cruz, and Monterey region to help support large-scale funding opportunities in the region. There's the Central Coast Climate Collaborative working across the Central Coast all the way down to Ventura trying to understand opportunities to work together to create a more resilient coast, to decarbonize, to build relationships and partnerships. And then there's the Alliance of Regional Collaboratives for Climate Adaptation, which is a statewide body working together across so many of the collaboratives that have developed and emerged from this needed collaborative landscape of problem solving around this vexing future state that's really hard to nail down. And so through that there's this really wonderful trusted partnership across the state of people working together to solve challenging problems. So some of the work that's going into the 50-year vision, some of the work that's gone into some of the local policy around adaptation resilience has emerged from some of those partnerships. So when we talk about the May 23rd direction from the City Council on doing interagency partnerships, some of that is being built through those existing collaborations that are already there, and some of it's being built through new work that's happening as a result of both disaster and the funding opportunities that have emerged recently around climate and resilience. So next slide. So when we talk about our response to the 2023 storm impacts, there's a long list you've heard about this update a number of times, but I'd like to invite Nathan up to give an update of where we are now and to talk a little bit about where we are in the response to the storm impacts. Good afternoon Vice Mayor, Council members, members of the public. Nathan Wen, Director of Public Works. I just wanted to give a brief update with regards to the storm response, the efforts that are underway. As you may recall, we've taken out four info wall projects out to bid in July. Unfortunately, contractors were really busy and we weren't able to obtain a contractor in early July. We are now actively engaged with two local contractors to receive proposals by the end of this month to receive with those four info wall projects and we'll provide an update once we get those proposals in place. Another project that is out there is the Bethany Curve Colvert. That's also underway. The design is going to be presented to you guys at a 30% level in the next meeting, council meeting. We'll be seeking authorization to bid that project as well. Both those projects, as far as the timeline goes, is that the info walls will likely be constructed starting this year. We hope to have it in place before winter begins. While the Bethany Curve Colvert is a much more complex project, we are still waiting for FHWA funding and it will most likely start in spring of next year. With that, I will pass it on to back to Michael. Great, thank you. Next slide. One of the things that's been really active over the past eight months is development of interagency coordination. The formalization of the city council's direction to staff in May has really helped us lean forward into this interagency coordination role, especially in partnership with other organizations within the city that are working actively to position Westcliff and the coast as an important part of our recovery efforts and a focus of state and federal activities. I want to highlight that you see the day-to-day activities of how we might coordinate with our state and federal partners, but a lot of the behind-the-scenes piece is how we work with them in the future. There's a number of proposals in place with a number of these organizations to bring resources, bring capacity into the city, and we're hopefully going to be able to make some announcements here in the next couple of months about those resources able to flow into the city and into the region as well, acknowledging city Santa Cruz not in a vacuum. And through that work, we're going to be also helping to implement and stand up some of that interagency coordination formalization that you asked for back in May 23rd. So next slide. And I think at this point I'm going to hand it over to Tiffany to talk a little bit about our adaptive pathways and adaptation... adaptive... jeez. Even we get it wrong when we live and breathe this stuff day to day, but adaptation pathways and adaptive management of a dynamic coast, there's a lot in place in Santa Cruz already. Like I mentioned, Santa Cruz is a national and global leader in this work. It's been recognized in journals, recognized in some recent papers that have come out. So the policy constructs that are in place here are being used already by other jurisdictions in other parts of the U.S. and other parts of the world. And UCSC has been able to convene in partnership with the city global discussions around sea level rise and how we work together moving forward. And it's a really important note to stand from the cities in a wonderful position on the implementation side once we're able to move forward. And extreme storms require us to implement quickly. And so the implementation that happens in a more stepwise and thoughtful and informed way is so important to the work ahead. And so a lot of the work that's taken place in the past couple of years, Tiffany will talk about its position in the city really well for post-disaster recovery and long-term resilience. And this work right now is really helping to build the bridge to that future state from where we are right now. So, Tiffany? Thanks, Michael. So, hello again, council and vice mayor. So what you see on the screen here is I wanted to share with you that, you know, we know that with climate change we're going to see increased severity, increased frequency of coastal storms, sea level rise is going to exacerbate that, and we could potentially see more damage, right? Well, what I wanted to show here is that we have a really good understanding actually across all the segments of our coastline of where our vulnerabilities lie. This is a web page with, we call it our story maps, where folks can, this has been live since all the work that we did to develop the West Cliff Drive Plan and the LCP amendment. And it contains for each of these different segments what it might look like in terms of erosion, coastal storm flooding and sea level rise over time. Now that over time is the question mark, right? Like how quickly is this going to happen? We also lay out in these story maps the different options that are available to us. What are the tradeoffs with those options in terms of the medium to long term? And it actually has a place in there where people can vote for what they're interested in. And this has been in place for some time. So this is a great tool and I suggest the community also take a look at this because this really helps to understand the vulnerabilities that we do have. And if you could go to the next slide, please. For example, on West Cliff Drive, the zone two, which is, you know, this greater Mitchell's Cove area, you'll see here, and I know this is a bit difficult to see, but you see a kind of navy blue line that's running almost through the middle of West Cliff Drive there. And that's projected to be at the end of the century under a business as usual scenario, what erosion could look like. You also see on the screen here known hotspots. So 50% of West Cliff Drive is armored. And many of those hotspots are in areas that are either not armored and maybe have a sea cave or some other kind of drastic erosion, or it might be revetment or riprap that's deteriorated and failing, right? So we have a good understanding of our vulnerability on West Cliff Drive. Next slide, please. But again, the timing is an issue for us, right? Because we don't know when this is going to happen. And this is why we're utilizing the state recommends and it's considered best practice to use an adaptive management approach. You can consider that synonymous with adaptation pathways. Adaptation