 comment on items on our closed session will receive public testimony thereafter the public line will be closed and inaccessible. Please mute your television or streaming device once you call in and listen through your phone. Please note that there is a delay in streaming so if you continue to listen on your television or streaming device you may miss your opportunity to speak. Thank you Mayor, Council Member Byers. Here. Matthews. Here. Brown. Here. Renee, unmute. Vice Mayor Meyers, Mayor Cummings. Here. Oh, hold on Mayor, because I didn't. Hi, can you hear me? My name is Sreena Lynn and I put in a claim for my vehicle. You should have it there. My last name is Lynn, my address is 402 Owens Street Santa Cruz and on the day that they put out those signs that say no through traffic and I guess it's for making it so that the streets aren't through. It happened to be also a day that the city had a tractor trailer rig parked across from my house. I not only had a car parked in front of my house, my car in the driveway, but there was also a tractor trailer in front of the house and it was a big tractor trailer for what a tractor was on and they were out working over near days market. And anyway, the sign got put right in my driveway like right behind my car and I did send the picture in but I don't know if it showed really as clear as it was and I'd been out there earlier and I noticed the tractor and I said what are you guys doing but at that point I didn't notice the signs and so then I went get in the car, backed up and the sign was right there because I'm across from Plum Street and right kind of where Plum Street comes out to Owens Street. Since that time the sign has been moved. I think that sign gets moved every other day but you know I just have to watch where it is. It's never been put at the place that it is now. I think that there's somebody that comes and kind of checks it out but I wouldn't have got estimates for it from two different places. One place that I've used before and another place that I haven't and they both came like within 20 minutes, 20 minutes. Well thank you for your comments. Thank you. Vice Mayor Meyers and Mayor Cummings. We can UP Tribe. Elaine Johnson had their reschedule so we won't be hearing from her the first presentation. Burns Communications may appreciate the recognition it's so important more and has gone up during this time of isolation and health today so it's extremely important that we are recognizing that it's sort of a pandemic within a pandemic and for everyone and the increased risk fall. We are hosting a webinar on the dynamics of domestic violence at 1030. It can be found on Monarch Services website, monarchsbc.org or on any of our social media. You can also feel free to call us, email me if you're interested in attending but it will be exploring basically the deeper dynamics of domestic violence so then we can all help understand the red flags more and help our community and really be there if somebody is really isolated during the time and does reach out to one of us. Thank you so much for having me and for honoring Monarch's work today and proclaiming thank you so much Mayor Cummings and Council. Thank you. Thank you. October is the domestic violence awareness month and Delphine, thank you also for your work on our Commission for the Prevention of Violence against I know that you mentioned that tomorrow there's an opportunity to engage in other ways that the community can support domestic violence prevention and support the work that you're doing as well. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for asking. There's a lot recently on prevention work specifically just because we educated about right. It's a tool that's used by people who cause harm to their partners to ensure that their partners are trapped in that situation and that they don't have resources as individuals to reach out to. So I would say number one, educate yourself on how to be ally to survivors if somebody were to disclose to you. It makes a really, really big difference whether they'll ever disclose to anybody else. Even if you feel like you don't know what you would say or how you would respond to somebody in trauma, that's normal. It's really hard, right? It's hard because it's emotional for them. It's emotional for you hearing from that person, likely a loved one. So take the time now before that ever happens to go and seek out those resources. We have them on our website, but even if you just search how to support a domestic violence important that you let them know that you're not judging them and they're not alone and it's not their fault. And just taking those simple steps makes things is that individuals who feel isolated know that they can reach out and that they can reach out to members of our city and members of our community for help. And so the webinar will be a great resource on that, but I would say other than that, you know, look out for the work that's already being done in the community and see how you can get involved. There's never too many people involved. We appreciate volunteers at Monarch. We appreciate donations of time or financial donations, but really just, I think the first step is educating yourself so then you can be a reliable ally or supporter to a survivor if anyone does ever disclose to you. Thank you all. Thank you all very much again. That's the 50k in 50 days. Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council members. Think about racism and the 50k and 50 day Riders Against Racism projects from a position of a privileged white male adventure sports athlete. I spent my entire life engaging in what are loosely referred to as adventure sports. Sports that are generally you versus yourself in an arena where mistakes can have dire consequences. Big mountain snowboarding, high altitude mountaineering, rock climbs taking a week or more to complete, and of course mountain biking. If there's one dominant characteristic that I've recognized for my early years of scaring myself is that this is a bunch of white dudes doing white dude stuff. Where are the people of color? Where are the women? Well, there's been a surge in inclusion and recognition of women in the last decade or so. Very much have not been the case with people of color. In fact, I cannot name off the top of my head a single African American professional snowboarder skier, climber, mountain biker, kayaker, or surfer. Well, let's fast forward to just a couple months ago. I'm on one of my many weekend rides with Matt Nightwonger. One of those ones are your ride most of the day. Enjoy a frosty beverage after and try to forget about adult life. During these rides, we have many banter sections relating stories of our youth and exciting moments in our lives. By the end of the day, we always wind up talking social issues. The latest one being that nothing says white privilege like mountain biking, climbing, and water and snow sports. On one of these bike rides where Matt said to me, I have this idea. What do you think about a 50k in 50 days bike challenge that we have 50 days to ride 50,000 vertical feet? First, I thought, wow, that's going to be tough. And then I got really excited. The immediate next topic was how do we use the event to raise awareness for funds and funds or racially inspired social justice movements without seeming to jump on the BLM bandwagon simply for attention. How can we make a difference? Matt came up with the idea of riders against racism and the gears began to turn. So at this point, I'm going to pass it off to Matt. He's the man with the plan. Before that, I would just like to commend. Thank you for your time and commend the city council for leading cohesively and with a conscious and vision during these last few months. Can you hear me? Yep, we can hear you. Yeah, so just to add to what Josh said, right now we have about 25 riders who are attempting to climb 50,000 feet on their mountain bikes in 50 days. So they're actively on Strava and then posting it to the website and just keeping track of our mileage. So we're building a community of anti-racist mountain bikers. And so that's really 50% of what we're doing. And the other half of what we're doing right now is something that started for me this summer. I just finished this book right here, How to Be an Anti-Racist, and was really struck with this notion from the author that, you know, we have to go out and find racist policy and fight against them. Otherwise, we're just having a conversation. We're just, you know, really talking to each other and arguing on social media. So right then, I found out from my sister-in-law about this siren that goes off every night at 6 p.m. in Minden, which is right next to Lake Tahoe. And it's a really popular area for mountain bikers in the Carson Valley there. And every night, this siren goes off. And so apparently, the wash of the native people of the area have been asking since 2006 if the town of Minden could stop this siren. Because the siren, for decades, coincided with a law on the books in Minden that all wash of people had to be out of town by sunset every night. And so when I found out that the wash of people have just been saying, hey, you know, you can run your siren any time, but just this 6 p.m. one that happens every night, can we please put a stop to that? And for one reason or another, the town of Minden has been saying, we're going to keep this siren going. So that's our policy challenge. That's what we're working on, riders against racism. And so I think probably the best way to communicate kind of the emotional pain of this sundown siren that's still happening every night in Minden, Nevada, right next to Lake Tahoe, is to play this video. This summer, as soon as I learned about it, I started a petition that got about 10,000 signatures in two weeks. And that is to just stop blaring the 6 p.m. siren every night in Minden. And so here's what came out of this, it was a news story. Go ahead. I just wanted to say that, you know, it's heartbreaking that a siren goes off every night in an area that many people from Santa Cruz go to Mount Bike and enjoy the outdoor recreation Lake Tahoe. And it's still happening today. So we're building a community of anti-racist and we're going to work hard to stop this siren. And so thanks for inviting us. Mayor Cummings really appreciate it. And thanks for the chance to tell you guys about it. Yeah, you can check out ridersagainstracism.org is our website. I just wanted to say thank you for coming to our meeting and giving a presentation and all of the work that you're doing. I really like what you said, Matt, about being an anti-racist, meaning that we go and we find instances where policy has, you know, that element of racism. And we try to change that. And I teach a class and my students learn about slavery, they learn about, you know, the history of racism in the United States. And they're always surprised when we read a piece about Sundowner Towns and that there were historically more in California than any other state in the country. And, you know, we tend to think of it as something that happens out there and other places. And so I think it's really important that we look closer to home and in places where we recreate and enjoy ourselves as well. So thank you for being here and for all of your work. And I'll check out your website as well. Thank you. Okay. I need to qualify myself from item number 30 because I have the property within 500 feet of the support location. No, the only one was the presentation number, the number, item number four. Communications. Oral communications is an opportunity for members of the public to speak to us on items that are not on our agenda today. Oral communications will occur. Members of the City Council, good afternoon. This afternoon, the Council met in closed session virtually at 1 p.m. to discuss the following items. Item one was a conference with legal council involving liability claims. Those are the claims of Serena, Janice, Lynn, James, L, Chris Luck, and Jesse, Grant, Wilkinson. Those matters are also listed this afternoon on your consent calendar as agenda item number 14. Secondly, the Council received a report from the City Attorney's Office on a matter of existing litigation. The case is entitled the Regents of the University of California versus the City of Santa Cruz. This is a lawsuit filed on October 13, 2020 in the Santa Cruz County Superior Court. The lawsuit alleges that the City has a legal obligation to provide water service to portions of the UCSC campus that are currently located outside City limits and also outside the City's current water service area boundary pursuant to the terms of two contracts entered into between the Regents and the City in 1962 and 1965. Under ordinances adopted by the Council in 2008 is currently the policy of the City not to extend City water and services to the University beyond its existing limits without the prior approval of the local agency formation commission, which is required by state law for all amendments and extensions of service outside of a jurisdiction's boundaries. Moreover, it is current City policy not to initiate an expansion of the City's water service area with the local agency formation commission unless authorized to do so by approval of a ballot measure to this effect by City voters at a general or special municipal election. City Council received an update on the case in closed sessions afternoon, which is very preliminary stages insofar as the City was only served with the lawsuit on October 14th and has yet to file responsive pleadings. So it's premature to comment on the merits of the case at this time, but the Council did receive a report and gave direction to the city attorney's office. Lastly, there were two items of potential litigation involving significant exposure to litigation in which the Council received a report from and gave direction to legal counsel, but there was no reportable action on those items. Thank you, Mayor. I'm just going to do a quick update on the current status of our county with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic and where we are with the state caring system, and I'll share my screen really quickly just so you can reference the chart and if there are questions, I can answer those. I'll just do a summary rather than going through each item, but there are questions I'm happy to answer them. So today the county announced that the state had officially placed the county in the orange tier, and it's a blueprint for a state for California, and this is based on improved positivity tests and case rates in our county. So beginning today, previously opened sectors like restaurants and churches or places of worship, movie theaters and museums increase their indoor operations to 50% of capacity. They were formerly, most of these were at 25% capacity. In the case of retail, they may now fully open, they were at 50% capacity, as you can see here in this chart. We'll be a little bit here. Bars, breweries, and distilleries may resume outdoor operations. They formally could not do that. Wineries may resume indoor operations at 25% or 100 people, whichever is fewer, and also gyms and fitness centers may increase indoor capacity from 10% to 25%. I'll show those here. And then in the other major areas to show here, strictly restricted sectors such as museums, I'm sorry, amusement parks, family entertainment centers, non-essential offices, and live audience sports may open with modifications too. So that affects us with respect to, for example, the boardwalk. And then the county did note that all the movement to the orange tier is a sign of reduced disease transmission in our community. COVID-19 cases are rising nationally as we see in these reports and are expected to increase locally as we move into the winter. So we must not stop doing what we've been doing well here in our town, which is to continue wearing face coverings, practicing social distancing, and avoiding large gatherings in large groups. And as you can see here, moving from one tier to the next allows for more openings and for increased capacity, but still maintains all these other, these restrictions in terms of good safe practices to prevent the spread of the disease. And then happy to answer any questions you may have on these. I didn't have to go through every single item, but that's why we provide you with a brief overview. Who's watching and wants to track sort of where we are as the county, where do you suggest they access this information and figure out how to monitor our stage? So there's the county has a really great website where they update every day, where they update you can just Google Santa Cruz County COVID-19 and they'll talk you to the specific links where you can see all the cases and you can get very accurate information about the daily increases as well as the demographic data as well as hospitalizations. That's a lot of really great information. The state also has a very good website. Also you can Google state of California COVID-19 a safer economy and you'll see the information around their blueprint system where you can track statewide each of the different counties and where they're at and the different requirements under each of the different colored categories as well. So there's lots of really good information on our county website. Our city website also, the Google under our website, you can also find links to all of these other websites as well as some of the specific whether it's executive order for conditions or requirements that we have in our city. There was one other quick update I wanted to provide just for the general public and for the city council. The one item that we're also working on very deliberately right now is on the relocation of the bench lines which you've received some information about and we are continuing to work on that. Just this morning there was a meeting of the two by two committee that is comprised of Mayor Cummings and Vice Mayor Myers as well as Supervisors Coonerty and McPherson along with staff. So the committee is meeting to essentially formulate a relocation plan. There is agreement that the encampment needs to be relocated and that there is not a desire to reduce capacity to maintain capacity and also to create a system of diverting clients also so that this capacity that is available on an ongoing basis as the need is there and hopefully we will have an update for you here soon. The expected closure or relocation is expected by the middle of November so we hope to have an update for you here in the coming week or so. That's it thank you very much. Calendar and so I'd like to thank you Mayor there are no updates but just a reminder we have those a couple special meetings one on the 29th and one on November 4th on our agenda. For members of the public who are streaming this meeting if you'd like to comment on items numbers nine three 24 now is the time to call in. The instructions are on your screen. Please remember to mute your streaming device and listen to the cue saying that you've been unmuted. We acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by council member for further discussion. Are there any council members who would like to pull any items? Actually not the poll I want to quick comment on the previous item number eight which is the calendar in the study session. I think I've brought this up before but these deal with really huge issues going into the future for the council and there will be new council members and so I would hope that the City Clerk can just extend the invitation and encouragement to all of the candidates to tune into those because you know we'll make the decisions that Catherine and I will be so the candidate should put that on the agenda. Totally agree thank you. Yeah the council received a request this morning to pull item number nine. So I'll do that I'll go ahead and do that. I just have a question on item we had submitted a grant I believe it was at some point last year for the River Way and I was for the Riverwalk and I was wondering if this is the same grant or if this is a different grant. Yeah council member Myers you have clear globally our transportation planner and no downing our parks planner on here this is for the same grant program we were not awarded in the previous round so we got feedback from the grant program managers and they're resubmitting for the same two projects. Great so the students leaving and the the businesses shut down and the schools and so imagine a lot of water use that happened in a non-residential setting all of a sudden transferred to a residential setting where people were you know sheltering in place so we did see an uptick in residential demand but we also saw this sort of quite market about a 10 percent reduction in total demand particularly in the business the business general the business hotel the business restaurant and the sort of university and sort of schools those kinds of things so the the rate stabilization reserve fund is was really put together for exactly this kind of very unfortunate circumstance and our decision in this ground was in a way to go ahead and transfer funds from that it still leaves us with around eight million and that fund the goal is about 10 million so that's the current status that we're not seeing things that sort of stabilized in terms of some of the business use in particular we're not you know clearly the the being able to serve food outdoors has been underway for quite some time not having the the boardwalk work at all during much of this years you know brought fewer people and to the tourists into the town even just for the day kind of thing so you know we're monitoring the demand very very carefully we do have some you know flexibility and we're just keeping an eye on it there's not really much we can do about it right but yeah so we're watching it questions from council members at this time we'll go ahead and open it up for public comment 24 on our consent agenda since item number nine has been pulled like to speak to us on any items on our consent with the exception of number nine once you've dialed in please press star nine saying no members of the public yes on the consent liven number came through 24 or matthews i'll add another comment when they're distracted there for a second so often the consent agenda it is looks routine but when you look at what's in the content agenda we have energy conservation we have park improvements we have long-term water supply and financing improvements as it's often the case the consent agenda is just a testimony to the city's good long-term work so congratulations to all the okay are we ready for a vote now council member byers council member byer did she leave she's yeah she has a step away uh matthews aye boulder blotkins myers and mayor coming yeah thank you so i um i think i've followed a lot we have this item is there three executive orders that have been issued and are coming for um ratification and i we received the city council i think everybody received a message this morning asking us to pull this item so i'm doing that i've said in the past that i would do that upon request from public and um so that's really why up now and so i hope that the folks