 start their cameras and microphone check. We are ready. Thank you. Okay good afternoon and welcome to the 12 30 p.m. public portion of the closed session of the May 10th 2022 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council. If you would like to comment on a closed session item now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen. In this part of the meeting the council 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 the phone and please note there is a delay in streaming so if you continue to listen on your television or your streaming device you may miss your opportunity to speak. I would like to ask the clerk to please call roll. Thank you Mayor, Councilmember Calentari-Johnson. Present. Golder. Present. Cummings. Here. Brown. Here. Myers. Present. Vice Mayor Watkins. Here. Mayor Brunner. Present. Thank you. Are there any members of the public who would like to speak to any items listed on the closed session agenda? If you're attending virtually please raise your hand by dialing star nine on your phone or select the raise hand feature on the webinar controls of your computer. If you are in person you can line up to the right of the dais and sign in at the front there. When it's your turn to speak you will hear an announcement you have been unmuted. The timer will then be set to three minutes and you may hang up once you have commented on your item of interest. Let me go out to our virtual attendees in this hybrid format here. Okay we have I'm not seeing any hands raised in our virtual attendee list. Are there any members of the public here in person that would like to speak to any closed session items? Okay. Seeing none this meeting is adjourned and Council will now go into its closed session. Thank you. Okay good afternoon. Welcome to our 2 p.m. session of the May 10th 2022 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council. I would like to ask the clerk to please call roll. Thank you mayor. Council member is Calentary Johnson. Present. Boulder. Currently absent. Cummings. Here. Brown. Currently absent. Myers. Vice mayor Watkins. Gary. Is that my name? Yeah. Mayor Brunner. Present. Thank you. We will begin today's agenda with presentations and our first agenda item is a mayoral proclamation declaring May 15th through May 21st as national public works week. I'd like to invite our public work staff to come to the podium please. May welcome. Can you introduce yourselves? Yes I'm Nathan Nguyen, assistant director of city engineer for the city of Santa Cruz and up here I have with me APA APWA board member Phillip Edwards. Welcome Nathan and Phil. I'll stand up. This is always an annual tradition for the city and there's also currently a tour of construction sites that one can sign up for. There's information on the city of Santa Cruz website. Let's see if everyone can see me okay as I stand up. All right here we go. Whereas public work staff keeps the city of Santa Cruz strong by providing an infrastructure of services and engineering design and construction supervision, traffic engineering and maintenance, infrastructure and fleet operations, resource recovery operations, wastewater system operations, flood control, stormwater management, environmental compliance and parking management. Whereas the focus on infrastructure facilities and services is of vital importance to sustainable and resilient communities and to the public health, quality of life and well-being of the people of the city of Santa Cruz. And whereas these services could not be provided without the dedicated efforts of the city of Santa Cruz Public Works team who provide essential services and thus continue to work hard each and every day to keep our community functioning. And whereas the city of Santa Cruz public work staff are always ready to serve and are resilient in completing their work even when encountering additional challenges created by the impacts of the pandemic. And whereas the city of Santa Cruz Public Works Department continues to be recognized as a regional leader in innovative and forward-thinking services and projects that include energy efficiency and sustainability, active transportation, infrastructure, wastewater treatment, water reuse, waste reduction and environmental compliance. And whereas it is in the public interest for the citizens, civic leaders and children in the city of Santa Cruz to gain knowledge of and maintain a progressive interest and understanding of the importance of public works and public works programs. And whereas the year 2022 marks the 62nd annual National Public Works Week sponsored by the American Public Works Association and this year themed Ready and Resilient honoring the professionals who perform regular public works duties and are ready at a moment's notice to react as first responders during national disasters and overcome trials seen in the field. Now therefore I, Sonia Brunner, the mayor of the city of Santa Cruz, do hereby proclaim the week of May 15th through 21st 2022 as National Public Works Week in the city of Santa Cruz and I urge all citizens to join me in celebrating our public works superheroes and recognizing their substantial contributions in protecting our health, safety and quality of life that helped to make the city of Santa Cruz such a great place in which to live and work. Thank you very much. Thank you. Did you want to add anything regarding construction site tours? Yes, please. Thank you mayor and council members and thank you public for recognizing public works and all that we do so we really do appreciate that. Next week we do have some construction tours that are happening next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday so up on the screen right there. Next Tuesday on West Cliff Drive we have a storm repair project tour so please come out and the following Wednesday there we have highway 1-9 project and on Thursday we have the Treviton storm-grade project so we welcome the community and the public and all council members to please come join. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next on our agenda is an update on the downtown library affordable housing project and I'd like to welcome director of economic development Bonnie Lipscomb. Thank you mayor and good afternoon members of the city council. I have with me today Abe Jason with Jason architecture and I'm going to turn it over to Abe in just a second to kick off the presentation and then he'll turn it back to me briefly to talk about the sources and uses specifically for the library budget and sort of component of the project. But Abe's going to kick it off and he's going to give you an updated overview of the recent community outreach meeting on the schematic design phase and and just sort of an overview of a summary of that presentation and then some of the survey feedback that we received from that as well. And with that I will turn it over to Abe. Mayor vice mayor council members it's great to see each of you again. Thank you for having us here. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen and get this presentation queued up. So it's great to be here again with me here tonight or this could be this afternoon is Katie Stewart project manager for Jason architecture. Yolande Wilburn is the library director and then Bonnie Lipscomb will be participating in the presentation we just heard from. We have three components of the presentation. We're going to present to you the schematic design update. The community feedback we received on that schematic design and then Bonnie and I will update you on budget and schedule. This is a summary version of the presentation we gave to the community recently. So if you are looking for more information that presentation is on the city's website both the slide deck as well as the recording. So diving into the schematic design I'm going to first orient everyone via the birds eye view the site plan. You can see here the project site which you're all familiar with bordered by Cathcart Lincoln and cedar streets. I'm not going to go into a deep dive on each of these items but I'll point out a couple key things. Number one off cedar street that's the primary entry into the library and the library is primarily fronted on cedar street. Number five off off Cathcart is the automobile entry to the parking garage. Number eight is the solar panels that power this zero net energy library. Number nine is the large living roof on the on the top of the library and number six is the library patio and roof deck. Now we're going to go down to the first floor. The two primary entries to the building number one off off cedar street and then number three off the parking garage bringing you into the lobby. The lobby is indicated in orange and has adjacencies to the restrooms the main stair the elevator self-check the information desk and other kind of primary access uses. In blue you can see the public meeting space the large room on the right is the large community meeting room which will be available for public use after hours. The medium-sized room on the left is the multi-purpose room so this is a room that can be used for storytime events art classes and other types of activities. In yellow is the children's area the children's area has a prominent location on the quarter of Lincoln and cedar street and ample daylight because of that corner location and in green is the staff area which also has access to a nice large window off cedar street. Moving upstairs you can see the kind of large opening between the floors that brings daylight down to the ground level on the lobby that's number two and then the main stair between the floors that's number one. This level is primarily the adult collections and lounge areas the fiction and non-fiction and other types of collections. I'll point out a couple things in particular in blue you can see the small group study rooms immediately off the main stair in yellow is the teen area which is a dedicated area surrounded by a glass wall and then we also have the life literacies which is number nine that's an area for lifelong learning and a variety of programming activities and then number 12 on the right is the local history and genealogy collection that's a dedicated room surrounded by a glass wall and that's a really wonderful unique collection that the library has. Moving up to the top level the number 13 is the stair that takes you up to the mezzanine. So now up at the mezzanine level what you can see here is the kind of adult collection and lounge seating in orange that's the mezzanine level. This mezzanine looks out over number four which is an opening to the grand reading room below and it also looks out across the living roof which is number 10 so it's actually the same at the same height as the living roof