pathways is the phrase that the state utilizes, but together they are a framework, a structured framework, and I have to really emphasize that it is iterative. Every time we're doing a next step project at the city, we have to revisit our coastal management and how we're making decisions, that decision-making framework. So this is a structured iterative process of decision-making in the face of uncertainty. It does require monitoring, which we have designed and are in the process of deploying a coastal monitoring network so we can monitor what is the rate of erosion and what is the critical point where we need to advance to a next step strategy. So we use that monitoring then to promote understanding and improve subsequent decision-making. So this is all data-based and data-driven, but again, it's really important that it's iterative in nature, that every time we have a next step project, we're revisiting our approach. Next slide, please. And how this really plays out, this is a slide that you've seen before. Again, that West Cliff Drive Zone 2 at Mitchell's Cove. You saw this earlier in the year, where it laid out the various triggers and thresholds or conditions under which we would need to go on to a next step strategy. Now, this is a draft in nature, so this isn't something that, you know, we've exceeded all of these different triggers and thresholds. We're not necessarily retreating from the coastline right now, right? Because this is all in draft format. And we need to continuously revisit it, especially with this opportunity that we have today. But one thing I want to say about this also, though, is that while we have these different options built a seawall retreat from the coast, there are other options that we've called out. But again, we need more technical information, we need regulatory certainty, and in some cases we need to build community support for things in the future. We know, for example, that the Coastal Commission in the longer term is going to want us to peel back from the coastline. And that's going to take some time to figure out. That's going to, you know, and we need to make sure that we have the right indicators in place for transitioning to that and that we're doing the work that we need to do to be able to make data-driven informed decisions. I think that's all here, and I believe I'm now going to pass it back to the vice mayor for any discussion that you all might have. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Tiffany. Thank you, Michael. And thank you, Laura, for that really robust and information-packed update around West Cliff. We appreciate that. And I just want to bring it back to us to see if anybody has any questions at this time. Okay. I have a quick question for Nathan. When our public works director, can you just remind me what FHWA funding is? Yes, Federal Highway Administration. We're going through the emergency relief program. So we have an EO and emergency opening with them for the four infill walls that has been approved. At this point, we're waiting for the approval for Bethany-Curved Colvert. Thank you. Thank you, Nathan. And Council Member Watkins, you have a question? Yes, thank you so much for the presentation that's really informative. I guess my question was around the three plans that are currently existing, and there's inconsistent elements within each of them. Is there one that's an overriding document that would be sort of the superseding decision point, or I know that's why we're here, right, to align those, but I'm just curious in terms of how that's been handled or kind of where the hierarchy of those fit potentially. If there's an answer to that, there might not be. Tiffany can add some more detail to this, but largely the city's land use is guided by the general plan and guided by the local coastal program. So in the coastal zone, the local coastal program is the primary document, and that's what has to go through the Coastal Commission review and approval process. So that allows the city to make decisions, most decisions within that coastal zone area. But the general plan is the other overarching document. And then there's multiple layers under that as well. Once you get down six or seven, it's down to the budget and the capital improvement program. But I don't know, Tiffany, if you want to add anything else to that. I'll give an example. So that's exactly correct. A really concrete example of this is that in the West Cliff Drive plan, we call out a mechanism by which we can improve, say, revetment or whatnot without necessarily having to go and get a permit from the Coastal Commission. However, we do not have that codified in the local coastal program yet because it's under revision, right? So we can't go forward with that kind of an approach until it is codified in the local coastal program. So chasing the alignment, because things are on different time horizons, whatever the Coastal Commission's got queued up definitely affects our time horizon. So it's difficult to keep these all perfectly aligned in lockstep. Sure. I understand. I have a couple more questions. So one of the things that you said I think, Michael, was that there's a policy shift occurring from really looking at local jurisdictions coming up with long-term solutions. And this is being dictated mostly by the states and feds saying we're not going to come in and kind of give you the money to repair. So what are you doing to plan? Is that accurately capture what you were getting at? I think there's... So the nuance is that natural disasters are increasing in frequency and intensity. And so the federal and state funding to help support that work is just not able to meet the demand. Gotcha. And so what we're facing is that local governments are really winding up holding some of that extra baggage. And it's taking a really long time. As you all know from prior briefings, it's going to take two to three years to get cost recovery for this most recent disaster from the FEMA and FHWA. And in some cases, some of that funding won't be recovered. And so there's a longer-term consideration about this expansion of natural disasters, the greater dollar amounts that it's taking, and the role of the federal and state government in post-disaster recovery efforts. And in fact, the flood requirements for flood management standards at the federal level are increasing as are the ownership costs of private property in the recovery of what we call repetitive loss. So when there's multiple losses to a single property, the federal government no longer bails you out. And so the flood insurance costs are going to be going up. We've already seen in the state of California, for example, insurers have completely pulled out of new policies in California, particularly in high wildfire risk areas. Other parts of the country, for example, Florida, there's multiple large insurance companies that have pulled out of Florida entirely because of their flood risk and sea level rise risk and storm risk. So one of the things we're trying to think about in the future is, okay, if our private partners through insurance fall away, what is left available to us to ensure our properties, to ensure public spaces, to make sure that government can function effectively at the local level without having to take on all of those costs themselves? So right now we're still in a place where our state and federal partners are providing the bulk of recovery funding, but that may not be the case in the future as those dollars just aren't available at the state and federal level with the increases in the number of natural hazards and natural events. Okay, no, I appreciate that. And then just my last question, just because I want to make sure I was clear what I heard, which was essentially that the Coastal Commission is looking at ultimately to retreat methodology. I mean, that's their position. Is that accurate? Because that's important to know. Well, so Tiffany and I are both involved in a number of