who wanted to comment and talk about it uh are around for public comment now can you unmute your phone hello can you hear me hey um this is uh Reggie myers they're calling um this is executive orders i'm so glad that fandy pulled this off is maybe one of the uh worst combination of executive orders i've seen yet uh order 2020 dash 20 uh evicts food not bombs after their 200th consecutive day of serving meals for house lists during COVID-19 and displaced house persons living nearby 21 extend the racist vendor ban indefinitely uh with no update on the mediation process that was supposedly happening 22 and 23 are yet more displacements uh destruction of donated tents and survival gear and just 23 was obstruction of food not bombs at the lot they were told to go to after being displaced from lot 27 in order number 20 um and so a lot of people are going to talk about food not bombs i want to talk about 21 um just because i'm not sure how many people are going to call in about that today so earlier today there was an anti-racist person who was delivering an inspiring story about how people need to like not just be not racist but anti-racist which means actively fight racist policy in their community when they see it happen and i think this uh executive order is an example of a racist policy in fact chevro calentari johnson not even part of a candidate uh slate that i support um said it was an example of a racist policy in santa cruz when asked during a candidate forum um i mean this policy was crafted again after a latinx woman who was a vendor at the boardwalk was assaulted by a racist white business owner and then police chief mills went on tv to defend that violent crime based on the notion that this woman was unlicensed now this is clearly unacceptable and it's unacceptable that we do not get an update on the mediation process we don't it seems almost unimportant whether the mediation was over or not or like what happened with it or what the rule changes were or whether you know people's needs are being met i mean latinx families have been forced to survive without this income for over a month and now we're served in this executive order that just indefinitely increases this vendor ban that is incredibly sweeping and i just i just don't understand how people on council can consider themselves anti-racist and allow this policy to continue thank you are we still um discussing the issue of food not bombs i was hoping to speak in supportive food not only food not bombs but just to kind of piggyback off of what the last commentator was saying um in regards to santa cruz being a quote sanctuary for these people who were vending and others like them um it's kind of uh you know pretty much an oxymoron to say that we are a sanctuary and we are in support and and then go and handle these issues like they were handled by uh the santa cruz police department and um i think that statement is kind of a blanket statement that could be said also for the situation with food not bombs when we're talking about unhoused people who should be treated with dignity and also human beings who are treating them with dignity and feeding the community um in these you know unprecedented times uh you know there's no reason why we should be playing uh you know musical unhoused people you know it's just kind of chasing our tail here so i think that i have full faith that the community of santa cruz and the board can come up with a better plan of action um to support um all of these community members thank you okay next caller calling um uh against uh city trying to shut down uh food not bombs um that being something that the city manager marin burnall um can do uh with that agenda item it's a lot of services for homeless people and this is an attack on the house's community which has been happening a lot throughout the past couple weeks um so if you all really care about the people then you would keep these services open thank you okay um this is brekkie steinbruner i've just joined and i'm not sure are you still discussing the consent agenda uh we're only on item number nine the other items that were on consent have already been passed oh all right thank you i missed the event thank you i'm sorry to disturb you thank you for your service thank you when you have been asked to unmute yourself hi can you hear me now yes um yeah i think that um this executive order is a little ridiculous that we're asking for um people just reading food and for house's people to just be moved around everywhere um i think it's pretty clear that um you know we're trying to help out these people and um it just it just seemed like the city's actively trying to stop that um i think that the city should instead of passing these executive orders to close parking lots and and move people around they should be you know helping out when distributing food and sharing resources to people who really need it you know amid a global pandemic um i think it's just ridiculous what the city is doing um yeah see one more hand up i don't know if that person says i actually um just want to ask a question um about the tension of the vendor um prohibitions it's number 21 public a speaker suggested that um that we're not getting a report about the progress that if any that's been made uh with community bridges agreed to uh step in and try to have uh you know facilitate that conversation and so i'm just wondering if there has been any progress there um before we take action i can i can do a quick update uh yeah so ralph uh in my office has been working with uh ray and the street vendor representatives and they've had several meetings uh with the staff and so they've uh uh developed some um agreement that they'd like to create a system uh where they uh can know where to operate and when to operate so they're currently working out trying to identify how they could uh create that system where they could operate uh with the idea of having a system that is sort of fair for the vendors so that because there there's some dynamic there within the vendors in terms of who gets the place first and when and so just developing a system that's sort of fair for the vendors themselves because it's very competitive in terms and limited in terms of the spaces as well as complies with all the other sort of requirements that are needed just to be able to create a safe environment you know plan your room and all the various sort of operating conditions that are needed to to operating in a really limited congested area so that's being worked on now and as i understand the consensus that they would like to have that that they'd like to have a organized system rather than the kind of free system right now that is creating some challenges both for the vendors themselves and as well as the the individuals that are visiting the beach uh and in the joining businesses so that's where they're at and uh the the goal is to have that system uh up and operating before the council here in the coming months if i could just follow up so um given that progress was there was a making an indefinite extension of the SAM you're just wondering what the purpose was of doing that if there is a system that's being worked out i think the idea was just to tie it to the the existing uh it's not it's not a permanent it's to tie it to the existing um emergency declaration so that uh uh it doesn't it doesn't have to come back uh however when when a system is in place that will replace the this uh executive order so the idea is that it just allows us you know the time to develop the system and once it's in place then it'll it'll replace it without having to come back and update it on a regular basis so it was just to simplify the process essentially but the meetings are ongoing as i understand the uh and also the the uh the period that is obviously the busiest and whether vendors want to be able to be down here is during the the busiest season of the year so right now it's not as busy although we still are having some vendors come out uh but that's the idea and are they being cited uh no no i have i have not heard that they're being cited i think if people complain and uh they're obviously as it's always been the case people are given notice and in the notified uh citations only occur if there's not compliance but it again hasn't been a problem and again it's only been when it's been problematic when we've had issues of congestion or are there are there uh uh the impacts to the the area or to uh visitors in that country one other question about the um um the kind of situation uh food not bombs distribution of food my understanding was um that the move from lot 27 across the way was going to provide an alternative space where food not bombs could continue to operate and so i'm just wondering it sounded like i didn't see it in the um in the documents but it sounded like from the one of the seekers that that that they're being moved from there as well can you um i know i can clarify uh yeah let me let me clarify that so food not bomb has a permit they've been given they didn't ask for one but we gave them a permit nonetheless to operate at lot 23 where they're currently operating uh and they were also allowed to operate on lot 27 and also previously uh they were given a permit to operate at the bench line so there's been some folks that have said that we've never let them operate or given them a permit that's simply not true we have multiple times and the city has only intervened whether they had a permit or not when they created nuisance conditions where they operated in a way that did not comply with requirements such as social distancing and after receiving numerous complaints about their operations which unfortunately has happened repeatedly and so you know again if conditions were not present then it would not be a problem of course the last thing we want to do is to enforce on an organization trying to provide a public service and so we would like them to you know operate like most many many a nonprofit poor serving organizations do which is without creating certain nuisance conditions and again i just got to the point where it was severely impacting adjoining businesses where they were not able to operate you know the correspondence and feedback that we seen from the credit union from neighboring businesses and others with respect to the people that are there they are they are offered services they are offered opportunities to be able to obtain needed services but it's not the fact that they're there that the problem is just the the behaviors and the conditions that are that people face there with some of the drug use and the associated aggressive behaviors and other other impacts that have been problematic and so as a city we try to just respond to those things yeah lots of questions i'll just stop there thanks sure i'm prepared to make a motion but if council member brown has more questions or more concerns i can let her go finish her thought thank you i appreciate that council member golder i think i'll just leave it there for now just so we can move in the meeting along but i i'll follow up martin with you at some point so i'd like to make a motion to ratify the executive order 2020-2020 through 2020 in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic emergency i'll second the motion i think the agenda reports and the regulations provide ample documentation for the rationale and just to clarify it is to adopt the resolution which which accomplishes all the act listed by council member golden correct thank you count them currently absent vice mayor meyers and mayor coming hi so that passes with council members golder walk-in vice mayor meyers mayor coming to you about wanting to have the update on what's happening there the often the case there were several really well qualified candidates here and they brought very different attributes to the commission and i believe when they're contacted we encourage them to suit their applications active and i know tony elliott has some some really inventive ways to engagement of the community in um supporting parking in many many ways i think there's enormous opportunity for this so i know that people love their parks they want to support them so i want to recognize all the applications did you open it up for public comment did you apply for commissions the city has a really robust volunteer program and kind of a great way to engage um aside from commission appointments and it's a good way to get that anti-level experience so just want to mention that in addition to the commission to oral communications all council members are participating in this meeting remotely this evening and i want to thank the public for staying home to view tonight's city council meeting tonight's meeting is being broadcast live on community television channel 25 and streaming on the city's website city of santa cruise dot com if you wish to comment during oral communications now is the time to call in using the numbers on your screen please mute your television or streaming device once you call in and listen through your phone please note there's a delay in streaming so if you continue to listen on your television or streaming device you might miss your opportunity to speak when it's time for public comment please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand when it's your time to speak during public comment you'll hear an announcement that you've been unmuted the time will then be set to two minutes unless you've called in to request additional time and once you're done with your compliments you may hang up and with that i'd like to ask for a quick to please call the roll thank you mayor council member byers here mathias brown here boulder here what can nice mayor meyer and mayor coming here so again um this the item that's up on our agenda is oral communications if you remember the public and you'd like to speak to the city council an item that is not on our agenda please call in using the instructions on your screen once you've dialed in please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand and when you've been called upon you'll be given two minutes to speak to council oh bonnie can you make me a co-host yeah hi this is gareth philip uh in today's era of multiculturalism e pluribus unum which was an overarching unifying american culture of beliefs and principles has been destroyed to suggest that there are perhaps cultural determinants for things like economic inequality is usually labeled racist homophobic white male capitalist pig talk by the far left they assign those usually fear filled inflammatory stale grievances as causation which descend you disingenuously massed their socialist marxist revolutionary anarchist ambitions and victim mentality which prevent focusing at all on some very basic important cultural differences statistical significance says poverty tracks with high school dropout rates births out of marriage before age 21 and not holding a full-time job black dropout rates are near 20 as is their poverty rate indigenous people's dropout and poverty rates are above 25 similar readings can be said for other ethnic groups who has far less of both it's a truism that 98% avoid poverty who finish high school marry before having a child and marry after the age of 21 but 79% who fail all three do live in poverty according to the brookings institute add in proficiency in english on the success rate goes higher a typical child from a poor family already receives income and housing support um healthcare preschool education college age and employment training programs government can do only so much what is missing is common sense values instilled by family into children that they are not victims they must have goals they must both compete and cooperate in society cherish they live in a free capitalist country and must acquire the skills and work hard to provide what other people need want and are willing to pay for left to speak of white privilege since 80% of the population never receives a diamond inheritance this is mostly myth in 2020 i know indigenous people have every right and benefit as an american citizen but also enjoy extra billions of bia aid scholarships exclusive rights to open so-called indian casinos other aid and if that isn't privileged what is privileged people like elizabeth warren try to pass as indigenous because that privilege class pays for those who can work it it is the same with affirmative action i i take it that's my time the next hour the last four digits are five three six two hello good evening council everyone is using the word equity these days equitable access to council is being denied especially if one considers the significant digital divide in san jacuzzi making major city decisions in the zoom age is a poor excuse for participation in local court of supervisors can allow public meetings you should open a civic auditorium for council can you hear me yes hi um my name is um michelle i am the program coordinator for the homeless the california homeless union i am absolutely not involved or affiliated with alicia kewell mckenry or um north i would like to point out that um rinnell spoke briefly about food not bombs having a nonprofit status and felt bad about um revoking services to those in need upon further inspections food not bombs slash mckenry chapter and his cohorts have lost his nonprofit 501c three status as of 515 2020 he is also not registered with the tax franchise boards he still is actively asking for donations monetary food clothing they are also saying they are helping fire relief victims that is not true because that is red cross fema um sorry i'm nervous um that is their sole purpose to help the fire people my belief is that he is falsifying documents he has a long history of doing so he has done this with one Katrina victims back in the day he falsified um papers to get into Katrina to give aid he also has falsified his documents for his vouchers for the homeless he also is i believe he is falsifying documents to the city to say he has um a nonprofit status in this city to continuously provide services that i believe are unsafe thank you for your time good evening good evening hi my name's adam novak and i'm calling in about the library project uh specifically i'd like to stress the i'm gonna have to to stop you since that's actually an item on our agenda the next item is regarding the library so if you'd like to speak on that item um you're going to need to call in during public comment but if you'd like to speak to us on any other item that's not on our agenda now is an opportunity to do so i thought martin Bernal's executive orders if you want to hear that uh that was an item that was on our agenda today as well so if you'd want all this hold off thank you sorry the next speaker is surge kagno who uh called in who asked for additional time from stepping up santa cruz so surge you'll have four minutes let me know yes good evening okay good evening my name's surge kagno stepping up santa cruz good evening thank you mr mayor for giving me a chance to speak council members for uh i'd like to talk about things on which all of us agree we'd all like santa cruz to thrive for all to be healthy for all to be housed or at least safe if not yet housed our collective values do not allow us to want the violence assault human trafficking loneliness mental health trauma and shame of being homeless to be on any of our community that goes for the newly homeless from the fires we want them to be safe from those who were not able to earn enough during covid to those who are homeless and fleeing domestic violence youth fleeing family violence for those simply suffering from poverty our collective values do not allow us to want people to suffer the question is whether any of those people deserve to suffer or choose to suffer and i'll talk about that all of us want a clean city where the trash is picked up for some reason the city is falling behind on that near where people are forced to camp from the piles next to the trash cans it can be seen that the homeless are doing their part but they cannot take it to the dump we're becoming known as anti homeless not by those who are homeless which some would think will make homeless people just go away we're starting to be known as anti homeless by other jurisdictions around the country that are trying to help their homes there are pictures of our anti homeless fencing that encapsulates our answer to those forced to live on the street make no mistake the majority of those people are forced to live that way i know many elderly people many people with disabilities many people that want housing shelter and housing is not available for everybody so some are on the streets for those people let's follow some of the recommendations that came from the catch that we didn't move forward on let's start a kahoots style program in collaboration with the county to be outreach first and let police do policing let's find a place for those when the when the shelters are full the benchlands is a success let's admit that low barrier can be safe and can entice some people who would not otherwise be in a shelter let's make more places for people to safely park at night rather than less let's make a strategic plan for our city's response to homelessness because what our city does is often counterproductive to what the county the all-in plan and focus strategies are working towards let's stop blaming the county or other jurisdictions who actually have the extremely affordable housing affordable housing that those people need let's stop landlords from illegally discriminating from section 8 vouchers let's make Santa Cruz thrive and let's actually put health in all policies because somehow it hasn't been applying to the way that we deal with our homeless thanks that's it for me mr. mayor i hope you guys all have a nice night and stay safe thank you very much again so this is oral communications it's an opportunity for people members of the community to address the council on items that are not on the agenda so if you've called in to comment during oral communications please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand and once you've been called on you'll have two minutes to speak in the next call you're on the line hi hello can you hear me yes good evening hi good evening thank you mayor coming thank you council for taking the time out to hear me my name is britney potter i am a local here from santa cruz county um and i am interested in getting the loud and nelson center name changed loud and nelson or as i like to call him by his actual name london nelson was a a free slave who came here in the 1800s left everything that he had to the santa cruz city council district after all their schooling had shut down to continue the school of all the kids in the city after he died they erroneously changed his name from london nelson to what you see now on all the buildings out front which is loud and nelson i've started a petition on change salt org as well as met with a few of the uh center directors to go ahead and push to get that changed i am not the first one um to suggest that his name be changed um what a remarkable man he was and we can't even get his name spelled correctly so once again