and then has immediate access to the outdoor roof deck and patio which is indicated in orange. A couple other little fun features on this level we are thinking that there would be an area for local art a gallery space that's number five and then the library has had a piano donated to it they have a program called a munching with Mozart that would continue worth noting that piano will be locked so kids can't get up there and bang on it at any time. So kind of zooming out to speak about the sustainability goals for this project. The the city has set some really wonderful sustainability targets. First the project will be all electric so there will be no natural gas or fossil fuel type energy going to this project. Second it will be powered by solar energy on the roof of the library and the affordable housing and those two combined will allow it to be a zero net energy library that means the library will produce the same amount of energy it consumes over the course of a year. It will also have a large living roof a green roof and that's a wonderful feature that serves several functions it helps mitigate stormwater flow it really improves and reduces the urban heat island effect from kind of surface paving and kind of other roots and then also it's an opportunity for a kind of massive native habitat in downtown Santa Cruz. Lastly there is ample daylight through the building through large windows that front on the street and this kind of ample daylighting will really reduce the dependence on artificial light during the daytime which is a major contributor to the energy use of a building. In terms of the design approach to this project as you remember we have taken inspiration from the natural beauty of Santa Cruz. In particular the cliffs of west cliff and wilder ranch and the geological striations of these cliffs that are topped by greenery and plants kind of spilling over the edge. We've also taken inspiration from the textural qualities of the ocean. We have a very simple material palette three materials wood and in this case we're looking at pre-weathering the wood so it has a driftwood like quality and then applying it in different textural applications. Glass and we're thinking about glass you know with a textural quality as well taking inspiration from those images of the surface of the ocean and then you wouldn't typically think of it as material but in this case planting is actually one of the materials of this building because we have such a significant living roof that it actually becomes a part of the aesthetic and the facade of the building. Our first view is from Cedar and Lincoln and what you can see here is how the project really kind of steps gracefully up from the pedestrian level as it moves back towards the affordable housing beyond. There's a nice kind of tearing effect that gives it a quality of human scale. At the ground level we have wood siding and wood shading that that goes over some of the windows and that gives it this really kind of warm natural quality and then the second floor has the grand reading room kind of looking out over the street. We love the idea of the living roof grasses blowing in the wind on a breezy afternoon. Moving around to Cedar and Cathcart, you can see here a couple things. One we have a dedicated staff entry so staff is able to access the building before and after the public is open. Also a nice large window for the staff area and ample greenery down at the street level. You can also see how the kind of angles of the building play off the daylight and how the sense of the sun moving around the site will create these kind of wonderful plays of light and shadow on the textures and materiality. You can also see us adding texture and character to that glass through the ceramic frit pattern that we have on the surface and once again you can see how as you move closer to the building the scale really steps down and you know the affordable housing is is visible beyond but it has a quiet presence in the background. Looking across the street from Cedar you can see a couple things here. In particular a large prominent sign drawing your eye and interest to the main entry of the building. We're envisioning this in maybe a bronze or a copper material with a green and rough textural patina to it so something kind of artistic and really be fitting kind of the character of Santa Cruz. You also can see the kind of textural almost kind of filigree like quality of that ceramic frit on the glass above and then these sort of peaks of curiosity to draw you into the building. The main stair beyond some graphic elements inside the main lobby. Stepping in the front door you can see the impact immediately of that opening between floors and that claristory above. The fact that your eye immediately goes up. It really has a civic scale. There's also easy visual orientation within this main lobby space. The information desk, the elevator, clear access to the garage beyond as well as understanding about how to get to the upper level. There's new books this could be a new books collection popular titles potentially staff picks and you know sort of again clear visual orientation about how you navigate the space. For the children's area we have taken inspiration from the idea of a fallen coast redwood within the forest and the idea that this this hollowed out tree is occupied by gnomes and fairies and maybe some small children. And so we've created an element in the children's area that kind of mimics that a little bit. The idea of the tree canopy above with these acoustic light fixtures that add some color and add some warmth but also add a little mystery to the space. And then within these kind of little fun little discovery zones as we're calling them sort of toadstool like seeding and then cutouts of native species in this case we're showing a bobcat a banana slug a fox and a coyote. Moving up to the second floor the grand reading room you can see kind of this wonderful scale the amount of daylight in this space and also the really clear visual orientation as you come to the top of the stairs the local history and genealogy room beyond the mezzanine straight ahead and the stair to the mezzanine a clear navigation directory. Working on libraries we know it's really important to have a variety of different types of spaces those big grand spaces as well as the more intimate ones. We like to have spaces for two to four people to gather have a conversation a small study group read a book but we also need individual spaces individual study carols that have some acoustic properties but are also supervisable by staff and have access to technology as you can see on the left here. Moving up to the mezzanine a couple really wonderful things about this view one you can see how the view down over the grand reading room below is this wonderful perch and then the idea that you are actually standing at the same level as the living room so you're looking out on a native meadow beyond. We love the idea of sitting in one of these chairs and watching a butterfly go by or a bee buzz along looking for a pollinator. Also note that we're looking at a reclaimed wood floor to give it something of a boardwalk feel up here something that feels a little rough and worn and well loved already so it's not too new and shiny it has a little bit of character to it. From the mezzanine you can walk outside to the roof deck and the roof deck patio has two distinct areas on the right you can see the shaded area and in this case we've got cafe lights strung up above and you can see how that can be a really wonderful place to host an event in the evening and then on the left we have the open area this is the spot for the sun bums out there who really like to soak in the rays and you can see that we have planters that are big enough to support some lush planting as well as some small trees and then this roof deck looks out over the living roof beyond into the Santa Cruz Mountains in the distance so this is just going to be a really wonderful place to hang out read a book socialize or maybe even host an event. So we we reached out to the community for feedback about a week or two ago. We asked four questions of the community in survey form. The first question number one was about the use and functionality of the building so how would you use it? The second one was about appearance design aesthetics how does it look does it does it kind of meet your image of a library? The third was about sustainability and the fourth was really an open-ended opportunity to receive feedback about questions that they still had for us. There were a couple key themes that came out of these survey responses. We heard that you know there's a lot of excitement about the diversity of use within the building but in particular there are two spaces that we repeatedly heard enthusiasm for and that was the study rooms and the roof deck. Regarding appearance we we did hear that there was appreciation for the abundance of daylight and the contemporary design and regarding sustainability although there were comments kind of about appreciation for many of the aspects of green design in particular zero net energy was the most cited target that people were inspired by and then lastly we got a variety of questions but the the two questions that we did see repeated were some variation of when does it open and how can I help so that was really inspiring to see that people took away a real enthusiasm and an excitement about the project. We also received some constructive feedback regarding specific design features in in particular we had some questions about afternoon glare it's a totally reasonable question the building faces west as any of you who have a west-facing window in your home know that you need to draw a shade or deal with that west-facing sun in the in the late afternoon so in this case we would have motorized shades that would run the entire length of all the windows and with the click of a button the shades could be dropped. We got questions about green roof maintenance that's another valid question when you have a large living roof and in this case this is not like a rose garden on a roof that needs lots of tending this is really more akin to an open meadow so it's a native and drought tolerant planting strategy that will need minimal maintenance and then lastly we did receive lots of comments and questions about collections they they varied widely but generally it expressed an interest in how kind of books will be displayed to the community and the types of books they can access and while we're not at a point in the process where we have a specific layout and specific information about that we are working actively with the library to create a collection that really best serves the