different groups at the statewide level discussing kind of some of the proactive policies and how we address this emerging reality of the Coastal Commission restricting, rebuilding on the coast. Many of the coastal permits that they issue now has a condition of approval that says if there is significant erosion, you're required to deconstruct the structure that you've built on that property, on that private property. There is some legal ambiguity about where things go in the future. There have been recent court cases of recent challenges to some of both the retreat mandates and to a local coastal plan and local coastal program considerations that they're pushing out. So there's a little bit of a, we're in a regulatory amorphous environment while those legal cases work their way through and we certainly don't know what's going to happen in the future in that case. But right now, yeah, the policy of the Coastal Commission is really to disincentivize hard armoring of the coast, promote adaptive management and in some cases, retreat nature-based solutions that can allow for flexing the coast out and in depending on what the weather systems and the climate looks like at that time. I don't know, Tiffany, based on your conversations, if you have anything else to add to that context. So I think the other important thing to remember with the retreat conversation, in addition to the regulatory context, is that there are trade-offs if you don't retreat, right? We state in the West Cliff Drive plan that our pocket beaches, if we continue to armor, we're not going to have its beach or Mitchell's Cove. So those are the, we have to also think about the trade-offs and the cost of armoring. You know, this how and when we get there and how this all plays out remains to be seen, but there will come a time where the cost of armor, we will not be able to bear it, right? And there are these other trade-offs with ecosystems and with access to the beaches. So that's the one other thing I would add on retreat as like their rationale as to why they want to pull back, they want to see us pull back from the coast. I guess my only other follow-up comment or question around that is that it seems like that's also kind of coupled with the lack of insurance companies to ensure and then the federal agencies not having enough funding for the amount. So it seems like if I'm putting that together and you were to predict that would be the direction. Okay. And just, I mean, I guess my only other comment and I won't go off too far, Tony, but you know, we did, we were involved in a lawsuit associated with big oil, essentially knowing that they were contributing to climate change and not having this fall on local tax dollars. And we'd like to see them step up too, or I would, so I'll leave it there. Thank you. Okay. My colleagues questions, sparked some questions for me. I'm sorry if you already mentioned this, Tiffany, and I missed it, but what is the timeline for the approval of our local coastal program? I think that the plan and I don't know if Lee Butler's here, but I'm pretty sure that the plan is to submit near the end of the year at the beginning of January. And then we have a second amendment that's also in progress through a Coastal Commission grant, which is also going to help us to codify the adaptation pathways approach. So there's two things that are happening. One, the beaches and bluffs chapter that's happening through an LCP update right now. And then a second amendment that needs to be done by the end of 2024 to codify this adaptive, adaptive management or adaptation pathways approach. Oh, go ahead. Yeah, and quick follow-up on that, too, is the 50-year vision that you've asked for as a council to be delivered by the end of the year, January 24. We're hoping we'll also align with the review and approval process of these other plans. So if we can fold that 50-year vision work into the comprehensive policy updates that are taking place right now, we have a very clear pathway that allows decision-making by the city independent of the Coastal Commission while the Coastal Commission is clearly blessed a pathway forward. And so if we can come to alignment and the implementation pathways to get to that vision, then this is kind of an alignment of STARS opportunity in the next six to nine months. I have two more questions. So the... I'm just trying to... I see a gap with what Coastal Commission is saying in terms of coastal access versus retreat. So, I mean, how... I don't even know how to ask the question. It seems like they are contradicting themselves when they want us to create a coastline that is accessible to the community, yet their overarching policy is managed retreat. We have regulatory uncertainty right now. And it's happening... I mean, that's an understatement, but, you know, so I think how this is playing out is on a case-by-case basis. And as we work through this local coastal program amendment in particular, we should have more clarity on that. But, yes, there is a lack of certainty on what's allowable with this overarching kind of philosophy that they have. Lee's got some opinions. Thanks, Tiffany, and hello, Vice Mayor and Councilmembers. Lee Butler, Director of Planning and Community Development. The one thing that I would add there is there is a distinction in the way the Coastal Commission looks at public access. Public access versus private access. And when we're talking about public access, there is a greater willingness to look at alternatives that may include things like armoring. However, as Tiffany mentioned earlier, the Coastal Commission also wants us to look at what are the implications of that armoring? Because protecting public access in one location through armoring may mean that the sand is not migrating down the beach and that could have adverse effects on public access farther down. And so it is complex and it is unclear. What we're trying to do as part of our local coastal program is put in place policies that are broad enough to have opportunities to adapt over time to the new information that we receive and also call for those studies so that we can be continually informed over the lifetime of that LCP. And just to the prior point about the LCP, I just want to be clear that that will be coming to the Council before we submit it to the Coastal Commission, both the beaches and bluffs hazards section, which will probably section off and do in advance of the larger LCP update, which we will be presenting to the Council at a later time. Thank you. You're welcome. One last question for now. Michael, you spoke about the interagency coordination and that we're going to start to engage in that process. Can you just share a little bit more about what are the steps and what does that look like? Well, one of the first, so there's a couple of different angles. There's the regulator angle. There's the funder side of things. And then there's the collaborator, co-creator, co-developer of solutions. And then there's the implementation side too, which can bridge all three of those. There's specific state and federal agencies that have particular topical expertise and access to resources that we can leverage. And I don't know if you could bring that slide back up that has the state and federal partners on it, all the logos. Because what slide is that? Like 11 or nine, something like that. Seven, slide seven. And so the first step after our, the city's been actively involved with state and federal partnerships for a long time. So this isn't something particularly new. The focus of the discussion is a little bit different now because the post-disaster dynamic created a opportunity for the city to step forward and say, look, one, we need help. We need help from the funding side of things. But with your direction in May, we're also looking at how we can activate these relationships to support greater capacity and resource flows into the city, not just through asking them for support, but through ongoing