his name is not loud and nelson but his name is london nelson um it's not something new this is something that the city knows about um and yet we do nothing to change it um the director of the center um told me that maybe in june of 2021 which would be june 10th of 2021 we could possibly see if we could change the name i'm hoping along with the council as well as maybe your help mr. Cummings that we can speed up that process um nothing like being um a an awesome human and then they completely bought your name um and your memory um so if anyone who's listening on the line anyone who who would like to also stand with me head over to change.org and sign that petition and also encourage the council members to maybe um to maybe step up and and put some fire um under whoever's behind uh needs to be so that we can go ahead um and change the name of the center as well as all the letterhead all the things that resemble um uh loudened uh like i said his name is london nelson um and there's there's tons of pictures to prove them very much anx collar last four digits one six six six i believe you can press star six on your phone to unmute uh hello good evening uh good evening um hello mayor cummings uh city council my name is m hunt i am the director of the california homeless union i just want to state that we have no affiliation with alicia cool keep mckennery or anyone associated with them or their organization furthermore i am calling in regards to the city of santa cruz continuing to issue a permit to food not bombs who is no longer a non-profit they have had their status revoked as of may of this year i think this is a gross malfeasance on part of our elected officials and the city to not only issue this permit without vetting the organization that it issued the permit to i further believe this is conspiracy on part of the city to do so um by your guys's actions and logic i do not need a permit to operate within the city of santa cruz for anything business non-profit or otherwise and that is very discerning because having a non-profit status having insurance being registered with the franchise tax board having a surf safe license these are in the interest of the community these are in the interest of public health and i would ask that you change the process in which you vet organizations before issuing them a permit because it makes us as a taxpayer liable all right thank you for your time if this is going to be the final call if you have called in uh for oral communication now's the time to press star nine on your phone to raise your hand and you will be given two minutes good evening my name is kyle davin port i agree with the loud and melston name change that's awesome um i am a fellow traveler on the life and process and journey of love and forgiveness as if any of this resonates with you please write it down and look into it it's awesome okay as you drive up water street towards uh right past the town clock and you're going up the short hill towards the mission there's a granite staircase on the left and this is something i've never truly noticed or recognized and i finally when walked up those stairs at the bottom it says public access and at the top is something that brought me to tears and will always bring me to tears if you don't know what i'm talking about please go look at it um in 1945 world war two ended and ever since many people have said that world peace is their interest and my interest is healing so i'm here to talk about my healing um my healing is psychological integration and that means awakening my inner loving healthy parents and fostering it and supporting it so it can heal my inner child all of my past wounds all of my self-limiting beliefs all of my subconscious beliefs that don't work and you utilizing my super conscious to do that and for me it is a very simple habit of affirmations guided heat uh meditations and guided left hand or non-dominant handwriting this has been like an absolutely amazing discovery for me and i intend to do it for the rest of my life and i'm sharing it with you because i think psychological integration is our next key uh for healing and not recycling the past the past wounds sexual assault racism thank you again if you'd like to comment on oral communications and you've called in please and you haven't had a chance to speak please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand on the next caller last four digits are zero three one nine um your turn to speak and i believe uh you can press star six there you go hey this is rachel marroy and former council member uh just calling really dismayed about the vandalism that uh teeth mckinry posted on his facebook page uh sharpies uh to city hall as well as breaking a window where employees who have to work on site need to work uh i'm not quite sure how much more he needs to do for the city and the county to actually start enforcing the law against him like previous callers have mentioned he's serving food without a permit he breaks county health codes constantly and i would really like to see city council stop being in fear of actually prosecuting um against him i know that he threatens lawsuits um and i know that the city is afraid of them but there's a certain point in time where you stop letting the city be helped hostage by his antics so i really hope that you show some leadership and that you really press our city attorney city manager um county ceo to please uh not allow this person to continue just um exploiting poor people and exploiting ill people to um push his crazy his ideology so please i really expect some leadership from all of you to try to stop this because i'm not okay and i'm sure a lot of us aren't okay with city hall getting vandalized and um having employees put in danger through having windows broken so thank you for listening to me and um we'll be watching thank you are there any other members of the public who'd like to speak to us in oral communication if so please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand and you will be given in two minutes okay no further comments i'll bring it back to council uh for the next item on our agenda but before i do so i did want to acknowledge something that was said which was that earlier in the day there was a group of uh community members who came to city hall and were protesting outside and some of the members of the community came to protest um vandalized the building by writing on the building and also breaking on the windows and i just want to say that um you know as a community i think we all believe in freedom of speech and people's right to assemble and people's right to express their opinions um but vandalizing buildings and uh breaking city property is something that uh should not happen um it's not something that uh we're condoning and and i just want to say that um you know while we encourage people to go out and speak you know speak their have their freedom of speech and exercise their freedom of speech vandalizing city property is is not okay and so i just wanted to make sure that that was stated and with that i see a number of my colleague fans up so go over to Cynthia Matthews but it's not only not okay i believe arrests were made um a couple of things uh i will need to excuse myself from the next item i've previously stated i have a conflict of interest so i'll be stopping uh stepping out on that i also wanted to just comment briefly on the whole issue of loudon nelson london nelson i think i've communicated with the mayor on this um uh council member fires may remember back but literally decades ago i think it was about the time that the community center was founded the issue of the name came up the discrepancy in the name historically is well-known historian um at that time there was a movement to name the center london nelson um but there was a very strong reaction in fact from the local african-american community which felt strongly that it would be loudon nelson i don't think yeah so um before someone um uh picked up this banner and runs with it i think uh at least the knowledge should be there but this is a very strongly felt opinion among the local african-american local african-american community at the time they prefer to say it's a london nelson name i just want to put that information out there for those that may not be aware of it so with that comment i will um walk off thank you Cynthia council member walkins thank you council member matthews for that context and thank you mayor coming for um denouncing the vandalism that occurred at city hall and i know a certain staff are really frightened at rightfully in terms of windows being broken right before them so um as council member matthews mentioned there were several arrests made in that incident i was just seeing if maybe we want to have our city manager there were um you know a number of callers who call to say that the uh the food not bombs chapter of insanacruz is not um a legitimate nonprofit in terms of our partnership in and permitting i don't know if you want to speak to that or if you want to investigate that and return back to us just to explore what that accusation was i'll open it up to martin sure i'd be happy to follow up with that i think uh you know with respect to the city issue in the permit it really is more in the context of providing guidance with respect to how to operate um as i said before the our experience has been that they have had repeated non-compliance and that after a period of time we get uh complaints and problems and so again the permit is issued in in in the spirit of uh trying to provide guidance and operational requirements so that we can have some standards established for them um however uh recognizing that uh mcindy is not going to want a permit or request a permit or uh stop his operations and so it's just our way to for us to better try to manage that and at least provide some guidance and some basis for trying to respond to the problems that unfortunately just happen to reoccur over and over again so it's really more of a tool to be able to be able to do more more enforcement and or achieve compliance um and that's really is the intent behind it not necessarily some kind of a acknowledgement that they're providing some kind of service or their status as a nonprofit and that really isn't really the intent it was in the context of the pandemic and trying to provide some uh some level of oversight in conditions that's really the context there's no further comments on this item let's um go ahead and move on to the last item of business on our agenda which is item number 30 um this is the award contract for mixed-use library owners representative contracts at griffin constructions so if there are members of the public who are streaming um if this is an item you'd like to comment on uh now it's the call time to call in using the instructions on your screen before we um hear the presentation one thing i will point out is that um we're going to limit public comment on this item given that it came before us um i think it was at the first the last meeting in september and it's now coming back to us after the public requested to see the actual contract before its approval and the number of people have called to speak on behalf of the groups so i'd just like to say that if you're a member of a group um they're throughout the community who is either in favor or oppose this project um you may want to check to see if someone has been identified um if someone has been identified from your group to speak we're going to ask that that person be the speaker on behalf of the group and that we limit comment on this item and so the way that public comment will work is that i will call the name of an individual from each of the different groups at which point you'll need to raise your hand and you'll be called on uh and given three minutes after which point we will then open up to the public for additional people to speak um who are not members of these groups so if you currently have your hand raised i would ask that you lower your hand by pressing start nine on your phone and we will turn it over to um amanda rotella and ryan borgoona from um principal management analyst and parking program manager for the presentation on this item okay thank you mayor mayor council amanda rotella principal management analyst in the economic development department and the mixed youth library project manager i'm just going to share my screen here by deck all right okay so we're going to just jump right in um so we're here today to talk about the library mixed youth project um and today's focus so just just sort of frame our discussion for today um on june 23rd of this year um council authorized staff to proceed with the selection of an owner's representative to manage the overall project implementation and so the action that we're bringing before you today is awarding the contract for the mixed youth library's owner's representative for phase one to griffin structures so that is the recommended action um at the when we met in september on this item council indicated that they needed some more background information and we're looking for some broad-based financial information in the parking and housing components of the project so we are bringing that with you today that would be helpful to just sort of frame up the project again um and just provide context to both the council and the community so current project concept here june 23rd city council approved the downtown mixed youth project um concept that was developed by group four option b as it was called which includes the modern modern library housing out on the upper floors with a minimum of 50 affordable units and then parking in a structure with no more than 40 400 parking spaces oh we got here so some context here 2017 the city council created the downtown library advisory committee delac to explore all the project options and they took six months to um look at what we could do with the measure s funds and unanimously recommended moving forward with the mixed youth project the council took that recommendation um on september 11th of 2018 and voted to move forward with the mixed youth project in 2019 council um put a pause on the project as we know and created the downtown library subcommittee which had our mayor our vice mayor and council member brown and that subcommittee um explored the options particularly zeroing in on the mixed youth and renovation options and that subcommittee recommended moving forward with the mixed youth project and that was brought forward um on june 23rd of this year where council again voted to move forward with that project um some of the community engagement piece which i know this is an area of particular of importance so the community engagement has been a big part of the entire process you can see was um a substantial part of the delac process we did an engagement um process in 2018 leading up to the september 11th vote and then as part of the downtown library subcommittee um our subcommittee members met with um over 27 stakeholder groups and worked very diligently to have those office hours um to be able to hear concerns from the community and i will say that you know this project has been adapted as a result of community feedback um you know the project now has a smaller garage component we've seen the addition of housing um the adjustment of the building so that only housing is above the above the library as i know there were concerns about um it's being below the parking garage so there has been you know um community engagement has been really crucial to getting us to where we are now with the project we have um piece that i wanted to touch on um the downtown library subcommittee developed this criteria matrix um where they kind of identified what are the key pieces that they were going to use when evaluating a project and really the three main areas were programmatic goals of the library sustainability and then really um the fiscal response the fiscal responsibility and the most efficient use of resources and really felt that their recommendation to move forward with the mixed use project was as a result of i think over a hundred criteria that were developed in evaluating a project and really um felt that the mixed use option best met these goals and um really wanted to use our limited resources to be able to obtain or to take advantage of as many opportunities as we could with this project which included reinvesting in a new library consolidating parking into garages so that we could have more opportunity sites for housing and then maximizing the creation of housing so some of the reasons that this project is really exciting is we're trying to do a lot with our limited resources today we're going to speak a little bit about the project funding um both the part will go in more in-depth in the parking and housing components the library piece was not one of the pieces you have to come back with but just to provide a sort of well-rounded picture we're just going to touch briefly on the measure as funding and you did have to come back with broad-based financial information and so i want to just sort of stress where we are in the process and our ability to provide um the limitations on our ability to provide really specific numbers and you're going to see a lot of ranges a lot of estimates um you know we will be able to bring back some more detailed numbers once we have a final project design it's hard to know um to price things out exactly until you have a design to add numbers to sort of like we saw we have done some in-depth review and analysis of the library project so we have some more firm numbers for that that same level of assessment has not been applied to the parking and housing pieces and would would be um forthcoming once we've brought on a design team so um i'm going to hand it off for our next piece which is the library financing piece and we have library director Susan Nemitz who hi this is Susan i'm hoping you can hear me yes um measure s is providing 27 million dollars for the library project uh i do want to point out though that when we brought Garfield and branch the 40 forward uh that was a million and a half above our estimates and the council did reallocate 1.5 million to the other branches knowing that that creates a hole in the library project um the project is going to give us about 30 000 square feet but the real opportunity for us is to have an additional 5000 square feet um potentially for an additional three million dollars and we hope we can achieve that either through air rights fundraising um and other private and governmental sources i can go into a lot more detail this is a really exciting project for us um and would really like to keep moving forward um and up next i'd like to bring Bonnie Lipscomb our economic development director who's going to touch on the housing financing piece thanks Amanda um so as Amanda mentioned um we have broad-based financial information on each of the components in the staff report um we have had quite a few um questions about this specific elements of affordable housing so i thought it would be good to actually show you a couple of recently completed projects that are city-led projects just so that you can see um the level of funding the types of funding sources that go into these projects and then actually i am going to show a little more specificity of what we're proposing for the library affordable housing component of the library mixed use project so the two projects on this screen um some of you may have seen before if you've been on our affordable housing tour the first one is the city-owned tannery artists loft um the campus is city-owned and this is a partnership with art space um the total project cost 38 million the cost per unit 381 thousand um the city's funding um and this is actually really low for an affordable housing project but it's 62 000 a little over 62 000 per unit but our total contribution which at the time included a large part of the rda was 6.23 million total for that project um the wever walk apartment the 21 unit project um on lemburg street um that had a budget of um total project cost of 9.3 million unit cost you can see it's a little bit later 445 000 there's also an economy of scale on the tannery project that made those that unit a little bit lower cost 2.48 million of city funding in that project again you're going to see city rda but you also have our head home program in there as well this is actually the proposal or the proposed breakdown this is preliminary and i'm just going to take a minute to go over this for the library affordable housing funding we don't you'll notice we don't have rda funding in there anymore but we do have some very reliable funding sources and i'll break those down in a few minutes but typically what you're going to see with an affordable housing project is that we're going to partner with an affordable housing developer and they're going to bring in the majority of the funding um for the project so 40 of that um this is just a benchmark right now it could be anywhere from 30 to 60 probably closer that's why i'm putting 40 of tax credit equity or basically an equity investor into the project will be a big part of the funding you're going to have a permanent loan based on future rent receipts to become a part of the project interest journal partner equity all of the area on the bottom is really where i want you to focus because i think that's where we're having a lot of our questions so all the areas that are in green are the various city funding sources that we're proposing to be part of this project city land or fees our permanent local housing allocation which is being awarded to us it's guaranteed funding our allocation is 1.5 million and i'll break that down in a minute our city HUD home program cdbg funds and funding from our city affordable housing trust so those shaded areas that represents about 20 of the overall cost of the project we're proposing at this time to be um city funded from these funds i will say that this amount could be less or more depending on um how many units are in the project depending on how successful our developer our developer partner is in applying for other eligible state and federal grants and i'll i'll give you an example of that in just a second next slide okay i don't expect you to uh we won't spend long on this so i do want to say um that this is available um on the city website we'll put it on the project site as well and anyone can also email me if they'd like to follow up with any specific questions about this but this is in sort of a uh spreadsheet form three recently completed projects that i have the actual dollars for um that are city city-led projects so the tannery our riverwalk that i just showed you and then the most recent one is the 41 unit limburg street project so in the top line i have how many units the cost per unit on total project cost and then i have shaded in green again just so you can see that as it relates to the pie chart the amount of city funding um and the percentage of the city funding as part of the overall funding cost so when you see that column to the right with the percentage that's the percentage of the overall project cost