public so with that we're going to transition to talk about budget and schedule Bonnie I'm going to hand it off to you for these this first slide here okay thanks Abe so just as a way of overview again and just putting this in context to some of our past updates the update that we're going to go into detail with you today on the budget and then Abe's going to go a little more into the latest cost estimate are based on schematic design so our earlier cost estimates were on conceptual design and then prior to that we're based on the renovation model versus a new model back in 2019 so those those cost estimates are dated and Abe's going to go into that in a little more detail I think what you see today and what I'm excited about is that where we are right now is the you know a 21st century library that from our perspective and the feedback that we've received from the community engagement thus far it really exceeds the expectations for what the majority of our community were expecting for a new design and a new library in the downtown so we're excited about that we're excited particularly also about some of the sustainability features of the project this delivers a sustainable resource that will serve our community for decades to come so we're really proud of the work that adjacent architecture has done to date and really feel like this is a library that time and time again during the feedback we heard we want something that people come to Santa Cruz and they go downtown and they go to the library as part of this like special special elements and trips that they go to Santa Cruz other than just the beach you know and some of the iconic things that were known for in our community so this this is where we are today the schematic design we still will have one more cost estimate actually we'll probably have several but we'll have another one in the design development phase so this will continue to be to evolve as we go forward but I will say that the estimate we have today is the most realistic estimate so thus far and just to clarify what's different from the earlier estimates and the one that we provided which was just a very basic overview of sources and uses last December this estimate today does include the full cost of delivering the library portion of the project the soft costs which are typically roughly 30 to 35 percent of the budget are included as well as the project contingency as well as the furniture furniture and equipment fixtures furniture and equipment which I had not included in the previous update was which was based largely just on construction aspect of the library um overall the schematic design of the library has involved and is now approximately 3000 square feet larger than the conceptual design so as Abe mentioned earlier it's now roughly 38 000 square feet while this does come at an additional overall um additional overall cost we are recommending at this time keeping the larger building in the project as we mean forward and we move forward on securing additional funding sources for the project as I mentioned estimates on costs and sources are still evolving they'll continue to be further refined as we go forward it is easier to secure funding overall both on the library side of the project and on the project and particularly is true for the housing component of the project when the project gets closer to being entitled what is considered shovel ready many the grant opportunities we need to have the project entitled have our permits in order to apply for many of our funding sources so this is a snapshot in time and we will be working with the overall project team to continue to find these numbers as we go forward okay so jump an end to the project sources and uses on the I'm going to go through the left hand side first our first source is the measure s funding and I specifically want to note we originally had 27 million earmarked for the downtown branch we did go to council earlier and allocate 1.5 million to the completion of the Garfield and Branson 40 branches those projects are still in sort of the wrap-up phase of their budget we are anticipating and with the most recent update having at least 500,000 that is likely to return to this project budget I'm not showing that at this point because I want to make sure that's all wrapped up but our construction manager for the overall project is is making that estimate at this time it's actually a little bit larger than that so I'm anticipating we'll probably have closer to 26 million of measure s funding the second funding source that we are anticipating at this time is the building for a California state library grant as you all aware and we've reported and passed updates to council we did submit and we had a really quick turnaround of basically a month from when they issued that opened the application and when the project that actual application had to be submitted but we did submit for a full ask of 10 million dollars for the project we expect to hear later this spring or early summer on this we do believe based on feedback that we are a really good fit for this grant and that our application is very competitive we're also anticipating roughly a two million dollar funding source contribution from fundraising efforts of the friends of the Santa Cruz public library this is primarily for the fixtures furniture and equipment and this is something that has been an ongoing sort of placeholder in the budget so that gets us to roughly 37,500,000 or 38 million if you include the additional 500 and measure s funding so we do have a gap we have a gap of anywhere from roughly between two and two and a half million based on our current sources that we're identifying for the library portion we also have a few alternates we've looked at the budget and there are two elements of the project that could be added we want to add them right at the beginning but if we needed to we could add them a little bit later they could be phased and that includes the zero net energy the photovoltaic system for the library as well as some of the roof deck patio tenant improvements you know the planter boxes the lighting some of the landscaping and irrigation for the roof deck could come at a later time if needed and so those additional cost is roughly two two and a half million so we do have identified some gap sources for the library this includes some of our major affordable housing funding sources and grants including the ASIC which is the affordable housing sustainable communities grant iig which is infill and infrastructure grant and our epic grant for some of the electric sustainability components of the project we have received all three of these grants for our other uh mixed use affordable housing projects in the downtown and we do believe that we would be equally competitive for this project due both to the proximity to transit the mixed use elements of the project and some of the sustainability features so in talking with eden housing and for the future housing they're both feeling very very good about our ability to just secure additional funding for the project and that is part of their their anticipated funding sources so there will hopefully be some additional funding sources that could help close this gap on the project uses side i'm going to briefly go over this and but abe is going to really go into some of the detail in the cost estimate i just kind of want to break that out of what is the budget for the library the shell and core is what the developer is delivering as part of the overall project of the library that's roughly the heart the hard construction cost of that is about 8.3 million the tenant improvements the tis for the library itself those are all the interior finishes you know the mechanics everything inside the library is roughly 24 million and then the soft costs and some of these sources specifically as we look on the soft costs include all the pre-development work it includes architectural design ff and e and a contingency for the tenant improvements are anticipated roughly to be the 7.6 million which gets us to that base library cost of 39.9 the alternates i already mentioned so the total of everything we'd like to deliver on for a 38 000 square foot building is roughly 42 million we i just briefly want to mention before turning it back to abe that some of our gap strategies beyond the grants and i have a footnote on the bottom of the slide in addition to fundraising and value engineering is ultimately if we're not successful securing any of the anticipated grant sources or even the building forward grant we could come back to you with some value engineering there are some very high-end finishes in the library we really like them and don't want to eliminate them at this point but if we're in that position where we need to reduce the overall budget we will come back to you with some options as well as ultimately decreasing the size of the library as i said it's a 38 000 a little over 38 000 for the interior space of a library plus the roof deck so there are some options there as well and with that i will turn it back to abe to go into more detail on the cost estimate thanks pauney all right so i think it's always good to put an estimate into context and that's really what this slide is for so i'm gonna kind of orient everyone to the slide before i walk through the details so on the left the numbered column these are basically the cost components of the project on the top you can see there's five columns each of these columns represents kind of essentially a budget onto itself a budget scenario and we have a list out each of these five and then explain what they are the first is the 2019 renovation study that was our renovation study that we prepared on the existing building the second is the renovation study which has been escalated to a current construction date based on new timing and includes the cost of a temporary library which will be required because the library would be taken offline the third is the mixed use project that we are currently working on that's the base the fourth column is the mixed use project with alternates and then for context we have a comparable ground up if you just built a project from scratch okay now i'm gonna kind of walk through each piece of these so first what i'm i'll first kind of briefly say on the renovation study as a reminder you know when we go into kind of a process like that our goal is to get the best possible project we can get for the budget and as you probably recall what we found after going through that study is that to kind of work within the budget at the time we had to take off remove nearly 25 of the building and bring it down to 30 000 square feet and even then as was kind of outlined in our executive summary