partnership opportunities. So what we've been doing is we've been interviewing each of our state and federal partners, meeting with them individually, understanding their capacity to support and engage with the city. In some cases they said they don't have the capacity to engage regularly, but they can engage periodically or on request. Others said they would love to be part of a focus group or an inter-agency working group. And there's others like the Silver Jackets where we applied a few months ago for a, it's a formalized inter-agency coordination team that's managed by the Army Corps of Engineers and Department of Water Resources, where they're almost a federal government parlor and it's a tiger team that goes out to help communities solve particular problems. And so we've asked them to consider coming in to support the city, thinking through nature-based solutions across West Cliff and other areas of the city and how that relates to the resources and funding that they have available. And there's about a, there's nine different agencies involved in the Silver Jackets work and there's other agencies that we would want to bring into that if that's approved in the near future. So we've got a couple of different pathways, understanding that one may be more successful than another, but just building relationships. So much of this work is agency staff having trust in the city to do what we're committing to and for us having the city having trust in those agencies to do what they're committing to. And when Lee mentioned the work with the Coastal Commission, it's true the submittal hasn't gone in yet, but there's so many conversations taking place now to understand what's in the realm of possibility when that formal submittal goes in, so that when it comes before you as the city council, we're not going to do a lot of back and forth editing when it lands at the Coastal Commission. Hopefully it's something that's pretty close to final in that review and approval process from the Commission. So it's a lot of just iterative relationship work. Thank you. And I got most of my questions answered. I just have one left. I just want to really thank all of you for all of the great inner agency collaboration and teamwork around all this. And I think one thing all of us could probably agree on is if we can help move things forward to align the stars so that what needs to happen can happen, I know that there's a lot of support amongst the council and the community to help out. So let us know what we can do. My question is more along the terms of a long-term funding source, is there anything that's been discussed at all as a way to support this work? I know I have a couple of ideas that I'm sure community members do as well, but I don't know if there's any conversations happening at your level. Thank you. There are conversations locally, but I think the one that's the most relevant to mention is the regional climate project working group across the three-county region that I mentioned earlier. There's a specific discussion about the viability of standing up a resilience district. So if you are in the wonky resilience space like we are, there's been a lot of talk about a new state law that has allowed for communities to set up resilience districts. It can be multiple jurisdictions. It can be a single jurisdiction. It can be several parcels. And it allows for a specific funding pathway to deal with particularly climate resilience and community resilience. So that's one in the works. We also have a number of shorter-term funding profiles that obviously we're working towards. But it's a big discussion in the community of practice right now about how do we fund this work longer-term? There's enhanced infrastructure financing districts. There's Melrose districts. There's special-purpose districts that we can stand up to fund specific areas of a jurisdiction or an entire jurisdiction. But they all have particular pros and cons based on how you want to apply them. So the resilience district was really stood up this year basically as an option for addressing climate resilience and community resilience. So would that be like a parcel per parcel? It would be dependent upon how it's created. So there's a lot of flexibility in how it's created. Laura looks sexual. I think Michael's answer and what you observe like when Claire comes for transportation funding, there's not going to be a silver bullet for us, for Westcliffe and for climate. We're going to have to continue to chase at the state and local and federal levels, the grants and the opportunities as they come up. I don't think the federal government is going to create a wonderful consolidated piece of pie that we can then apply for. So a lot of it is going to be the sustained energy and the partnerships that we have with our local nonprofits to be able to target the best chances for the biggest return. And that's something the team's already doing. Michael's mentioned efforts with the silver jackets and workshop money, NOAA grants, those sorts of things. We're just going to have to stay on top of that and find the resources. We may be coming to you at some point for help with how do we get the resources so that we can get the money to then be able to recover the time that we put in. But we are beating those bushes and we'll continue to do so. Thank you. I appreciate that. If there's not any further questions, I think I'll turn it over for public comment. And I know we usually go back and forth between our participants online and here in council chambers. I can see that we've got one person online with their hand raised, so maybe we can start with them. And if you'd like to come up and speak, you can also line up over here to the, I don't know my right and left, right of the dais. So person online, you have three minutes. I don't know who the first person is, I'm trying to see. Hi, thank you. Can you hear me? We can. Thank you. Thank you. I have three minutes. I have three questions points. First, I want to thank you all for your work. I'm a resident here on the West side in Santa Cruz. And I want to, I speak as a former climate activist. I've been with a citizens climate lobby extinction rebellion. I've been an Al Gore climate reality leader. I've taught environmental studies with the focus on climate change for, for a year. And so it's been an issue dear to my heart, but I am, I've become concerned that the climate change agenda has been hijacked by political forces that are more interested in control and power than they are with the actual needs of nature and the world around us. And I take this very seriously. And I know this might sound quite outlandish, but I think if you were conscientious in your jobs, you would revisit the climate being declared an emergency. There are many, many very thoughtful people with expertise who are speaking out presently about the fear and hysteria and the weaponization of the climate agenda. And I think it's time for us all to revisit whether or not this is an emergency that justifies taking away our democratic rights and I think a quick review of the silver jackets shows that it's as was mentioned under the auspices of the army. And I just did, you know, just while the program was going on, I just did a little check and there's the no fears act, which involves a lot of military health care experimentation. And I think the community should be fully aware of all the partnerships that are coming in and what will be involved with this new cooperative situation. The third and final point that I would like to make is about these various wonderful funding sources that we're talking about and in my former time as a climate activist, I did some research into these nature based solutions. And I've come to the conclusion that this is about the financialization of nature. It's probably a land grab where property rights will be taken away and some kind of climate park will be established. But it's a joke because that climate park will be