so what we're proposing again um specifically here in numbers so you can see it is 1.5 million from the city's affordable housing trust fund five hundred thousand from the city's head home program and uh three million city land and or city fees um we often um are dedicating or waving um deferring or waving city fees to a project and then that permanent local housing allocation that i mentioned earlier of one million and if you go across i'm not going to go into the details of those but you can see how that compares to the recently completed project next slide and then just to break that down as the city contribution piece so specifically uh how much city funding and it compares to what we're proposing for the library project as compared to the tannery the riverwalk and the water street three recently completed project we're proposing six million um that's approximately as i mentioned 20 of the overall project costs for affordable what that equates to as the city contributes contribution per unit is about 120 000 so if you carry that line across you can see how much we put in the tannery riverwalk and water street three heavily engaged and involved city project um this is a little higher i will say typically or not even typically but more recently i'm seeing in other jurisdictions this number of the city contribution for unit because it can be as high as two sometimes even 300 000 per unit it can be really high um this is based on a benchmark of 600 000 um the cost of 600 000 per unit on this which is significantly more than you were seeing in early days of the tannery next slide um specifically just looking at those funding sources again i want to go a little a little deeper on that there were some questions about that our city affordable housing trust fund um we're proposing to commit 1.5 million of that for this project and what would it take to do that it is available right now it would take a future council action and if there's questions of why we haven't done that yet is i think we're waiting to pull together the full funding sources with our developer team and once we know that we come in as the city with a gap financing with a proposed funding to really fill that gap so that's why right now it's available council action is needed um the permanent local housing allocation this is a it's kind of like a cdbg we um are waiting to do this uh to receive the state agreement and we will be receiving 1.5 million it has spread over five years so we're proposing to basically commit three of the five-year allocation to this project um city hood home program fund cdbg um specifically i'm thinking hud program funds we currently have over 600 000 available now um proposing to commit 500 000 to this project and then city land or fees um this is uh air rise the valuation of value of that is going to be less than you're going to see for a couple of the other projects that is um where we're dedicating the entire site and ground level site um but that is a number that will be able to be used by the developer to leverage um for state grants and to be more competitive for uh low-income housing tax credits uh next slide and then finally i wanted to i've had some questions um also from council on you know what are our balances and what funding is actually available for future projects so i just wanted to show a comparison because we have been working really diligently over the last year with our housing team um and our our selected developer at least for the first metro south which is taxation south um we are working with for the future housing and we are in the process and um we're hoping we'll hear this week it might be next week on uh we hear the announcements are coming um for the um housing and community development transit oriented development program and we did apply um with uh for the future housing for 10 million for that project so this chart basically shows if you look at the top half of the chart is the city funding source if you look at the bottom half or bottom third of the chart i want to emphasize this because we have opportunities in addition to the funding we already have internally at the city in our affordable housing trust fund cdbg home and through our city land those we control but we have the opportunity to partner with an affordable housing developer and apply for these other state and federal grant programs and the more city investment you have the more you can leverage the more competitive you are for these state funding sources so we feel really good based on the self-scoring and with recently posted you can go to hdb site and actually look up and get our uh score of where we are now for this program and we believe we're going to be funded um stay tuned on that um if we get that full 10 million we may not need um the city fees for the full home or cdbg that i'm proposing for metro south so this is an example of some of the fluidity of that depending on what other state and federal sources are available metro north um the council previously committed are some of our former last remaining uh redevelopment agency money which we're now is now called the successor agency so that's where that two million is secured for that project um we also have the land um as big components of those two projects as part of the metro south project the parcels in that even though we were successful in securing it uh for 1.8 million that combined with the other city parcels in that project had the total valuation of 8.5 million and so that again that's a city contribution to the project again here you can see the library um in comparison to those two projects and we are estimating you know in the range of 107 to 120 000 per unit but that could change for example if the library we go up um and increase the number of units some of this funding and some of the funding sources committed to the project um and the total amount of city subsidy can change as well okay next next slide and this is just a reminder um because i love this project um i love a home affordable housing project so this one is um shows where we are right now with the um with the project um this shows a sort of a bird's eye view looking down at the proposed maple alley improvement this is a partnership with as i mentioned for the future housing but also Santa Cruz community health center and the interest and that's their second floor on this project and then everything above that is the affordable housing and then uh next slide and um as requested um these are the developers who responded to our request for qualifications specifically of the nine that responded to a sort of a larger downtown request for qualifications seven of them followed up um after the last council meeting we had in june specifically with interest in developing the affordable housing component of the library next project and so you can see them here and they're also included in the staff department thanks Amanda great thank you bonnie um up next um we're going to have Brian Borruno who is our parking program manager walk us through the parking financing piece good evening council hope everybody can hear me okay um so i'm going to take you through a little bit of an overview of the parking financing component to this mixed use project um there's been a lot of work that has gone into it previously but because of some of the impacts and recent changes because of COVID-19 and some adjustments that we had to make we and we thought it would be beneficial to revisit all the previous modeling and kind of provide an update with more new information inputs uh next slide Amanda so some of that recap uh this slide just kind of shows that a lot of the legwork that went into discussing the parking financing piece started back in 2016 um and the main key key takeaways from um the work that happened was that there was a parking rate strategy developed uh that went to the town town commission for approval and then back to council for approval and implementation uh we began implementation of that parking rate strategy which was a five-year plan of incremental rate increases in 2019 um and again we had our second you know step in that uh at the beginning of 2020 so we are well underway in that five-year plan uh next slide please so the the estimates have changed quite a bit um since we were originally planning with that parking rate strategy to cover the cost of a 600 space parking facility um the supply has been capped by previous count to action at 400 parking spaces so we wanted to go back to our design consultants and kind of discuss based on the the known footprint that we're going to have and the the reduction in parking spaces what does the market rate look like in today's conditions for a parking facility and so they came back to us with some estimates of 50 000 to 65 000 per parking space which translates to 145 dollars per square foot or 188 dollars per square foot so our total cost range as it stands today is somewhere between 20 million and 26 million depending on you know final design uh we included three-year escalation of cost uh construction contingency and also soft cost in some of these estimates so this would allow us to complete the project for these for these total amounts we won't know those final cost estimates until we get to that design phase uh with the amount that we determined in this range we would see a potential debt service estimate of 1.375 million or 2.1 million per year over a 30-year period um supported by the parking district which we'll see in the upcoming slides so in our modeling we wanted to kind of there's a lot of unknown still with how recovery is going to go economically so we wanted to kind of project out a worst-case projection a mid-range projection and a best-case projection tonight I'm only going to share the worst-case projection in the mid-range for planning purposes just to demonstrate in some of the the assumptions that we made in those projections so the anticipation in the next scenarios that you'll see graphically is that we've kind of projected out a five-year budget using these inputs you know COVID-19 impacting fiscal year 21 the debt service payment being the highest amount of a 26 million dollar project returning to some level of what previous actual fiscal year 19 revenues were by fiscal year 2022 we did not include in this model of worst-case scenario we did not include any new revenue sources for example the parking in lieu fees we did include the sunset of deficiency fees still occurring in fiscal year 23 and potentially having to take a look at rate changes at that point fiscal year 23 is also the time where we would complete the five-year strategy that began in 2019 in this worst-case model we did not anticipate all budget expense cuts and we also included expense escalation from the last three years after we come out of recovery the next slide please so this is what the revenue and expenditures would look like the first few years 2016 through 2019 are actuals and fiscal year 20 is actuals as best we know it there might still be some changes to those final numbers based on audits and such but these numbers are the real numbers that we reported on the fund balance and then we projected out where we believe we would land in fiscal year 21 and beyond so with this modeling we showed that we take a significant dip in revenues and we still didn't cut enough expenditures in fiscal year 21 but that by fiscal year 22 you know revenues exceed expenditures as they historically had in most years and in previous actuals the range and expenditures usually went up and down based on any given level of capital improvement projects that we were doing and so you see some fluctuations and expenditures while you were seeing a consistent stream of increasing revenues until we entered into the pandemic what does that mean for the parking fund balance it means that you know we're going to see a pretty huge hit in fiscal year 21 and but we're projecting being able to come out of it and the modeling we included again the 2.1 million dollar debt service payment beginning in fiscal year 23 and still being able to build back our parking fund balance next slide please that was worth case what we're planning as a more realistic option is kind of our mid-range projection you know we a lot of the assumptions are the same but the biggest significant changes that we made in the next graph is that we reduced the debt service payment to 1.865 million instead of at the higher end we hit the middle range cost and we included some additional revenues that we believe will come to fruition for example collecting on some parking in the fees for building permits that are currently in process and that the actual facility would be completed sometime in fiscal year 24 and we would have a new revenue from that parking garage all the other assumptions were very similar and we did make some additional expenditure cuts that we have already taken action to try to reduce our expenses for the year next slide please so that shows graphically the next you know mid-range projection which shows a dip in fiscal year 21 but not as significant as a worst-case scenario with revenues and expenses balancing out where we're back on the positive side by fiscal year 22 and including our debt service payment right please snapshot again of the same slide before but with a parking fund balance that doesn't take as much of a dip in line that we were seeing previously before and in summary I get the parking district fund supports the project we don't anticipate needing any general fund revenues and all the scenarios we ran the projections best made in worst-case scenarios we anticipate that the parking district can support this project one of the factors is the reduced capital cost with a 400 space garage we were planning with the REIT strategy a significantly more expensive project that and saves us money just by cutting the scope of work we've been talking with some of the financial institutions that would help determine our eligibility for funding through direct lending and that right now it's looking pretty optimistic on competitive interest rates for both direct lending financing sources as well as bonding opportunities positive impacts of COVID tie right into that where we're seeing lower interest rates we're also seeing lower construction cost and we may potentially have some capacity at our other facilities or previously we did not during the construction period and a lot of the modeling you know we we had built up funds and we're seeing the hit in fiscal year 21 in part because some of the actions we took directly to relieve businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic which is waving parking deficiency fees permit fees daily parking rates and trying to do as much as we can to utilize that fund balance that we had built up thank you so much friend one of the other things that council had requested was some links to where people could go for more information we created the city of Santa Cruz comm slash mixed use library project page a couple years ago back in 2018 and I have given it a total makeover with updates with a whole project page that's set up that has project updates that I'm updating regularly it provides background it's a sort of one stop shop for all the information about this project and and then an FAQ page and then some more details about the project and specifically related to the FAQs we included a number of FAQs in the in the packet you received as well you know we really are trying to address all the sort of questions that are coming up regularly ask questions and want to make sure that we're clear and transparent on the details of this project one of the things as staff that we do in preparation for the council meetings is review all of the emails that come in from the community really wanting to make sure that we're taking in that feedback and hearing the concerns and I noted a couple of points that came up quite regularly that had just some misinformation that I felt was important to address today really wanting to make sure that you as our elected officials and also the public have all of the details so that you can really assess and and take in this project and and be able to ask further questions so a couple of the ones that came up what does this project look like while the project has been approved by city council it has not been designed we have some preliminary designs that were developed as part of the cost estimation process for the library portion but the final design is really still to be developed and will include community engagement and input as part of that process and as I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation once that design has been developed this we'll be able to provide further details on things like number of housing units building height and other details and you know some specific numbers as opposed to ranges for the housing and parking components one of things that was referenced was that it's a six-story project we have not determined project height that would be something that would be determined as part of the design process and ultimately would be a city council decision whether to approve any height beyond what the downtown plan allows lots of questions about the farmers market i think it's important to know that the farmers market will remain downtown we love the farmers market when i think we can all agree that that is a part of what makes Santa Cruz and downtown Santa Cruz special is our Wednesday farmers market so we want to do everything we can to support the market so they would be proposed to move just around the corner to excuse me parking lot seven which is at the corner cast card and front street which would be a permanent location there and while the lot is a different shape it is actually comparable in square footage actually did a little math earlier today it's about a 900 square foot difference which is about a two percent reduction in size and we're looking at ways to expand that the the footprint that we've currently identified but really it's it's pretty equal in terms of size measure funds lots of questions about measure funds and their ability to be used for new construction you know looking at the ballot language it did specify that new construction building renovations and service model upgrades could all be included and other jurisdictions are actually in the process of building brand new libraries felton capitol and aptos are all using measure funds for new construction and really you know the city has through our different processes of looking at this project really determines that it's you know moving forward with new construction is the best use of our taxpayer resources and then just a couple other questions that came up questions about the renovation plan do we get as much as the renovation plan and really um sorry my notes oh yeah do we get as much as the renovation plan and really you know as we determined as part of the downtown library council subcommittee when we did those different cost assessments we didn't we we determined or the council determined that the renovation option did not get us as much in the library there was a reduced to collection system-wide there was a failure to serve some of our teams and provide other high demand services it doesn't provide you know basic infrastructure needs like additional elevators sufficient bathrooms perimeter controls and and really there was a limited long-term ability to expand or add green features in the renovation option a number of the letters noted that the rent noted that the renovation plan was shovel ready i think it's important to note that the renovation plan is a similar point in the process if we were you know to move forward with that option um that it would require us to hire an owner's rep and put up bring a design team and get permits and develop a plan for two years closer so it's not as if this plan is just sitting there waiting to go there would be further development and work and consultants that would be brought in as part of that lots of questions about the nelson nightguard study and where it can be viewed publicly the nelson nightguard study was presented to the downtown commission which is the body that oversees things in the downtown and it's been available publicly since that time and i also put it on our project website page in that background section so the public can view that it view it there as well and now after all of that background information we can move on to where what we're here today for which is the owner's rep contract just some quick little facts about the owner's rep really they serve as a project manager they bring technical expertise and experience and will assist the city in managing the budget and timeline and we'll also oversee the design and construction processes and owner's rep is a sort of typical approach that we take to some of our larger more complicated projects we used an owner's rep in the tannery in the marine sanctuary exploration center and have also hired owner's reps for the brand supporting and garfield park renovation so this is pretty typical our rfp process so we posted the rfp in july of this year after receiving council direction in june we received seven proposals which was more than i was expecting so i was incredibly excited to get so many interested parties really strong proposals we interviewed four teams there was a sort of multi-departmental review process we had staff from economic development planning public works and the library that reviewed the proposals and conducted the interviews and all of the proposals were evaluated based on the project team past related experience their approach to scope and then cost breakdown and cost and fee breakdown we were incredibly excited about griffin structures very happy that they applied they were an incredibly they had an incredibly strong proposal and really have a ton of experience working on complex projects have experience working on libraries and affordable housing projects and parking projects they have 40 years of experience brought in as part of their team someone who works especially in community engagement and outreach we were really impressed by their communication strategy for the project and they have worked on both the half moon bay library as well as the washington bill civic center so they have worked in our area the project scope i know there was a lot of interest in the project scope so this is just sort of a basic outline that included in your packet was one was a draft contract which included a lot more information a lot more details to each of these sections in in there you can see sort of an overview developing a budget and timeline which we bring back to council helping us with the affordable housing financing evaluation you got a little taste of that from bonnie we would work with with griffin to finalize that and put together a plan they would help us bring on a design team and develop those construction documents get us through the permitting process and all of that with community engagement and communications as part of their scope we're recommending breaking this into two phases we did our rfp included our request proposals looked at we're looking for