we were delivering a low quality building we then had a series of alternates which brought it up to a moderate quality building so those series of alternates things like ceilings acoustics you know graphics exterior planting and landscaping all those things are included in the mixed use project we have a ceilings we have acoustics etc etc so the best point of comparison is the base plus alternates of the study now the study was done in 2019 it assumed that there would be a sort of relatively quicker transition to starting construction that's no longer accurate so we need to add escalation into that renovation study in addition to make the renovation work the main downtown library would have to come offline for several years that's not really feasible for the kind of hub of the system so you need to provide a temporary library space so i'm going to kind of walk through the renovation study in 2019 and then i'll walk through each column after that so as a reminder 30 000 square feet hard cost of about 23 million because it's a renovation and the nature of the project the the soft cost percentage is high it's about 49 and this is what our study showed at the time so about 11 million dollars in soft costs for a total construction hard plus soft of about 34 million and you can reference our study that 34 295 that's exactly the number in our study at the time temporary library costs were not established orange shell costs would be included so that has a total project cost again of about 34 million and a cost per square foot of about 1100 dollars a square foot now to kind of bring it into kind of a full budgetary picture as a point of comparison we have to add escalation in the temporary library so what you can see is the escalation raises the construction hard cost to about 26 million and the soft cost to about 12.5 the construction hard plus soft costs to about 38 and then we've estimated the cost of a temporary library which is the cost of building out a temporary library space at a very basic level so carpet paint 88 code required 88 upgrades as necessary basic telephone data and internet infrastructure that would that would mean saving all of the furniture all the shelving very very minimal co-compliant low quality also a much smaller building so this would be about a 10 or 11,000 square foot facility is about 2 million and that also includes the lease costs at a rate that we discussed kind of is appropriate for downtown Santa Cruz on a monthly basis based on that square footage that brings the total project cost of the renovation to in the range of 40 0.5 million and a cost per square foot of about $1,300 a square foot so the mixed use project now a couple things to point out it's a 38,000 square foot building so 8,000 square feet more the construction hard costs are a little bit lower about 24 million versus 26 million and the other big kind of thing to note is that because of the efficiencies of the mixed use project the soft costs are significantly lower about 32 percent that's about a 7.6 7.7 million so the construction hard costs are hard plus soft costs are about 31.7 temporary library is not required however we do have to include the cost of the core and shell for the overall mixed use project so that's about 8.3 million so what you can see that that is the total project cost of the mixed use project is just under 40 million dollars and the big thing to note is the cost per square foot is significantly lower at about a thousand dollars a square foot so you're getting a kind of an immense bang for your buck with the economy of scale and efficiency of the mixed use project so moving over to the next column i'll go through this one a little quicker this is the mixed use project with the alternates included it raises the total project cost as you saw on the previous slide that bonnie shared to about 42.5 million and raises the cost per square foot to about 1100 a square foot still an incredibly good deal the last thing which i think really emphasizes kind of how good of a deal this is is we did run a cost model on a comparable ground-up project and what you can see here for a 38,000 ground ground-up project 38,000 square feet you'd be talking about a 50 million dollar hard cost give or take and a total project cost of course a 70 million dollars and nearly 1800 dollars a square foot and this includes escalation to you know the the current construction schedule so i think you know that's a demonstration of kind of the fact that the mixed use project is effectively a new building and the comparison of the ground-up new building really shows the efficiency of kind of coupling this with other project components can i point out real quick oh yeah please yeah sorry i have a request if we can move the the panel there uh that on the screen so that it's not covering the last column thank you panel thank you we're good okay sorry apologies can everyone see now there yes thank you okay so only one last point on the slide i'm happy to answer questions in the Q&A portion of this presentation one of the things you'll note you can see the little cross symbol next to the renovation total project cost line eight and the ground up those costs do not include the encumbered costs of money spent to date or through the end of 2022 now while the those aren't really attributable to to a ground up project or renovation the reality is those that costs would have that encumbered costs would effectively increase the projects by another about two million dollars okay i'm gonna uh just sort of briefly go over the schedule uh you guys are familiar with this but what you can see here again is the community has put an immense amount of kind of inspirational work into this project this has effectively been underway since 2012 when a master plan was done for the library system all the way through measure measure s and the various studies that the council and the city has done to determine the best path forward we are currently in the design and engineering stage we are now into the design development phase of the process we will be looking to start construction around the beginning of 2024 and wrap construction around the end of 2026 the last thing i'll note is each of these yellow dots on this line represents a point of community process community feedback community workshop community input there's been nearly 40 points of community engagement in this process so it's a pretty inspirational uh engagement with your constituents and with the community of santa cruise and uh with that i'm going to turn it over to questions um so bonnie i don't know if you want to come back online so we can feel questions together thank you abe appreciate the update and to bonnie lipscomb thank you for the visuals and the updates and uh it's made quite a bit of progress i would like to bring it to uh council members for any questions on the update and any specific okay so vice mayor wattkins well that was just absolutely beautiful and um inspiring to see so thank you for your work i have a question and i i think i know the answer but i just want to confirm in regards to the child care facility that's proposed as a component of the mixed use space is that and is that encompassed within the work of eden and the affordable housing uh contractors is that right as uh council member wattkins that is part of the overall affordable housing um component of the project and um the developer is pretty excited because um it's child care facilities are actually give them additional points on some of their funding applications so that definitely is solidly on the housing side of the project budget okay great thank you that's right thank you council member mires um i was wondering speaking to some folks who are out of town out of towners this weekend who were showing your some of the drawings too have you done um work with actually with like families and kids in terms of your outreach in terms of you know i mean your spaces are beautiful i'm just curious you know you just talked to little guys at all i'm just you know i mean it just looks like such a cool fun space but i you know it's more something out of interest than i think that you need to go do that but i'm just curious if if you've done outreach or if kids have involved their kids in this parents have involved their kids in some of these some of these workshops you've held thank you yeah we did um if you recall we had a series of stakeholder meetings kind of very early in very early in our process not early in the overall process obviously that process dates farther back but uh that would have been fall of last year and we did have stakeholder groups with families and i would say there were a handful of you know families that actually had their kids so if you remember those kind of sticky notes boards um from that that stakeholder group many of the comments actually came directly from kids um i think you know we could discuss with bonnie there may be value in kind of another round about reach i did it's always tricky in the era of zoom so uh you know that's sort of a a layer to the process but we did do a round of outreach at the early stakeholder phase we haven't done a round of outreach since the since the schematic design has been established the outreach to kids specifically right and i have one more question i just remembered um will we be able to in the soft cost and sort of the building planning um be able to accommodate at least you know spanish as another piece uh you know signage all of that have we thought about that bonnie in terms of trying to make as many spaces at bilingual as possible i know that's finishers finishing but you know just curious about whether or not we would be able to do a bilingual approach to immunity room signage those kinds of things thank you i think that and aid probably can answer good to this as well i believe that's included in a lot of the signage for the building i know it's on the exterior but i'm assuming it based on some conversations that it's included in the signage um for the interior spaces as well yes that's correct and it's actually in the hard cost of the building rather than the soft costs oh it is perfect okay thanks so much thank you councilmember calantari johnson thank you for the presentation i'm so excited to go and use the space in a couple of years um just to pick up the thread that councilmember mires was bringing up around youth um feedback the city is now working very closely with youth action network and we'll have youth liaison as part of our efforts with the children youth bill of rights so when it's appropriate i'd love to connect the project to the youth liaison that we're working with thank you councilmember um calantari johnson that's great i will say we had a specific