financialized so into an offsets market. So financiers can make money and fossil fuel companies can burn more fossil fuels while they're allegedly mitigating their pollution. And the city might get some money from that, but it's ultimately a scam. It is the worst kind of climate scam there is. The financialization of nature with nature based solutions is not the way to go. Thank you so much for your work. Thank you. Is there anyone in chambers that would like to make a public comment? Good afternoon. Nice to see all of you. I enjoyed that presentation. My name is James Ewing Whitman. I was incredibly impressed by the fact that you weren't sure what this was going to be about because there wasn't a whole lot of information online, including that it wasn't very clear when you look at the paperwork that it was even an in person meeting. So you know, it is about all the various repair that's been going on this county and the city has had all kinds of major storms. You know, anybody can do their own research and look up Project Popeye. They were much more successful during the Vietnam War, seating and washing out bridges than they were with bombs. So, you know, I have some questions about what actually climate change is. Maybe we can at least agree upon this. We wouldn't have tides unless without our moon. So it's an interesting time to be on planet Earth where the Earth and the moon is in relation to the other planets in the Sun and in the galaxy. So although I was prepared to comment differently, I'll kind of respect that this was pretty G rated. So thank you. Thank you, James. All right, Mr. Phillips online. Yes, so the first words in this packet were the city council passed an emergency resolution stating, quote, an existential climate emergency threatens our cities, towns, region, state, nation, civilization, humanity, and then natural world. And that pretty much sums out the voluminous hot air being blown around climate change. And I agree with the first car about climate change being a power money agenda similar to the COVID response. Well, we in general here don't have hurricanes. The recent west of damage is a rare event in an especially vulnerable place. I don't see the presented adept adaptive mode as preventably front running any damage and it allows and assumes a small steady damage taking place, passing somewhat arbitrary triggers. This doesn't seem like how it works. I mean, slow erosion is preventable, and major events can blow through several of those triggers if the cliffs aren't sufficiently prepared to be resistant to the ocean force. When you refer to this half a million dollar trigger spent more than once in a spot, considering the current fixes cost $19 million, seems like an arbitrary number. And I wonder if that only applies to private property or whether disasters are aren't reimbursable. My impression is that what was presented is not different than what we have heard before. And that is this managed retreat. I would mention again, if the public doesn't think you were sufficiently doing what is needed besides having a retreat plan and the houses start falling in the ocean, my guess put money out is whoever is in the office won't be there for very long. The season been rising about an inch every 10 years. Please stop fear mongering about one foot sea rise by 2030. Not going to happen. I'll make a bet on it. Actually, a foot rise, which is going to happen that might take as much as 100 years to occur, would have very little effect on Santa Cruz as a one foot projected flooding areas are restricted to Jesse Street, March, Monterey Lagoon, the Morbide flooding, lower San Lorenzo River, perhaps near the east end of the boardwalk, both banks of the San Lorenzo from Water Street to the ocean would see higher water levels along those firms as well as Twin Lakes and obviously the harbor. These are the only places that we should be thinking about as far as sea level rise. Otherwise, the rest of damage is more of a concern. As nothing like what we've been concerned about like the endless war in Ukraine and the end of our defeat. Endless war of World War Three, you know, those things actually matter a little more than this so called emergency. The climate debate is very one sided because as a scientist, you only get paid for research. If you support the fear narrative, the fact that fossil fuels account for 83% of all energy cannot be replaced for decades is ignored. I won't go into the CO2 stuff, but I don't know. I think the version has an injuring solution. I would like to hear it. I don't think we heard it. Thanks. Thank you. All right, Ms. Greensight. Thank you Vice Mayor Council and thanks for the very informative presentations. Just like to put in a word, I appreciated Director Nguyen's update on the repairs. Just want to put in a word about the Bessony Curve culvert. I've always thought it was a bridge, but I can appreciate that it's seen by engineers as a culvert. Just a really, I want to give a little thank you for what, 40 years ago? It was long time ago planner Carol Nelson who did the work to make sure that that is like a natural water course, otherwise like all the other water courses it would have been covered over and it would have been a pipe, etc. But that's not what I want to share. I just wanted to put a plug in. I've no idea what the design will be and I heard that it might be spring of next year that the funding would be in place and repairs could get started. I'd like and I can wait till next meeting to see what the design will be. However, I hope it includes a design that retains the, if you like, the character of the current, I'll call it a bridge. Like many people, I walk along West Cliff frequently and for the last 20 years, probably for the last 10, I've noticed big cracks in that bridge and it always occurred to me, oh, I should send an email and say, could you fix the cracks? But it is a historic bridge and I'm hoping that in the choice of designs it will include something that resembles the current bridge rather than something modern, etc. And I'd just like to compare that to the Tressel, the West Cliff Tressel. You know what I'm talking about? When that was fixed, updated, strengthened, they retained those trusses, which, if you like, decoration only, but it retained that historic feel. So I hope one of the choices that you'll be looking at at your next meeting will retain the character of the Bethany Curve Bridge. Thank you very much and thank you for all the presentations. Thank you for your comments. Is there anybody else in chambers that would like to make a comment? Come on up, Emmett. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor Golder. Excuse me, I lost my voice a little bit, so bear with me. My name is Emmett Ballison. I've lived here, I wasn't born here, but I've lived here since I was one years old. I grew up doing junior guard, surfing, and enjoying the beaches along West Cliff. I currently work for Save the Waves as their communication and marketing specialist, but I'm coming up here just to talk as a surfer. During the presentation, there was discussion about access to West Cliff and armoring and whether those are mutually exclusive of each other. I feel just when, in regards to West Cliff sometimes when you armor a place, like Tiffany said, you could be losing a beach. So while you'll be preserving access to a walkway, you may be losing access to a beach. And so I just wanted to highlight that some armoring can create waves or some armoring can create beaches in the places of jetties like the harbor and other armoring like riprap and seawalls can get rid of beaches or lose beaches. So in some cases, we will be gaining access to some on top of the cliff and losing access below the cliff. And I just wanted to highlight that. Thank you. Thank you. That's a really good point. Does anybody else have something they'd like to comment on at this time? Okay, Sean. Thank you. Vice Mayor Golder and City Council and City staff. Yeah, just