an owner's rep for the entire project which included construction we are recommending breaking the contract into two phases sort of this pre design design and permitting phase as phase one which would take us now through mid 2022 and then going back to council for a contract for managing the construction phases of the project and we would be looking to do that and in mid 2022 before then that we could have the lender contract obviously but yeah so recommending sort of that phase one piece and that would just give us of the city a lot more flexibility around the timing and you know what we're committing to financially in terms of a contract rather than committing to the whole big package having this smaller contract for for the $240,000 and the recommendation we're bringing before you as stated in the staff report is the motion to award the contract for the mixed use library owner's representative for phase one to griffin structures in the amount of $240,000 and authorized the city manager to execute an agreement in a form to be approved by the city attorney and I just wanted to note promise this is my last slide sort of where we are in the process and what the next steps would be so we've received council direction on all of these pieces so we would be looking tonight to finalize that contract with the owner's representatives we would work with them on that timeline and budget and return to council with that information we would then work with the owner's rep to hire a design team so the team that would help us figure out what this will look like and and really narrow in on those details that we know council and the community are eager to have that'll be those would be hammered out as part of the the design process and we would return to council with those general schematics and and that additional information and then sort of on parallel tracks I will also be working on exploring options for the existing library site that was um direction we received from council and then also working with farmers market to finalize the design for their new location so a lot of things will be sort of happening over the next couple of months and so these are sort of all of our next steps and with that we will take questions and I'll turn it back over to you mayor thank you thank you and thank you so much for that presentation because there's a lot of questions that I had that were answered by the presentation you just gave and I think it provided a lot of and from you know the questions that I'm getting from people in the community I think that it provided a lot of context for you know understanding financing for the library and the garage component and then the library itself I'm sorry if I missed a formal housing but yeah the formal housing piece as well I'm working to get all that information up on the website so we can really make it accessible for the public as well be great so um before we move on to the public I want to see if there's any council members who have questions uh for our staff okay seeing none um as I mentioned before we as we announced um when the agenda packet went out we're going to be limiting um public comment and so we encouraged groups to reach out to us and so what I'd like to do is rather than having people just raise their hands so you raise your hand um please ask you to lower them um and what we'll do is we'll start with um the groups so what I'd like to do is I'll call on the name of the group members and at that time um if you would raise your hand you will then for people who called in on behalf of a group you will be given three minutes and once we've gotten through the um group representatives will open up for any remaining time to be members of the public who are not part of groups and so with that I'd like to start with Sandra Ivani my use measure as funds to renovate the downtown library if you're on the call please press star nine to raise your hand and you will be given three minutes to speak on behalf of your group and hello there hi there hi Jason thank you for calling on me so wow that was a lot of information um and truthfully uh I disagree with you Jason it did not clarify things for me whatsoever this project has become so complicated I really would like to keep on talking about the library we um we voted for uh measure s to restore the library restore 10 libraries in Santa Cruz county some of that work has already begun um some of that work has begun with the architect that has proposed the renovation in the downtown library and I want to bring the conversation back to that because I think most of us grew up with a library that was a standalone library that was um um that they have a lot of memories of and a library in a garage is just not really what I consider to be a library or what many people would consider to be a library there's there's so many comments I could make and I'm worried about being cut off in time so I'm going to go right to the the the point that's the most important for me besides the one that I just made which is let's talk about the library and not the garage not the parking people not the staff that is an economic development that says this is going to be the housing miracle of the year affordable housing blah blah blah there's so much to talk about here but let's talk about the library as it exists now the building that's there right now what's going to happen with that building that's what I want to know because I drive past that building since this conversation has begun and I'm fairly new in this conversation because the fact is this is so complicated been going on for so many years most people in the community can't even follow it and I couldn't even follow it either but now I've kind of looked into it I'm still a novice but looking at that building it's fine but you know I'm sure you know we people remodel buildings that are hundreds of years old victorians thousands of years old that that building could be remodeled and we could keep that building so I'd like to know in this plan where you're coming up with uh broad based quote unquote broad based and that was wow very broad based that that information you gave out who I could not follow it and I don't think any anybody could have followed what you were talking about there but what's going to happen with the building you have now is that going to be the building that we have now that library is that going to be remodeled for offices for google is it going to be remodeled for city staff it's going to eventually be remodeled or are you going to just knock it down because it's not even worth remodeling which is of course absurd because plenty of buildings that are much worse shape that are much much older than that can be remodeled so I I would want to have that in the plan and understand what you're going to do with it I think this plan that you've presented with the library underneath the garage with the so-called affordable housing that even the even okay thank you very much I hope you don't award the contract because it's a waste of money thank you yeah okay next um I'd like to see if Mike Rock can democratic women club representative is on the line if so please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand and you'll be given three minutes okay so again I'm looking for Mike Rock and the democratic women club and you can press star six on yourself I'm pretty sure okay okay can you hear me yes okay thank you uh mr mayor and our council members uh I'm Mike Rock and I representing the democratic women's club of Santa Cruz county or DWC we have over 270 members most of whom are activists in the local community I mean they're all in the local community some of most of whom are activists we support the new library all of the comments that we got from staff make it very clear that you get a better library this is aside from the question of housing or parking or anything else you get more of a library more space more able to program more things in the new library despite the comments from the last speaker the old library is not not really be rehabbed we had problems with this library back when I was on the city council and mayor in the past it has a ventilation system it cannot be upgraded it needs to be totally torn out and that basically cuts out the guts of the building um generally you think everything could be rehabbed of course it can be rehabbed but it costs more money and you end up with less of a library when you're done um I'm not going to go over all the reasons we support the library except to say that we believe the new library gives us a better library we want the best library possible for our community and this is the heart of the library system it's the main branch that supports all the other branches throughout the county there have been a number of sort of specious objections to this project for example having to do with parking as even the last speaker said it's going to be you know buried under a parking no they just told you a moment ago that it's going to be on top of the parking so people are not following the facts information goes out that they're going to be 440 new spaces for parking when we don't need that much new parking in fact you're going to end up with a in terms of additional new parking when they're all done and all the existing city locks are built on for affordable housing which is something many people support in this community you're going to have a around 40 or 43 I'm not sure the exact number but a little bit more than 40 new additional spaces and that's barely enough to cover the use of the library itself to say nothing of other kinds of businesses developing around it over the next couple of decades so we support this project it's been through your library staff and the city staff support this project your committees that you've appointed from the library support this project your own council subcommittee supported this project two councils have voted to support this project and whereas it's critical to get citizen input into the design of the project and other kinds of issues that are still before us the idea of using these further iterations of the development of the project is a way to go back and attack the basic project is not really legitimate it's inappropriate at some point you have to take the fact that you've made a decision and move on and take comments on design take comments on the nature of the you know the contract with the people that are going to do the oversight of the construction and so forth those are appropriate things to bring before the public but people should not be using that to bring up the overall question of whether we should build a new library I think that decision has been made by your council and at this point you ought to invite public input into the next steps thank you very much thank you okay the next speaker is Casey Byers from the Santa Cruz county each chamber of commerce so Casey if you're on the line please please let's start nine and you will be given three minutes to speak on behalf of your group thank you mayor Cummings and city council this is Casey Byer I am the CEO of the Santa Cruz County Chamber of Commerce we represent over 600 member companies throughout Santa Cruz County and a large percentage of them work in the downtown area we support this project unanimously it brings together affordable housing a 21st century library built by this generation for the next generation think about that comment for a second building something for the next generation the children and the kids that will be our leaders in the next generation this is for them it also creates adequate parking to accommodate the current employers and employees that work in the downtown it also helps for customers and the visitors that come to the downtown bear in mind we have a wonderful Kaiser arena that has the whole home to the Santa Cruz warriors and they are a legacy in this community think about where those visitors and those uh season ticket holders and people from the community go to enjoy the Santa Cruz warriors where are they going to park this is a great opportunity to put a closer to the arena and a vital community connection so on behalf of the Santa Cruz County Chamber of Commerce and our team in our members I urge you to support this contract and do it now thank you thank you next on our list we have Robert Singleton Santa Cruz County Business Council Robert if you're on the line if you could please press press star nine on your phone to raise your hand you will be given three minutes to speak on behalf of your group okay so again looking for Robert Singleton from the Santa Cruz County Business Council if you are on the line please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand and you will be given three minutes okay I'm not saying Mr. Singleton at this time so I'm going to move on to the next speaker Yolanda Henry Downtown Library Advisory Committee so Yolanda Henry if you're on the line please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand and you will be given three minutes to speak on behalf of your group good evening Mr. Mayor and city council members this is Yolanda Henry and tonight I'm representing the downtown library advisory committee and that was formed in 2017 you know this advisory committee was composed of members from different sectors in our community and they represented the downtown businesses we had parents who represented homeschooling the arts community members of large and we also had two retired librarians on this committee one from the Library of Congress and another one from the city of Los Angeles so we had a lot of expertise in our group I myself represented the nonprofit sector and underrepresented groups we conducted 1200 surveys of community members we also conducted two focus groups one of which was in Spanish and we held one community meeting so in addition that we met and toured libraries as well and one of our libraries that I was very impressed with is our lots of the library that has a beautiful library in conjunction with the courthouse and also the city hall and a parking structure so that right there in our county shows you that buildings can be utilized to the maximum and leverage our funding that we have through measure s and so we would like to urge you strongly urge you to approve the owner's representative contract our city deserves a new modern library for the 21st century and 50 affordable housing units as well as the parking that we need and you know our city depends on tourism and as much as I would like our own community members to get to do more walking to use public transportation and to get on bicycles many of us are not going to do that but our tourists who come they're going to drive here and they will need places to park and so that they can shop and dine in our area and our library I think Mike Watson summed it up well about that the structure is that would not be money well spent there our city deserves a beautiful new library that will serve the 21st century and we'll be around for you know generations to come so thank you very much thank you very cool so next on the list we have rena dubin library advisory commission hi thank you mayor and thank you city council for your time my name is rena dubin and I am one of the commissioners representing the city of Santa Cruz on the library advisory commission I urge you tonight to approve the contract with griffin structures as the owner's representative for the downtown library mixed use project the downtown library functions as a crucial branch to the entire library system this library needs to be large enough to support our general collection along with veteran services genealogy collections teen services and historical and archival storage all of which could be cut or eliminated if the mixed use project does not move forward the community has shown support for the best library possible a library that meets the needs of today's users we must keep this project moving forward in order to bring Santa Cruz the modern 21st century library that our city deserves please approve the contract with griffin structures so we can move on to the next step thank you so much for your time thank you okay next on my list I have Zach Davis downtown management corp so Zach's here on the line hello can you hear me all right yes good evening wonderful thanks so much for the opportunity to speak on this issue I'm Zachary Davis here is the past chair of the downtown management corporation board of directors and as you all know the DMC is the organization that oversees the cooperative retail management district in the downtown and directs the use of funds collected through an assessment on each parcel in the district the board of directors represents a broad collection of stakeholders as it includes both downtown property owners and downtown business representatives reviewing our minutes our meeting minutes I believe the DMC first discussed and considered the mixed use library project in the fall of 2016 and has followed the project ever since including the robust work of the DLAC and the city council library subcommittee a little over the year ago I had the pleasure of speaking with the subcommittee on behalf of the DMC and spoke with several of you at every point it has been the consensus of the DMC that the mixed use library project is in the best interests of our downtown consolidation of parking and the potential to offset parking requirements for future workforce housing more folks living in the downtown in affordable units and perhaps most important rather than pouring money into a structure that will result in a smaller library and reduced services building a 21st century library that will be a jewel of our downtown all of these are benefits in the eyes of the DMC I urge you to approve the owner's representative contract for the downtown mixed use library project and I thank you for your time good night thank you okay next on our list we have Jane Barr from Eden housing so Jane if you're on the line if you can press star nine on your phone to raise your hand good evening thank you this is Jane bar I'm associate director of real estate development for Eden housing Eden is one of the nine developers that responded to the city's RFQ last year we're very interested in the support of this project I ask that you approve the contract for the mixed use library's library owners representative tonight this project has been under consideration since the library bond was approved in 2016 and the council first approved relocating the down library into the downtown library into a mixed use project in september of 2018 a council subcommittee was established in 2019 to explore all the options its work ended in the subcommittee's unanimous support of the mixed use project and sub subsequent council's approval in June to move forward with the project the project will result in a modern expanded and efficient library to serve the 21st century needs of the community including internet for students who may not have internet in their homes separate spaces for children and teens and community meeting rooms in addition the city has been farsighted in including a parking garage and affordable housing the former will be former will be necessary to replace parking lots lost due to future development necessitated by growth adequate parking will entice shoppers and tourists to support downtown businesses the affordable housing will address the need it has been obvious and growing for years it will provide housing for Santa Cruz City residents that is affordable and will take the burden off of them and deciding between paying for rent food or health costs residents will be provided services to support them to improve their lives the housing could also provide a reliable local source of workers for the downtown businesses downtown apartments will allow residents to walk to work and shop where they they're which will further support downtown merchants this in turn will increase tax revenue for the city now is the time to act on an extremely long process in which you have bent over backwards to reach out to the community the project before you is well planned and much needed to not approve this contract tonight would be death by delay thank you thank you very much um next on my list I have Matt Farrell the downtown commission Matt if you're on the line if you could please trust star nine you'll be given three minutes to speak uh good evening thank you uh mayor Cummings and council members for the opportunity to speak I'm currently the chair of the downtown commission having served on the commission since january of 2015 tear Hamilton was not able to attend tonight's meeting so I am taking her place I urge you to support staff's recommendation and improve the owner's representative contract for the library mixed use project the downtown commission has consistently supported this project in June 2018 the commission approved recommending to council the parking rates and fee schedule to provide resources for financing the parking portion of the mixed use project hiring an owner's representative is the right decision for the project as mentioned earlier Griffin structures has strong local experience in our area having worked on the Watsonville Civic Center project the Salinas and Half Moon Bay libraries experience which will transfer directly to the work we have before us the city of Santa Cruz has used outside expertise in developing the tannery art center a city mixed use project that was included city land housing artist studios galleries and the arts council offices the questions raised by council members at the september 22nd meeting have been addressed I want to close by stating again that the commission has consistently supported this project and urge you to approve the owner's representative contract thank you thank you okay next on my list I have mark mcd miller downtown forward so mark if you're on the line you can please press star nine on your phone my name is mark mcd miller and I'm here tonight representing downtown forward a grassroots community organization focused on initiatives and projects that will make life in downtown Santa Cruz better for residents workers and visitors tonight we urge you to award the owner's representative contract to Griffin structures a well qualified firm with a wealth of experience in both libraries and mixed use projects retaining Griffin structures will provide the expertise needed to deliver the best possible project at the least possible cost this particular project for many reasons first and foremost equitable housing realtors are fond of saying location location location when it comes to downtown's urban planners are fond of saying housing housing housing and downtown's is the key to avoiding the bustling city by day dead city by night problem nothing creates a safe and thriving downtown better than abundant housing that guarantees a constant hum of human activity the beauty of this project is it will create 50 units of permanently affordable housing for families with below average income second efficient transfer replacing almost 400 surface parking spaces in a new multi-story shared parking facility will reduce the need to provide dedicated parking for other individual