you know family and focus group from family and children we did have a hard time getting specific children to sign up for that focus group we were more successful with the family focus group so yeah any targeted approach and particularly if you have an ability to get them at the table with us we welcome it so thank you thank you i was able to pop into one of those focus groups family focus groups and it was um very very sweet to hear the comments from the children and their imagination from swinging ropes from the ceiling to you know tree houses and all kinds of suggestions so um thank you and the teens as well i know that was also um part of the the outreach uh councilmember Cummings thank you mayor thank you for that presentation um i had a number of people reaching out to me with questions some of which were answered in the presentation um so thank you um but i did want to ask um a number of other outstanding questions one um just for clarification so this is going to be one building instead of two i know initially the parking was going to be separate i believe and so i'm just wondering if you could clarify that this is going to be one entire structure is this going to be multiple structures on the site um i i can start that answer and then maybe abe you can you can add to this but um it is a it's one project and there are many of the elements of the project that have a shared elements to it so shared foundation shared shell and core for the the majority of the project um we also have um the um podiums and utility connections are shared across the project and then additionally we're still working through um the library sort of site plan as it relates to the parking there may be an element of the um mechanical for the library that actually sits in what we originally were expecting to be the parking structure so it's definitely a very fluid um on design and some of the elements but it is there is it's not two separate buildings by by any means thank you and then i know it i know it was the last time but one of the previous meetings we had the heritage trees came up and so has there been any effort made to either alter the building to accommodate any of the heritage trees in accordance with the city's heritage tree ordinance or incorporating those into you know some of those green spaces um i will say we still have the arborist um report analysis underway um and aid can specifically respond to the overall design obviously with us maximizing every square foot of the overall site it would be hard to accommodate any of those interior trees in the project successfully and certainly not um cost efficiently um there are some of the perimeter trees that may still be um a possibility uh but uh definitely the interior trees you cannot accommodate those in the existing design not at a reasonable cost not actually at delivering the library and the overall project is envisioned but i'll turn it over to aid to really you know specifically a look at that yeah i as bonnie's described that is kind of you know a appropriate framing and i think what we are trying to be very thoughtful of is that we want the site to feel alive and green and so uh we have more trees planted on the site than currently exist as part of the proposed plan and i will say some of that it speaks to the overall project which is uh sort of bonnie can certainly elaborate on the the mix use project rather than the library specifically but then in addition to that there will be trees on the roof deck and then we have this living roof which is nearly 12 000 square feet of native habitat on the roof so uh we are i think giving back uh you know sort of in a significant way to habitat and green space and then just a follow-up with the living roof um some of what the discussions that i've had because of this has come up at previous meetings and there were some head nods with consideration for the living roof to be used instead of as kind of native grasses but for growing food and i'm just wondering if there can be any discussion or explanation as to why that might not be in consideration right now because uh perennial grasses can be expensive and they do require some maintenance for establishing having worked in community gardening for multiple years it's not you know just planted in and it's going to take care of itself there's a lot of maintenance to getting those grasses to establish they can be heavy and this would be an opportunity for people to grow their own food if we're going to have low-income housing we could offer classes on nutrition which would address food insecurity and educational opportunities people from the buildings could actually or people who had access to those gardens could maintain them to help with maintenance and it would still reduce the overall heat island effect and so i'm wondering if and that's something that fits within health and all policies for the city and also you know if we're talking about you know applying for grants that address poverty that's something that could be an additional benefit as well in addition to childcare so i'm wondering if there is that opportunity and kind of um you know what the opportunities are for us to explore that as an option it seems like a good fit i'll speak to you briefly then bonnie i think there's an overlay with the kind of overall project i think it's a really wonderful idea council member i think the the more likely location where there is a sort of a place for that could potentially be in the significant residential roof deck which we didn't really speak to but you saw on the site plan there's you know sort of as we've got about 3,500 square feet of library roof deck and then there is significantly more area dedicated to residential uses and there's certainly room for community garden type space there and bonnie i don't know what types of conversations you've had with eden or for the future regarding that that is something we've talked about and and you had given us that feedback before as well and that did resonate in some of our discussions with the affordable housing team there are like i'm going to call them open space sort of rooms envisioned for the the housing podium level and i believe and i don't have the number exactly in front of me but i believe it's close to 16 000 square feet of open space on that level for the housing and so there's like a community general sort of family open space area there's the children's in the teens area you know some play equipment and there is some vision that there could be an area where you could have the raised planter beds that could be for for food and different different you know gardening uses for the residents of the housing so that is something that's been part of the discussion a couple other questions so i'm wondering if if and when we'll get an update on the kind of parking structure and affordable housing because some of the questions that i have and since you know this is the mixed use project we didn't get this information today i'm just the questions that i have are related to you know what's the cost projection for the affordable housing and the parking and then you know what are the funding sources for those for the parking and affordable housing what's been secured what are we still waiting on so i'm going to speak to that a little bit as well i'll briefly just give you know a few sort of comments on that at this point i will say today's update really was focusing on the library because that's where we've been focusing and we had the largest number of questions from our last update is those that's the area where we actually feel like we have a gap and so we really wanted to do a deep dive and get really firm as firm as we can in the schematic phase numbers on what those costs are and really work towards what are the sources we have for closing that gap i'll say for both the parking and the housing you know those will predominantly be paying you know the parking specifically will be really a base paying for itself in effect it's we have an existing parking district and we're anticipating either issuing parking revenue bonds where the actual debt services based on income from the parking district so even factoring in sort of this you know post pandemic environment we've been running numbers and modeling and have started conversations with our financial consultants that actually issue bonds in this area we're feeling confident that the parking element of the project will fully be affordable and fund and be able to be funded with either parking revenue bonds or potentially direct loan financing you know as we get a little closer to finalizing the actual parking number we still have some movement on that we'll be able to provide more accurate numbers on that but the full range and i think in the last update we showed around 20 million so you know give or take a few million for the cost of the project we have sufficient anticipated debt service to be able to fund that for the parking so the parking will pay for itself as a component of the project and it will pay for you know a share of the foundation and all the related costs the housing and i mentioned this a little earlier the housing component of the project the library is really in the lead right now a lot of our focus has been on the design of the library because that's the most public-facing element the affordable housing we do have a developer and a developer team we've submitted a pre-application for that and to planning and so once we get some of those preliminary feedback we'll be able to refine the housing number right now we're sitting at roughly we think we're going to be able to maximize the housing we've definitely gone up to current heights and what we can exceed on those and the downtown core and have 124 units so we're excited by that so the next step is once we get a little closer to entitlements we can really then start applying for some of these major affordable housing funding sources and similar to our success on peck station south and north some of the grants and funding available will have funding that can also offset some of the cost of the library which is a major benefit of us being able to apply for these for these funding sources for the housing so even housing and for the future you know at a future update when we have a little more concrete numbers a little further along in the design process for those we'll have both of them available to council to give an update on kind of what is the overall funding picture and as as you know from past projects it is a complicated layering you know sometimes you have eight to ten sometimes even more funding sources in an affordable housing project but both of them feel very confident that the housing particularly the nature of the project