want to say thank you very much for the presentation. I definitely learned a lot from being here today. I was glad I attended in person. My working title is the Standing Crews World Surfer and Reserve Coordinator. So I work with the community here on outreach and the surf community and also the conservation community. More than that, though, than the working title, I'm a long-term surfer and ocean goer. I've been West Cliff goer here in Santa Cruz. And I just want to give kudos to the city staff and City Council for all that you're doing to look after West Cliff. I think we're everyone here today is here because of West Cliff because we all love it and really care for it. And yeah, I'm just standing up here to say thank you very much for everything that you do. I know it's really hard. Yeah, as we heard today, there's a lot of, you know, just challenging issues that can go on with West Cliff. And so we, you know, we understand that as a community. I think there's a lot of great people in this town that can look after this place. And yeah, just up here to say thank you very much for looking after West Cliff. Thank you very much. Last call. My name is Ron Goodman. I have a couple of roles, but today I'm going to say my role as lead judge for the County Science Fair for Environmental Science, which I've been doing for about 35 years. So we had the hottest July on in recorded history this year. Climate change is real. That's it. Thank you for that. Okay, I don't see anybody else jumping up to speak. So I'm going to bring it back to council for comments or further questions or if anyone has a motion. Okay. I have one more quick question that came up and just as we had this study session about our dynamic coast and clearly a lot of the discussion was around West Cliff Drive, where we've seen effects of climate and the storms and I just I'm wondering if anybody can just briefly speak to the city coast in general, like it reaches all the way to the harbor and all the way. Like what about other areas of the coast and and outside of West Cliff? Thank you, Council Member. I'm going to have hand that back over to Tiffany, but I just wanted to interject that the study session after this piece of it is not over. The next part is the fun interactive part. So just wanted to let you know that after Tiffany answers the question and any others, we move into the exercise portion of the workshop. So hold tight to your seats. It's going to be fun. Thank you for that question, Council Member Bruner. So yes, we have done the similar level of planning that we've done on West Cliff Drive across the rest of the coastline. And in fact, the LCP amendment, the beaches and bluffs chapter, it doesn't just pertain to West Cliff Drive. It pertains to all of our coastline. You may or may not be aware we've been spending a good deal of time in the beach flats, which is our frontline community helping to build not only individual and family resilience through emergency planning and so forth, but also integrating them into this broader coastal management work that we've been doing. As I said before, this is ongoing and iterative work. We have next step studies starting our living shoreline feasibility, nature based solutions and sand management starts at the beginning of the year. That's along our entire coast also. So we do have this similar level of planning and there is more to come. Thank you. So we are, you do need a motion from us or you want to do the exercise first? So Bonnie, if you could please bring back up the slide deck and then Michael and Jen and Farrell on will tee up the exercise and I think writing and brainstorming. Can we take a two-minute? Absolutely. That would be awesome. All right, we're ready for some fun. Michael, what do we have for us? I did promise you some fun. So we are, we do have an interactive activity and folks in attendance here, unfortunately folks online aren't able to participate with our pen and paper. But if they are online and they'd like to grab a pen and paper, we think can participate with us. We have an activity here that's based on some of the feedback from prior public engagement works, workshops and discussions coming in from that on prioritization of policies to really be a kind of an inspiration for our activity around what are the headlines that we would like to see in 50 years related to Westcliff? So Bonnie, if you could move us forward to the next slide. And so 50 years from now, how do you think the community will use Westcliff? The next slide. So we're going to do one of these at a time. But so we heard from our workshops preservation of Westcliff generally was really important. Concerns about the impact of climate change longer term, maintaining the recreational opportunities along Westcliff, transportation and mobility as being a big part of the future dynamic. We also had in this hit the media too, which was a very minor part of the workshop. But the discussion on what does mobility look like in 50 years? And of course, with Joby aviation being located here, there was a conversation about flying cars. That was the headline of that article. But it really was a very minor part of the workshop. I guarantee you that coastal management and disaster recovery. What does that look like in the future with a changing climate and our dynamic coast? And then, of course, the question around tourism and community and how does the community use Westcliff? So next. So one of the things that we heard quite a bit about was how people use Westcliff now, including walking and biking and running and various recreational activities, surfing, yoga, meditation came up as well, passive and active uses, mobility uses. And there was also mentioned of prioritizing pedestrian and bike access over car access, but also reducing vehicle traffic in neighborhoods. And so managing those traffic circulation patterns more effectively in the future would also contextualizing what does that mobility look like? Should there be cars? Will there be cars in 50 years? The advent of motorized bicycles and scooters that have electric motors that allow people to get around much more effectively and quicker without having a full vehicle is also part of the discussion. So we had calls for improved coastal management, longer term considerations and not just short term responses to impacts, longer term monitoring and how do we actually make decisions in an environment that's constantly changing. And then also informing disaster recovery plans in context to what these ongoing uses should be. So there were very positive comments expressing love and appreciation for Westcliff. I don't think in public forums, particularly city council member or meetings, do we use the word love enough? Right? Public meetings are a very important time to talk about how we love our community and it's natural beauty. There also surf culture came up as well as a core part of the cultural use of Westcliff. Concerns about climate change impacts, potential road closures and house abandonments due to extreme weather events also came up. So what does it look like in 50 years if there are extreme events that cause damage to personal property over the right of ways and how do we get ahead of that? So next slide. So the headline activity and these examples, Don't Judge came from the team trying to come up with some creative headline examples. But what headlines do you envision for the city of for the Santa Cruz coastline in the next 50 years, whether it's Westcliff or some other part of the Santa Cruz coastline. If you particularly love a coastline out of Santa Cruz, feel free to leverage that too. And we're talking about good headlines. But we can also talk about bad headlines, too, because with the next exercises we're going to have after this is also talking about how do we support the good headlines? How do we avoid the bad headlines? So here's a couple of examples just for your consideration and would love to have folks that are out here sitting