projects this shared parking will make it far less expensive to develop affordable housing such as planned at the Pacific station community health care facilities like the community health center and other community serving projects like the library with its location so near the metro transit center this shared parking will also provide a central location for bike sharing bike storage car sharing and other mobility options third an attractive center pose all new library will provide an accessible single level layout with more space for teens and young children including a separate entrance to welcome children and their families this is exactly the library we need to serve us now and for future generations for the environment creating more housing in our downtown and near the largest transit hub in the county will reduce the vehicle miles travel the single most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pipe climate change transforming an existing surface parking lot into a mixed use development is a most sustainable use of scarce land in our downtown you have already heard and will be hearing from others in our community including affordable housing representatives community health practitioners library advocates environmental advocates and transportation advocates support for this project is broad and deep please for the sake of the people the planet and prosperity move downtown forward tonight thank you very much recall next on my list i have either michael posner or robert morgan from the cr club so think of you hit star six on your phone you'll unmute yourself again if you hit star six on your phone i believe that will unmute your your phone thank you very much sorry about the glitch is there good evening council members can you hear me yes good evening yes this is good evening mayor this is balt morgan i'm speaking on behalf of the ciara club our membership is over 3 000 strong residents in in the county and most of the city of santa cruz they overwhelmingly want to renovate the current library across in the city hall and create a city center bordered by the city auditorium city hall and the current library a civic space that intersects the government education and culture we represent our constituency and respect their views that those views align with syrica policy strengthens our resolve to oppose this current project we ask that you abandon it we understand the need for affordable housing downstown downtown but we advocate for housing on lot seven on front street or another city on lot we're puzzled by housing is a necessary component in the project especially since the parking structure is not needed the city's own parking census data shows a 10 percent decrease in parking use from 2008 to 2018 prior to the pandemic where certain a new parking structure is not needed downtown even with building on future watch our members care about the environment this project harms our local environment instead of renovation its construction is resource intensive it prioritizes single occupancy vehicles over transit parking reform and transportation demand management those things that your old consultants have said must come first before we build another costly concrete garage even more significant this project robs us of the opportunity to recreate parking lot four into a green public commons central home to our iconic farmers market shaded by heritage magnolias and liquid amber trees and we can expand our vision of outdoor art and music events one block away from pacific avenue what a boon to business a green common supports the city's health and all polity policies initiative brought to the city so persuasively by former mayor Watkins those municipalities who adopted health and all policies to shape their cities would love the opportunity to create a green public space in the middle of this in the middle of a downtown the spherical asks you to renovate the current library manage congestion and transit not build parking garages build housing on lot seven and create a stunning green oasis downtown please stop this unpopular project thank you very much we appreciate your work and we do not recommend it will urge you to sign this contract we would like you to stop this project thank you okay next on my list i have martin gomez and vivian rogers friends of the san jacuzzi public libraries you're on the line please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand and you'll be given up to three minutes two people so maybe if you could split your time efficiently and i think that might be a good good evening yes good evening mr mayor members of the council my name is martin gomez and i'm the interim director for the friends of the san jacuzzi public libraries our mission is to support the library through fundraising volunteer services and advocacy the friends have played a leadership role in the passage of various library initiatives starting with measure b in 1998 measure r in 2008 and measure s the library bond measure that will provide nearly 67 million dollars to support the construction and repair of library facilities throughout the county on behalf of the friends i'm urging you to approve the contract with griffin structures as the city's own representatives for the downtown library mixed use project here are some reasons why we believe it is important to approve this project to the voter approval of measure s the community has shown its support for our robust library system that meets contemporary and future needs and the current downtown library as a main library for the entire library system is inadequate and is structurally and programmatically unsound and no longer capable of fulfilling its role as a main library i also served as a member of the downtown library advisory committee and along with other members of the committee we unanimously unanimously recommended the mixed use project because it meets the program programmatic needs of the library system and achieves a cost-effective combination of community benefits including a new library permanently affordable housing and a program of shared replacement parking support downtown visitors funding for this project will be assembled through a multiple sources including a commitment from the friends to raise private funding for the project the friends and its affiliated chapters have recently successfully raised over five hundred thousand dollars for the felton library over six hundred thousand dollars for the capital library over one hundred thousand dollars for the library in the selva beach and we are well on our way to completing a challenge grant from the monorail peninsula foundation that will yield another six hundred thousand dollars i have no doubt that we can do this help to raise money for the downtown library we're committed to doing that we are currently working with fundraising council to research prospects for raising additional donations for the downtown garfield park and grant authority libraries and fully expect to launch successful campaigns for these projects the friends of the san jacuz public libraries fully appreciate the commitment from the city council and we think that it's now time to move forward on a great project and we urge the council to approve the contract with griffin structures i believe vivian may be on the line sir vivian it looks like you can oh sorry okay well good night everybody thank you uh next on our list is tim will it be from affordable housing now so tim if you're on the line if you could please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand you'll be given three minutes to speak on behalf of your group uh thank you mayor cummings uh tim will it be with affordable housing now uh can you hear me yes good evening oh thank you uh there is a community consensus that affordable housing is a priority and the greatest need is for very low and low income units it takes significant city subsidy to produce those units the most important being using city owned land there are four large downtown city owned lots with potential for significant numbers of housing units one is the library mixed use project and another is the existing library site taking those two out of the equation would essentially cut the potential for affordable housing units in half please vote to move this forward the thousands of people on the wait list for affordable housing well thank you thank you okay next uh on our list we have judy gunstra speaking on behalf of herself and then bonnie belcher so judy if you're on the line please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand and you'll be given three minutes so again looking for judy gunstra okay i'm not seeing judy at the moment so i'll keep moving on uh next we have gene brocklebank don't bury the library so gene brocklebank is on the line please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand and once you've been called on you'll be given three minutes to speak on behalf of your group so again looking for gene brocklebank don't bury the library if you're on the line please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand yes it is okay don't bury the library has always been about all about the library it is simply not true that the jason rebuilding proposal cannot provide services and programs just as well as group four's proposal or that jason's would be a smaller library or that it does not provide for teens and children that's bologna plus the jason proposal provides for parking right next to the library entrance and the current structure withstood the 1989 earthquake group four is 27 million dollar proposal which you approved in concept was for a small 29,660 foot square foot bare bones library since council gave a million and a half of that 27 million to two other city branches group four's cost estimate is underwater it will really require another six to seven million to build the so-called bigger better library presented to you and owners representative does not procure funding so we still see both the library and the housing component short of funding most importantly yesterday the city released news of a special six hour meeting of the city council on thursday that's two short days away the workshop objective is to quote establish priority areas of focus for the city council and staff for the next 12 to 18 months the sixth hour workshop is where council will review 26 separate significant projects underway this makes sense to us one of those 26 projects is the one before you tonight so wait a minute tonight is backwards does approval of a contract tonight before council has looked at the mix shoes project in relation to 25 other separate significant projects make any sense to anyone tonight we ask you to resolve to wait until after thursday's workshop before moving any further on anything to do with the mix shoes project thus demonstrating to the public that the thursday workshop is not perfunctory in nature and gotta say it council members on november 10th we ask you to resolve to direct staff to implement the jason architecture proposal or given the financial circumstances have jason proposed a prioritized renovation of the most integral components of the existing library so we can have an upgraded modernized library designed for post-covid library services before we lose any more of measure s funds thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening thank you okay um i'm gonna go back to there's a couple people who i want to just check this stupid on our call now and maybe because they missed their spot earlier but robert singleton from the santa cruz county business council if you're on the line is this robert singleton i don't think this is the right color but robert singleton from the santa cruz county business council is on the line please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand and once you've been called on you'll be given three minutes to speak on behalf of your group i remember this city council um my name is robert singleton i'm the executive director of santa cruz county business council and i would just like to urge you to vote to move forward with this project to hire an owner's representative to represent the best interest the city as the development project moves forward i don't need to take a lot of time to reiterate all the positive reasons why you should support this project obviously it would build uh at least restricted units and affordable housing in the downtown area close to transit exactly where you want to build these types of units obviously would get us a brand new state-of-the-art modern library that would help provide services not only for our local students but for those of lower incomes who don't have oftentimes the access to internet and other amenities that are necessary it would also provide us with a little bit of parking to help offset the development priorities for the downtown which includes building a lot more affordable housing on our surface lots and making sure that we're maximizing the available use of land in our downtown area this falls in line to all the categories from our not only our climate action plan from our general plan but from the new downtown plan that we've adopted all these priorities are core and are our linchpin to help facilitate the new vision of all of downtown santa cruz one that involves a lot more housing being developed a brand new transit center a lot more affordable housing being built a brand new state-of-the-art library a permanent warriors arena this is a linchpin project that helps us realize all of these long-term goals and we can get it done for a lot less money than what we otherwise spend on investing in each of these projects individually so please move forward with this largely administrative and routine task of appointing an orders representative to advocate on your behalf griffin structures has a ton of experience building mixed-use facilities other cities including that of downtown waffles though where their mixed-use library parking and civic center project is extremely popular and well utilized project so again please move forward with this you've heard tons of testimony across four different years since we've passed measure s now's the time to get it done i urge you to move forward thanks again okay thank you okay i'm going to go back to see if judy gunstra speaking on behalf of herself and bonnie belcher who couldn't make the meeting if she's on the line if so please press star nine on your phone raise your hand okay i'm not seeing judy on the line so we're going to move on to comments from the public as i mentioned before we've had a lot of comments from members of the public and so we're going to try to keep things relatively short tonight since the last time this came before the council we had extensive public comment and so we're going to limit the remaining comments to one minute so if you are a member of the public who would like to speak to us on this item and you haven't spoken already on behalf of a group now it's the time to call in using the number that's on your screen once you've entered the meeting you want to press star nine on your phone to raise your hand and once you've been asked to speak you will be given one minute to speak on this item i'm calling in support of the library mixed use projects originally i was conflicted on this project due to the introduction of additional parking i was happy that some of the parking grounds were reduced and and i wouldn't want to make that any any bit of uh nimby of them towards the project after learning about how the project is financed uh and the fact that because the parking shares walls with library and the housing it ends up making it so that we can afford more library and afford more affordable housing um i've heard people comment before that you know affordable housing projects can put on other city-owned property but that always comes up on every single project that it could just go somewhere else like this is a great chance for us to put in social housing that's going to meet low-income very low-income um all the way all the way through moderate income and the only thing restricting us from building even more housing is a height limit that the city council put in in the past if if we want to see more housing get it done the only other thing that i hope with my time thank you so much thank you good evening hi mayor coming this is deb tracy prue um and i'm speaking tonight in favor of approving the contract with griffin structures um as a parent and a school board trustee and a former librarian my interest in this project is to bring a true 21st century library and gathering space to our community that will serve our youth now and on into the future um the mixed-use library space is a great project and it's a genuine investment in both the library system and in our downtown and i really urge council to be forward-thinking and invest in our future by approving this contract thanks for your service thank you hey um this is reggie calling again i called in earlier um you know it's not often that i agree with um other people on this call like uh but you know this project and its financing details uh did look pretty decent to me the one thing that i really would like though if anyone on council could do this this would be great i just don't like the hand waving uh about affordability i like guarantees and so i hear people outside council outside staff i didn't see this anywhere in the report talk about deed restriction now deed restriction is a very important guarantee of affordability and if someone wants to motion a friendly amendment when they pass this to say can we guarantee to the public today that these will be deed restricted units of affordable housing not section eight voucher not uh condos that are like micro units that would be great thank you thank you hello mr mayor and members of the council this is tony cambell speaking when i was chair of the library joint powers board a couple of decades ago we recognized that the downtown library building was outdated and inefficient the best we could do then was to obey asbestos in most of the building you can do so much better than that now by combining measure s funds with financing for parking for low income housing and from other sources to make a smart city and city investment do that and we'll all end up with the truly modern building not a warmed over make do building i would encourage you to award the owner's rep contract and to move forward with the mix use project thank you thank you i would like to request the three minutes i emailed twice to uh bonnie bush and to you justin mayer uh justin uh to represent downtown commons advocates i'd like to reserve the time to get that settled first i actually checked my email and i did not receive an email i double checked with the clerk earlier today and we didn't receive the so i apologize for that but yeah we didn't well that's uh i think an email problem because amanda rotella also said she did not find an email from me and it was buried uh from two weeks ago at any rate um i am convener of downtown commons advocates um in favor of creating a downtown commons i want to look today at um the project viability in terms of risk analysis which is what insurance companies do and for the mix use project the overall risk of not succeeding is the sum of various independent risks i address and if i had more time we'd do it in detail uh the ways in which the risk is underestimated uh for housing uh for parking and for uh funding of the library we already know that the funding of the library is uh uh three to six million dollars short i conservatively estimate uh that uh the funding uh risks from the three project components are equal to about 35 percent that is to say if you move ahead with this project you have a one and three chance if you will not have the funding for it also you have a 75 percent i would say of not meeting it within the timeline please abandon and reject this following in the time of a pandemic and economic crisis i don't feel like i've been afforded the time i deserve but thank you for your time and consideration thank you hi um good evening mayor comings and council members my name is koko reiner walter and i'm the chair of the santa cruz county democratic central committee and we wholeheartedly support this project we voted on it and the committee is urging you to approve the use the owner's representative contract um i was the campaign coordinator for measure s this meets all of the goals that we set in motion um for the bond and we're very excited about this and think it's a great thing for our community thank you thank you very much hello can you hear me yes good evening thank you thank you mayor and city council members um we are in the midst of a crisis affecting us in many ways not least financial but in the report prepared for this agenda item i found exactly one mention of the pandemic in tonight the only real recognition of the effects of the pandemic that i've heard were in the parking presentation we need to acknowledge the reality of our financial crisis and reject this motion it makes no sense to award nearly a quarter of a million dollars in these circumstances also funds for this contract include measure s one which already were inadequate and have been further diminished most of us in these times have had to make changes and reversals in our plans this year and some of those have been pretty drastic and unimagined unimagined changes the city needs to seriously reconsider and question this feasibility of this plan thank you so much for your time thank you can you hear me yes good evening hi my name is christian sandale and i'm calling to oppose this project i do not think it's in the best use of i don't think it's in the best interest of city or county funds especially in the face of such sustained community opposition and particularly in light of the recent economic downturn that we are facing the pandemic the recovery from the fires we have a lot of problems in this county and i don't believe that we should be moving ahead with this project i support affordable housing but there are other city owned sites that could hold far more than 50 units such as lot seven which is not well suited as a new home for the farmers market i voted for measure s like a lot of other people in the belief that the library would be renovated or rebuilt in place and this feels like a misuse of that vote which was given to you in good faith please respect the voices that you're hearing from the community and our objections and do not move forward with this project thank you for your time thank you this is elizabeth conlon i'd like to join others in support of moving ahead this project clearly gets us the best library possible home for 50 families a nice new designated spot for the farmers market and you know i really trust the city professionals that that they've done the due diligence on parking needs and balancing the needs of local businesses visitors employees and future residents of downtown while also trying to promote transit alternatives i hope that we can come together and move forward on this project and improving downtown thank you thank you very much hi this is rick longinati um council members i do believe you