with the sustainability features and its proximity to transit and the addition of the library is very fundable so they're feeling really good about where they are at this point in time with the funding great and then my last question and then I have one comment so it sounds like based on some communications I've had with community members that this ballot measure put forward by downtown forward sounds like that there's a good chance that it's going to qualify for the ballot and so I'm wondering if that passes how that's going to impact this project because if that goes on the ballot in November there's going to be you know potential consequences if it passes and so I'm just wondering if that's been taken into consideration and what that could look like well I think our current direction is a council direction to move forward on the project so you know we are continuing design we have existing contracts with Jason architecture and the developer team is moving forward on their design and application stage so you know currently we're moving forward on the project that is the direction that we have you know if the initiative passes on the ballot in November obviously you know we'll have to regroup and and come to you we will have as Abe indicated earlier there will be a portion of the funding for the project that will have been spent on this one per our current our current direction so we'll have to see where we are at that point with what we spent on the project what's remaining of both the measure s funding and the other project elements funding elements for the existing library site great and then I guess my last comment would just be I think it'd be great if these slides could go on the mixed use library webpage so that people can have access to them so absolutely yeah we put each of the presentations to council all the updates on our project page thank you thank you council member Cummings um just for quick clarification the ballot measure I believe was brought forward by our downtown our future um instead of downtown forward I know there's uh several groups that have formed around this library affordable housing project and um it's a little confusing to keep track but um is that correct that you know of that's right okay thank you thank you council member Cummings uh council member Golder or Calentari Johnson did you have any other questions for okay and vice mayor Watkins I don't necessarily have a question but just sort of one suggestion to get at students or seniors or other special populations I know during the pandemic and our alternative education programs students were looking for quiet safe spaces to to learn right and so part of the outreach strategy you know I found that works best for special populations is really just going to them and I know we know somebody here on the council who's got a good handful of folks that she could access but even you know the senior center and you know visiting the teen center others sometimes you'll you'll find more success with their input if you go to them that's just the only suggestion I have and happy to help if it's an education group or constituency you're looking for great thank you council member Watkins okay that concludes our update presentation of the downtown library affordable housing project thank you so much Bonnie Lipscomb and Abe Jason of Jason architecture for that presentation thank you so much for incorporating so many beautiful elements and community benefits thus far I look forward to the next update all right next up on our agenda we have our brief presentation this is a mayoral proclamation declaring May 11th through May 17th 2022 as National Police Week and I'd like to invite up any of our police staff Deputy Chief of Police Jose Garcia John Bush and any other officers that are present here in person welcome mayor nice to see you nice to see you too thank you welcome today it was uh very nice to learn of this week and to put this together so whereas the police officers of Santa Cruz have worked unselfishly and with commitment on behalf of the people of this community including intentionally de-escalating violent incidents in spite of personal harm or hazard to themselves and whereas these officers have safeguarded the lives and property of all in Santa Cruz through community policing and problem-solving and whereas Santa Cruz police officers have consciously worked towards inclusivity and advancements and racial equity by purposely seeking community engagement and updating policies and whereas by their service and their dedicated efforts these officers have earned the gratitude of the city of Santa Cruz and whereas in 1962 President John F Kennedy was authorized by Congress to proclaim May 15th of each year as National Peace Officers Memorial Day in honor of all peace officers who have been killed or disabled in the line of duty and whereas the presidential proclamation also designated that each year the calendar week in which May 15th occurs or precedes shall be proclaimed as National Police Week in recognition of the service given by the officers who day and night uphold public safety in our communities now therefore I Sonia Brunner mayor of the city of Santa Cruz do hereby proclaim the week of May 11th through May 17th 2022 as National Police Week in the city of Santa Cruz and I encourage all citizens to observe this week with law enforcement officers past and present who by their faithful and loyal devotion to their responsibilities have rendered a dedicated service to their communities and proclaim May 15th 2022 as excuse me I'm getting choked up as National Peace Officers Memorial Day in honor of those law enforcement officers who through their courageous deeds have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their community or have become disabled in the performance of duty thank you good afternoon mayor council members thank you so much I'm humbled I'm certain we're all humbled by the proclamation in your comments it's important that I tell you myself and my partner deputy chief acting deputy chief John Bush while we are here to accept this I think it's important to acknowledge the women and men that are out there doing the work the day and night work that you talk about are taking calls for service now and they can't be here to see this but they do an important thing and they work really hard and times are tough so I think it is it is very valuable to hear what you have to say and we'll share this with them I want to acknowledge a couple of those folks that are here now Sergeant Mark Evelith and Sergeant Josh Trog out there supervising during those night shifts that you talk about they do an incredibly tough job and they do it incredibly well and we're grateful but these are the folks that are most deserving of of the comments you know John Bush and I are just the folks that are here and we're grateful to have the opportunity to give them what they need to get their work done but thank you so much we very much appreciate your comments thank you next item on our agenda item number six is scheduled for 4 p.m hands Christian Anderson contest awards so we will return to agenda item six at 4 p.m moving on to our through our agenda this is the part where I'd like to ask council members if there are any statements or disqualifications today I forgot I was going to ask Tony about this just with the circles project and my house if it's close enough or you want to measure okay we come back to that because I was going to ask what agenda item is that item number 17 is getting looked into well I'll have an answer to that before the consent calendar okay thank you we'll come back to that item and are there any items of disqualification statements of okay I'd like to ask the city clerk to announce any additions or deletions um I don't have any but the city attorney does have thank you city attorney yes we noticed a slight inaccuracy in the description of item number 28 concerning district elections refers to adoption of a seven district map and an ordinance whereas the ordinance actually adopts both a six district and a seven district map it's not a big concern but out of an abundance of caution I'm recommending that that be put over to the next meeting for considering final adoption of the ordinance in district maps thank you does that require a vote the chair can I can move that to the okay so item number 28 is moved to our next council meeting I believe is may 24th thank you at this time uh we have a city manager report I'd like to call on the city manager to see if there are updates and a report welcome good afternoon mayor and council I'm happy to provide a brief update I believe Elizabeth Smith on my team is going to pull up the presentation and while she does that I will also be tag teaming uh this afternoon's presentation rosemary minard our water director will also provide a brief update on some recent polling they did of the community related to our securing our water future planning effort so with that I will go ahead and jump into it next slide please so as the council knows um our departments collectively have been putting a significant amount of effort leading up to the enforcement of our new sidewalk vending regulations that includes a significant amount of outreach over the last several weeks with with our local businesses as well as our existing sidewalk vendors both along beach street as well as pacific avenue the network was conducted both in english and spanish with one of our spanish community engagement outreach folks that we work with and wanting to ensure that we help all of the vendors be prepared for the new regulations as they roll out so as part of that work permits are now available and can be accessed through our planning department um we are also planning and moving towards enforcement of the new regulations beginning this friday on may 13th so this has been a major push across multiple departments i want to thank our code compliance team as well as elizabeth smith and in my office police department and our planning and calm staff for all contributing towards um what is a a major lift as we roll out this new program next slide as part of the highway one and nine intersection improvement projects we had removed the river street sign with plans of actually rehabilitating and reinstalling the sign unfortunately the sign was in significant disrepair and no longer usable um keeping us from being able to reinstall it at its original location so as a result we're planning on retiring the sign and we will be updating that corner with updated wayfinding signage consistent with our citywide wayfinding programs so just want to go alert the council and the community to to that change and we look forward to uh to the updated intersection