on the benches to also participate in this and we will be gathering those up at the end of the meeting today, too. And so if we go to the next slide. Yes, yes. Okay, announcer voice examples. According to Laura Schmidt's request, and I am the consultants, I must comply with her request. Coastal access improved along the Santa Cruz coastline. Crisis of the coastline, Santa Cruz coastlines race to adapt in the face of climate change from vulnerability to vigor. Santa Cruz coastlines resilience journey amidst climate change. And finally, rising tides, rising solutions, Santa Cruz coastlines path to climate resilient transformation. I don't have a podcast. I don't have a podcast, but apparently it's in my future. And thank you, Laura, for forcing me to do that. All right. So what headlines do you envision for the Santa Cruz coastline in the next 50 years? We're going to give you a couple minutes to do this, maybe three minute timer as long as the public comment period in a typical meeting. So that's for all of you as well. We don't have the jeopardy theme song, but if we had it, we would play it. Oh, sure. Yeah, we'll put on the timer. We'll go formal. Feel free to do a couple options if you'd like a little less than a minute remaining. Three minutes is a really long time when no one is speaking. Okay, if you need another second or two, feel free. Yeah, pens down. It's not a test. And so actually to avoid the perception of a test, we're going to collect these from you, but we're not going to tell anybody who they're from. And we've assigned a few selective city staff to read these out. And so our assistant city manager, Laura Schmidt has asked me to use my announcer voice. City staff has decided to use their announcer voices to decided have been directed. It appears by the handwriting that some of you may have medical in your background. So we'll see what we can do. This is going to be an extra challenge because I want to make sure I read them correctly. And I'm going to take the best handwriting. So you guys are going to have some different ones. Okay. Climate change has no impact on Santa Cruz due to their robust planning. Oh, there's another one on here. Santa Cruz resilience planning play pays off Santa Cruz leads climate adapting as a model for the rest of the world. Would anyone else like to test out their radio voice? Santa Cruz, California dynamic coast and the resiliency of the community behind it that supported and tried it. Michael Would you like a turn? Nathan? Oh, there's more. Okay, you could always save them and decipher them and put them on the website with a translator. Okay. When plan retreat is a smart move pathways to our future coast. Armoring killed my beach. I'm going to use my announcer voice. While destructive winter storms plague coastlines across the world, Santa Cruz, California once again leads the way on resilience coastline. Why Santa Cruz? Because they're figured they figured it out. Resilient coastline accessible to all. I feel like I keep getting handed all these. I don't know. I do feel like my dad was a doctor and this looks very doctor right like handwriting. So we didn't tell you that we were going to be reading these. Sorry about that. An in depth look in how our forward thinking ancestors turned our coast into an enviable national example of coastal management. It's nice. That would never be a newspaper headline. Too complex. Think we've got translators working over here. So we're having a little bit of an issue with a couple of these words. So if I misspoke misspeak it, somebody over there might want to correct me. Did you know blank beach was underwater 50 years ago? What created this beach was a nature based climate solution. Blah, blah, blah, CIP 50 years ago. So I basically think it's something was underwater, but we saved it. Does it sound familiar to anybody? It wasn't remotely what you intended. There you go. It's good. We got it. I mean, Seabright Beach wasn't here 50 years ago. Was it right? Like when did that show up? You like this. Hardy thanks to city council who 50 years ago saved West Cliff for all to enjoy. There were a couple surf ones. So I'll say one of those. The true surf city, how a city came together to protect its waves, beaches and coastline. Okay, we have a few more from the from our public members. We need like a first grade or a kindergarten teacher to help read these Santa Cruz Ocean Reserve offers respite and sanctuary for weary Bay Area dwellers. Santa Cruz successfully preserves its coastline for the next generation. Crisis at the coastline. We still haven't learned from 1903 and 2023. Lower West Side residents sell due to volume of traffic. Coastal access saved two way traffic and hiking and biking. Move fast before the storm. A headline for the future. My announcer voice. I wasn't ready for the announcer voice. I didn't do warm up. Resilience district formed to fund coastal work. Second one. Storm damage assessment ends with options park versus restroom complex. Santa Cruz is some of the best sandbars to surf in all of California, but it wasn't always the case how the city worked with surfers to make it happen. Yeah, I think that's all. Anybody else? All right. So that that's a fun exercise, right? It's not just about what's on paper, what we're writing, but it's also about the mindset of like what is that future state we're looking for 50 years from now is like grandchildren in some cases, great grandchildren and in very vigorous folks, great, great grandchildren and or none depending on your life choices, which is fine. So we're gonna what we're gonna do now is talk a little bit about how to avoid some of these things, how to support the good headlines, how we're gonna avoid the bad headlines and just have a conversation, right? It's not we're not tied to these things. It's when you have these headlines that you've put on paper, you know, what are the thoughts that went through your mind when you were putting these things on paper? And again, it's more about the mindset about that flow of thinking more so than kind of what you wrote down. So I think if we go to the next slide. So this is some of the some of the things that we heard from our public workshops previously. And what we'd like you to do is think about those headlines in context to the adaptation management strategies that are already in place for the city. And so on the left side, we have public concerns, public thoughts that came in through workshops, obviously very much truncated. And then on the right side, some adaptive management strategies that are already outlined in state policy and program documents, or a city program and policy documents. So when we think about, what does it mean to have, I don't know, let's pull one out of the stack and pull one from the top of the stack, not even from the bottom. So all right, so Santa Cruz Ocean Reserve offers a respite and sanctuary for weary Bay Area dwellers. That's an interesting thing. So right, that's a tourism linked headline. It's also talking about the partnership with the coastal management agencies, ocean management agencies. So you know, bring your thoughts forward. What is it? What do you think when you when you hear that headline, what do we need to be doing now and over the next few years to help position the city to be in a space where we can kind of be in that space that supportive space. So the way I thought about this exercise is what I have seen as our community's values and operating principles, not just the city and city departments, but our community as a whole. So what I hear in that particular headline is operating principle of collaboration of inclusion of openness. And some of the things that I consider when I wrote mine were innovation. That's something that I think we value as a community and are recognized for across sectors and fields. And and that we tend to be we can operate upstream and and think about how our actions now will impact the future. I agree. And I just want to add