all have uh the best interests of the community at heart and you have good intentions on this project there's just a major problem and that is that uh we've had many consultants actually the city has hired many consultants to to advise us and they've all agreed that a parking garage is not necessary and most importantly the city spent a hundred thousand dollars on the nelson-neigard parking study which concluded that better management of our existing parking is the way to go an alternative to building new parking i can't fathom how you can approve money for a project when you haven't even looked at the economics of parking study from nelson-neigard if it happened in any other city in the country they would call that corruption you tonight if you vote money for this project you are really sowing seeds of distrust and when the people you know i i give you credit for listening to people who are angry who come to the microphone but that's how it starts with sowing seeds of distrust thank you thank you hello this is rachel omelli and um i just wanted to thank you for your service um and i wanted to share that i was walking across the black lives matter mural on the street and i was absolutely stunned and moved and i felt so good about this town and i looked to my left and i saw the library and i imagined the library doors opening out onto that black lives matter mural toward the civic center and it made me feel so proud and so happy that we would be reusing an existing building i also thought about the proposal to build this behemoth at the farmers market site which is a site the community comes together and when you feel that now in this moment of incredible cynicism and incredible distrust of democracy is a time that you could actually show you're not the republicans pushing through Amy Coney Barrett but instead you are the Santa Cruz city council listening to the people being respectful of our democracy respectful of that we voted for measure s to restore the library we don't like this date and switch so i really want to encourage you to turn this back now listen to our people at least wait till after the election just what we're asking republicans to do and you guys are better than the republicans please listen to us now let us vote let us make this decision for the best of Santa Cruz not for the best of the money holders and the developers thank you for listening thank you good evening mayor Cummings and council members uh this is michael st with campaign for sustainable transportation at what point do you listen to the community's outcry when does one realize that you are on the council to serve all the people of Santa Cruz we all have our agendas and specific focus on projects that fit our concerns these concerns impact projects must be set aside when you do have to accept compromises that are detrimental to your constituents and are unnecessary this multi-use project needs to be abandoned due to its addition of a garage which is unnecessary experts have spoken community has spoken and the facts telling us parking will be in less demand in the future are three great reasons to move on and work on providing us with a nice library at its present location and a forwarding house wait till after thursday's thank you okay so if there's any member of the public who has not had a chance to speak yet i would like to speak for one minute now the time please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand then you will be given one minute to speak if you have not spoken already we can hear you okay thank you uh this is grant wilson and i am calling because i do feel very concerned about the process of this i feel like well one it's quite a frustrating process i'm sure you all have some sense of this but of just the even trying to call to you know express my concerns um but i feel like um it really is i feel concerned about just the democratic process because it just doesn't feel like a democratic process in that there has been a public uh vote about the restoration of the library it feels like it's been transmuted into a library parking garage low income housing and i feel like it seems like it's come before the council repeatedly without uh really hearing the majority of the public who are opposed to it thank you can you hear me yes good evening good evening my name is becky steinbrunner i have written your council a number of times about this project and i would like to follow in mr wilson's footsteps saying this really needs to go to the vote of the people that will best trans uh give the best process the most transparent process and the best level of public trust in the way this is being handled santa cruz is known for being um environmentally minded reduce reuse and recycle this is not demonstrating that mantra at all we need to renovate what we have which is what has been shown to be very structurally sound and what we need to do to demonstrate to as a model to our citizens that you don't just knock things down and build up new you reuse what you have and it is worth doing so put the affordable housing on lot seven that will be the best place please reject this project hi my name is rachelle mcroyan i uh had the privilege of sitting on council when this project came before us i have watched an incredibly open process um for this i've watched uh citizens review committee with amazingly talented and savvy people come to the conclusion that this project is important and is needed i've seen a council subcommittee unanimously come together uh after studying what the deluxe did and came to the same conclusion we've had several public meetings and to say that this hasn't gone through a public process is just not true please approve this contract without further delay when we say no to a project we're saying no to people and we have to remember who we're saying no to i was at wall greens and talked to a cashier and felt he had won the lotto because he had just gotten one of the affordable units in the new water street uh 100 percent affordable project we have to remember folks like him who say you can walk the work down and live in the town he grew up in thank you thank you good evening good evening my name is steven speak uh voters are wondering i think still why has the measure has bond money which was almost universally understood at the time of the vote to be used for renovation being co-opted as part of this garage housing project um we know that 27 million is attractive but why can't the affordable housing stand on its own it's a city-owned lot i would also wonder why can't we expand parking if in fact it's proven that we needed it uh why can't we put a second and third level on the church and cedar structure which is woefully underutilized the two stories please hold this on to this action until the city can conduct gen genuine outreach to san jacuzzi voters so we don't have this split and mistrustful uh local politic which we can see demonstrated in washington dc right now don't rush it through when we know that maybe half or maybe far more than half are opposed to this project thank you okay next caller you're being asked to unmute good evening hi there good evening mayor comings and uh san jacuzzi council my name is alexia varshia i'm the community engagement assistant with the moderated economic partnership um a little bit about us and that was founded in 2015 and consists of over 87 uh public private and civic entities located throughout monterey san benito and san jacuzzi counties with a mission to improve economic health and quality of life in the moderate bay region our housing initiative supports the construction of housing in our region at all types and income levels in appropriate locations near existing jobs transit and services our climate climate change initiative also advocates for the construction of transit oriented housing developments and climate resilient infrastructure and for all these reasons the proposed library project is in full alignment with our housing production and climate change resilience equals we feel that the city has an opportunity to address the community's pressing affordable housing needs while also providing the community with the state of the art library facility the council should continue to move this important project forward by selecting griffin structures as the owner's representative and i thank you for your consideration thank you very much yes good evening yes thank you ma'am um my name is jillian greenside and uh just quickly to say that i've been opposed to relocating the library from the beginning um i've one of the people and i think many in the community have a a deep sense of a sense of place with the library the civic and city hall and to move it is destroying a relationship that we have and people talk about a modern new building et cetera um yes people are entitled to their opinions but i think that ignores the deep sense of place that we hold for a library in this place and nothing i've seen so far means that that couldn't happen and just a quick example the survey that was done originally that got a huge response never asked the question are you in favor of us relocating the library otherwise i think you would have had a better sense of the community's feeling about this please don't approve this thank you thank you very common good evening good evening my name is jim meccas i support building the new library and i asked you to award the contract i grew up in santa cruz with the carney library but by the mid 60s it was clearly too small for 30 000 people population uh we're now over 60 000 population and we've outgrown our current library yet one group proposes the best solution is to reduce the size of our current library to address earthquake issues cut programs by 30 to compensate and remodel with a lower quality structure that's not the way to go uh we needed the we need the library we need parking near cap cart after learning that we're losing multiple existing lots including the one across from the farmers market and we need affordable housing this solution addresses all of them and we should explore uh and find out what we can achieve thank you for listening thank you for your your comments good evening my name is henry thank you mr mayor and city council members the housing crisis is real and the way to solve the crisis is simply to build housing lots of it and places where there's access to public transportation and jobs the particularly dire meeting santa cruz is for affordable housing this project provides at least 50 permanently affordable homes if we stop now we lose an immediate opportunity to house people who work here but can't live here many of these people live in fireside and the south county let's reduce their commute and help the climate providing the housing we need in santa cruz will provide ridership for a working public transportation system in the end we'll get a more walkable equitable sustainable and vibrant santa cruz thank you thank you very much hello and good evening i am calling it good evening um thank you my name is bacha kagan i'm calling in because of um i do support affordable housing we do need more of it i do support an innovative library a renovated library however i'm concerned why um there's so many people who are talking about sustainability and really when we've spent already a hundred thousand dollars on a study that said we don't need parking which does only promote climate um more climate change which we've already experienced with the fire we don't need more of that um i don't know why we're not following a study we've already spent a lot of money on and i also would like to promote the idea that perhaps a compromise solution would be to put affordable housing there put uh the library there but the only other problem is that the farmers market would be way too small i've talked to people at the farmers market it's not enough room they have to take all their all their trucks off the lot and then bring them back on so thank you for listening thank you for your time thank you uh good evening my name is jim jelsen uh president of fana cruise um heavy heavy library user and also someone that used to work in that building about 25 years ago it was a turd then and you can pour all the money into it and it just could be a shiny smaller turd um it's it's in a bad spot that the fire detecting systems sees ghosts the elevators out of board or most of the time when i was working there i wholeheartedly support the downtown moving the library to there print some parking print some housing if you want to city commons knock that building down and build a plaza in front of city hall think of the awesome group festivals that you can have now remember when you take and you approve a project like this you get a bronze plaque with the mayor and all the city council members do you want it on a modern library that can serve the city and county or do you want to run a shiny turd thank you thank you uh good evening mayor and council i'm ron pomerance uh when the plan for a library underneath the six three four hundred space parking building failed to win community support in the past portable housing was tossed into the garage project nearly is an attempt to win a full vote from new mayorcomings and present good public relations there was never any previous plan for this project to include affordable housing as a matter of fact pursuing this project could jeopardize other affordable housing projects whose development should be further along for example there's a planned affordable housing project for a promised 200 some odd units at cap garden front as the result of measure owes 15 inclusionary requirements that was from an approved market rate housing project at front and laurel the work done to move ahead with this project will most likely be left in shelf dust the staff shifts away from this important project with a lot more units and tries to sell you on the one in the parking garage ask staff whether the other promise affordable housing projects are in the process of development and how they've affected although be affected by this parking garage project please deny the money also plan that doesn't cannibalize affordable housing already on the pipeline I thank you for your time and thoughtful consideration thank you okay next call it two zero eight zero all right so the few tries to unmute this is pulling sales center cruise climate action network over the past many weeks I have spoken to hundreds of people about this project and they're almost universally against it the last time there was a city council meeting and you allowed unlimited comments the overwhelming number were against it the overwhelming number of the emails and letters to your office have been against it and this has been completely ignored it's wrong also you're going to cut down 11 heritage trees beautiful magnolias that could not be replaced in any way whatsoever or transported that could be part of the downtown comments have been previously mentioned doing this is just flat wrong it's been wrong since it was first thought of please stop it now but thank you for listening okay thank you for calling so the next speaker will be our last speaker we actually went over the hour that we were supposed to limit comment to but um want to thank everyone from call for calling in and so next week we'll be at our last caller and then we'll bring it back to council for action and deliberation hi everyone this is chris crone I wasn't going to call up until I heard my colleague former colleague briskell neroy and call I didn't find the process the early process of this library garage an open process the city manager when I first came into his office in 2016 he had it up on his board it was one of his major things through the staff given project it never went to a vote of the people I think an $80 million expenditure for a project like this needs to go to a vote of the people similar to the desalination plan this is one of the largest public works projects we would ever put forward to the people I just would say don't do this right now wait till the election wait till the election results are in and I want to thank sandy ground and captain fires and I think just in coming Mr. Mayor this is in the ball is in your court right now I know you know this and I hope that you think about it thank you okay thank you okay with that we're going to end public comment and we're going to bring it back to council for action deliberation so just like the start I think if there's any further questions from council members for staff are there any questions that came up during public comment that maybe council members want to have some clarification on maybe we can start there and if there are no questions and we can see if council members have any comments council member golden I just have a question so I have heard that the people who run the farmers market actually would prefer to move to the other location and and make a more permanent home with gazebos and stalls and things like that and I just want maybe martin can answer this um has or bonnie somebody can speak to this is this true hi council member golder um I the farmers market has not taken a formal position we have been working with them we do have funding set aside for the project we have preliminary designs that we have shared with their board um but and they have and I you know I I respect their position at this point they really do not want to get engaged um at this point they want the council direction to go forward and then we will reconvene with them and move the project forward so that's their official position um regarding this project and um happy to answer any other specific questions that you have I can have a little bit of background with respect to the farmers market just to again for background purposes and so the farmers market was uh one of the stakeholders that was engaged with very very early on um with respect to the project moving forward uh or at least even bringing it to the council initially um recognizing that there were critical asset uh an entity in our downtown um and so in initially interacting or engaging the farmers market um they expressed their interest and desire in creating a permanent market uh in that uh they recognized that long term they had no permanency where they were and the potential for development that could occur there because there were any number of projects that had been considered for that uh property uh because that property hasn't always been a parking lot it used to have buildings on it and uh in any case uh the farmers market expressed the desire and interest in trying to create a permanent facility that would improve their operations uh covering bathrooms and other facilities to assist with their uh being able to operate and so they found it to be an opportunity to improve their operations and to create this permanency permanency that they seeked so we worked early on with them to do that and as a result of that any number of um money was set aside as uh as uh uh director Lipscomb pointed out and in addition there were a number of renderings and outlines that were done a lot of work was done with them to identify a site and to develop the site and to spec it out and so a lot of work has been done with the farmers market to uh ensure that uh their needs are being met as part of this project yeah if i could just add one more thing to that um that the city manager mentioned is that one aspect of the permanent structure is the seasonality and one of the things in the new design um it does allow the farmers market to have a cover that both serves for surface parking when the farmers market's not in session but also provides cover during the winter months when it's raining and so that was a particular element that they were pretty excited about that is included in the renderings that we have for the farmers market the other thing about lot seven that's really interesting is that we have the opportunity to combine with um Barry Swinson um in the LLC that owns um the parking lot behind Newly for a portion of that lot to expand the actual surface area and then align at the southern end near Cascard into the street for street closure that continues on with the Paseo that connects to the Riverwalk and so that's one of the you know exciting elements that council did approve as part of the downtown plan or these connectivity points to the river and by having the farmers market there we connect actually to the private development that has that 60 foot plaza that goes straight up so Cascard would continue on on market days and have that whole street closure area all the way up to the Riverwalk which is pretty exciting Councilmember Goldberg do you have any other questions I well I'm prepared to make a motion and I fully understand how controversial this project is and the reality is this site had buildings at one time and ultimately moving forward with this project will help with the big picture projects downtown that we've already been approving and um councils have approved before me and expanding the front of downtown to the river and making it part of our city center and I constantly walk along the river levy and think it's super underutilized and thinking we could make it more beautiful and moving the farmers market to a permanent location and create a plaza space on front street and connecting it to the river create more pedestrian friendly downtown and I love the idea of expanding into the streets and maybe eliminating some of the surface parking that we currently have on either cap card or Pacific or front and the reality is not everyone has the privilege of being able to bike to our downtown businesses and people that live downtown might also need cars and so from my perspective I'm sorry if some voters felt misled but the ballot plate ballot statement says new construction is a possibility from 2016 and I'm constantly rereading those ballot statements because they're persuasive and written deliberately to be vague and I also you know walked for this and had a sign in my yard and voted for this and pay for it every year and so I am prepared to make a motion to award the contract for the mixed use library owners representative for phase one to grip and structures in the amount of up to 240,000 and authorize the city manager to execute an agreement in a form to be approved by the city attorney. I'll second that. Okay so we have a motion to move the staff recommendation by council member Golder seconded by vice mayor Meyers. Council member Meyers I start to hand up. So you're muted Catherine. I just gotta go back to the farmers market for a second. I met with them the day after all of the officers questioning what did this last boat meet which was September I think 22nd. They have not taken a position on it and I think that is the bottom line. You haven't heard from them and nor would they they're appropriate it wouldn't be appropriate for them to go fighting for something particular so I just want to thank them for doing what any nonprofit like that should do in this situation. I have a question for Tony our city attorney. There Tony. Thank you. Normally I would have given you a heads up on this question but and this will be part of where