improvements as well as the updated signage next slide so as uh bonnie mentioned earlier today we have a number of very exciting affordable housing projects that are moving through the pipeline and on may 19th we hit a major milestone as we celebrate the groundbreaking of the pacific station south project as well as the cedar street apartments and collectively these two projects will yield over 130 additional affordable housing units in our downtown they have been really decades in the making and i want to applaud the work of our economic development and housing team for helping to get these projects over the finish line they'll be very exciting improvements for our downtown the groundbreaking groundbreaking will be a bit of a tour we'll be starting at the pacific station south project site and then heading over to 525 cedar street and then a final stop at the site of the library and affordable housing project that you all received a very exciting update on today next slide as we move into the summer months i wanted to take a moment to also highlight a number of our summer construction projects we always have a lot of interest from our community members as to what's happening and when so i'll run through these very quickly the highway one and nine project will be moving through july of the summer we also have the west cliff path storm damage for para project running april through july the trevathin avenue storm sewer project this will be phase one of that project moving march through july sand lorenzo riverwalk lighting project is underway already some great improvements happening along the riverwalk path there and that project is slated to be completed around july of the year we also have the sand lorenzo river lagoon cobra project running may through october the murray street bridge project we've had a lot of interest in and that is running in september through october of 2025 that is a massive infrastructure improvement project we'll certainly have some impacts on traffic and our public works team will be continuing to update the community proactively so that they can plan their their routes accordingly and then lastly we have the coastal rail trail segment seven and that'll be may 20 22 through may 2023 and really excited to continue building out our rail trail corridor next slide so with that i'm going to go ahead and hand it over to rosemary menard and she's going to run you through some feedback we received from the community in response to a recent poll that the water department conducted thank you thank you matt and hello commissioner or council members and mayor we are as you know from a fyi that i sent out a little bit ago we were ramping up a process to really kind of bring the bring to a head and have some come community conversation about supply alternatives for the future so we had not talked to the community and a sort of a standardized survey for quite a lot long time and so we decided that now was a good time to get their feedback particularly on some of the topics of the different kinds of supply alternatives so we completed the survey in march actually and we just presented this information to the water commission at their meeting on the second of may and so go ahead Elizabeth please the next slide so the first question really had to do with asking folks what they thought about how whether there was a need for water today a great need a some need you know no need at all a little need or additional water supply for the future and you can see that there's a very strong recognition in our community that we do need additional water supply to make sure that we have an adequate supply to meet our needs particularly in light of climate change next slide please elizabeth and as you can see this is there's a significant recognition from this data and these are a number of questions that were asked over time about the degree to which you know we're going to need new sources of supply versus that we can just use water conservation or demand management to solve our problem and the number of folks in our community over time and went who believed that you know just using less was the solution in 2010 in 2014 and then in 2022 has really declined quite rapidly as a number of people who recognize that we do need supply augmentation has increased and I think that is aligned with what I would describe as the reality of the kinds of efficient water use practices that people have adopted and recognizing that there are you know there's no way to really very significantly additionally cut their demand and continue to meet their needs next slide please one of the things we did is we asked folks um you know what kinds of things do you think would be an excellent idea for but or excellent good idea for a ways to solve the water supply problem and you can see here this is data from this question from 2019 and then more recently that a lot of folks are still quite interested in the idea of using available winter water when we can and storing it underground aquifers this is work that's already going on in our community in the mid county groundwater basin we're making some good progress with that idea we also had asked about purified recycled water and for potable and non potable uses and you can see that there's growing interest in this as a strategy as well not so much on mandatory water conservation whether it's in restrictions as in you know curtailment or in additional sort of regulatory strategies as part of long term to management man management and a little bit of an increase in people's interest in desalination although that's a very challenging project to put forward on a scale of just a community as small as we are it's not off the table but I think there are many challenges associated with desal that we would want to think hard about before we sort of automatically went down that road next slide please this was a question that was asking folks to talk to us about what they thought as it related to what were the causes of why we needed additional supply and you can see that in the top couple of graphs that there's a pretty strong understanding in our community that climate change is really presenting some additional challenges for us in managing and planning for supply quite a lot of people 82% are saying that they think that climate change is a big driver of our need for additional supply the gross question which we hear on a routine basis also has a strong you know resilience or you know sort of connection to folks how they feel about what's driving supply and we are talking about how we plan for growth and build it into our planning in a way that you know recognizes that that's an important thing for us to be planning for and so there's a strong thing you know recognition of growth as a factor and when you put them which has the greater effect climate change is slightly greater resonates with folks than the growth and development argument but these are really important statistics for us to understand as we you know think about communicating with our community and also solving the ultimate problem and explaining to people why we're doing what we're doing next slide please so one thing that we we have not pulled on historically with any level of detail is purified recycled water and this time we have a lot of information from previous polls about upper storage and recovery using treated drinking water from winter availability and also from desal and we really wanted to know some more about where the community was on purified recycled water and you can see here the they're strongly favoring the various kinds of uses for purified recycled water as all of these laid out here watering for landscapes and playgrounds commercial industrial facilities which i think is an application that's being used in many places we don't have so much uh high water using commercial and industrial facilities here in Santa Cruz so that's obviously you know would be it it would be good but we don't have that necessarily that use home uses you can see here replenishing groundwater quite a bit of interest in that supplementing other water sources and then sort of more indoor sort of sanitation personal uses there still is some willingness and interest to pursue that idea in developing this as a particular source of supply next slide please and we did the thing that often happens in these kinds of polls which is we asked people a question about how they you know what was their response to recycled water and then we gave them additional information in the in the process about how the water is treated and in order to make it available and usable for recycled water and then we asked them their favorable question you know their the degree to which they favored that technology and you can see that sort of what we've seen elsewhere also is the case here that when people receive additional information about how recycled water is developed for use additional potable and non-potable uses the the favorability to that idea increases and that's what this slide shows i looked at the cross tabs myself and i think that it's not surprising that a lot of the younger population in our community both owners and renters are in favor more heavily in favor of this technology in general and get even more in favor of it once they understand what's what's involved with it okay next slide and then finally we asked some questions that we've asked historically about the the degree to which people think that water department is doing a good or excellent job and you can see the the results here you know it's been a pretty challenging year for all government agencies over the last few years with the pandemic and the economic downturn and just the general sort of you know stresses that we're all experiencing through the you know the national international climate and it's very gratifying to have um our community be giving us such a great report card so we're happy about this in particular in asking the further you know further information about why they thought we were doing a good job they did respond to positively very positively to the custom level of customer service that our staff provides and i'm very proud of those folks and really appreciate the hard work they do to work with folks who've been struggling with their utility bills as the rates have been increased and as the economic conditions have changed and also you know working on helping people to solve their problems in ways that work for them among the other factors it seemed to be a great interest to our community is the kind of accessibility of water using information that are going to come with the new meters and so we're also looking forward that process is underway now we're about a quarter through the the implementation of