on to that too that I think in Santa Cruz, a lot of us are forward thinking and especially people that came before us forward thinking and our protection of the natural environment and our love of the natural environment as well. And there's another one here about Santa Cruz successfully preserves its coastline for the next generation, right? What should we be doing now in your mind when we think about preserving the coast for that next generation? You know, what grounds you when when you see that headline? Like this city council has helped to preserve its coastline for the next generation. I agree with that. Also, I mean, I think for when I think about West Cliff as opposed to East Cliff, what I love about West Cliff is that the whole length of it, there's only one house on the ocean side. Whereas East Cliff, it's almost 5050, I guess, or even almost the opposite. I don't know where it would consider start and finish. And so one beach over there that I could give is literally called privates. And so it's just it doesn't have the same community feel that West Cliff does or parts of the city's beaches. We're pulling another one out of the stack at random. While while we're we're doing council member, would you like to make a decision? Yeah, I mean, I think for for the future, it's about making hard choices to and doing the planning and doing the work. And I think uniquely right now, we have to think about climate change and big climate experiences in a different way. So how are we building our resilience in in light of the reality of climate change? But ultimately, I think we're all drawn to this community because we love our oceans, our cliffs, our access to our environment. And it's real gift to be able to live here. And so to have our kids be able to experience that gift is a priority. So figuring out all of these things is going to be essential to our work and our all of our work here in our community. And making some of these really, you know, tough choices along the way. Alright, I got another one for us. So while destructive winter storms play coastlines across the world, Santa Cruz California once again leads the way on a resilient coastline. One of you might recognize this one. So what was the what was the mindset going into this one? Leading the way on a resilient coastline while others flail about around the world modified that I would say I guess what comes to mind for me is the innovation comment that Council Member Calentari Johnson mentioned I think leading the way is being innovative and thinking about how we're factoring all kinds of things in terms of and also innovation in terms of technology and who knows what we don't know is going to happen with the acceleration of technology, you know, in terms of our times as well. And hopefully being an example for other jurisdictions to learn from as we continue to learn from each other. Also in terms of the resiliency and the planning associated with that. Globally, just add that it takes courage to be innovative. And I think our community has a lot of courage. I'm gonna pull another one out of the stack. There's more comments on that. Great. I don't even know what's coming my way. So Jen earlier today, she she was like, this is a great exercise for you, Michael, you're great on the fly. So all right. So Santa Cruz Resilience Planning pays off and Santa Cruz leads climate adaptation as a model for the rest of the world. So what is that? What does it mean to lead as a model for the rest of the world as the city of Santa Cruz? Well, I think we have access to a lot of great minds in this community. And it's not just, you know, think about the people in the room, although there's a lot of great people in the room, but I'm talking about our access to Silicon Valley and the university and just other individuals throughout the state that have really been leaders and willing to take some bold chances and try new things. And so I think that's kind of what's coming to my mind when you read that headline. All right, any other last comments? I think people want, well, not people, agencies, organizations, other communities, see what we can do. Certainly around climate response, but also in other areas. And so they want to invest in us. They want to partner with us. That's great. Yeah. So you might, you might get a feeling of a sense of visioning happening right now. So as we're going through the 50 year vision development process, some of these things that you've just talked about in the headlines really get to that feeling of where we need to be in that 50 year timeframe. So there's a little introduction to that, but also a great way for us to hear from you about what you're thinking about when it comes to those longer term visions. So why don't we go to the next slide and wanted to kind of round things out a little bit with, I guess we already did this. The next slide of the next slide, too. So when we talk about the upcoming next slide, upcoming outreach for the 50 year vision, we have a youth focused outreach program in process, a focus group that's going to be working on a recommendation through the city manager to the city council. We have public workshops being developed in a staff study session in addition to city council study session for your colleagues on the city council that we're not able to be here today will also be following up with them separately to debrief them on the conversation today and engage them a little bit as well about what the visioning here looks like. And so in January in 2024, we're hoping to have back to the city council a finalized vision for those 50 years. There's lots of touch points in between. And obviously you'll be caught up to speed regularly on the process and how things are going and have periodic touch points on that process. So at this point, I think I'm going to hand it over to Matt to make some final comments and hand it back to the vice mayor. Before you step away, can I just ask if I'm a member of the public and I want to be involved, what's the best place to go to find out all the latest information? Yes, you can sign up for our newsletter and we actually will have one coming out later this week with a recap video that has a lot of the information that staff talked about today. But you can just go to our website and there is a sub page under the city manager's department webpage. And you can sign up for the newsletter, but you can also get a bunch of different updates. You can review all the recordings of all of our prior engagement, which I think could be really helpful if you're just joining the conversation. Thank you. That's going to be really helpful for people wanting to be involved. So just to wrap up our conversation today, vice mayor and council, I wanted to start by acknowledging the tremendous amount of work that's really been happening with an all hands on deck really sprint following the storms that occurred this past January. There was really a deep sense of timing and urgency of a need to recognize the moment to be bold, to be innovative and forward thinking much of the themes that were coming up in your feedback today. And at heart of all of this is to really build out an innovative, ambitious 50 year vision for this cherished length of coastline. That means so many to all of us and so many to our community members. So my hope is that 50 years from now, we'll look back on it and really see this as being a foundational vision for achieving some really exciting things along West Cliff over the decades to come. So thank you for the council's leadership and your support and allowing us to embark on this ambitious endeavor. And we look forward to using the information today to really build on this plan in the months to come. So thank you for your time this afternoon. Thank you. Unless my colleagues have any further comments, then we can go ahead and adjourn the meeting. Thank you very much for everybody that came in for all the hard work that went into planning the study session.