I'm going in my answer. I don't think I sure you probably don't know anything about mine. Last time 18 I read into the record the words of the measure and we all know it's 18,000 plus 800 or 80 voted for it very popular absolutely and it used renovator store. I don't have it in front of me this time. I don't think I need it again. How how did we leak to a new library in a new location? Now I know Councilman Golder about that those words about it said if necessary construction a long way away from so I just I'm looking at the legal part of it. How can we when 18,000 people we don't know how they voted so I'm just saying but it did pass over well. I mean I think I think that you know council member Byron says I wish you had brought that question. Tony I can't hear you very well Humphrey Byron. Can you hear me now? Better, better thank you. Yes, if that had question had come to my attention ahead of the meeting I would have said I would I would review the language of the ballot measure but assuming that it has as a council member Golder represents and I have no and that is consistent with my recollection then I don't believe that the city council is constrained legally to utilize the funding from the ballot measure exclusively for a renovation of the existing library and and again I did not review that in advance of this meeting because the question wasn't supposed to me but that's my recollection is that we were not specifically pinned down to utilize the funding only for a renovation if we were then that would be a problem but if the language is broad enough to encompass you know just improving library facilities which is kind of how I recall the language then I think we're probably in a solid position to well if I could uh if I see uh seems you take you two minutes to bring up that the language it does say construction if necessary it really does so I go somebody should be able to get to that in two minutes please find that and I didn't bring it up at the last one yeah and I think that's I mean to me that's satisfactory for the council and that's satisfactory to confer upon the city council the legal discretion to make a determination if defined and so I too just because I was involved in the actual development of the ballot measure both before it was actually placed with respect to the polling with respect to the budget with respect to the negotiations with the county on the various levels of funding and in addition the basis for the whole ballot measure and so one of the things that the library system was doing prior to the ballot measure which actually led to the development of the ballot measure with the Santa Cruz Public Library's master plan and that master plan looked at various approaches and options for renovating and or rebuilding the various branches throughout the system with respect to the city libraries it looked at multiple options and with respect to the downtown branch it looked at a mixed use project option and if you go back and look at the master plan that was adopted back in 2013 again before the the ballot measure was put in place we actually looked at the mixed use projects downtown one that was for example that was looked at was the actually at the metro project so that was contemplated as part of the measure that there would be new construction some libraries that was the only option and also that there would have to be different approaches to try to make the budgets work because the ballot measure itself was not going to generate sufficient revenue to be able to do the new construction and the full renovation of all the branches so we expected that we would have to look at the various options with respect to particularly the downtown and so again the mixed use option was something that was contemplated even before the ballot measure was put in place as a potential option well i understand that martin contemplated before the ballot measure the one thing we're looking at what people voted on well they have a ballot in front of them you need the ballot it isn't what all the work was i was on the library board up until almost 12 13 and i know the that point but we have to look at the word so it doesn't matter what all the background is the wording was drafted in order to provide for all of those options so it was specifically prepared because in that way because that was contemplated there would be no construction and all i'm asking is somebody look at the language about if necessary because nobody has proved that it is necessary so anyway i'm i i suspect somebody will look at it i expect somebody will call me back or tony will get on before we close tonight so i'll just go on first of all i want to thank um my comments uh bonnie uh thank you for the great presentation you and your assistant i'm sorry the manda um it's just what we needed a month ago or maybe not long in the 22nd because you gave us what was in the contract what we wanted you know we furthered about that and we also got all the background in the on the consultant so good job and i thank you for putting up with this and bringing it forward i think it was very very helpful and very useful that is going to make me vote for it i think you already know i i am not going to uh i so believe and what the people voted on and what they thought they were doing and i think we're playing tricks on them and uh i have never all the big issues i've been involved in never have i gotten as many email with the community we bring up about mister or asking us please don't they love their library um so i i again will have to vote you know moving forward i just want to make a couple comments real quick before we continue on and one of it is that you know i think that the that we should stay focused on the conversation tonight which is largely around the adoption and awarding the contract um you know it was pretty clear that at the last meeting there was a desire to have a contract come back with actual numbers timelines how's the money being spent and also additional information on the financing for how do you make affordable housing work parking what's the library funding and so i want to thank the staff as you know as the buyer said i want to thank you all for doing that and um just took one other comment on public process you know i think it was pointed out at the beginning of this conversation that you know public process has gone back to 2017 for outreach and engagement with the community on getting input on these projects and you know i spent you know over a year with council member mires or vice mayor mires and council member brown doing extensive community outreach and we took um you know a number of days where we were evaluating which was the best option and we unanimously agreed um before we came to council that moving forward with a new library was the best option and then in addition to that we're trying to figure out how we could meet the needs of you know what are some other needs for the downtown that we could potentially incorporate into this and knowing that there is a need if we're going to put in housing there's a need for parking we're getting rid of you know over 100 spaces on that lot which means you're going to have to replace those i think that we're you know working in the best interests of our community to try to bring forward something that you know people um that we could find consensus on so we listen i've definitely heard when i was running for city council that have a get a 600 six-story parking garage on top of the library but some in the community didn't want and we eliminated that as an option and yes people were are correct in saying that affordable housing was not initially proposed in this project but one of the things that are going through this process is that there actually you know wasn't there wasn't a plan or designed was finalized for this space and that's part of what we're doing with hiring these consultants is we're trying to figure out with the finances that we have the space that we have and what what the what we've identified is what is what the community wants how can we make that happen on this space and it's going to require professionals to be involved with us if you go on griffin structures website i think i can't remember the name of the city but if you click on their tab for affordable housing they were able to in another city of california build 120 affordable units with their library project them excuse project and so my hope is that the one thing i'd like to ask well i don't know if it needs to be included in the motion or if it can just be a recommendation to the staff but i think we should emphasize that the 50 affordable units are the minimum and we should try to maximize the affordable housing and additionally that this housing that the affordable housing is deed restricted in perpetuity so that we can ensure that the affordable housing that going into this project is permanent support of affordable housing so by i don't know if you could speak to that or if that needs to be included in the motion but i know we've we've expressed that we want to maximize the affordable housing but no less than 50 units so yeah i believe that the previous motion said a minimum of 50 units but that is our that is our goal is to come back to you with options that show how many units we can actually have on the site and have feedback from you and i think part of that also is going to be dependent on if council wants to consider you know the height limitation so we're we're that's going to be part of what we'll come back to you with is how many traditionally we can sit on the site under the current zoning and then some additional options for you to consider and then also looking at additional funding to help subsidize that that additional gap so those that's all part of the funding considerations will be that we'll bring back to you we do recognize with this being a city-owned site and city-owned you know parking lots in the parking district that we want to maximize the potential of every site that's under city control so we would like to maximize that as well and that will be part of our goals that we bring back as far as deed restriction we deed restrict all projects that have city funding in them and particularly affordable housing funding they will be including state and federal sources which also have deed restrictions typically it's 45 and 55 years on some city projects we have done in perpetuity so those will be a guarantee with city state and funding in the projects which will absolutely be necessary for them to be financially feasible thank you well i think that you know and again i want to thank the staff for i think meaning um some of the concerns that i have and i guess one other question in the um in the report that came forward within the contract there were timelines built in around financing and then when you know the different phases for design and and so i was just curious it seemed like um the financing piece was going to take about four months to come back and that was kind of stage one so just curious when we might be able to expect if we award the contract today when should we expect you know the first kind of update on financing or what have you help your muted body actually looking to amanda who's very familiar with uh with the project components thank you bonnie um so the timeline that we proposed is a sort of rough estimate that uh griffin put together as part of their proposal um part of the very first phase of their sort of work with us will be an onboarding where we get them up to speed we pardon me all the information that they need and at that time we would put together a more firm budget you know budget and timeline which we would come back to you with um in terms of you know some of those more detailed financing numbers um as we said earlier a lot of us going to be dependent on the the design process and coming up with the final design so our plan would be to once we've it's been once we've hired on griffin as our owners rep we would come back to you with sort of our overall project timeline and budget um but the proposal that they put together is sort of built off of their expertise and how they've seen projects going um obviously we've seen a significant delays with this project and so you know timelines are very fluid and uh you know but this you know as we delayed this item coming back that you know there are just small delays that happen along the way um so the project the the calendar will be ever changing but we'll really be looking to bring you regular updates on where we are in the project and what next steps you can expect and um having regular check-ins um I think just and this is my last comment but I think it would be good if um whether it's the first meeting in january or the second it would be good to have an update especially for the new council coming in um on kind of where this is at and you know just and so the community has also a good sense of this timeline and what are the next steps and when can we expect because I know that a lot of folks um in our community are going to be wondering where are we going to hear back about all these different pieces and when are we going to know more to know where we're knowing and so I think that's really the extent we can have an update um early in 2021 I think it would be really helpful I will say one of the things that we really liked about griffin's approach to communication is they have built in these regular timelines for updating various stakeholders so you know have regular intervals that updates would go to city council and the community and internal staff working on the project um you know they will bring on this capacity and ability to do that which has been just a challenge for myself and trying to get communication out and keep all the balls in the air so having that extra help and having that commitment from them to help with communications um I think we're going to see a lot more communication coming out about this project so it's one of the things that we were really excited about as staff was um having two members who are going to do that so we'll be keeping the project page updated and you'll also be getting regular updates as part of their scope okay thank you Vice Mayor Meyers and Council Member Golder and then Council Member Brown Thank you Mayor um I think I'm going to look I'm going to go ahead and give up my spot um several of my questions were answered tonight so thank you okay Council Member Golder I just wanted to answer um Council Member Fierce and say I found the information I was referring to just on the public libraries website they have the ballot language there and it was on page three and I just pulled it up right now and it says um in under fiscal impact statements of measure s the second paragraph says special tax proceeds blah blah blah has the things laid out and then it says this shall include without limitation new construction building renovations and service model upgrades such as separate areas for teens and children flexible spaces and our meeting rooms and study rooms flooring painting etc and so if you want to see it it's on that's where you can find that and um Mayor Cummings and Reggie Meister I um I agree that we should try to keep the units as deed restricted as possible but um in I don't know what that would mean in perpetuity so I think moving forward I just try to think we want to be intent we can maximize affordability um in the recommendation I think that I'm you know we don't know like if this building is going to need to be we're building it now but it could be need to be renovated in 50 years or 100 years and so I just want to try and keep it as clean as possible and um the motion is clean as possible and say um keep it as it is but um just have the intent be that um obviously we want to keep the units as affordable as possible for as long as possible I don't know how to say that maybe Bonnie can help me out Bonnie did you want to comment my understanding was that I think you clarified that you know in city when cities build affordable housing and when they have state funding then they it's typically a minimum of 45 and 55 years and it's one of the reasons is exactly for the reason you mentioned councilmember Golder and that that's typically a lifespan of a project and the in perpetuity is just meaning that as long as that project is standing it's going to continue to be affordable um so that it's generally one or the other for all projects that have city state and federal funding it's either going to be the 45 55 years depending on if it's rental or for sale um and or in perpetuity so it sounds like it will be included it will so we don't need to like put it explicitly okay so I don't think at this point we did mention that I just want to keep the motion as it is if that's okay yeah I guess I would just point out that um I think that's a valid question but the item before you was really just award the contract for the um uh all this representative services and so when and if that becomes an issue we can bring it back to the council for formal direction on that okay sorry asking a bad question we'll just keep it how it was I'll keep my motion as it was Tony Tony for clarification with the public since we're we're discussing the contract tonight we're not discussing the affordable housing and what that's going to be and what percentage and as a result we don't need to go into those conversations around in perpetuity or verse or 50 years but I think it I think the point that I was trying to bring up is that for staff to understand that obviously we want to maximize long-term affordable housing and so in perpetuity it's obviously where we want to go but it's just a note and a recommendation so yeah I think that's a perfectly appropriate to note that for the record that you correct the item before you is really just to approve the uh contract for the owner's record on all that in the agenda report thank you appreciate that council member brown thank you I have another question for Bonnie um who by now is probably sick of my questions but um I the question that I have right now is related to and I think I sent it but I don't recall um response was for and I know that we're talking about the contract but I just want to understand for the affordable housing component um if we are to uh include if it's going to be a city uh subsidized project can you get to kind of develop or get tax credits for a project that is not 100 percent affordable um is that I mean because I might as I discussed there's the possibility for market housing in there as well and is that um cannot be done they can um they can but I think how we would approach it actually is to distinct projects within the project so if you know we are looking at having if we are looking at having a market rate component as one of the options to help provide funding um to expand the library then we would potentially look at that as a separate project um so that it would be a little cleaner on the on the financing um and if I could um I just make my comments now while I have the floor um and I'll try to stick to the the topic at hand here um I guess here from I just have been thinking about this as we've listened to the you know public speakers uh very articulately uh talk about their uh positions and we hear from people who are most engaged you know proponents opponents who are really following this I really appreciate that there's so many people in our community who care enough to do this and I really appreciate the time that staff has taken to uh try to respond to our questions and concerns and particularly around the affordable housing financing piece tonight that was exact I mean I've been um kind of wishing that we had that information or that kind of scenario mapped out for us for a long time now so thank you for all of that work you put in so we hear from people who are really engaged and I think you know we tend to kind of sit in our silos and and talk to our friends and our political allies who have those strong positions um but what I have had an opportunity to over the past uh month or so now to talk to a lot of voters and um and I continue to believe that uh the community concerns about this are um you know are real and that they need to be addressed and um and I just feel like that you know the public really deserves some uh representation of what I believe is a pretty wide position opposing this project in this iteration um so you know I can't support moving forward I'm sorry um that I'm not able to do that um and you know I just you know I just hope that we you know I I think that um as uh Mr. Longinani said you know selling the seeds of doubt and I mean voter trust is an issue that's come up with people that I've been talking to a lot and these are not people I know these are not people who have some prescribed seeds ready or you know they really are just um not it's not what they thought they were voting for so um given that I I can't support the motion uh before us um and I at the same time will look forward to hearing um you know hearing back from the from the developer owner agent I think we're calling it in the future. Are there any further comments from council members? Vice Mayor Myers? Well I was going to call the question I think probably that I I was just thinking maybe we should just call the question and move forward I'm not sure. I don't I don't even think there's a need to call the question I think we're getting a problem so if no one has a any further comments I think um we can just ask the clerk to um to do the roll call vote so before us we have a motion by council member Golder seconded by Vice Mayor Myers to adopt the staff recommendation to award the contract for the mixed use library owners representative for phase one to driven constructions incorporated in the amount up to 240 thousand dollars and authorize the city manager to explicate execute an agreement in a form to be approved by the city attorney. Thank you mayor council member Myers. Are you muted captain? No. Council member Matthews is disqualified? Council member Brown? No. Golder? Council member Golder? No. No sorry sorry sorry no. No you mean yes. No. What? I'm just waiting. Yeah sorry sorry sorry I was distracted. You can use your common water. Yes yes yes. Okay. Council member Watkins. You're here so. Sorry council member Watkins. Oh yeah. Yeah. And mayor Cummings? Council members Golder Watkins, Vice Mayor Myers, Mayor Cummings voting in favor of council member Brown and fires voting opposed and council member Matthews disqualified. Okay so with that um that concludes our city council meeting so for members of the public we do have a special city council meeting which is our interim recovery planning meeting this Thursday um and maybe if the city manager's on could you just remind us of what time that's at? Yes I believe that starts at three o'clock. Let me just double make sure here. The interim recovery plan workshop is yes three o'clock. Okay so if members of the public are interested in joining us at that meeting you can find the information for that meeting on the city's website cityofsanicures.com and uh with that I'll see you all on Thursday. Have a good evening. Okay.