the system wide meter replacement project and we're getting great results from people who are you know really happy to be able to start to get access to being able to manage their water use by understanding how much they are using and i think that unless you have questions for me that's what i have for you today thank you rosemary happy to answer any questions related to the overall cm update mayor thank you city manager and water director rosemary monard a very good polling and very good data and information and and congratulations on the good report card i'm looking to my council member colleagues if there are questions and i see council member mires i just wanted to um also just recognize the work of the water department i think that's really important information as we move ahead um did you do any testing on i know we've already kind of basically adopted the rate structure but did you do any polling on sort of how people are feeling whether our rates are you know affecting the mechanism you know i know one of your really one of your goals is to try to really acknowledge that at some point you know even our utilities are going to be difficult for some folks so just curious if you did any polling on that thanks um we asked folks uh in one of the slides and i didn't share the whole deck with you but i'm happy to send that out to you because you know it's available but we asked folks to uh what what they thought about um our efforts to modernize the system and also to keep rates affordable and i can look at the data here um i think that on affordability there was a recognition that um we were you know that we still got good marks on that about 45 percent said excellent or good but it's obviously a big challenge right and and i do i have been continuing to engage with um other sort of regional partners and and others in the sort of state national level about the affordability challenges that were coming i think that the good news on that topic is that that i'm not the only person talking about it anymore um that it's becoming an issue and i i don't know if you noticed from the the coastal commission staff comments related to the d-cell plant in the uh honeyton beach area that got quite a bit of press coverage in the last few weeks one of their comments was their concern about the affordability of the water that was produced from that plant so that's not a surprise although if the water is needed um you know the choices between having water that's more expensive and not having water doesn't seem to be a you know a good choice but i do think that the affordability issue is one thing that people are starting to really talk about and i am continuing to talk about that um both regionally and at the state and national level thank you council member mires council member golder so i just thought rosemary would appreciate this a fourth grader at bayview asked me what the uh water bill at bayview is every month and i said i didn't know but i'd get back to them and um then the class was very surprised that actually the water portion was fairly low it was under 400 between three and 400 and the the trash was around i don't know a thousand so they were so surprised that that they were such good water savers um at school so uh that was cute thank you thank you council member comings thanks for that presentation um i wanted to just express um my congrats on the cedar street and pacific station south projects moving forward you know and i know a lot of people in the community want us to build more affordable housing and it's coming so i think it's really great that we're able to celebrate the groundbreaking of these two projects i did um have a question about the cedar street project so that's the uh parking lot that's across from cavalry that's adjacent to cavalry church correct that's correct and um i could call on body if you have a more specific questions council member comings but yes that's the location i just had um i'm just curious about how that's going to one impact parking at that lot so is that going to be like coming up like when is that parking lot coming offline completely and then also i know that there's some rvs and cars that are in the safe parking program that has been kind of utilized by the cavalry church in that lot and so i'm wondering what's going to happen to those um rvs that are utilizing that program council council member comings i don't have the exact answer about the rvs um but i can reach out and i'm looking to see if um a couple folks from our parking team are on this call um but i see lee is also um on so he may have an answer but i will say that we have been working um with just on the lease portion of a termination of their current lease but at the same time we want um to be able to extend that as long as possible so we're having the groundbreaking date you know next week next thursday at 11 but they're gonna we're gonna continue to use that as a parking lot until they they absolutely need it um to break ground so we we are working working on that um and i'll turn it over to oh and brian's on um brian and lee for the other parts of your question sure i'll kick it off um good afternoon council lee butler director of planning and community development and um we have um the building permits um essentially ready to issue we're working on some uh the final details and as bonnie mentioned we do want to keep that lot that parking lot in um operation um while we can so it'll take a little bit of time for them to mobilize the construction crews and so forth and um that's the specific timing that bonnie was referring to there in terms of when it will be coming offline we don't know the exact time but it is imminent and um you know within the next um it's it's a matter of weeks right um you know one month uh two months in that kind of timeframe is what i would say with respect to the safe parking program we do have um we have three spots um that are currently being utilized in that location we do have um the ability to move those over to um lot four and um that would be directly across the street we currently have three spaces that are in operation there and um we've got the excess capacity that's um uh able to be accommodated on that adjacent lot the team has also worked on and you'll hear more about this tonight the team has also worked on a plan to um scale that up once we have additional demands scale that up to the 30 spaces that council has directed and um i think that covers it but if you've got other questions i'm happy to address this no that's member comings i would also just add and i appreciate both lee and bonnie's responses that as as we tap into the potential of these lots that have historically been used for public parking to really try to achieve highest and best use and um you know obviously these affordable housing projects are exciting and welcomed uh we do anticipate that we are going to have a parking crunch downtown and so the parking component of the library and affordable housing project i think is another just great example of with all of these moving parts ensuring that we're planning ahead and being prepared for that great thanks and i was just um i guess the next question i had was related to water so i'm just curious um if there is any kind of update on the pure water soquel project i know that there's been a lot of construction i believe it's the construction that um build kind of the pipeline for the water transfer and i'm just curious about whether or not um what's kind of happening with that project as well yes so that project uh is under construction at well both at the shanticleer plant for the pure water the advanced water treatment plant and also um the the pipeline is on Broadway now it's heading i don't know that it's cross sea right yet i haven't seen it as i've been in you know going in and out of that neighborhood myself um but uh we'll go over to Frederick street and then turn and go up Frederick to soquel and um we'll be running on soquel till it reaches the the shanticleer site um on the south side of the freeway that that project is probably got at least another i would guess roughly a year to in construction um i think that by the time that Murray street bridge is under construction that project will also be in construction on soquel it should be a fun time i would think great thank you does that conclude your questions thank you councilmember Cummings uh vice mayor Watkins yeah thank you for the presentation a lot of really exciting stuff happening um as you mentioned rosemary i was gonna kind of comment on the on the Murray street bridge project and and then now hearing it also potentially being further impacted our community being further impacted by the soquel project um septembers around the corner and i know it's a three-year project i i guess for those who are regular users of that bridge and or we also know that is a major um you know bridge and overpass for a lot of our tourists how are we thinking about planning for outreach and awareness and traffic management when that's underway particularly thinking it's going to be underway for potentially three years yeah thanks for the question uh vice mayor Watkins uh we have Nathan here to speak to some of the plans that are underway there will most certainly be impacts as you're pointing out and uh i know that Nathan and our public works communication team have been thinking through how best to to help mitigate that so i'm sure Nathan has some some thoughts hi uh mocha Nathan wend assistant director public works thanks for the question about Murray street bridge we are working on getting a couple more permits uh before going uh being able to take out to bed later this summer so we're still holding on to the september date as of right now we are working with the regional transportation commission so they also have a project on highway one and we are talking about looking at the 511.org website as a way to help put our projects cities as well as rtcs and and uh counties projects on there as well to to help with um providing information on latest traffic impacts uh you know county wide and so there is a coordination that's happening in the background and as these projects move forward with um bidding and and once we get contractors on board we'll have more specific information of regards to those impacts thank you are there any other uh questions from council members regarding the city manager's update or the water director's update thank you thank you so much for that presentation okay now i'm moving to uh i'd like to call on the city attorney to provide a report on closed session thank you mayor brunner good afternoon members of the city council this afternoon at 12 30 the council met in the courtyard conference room to discuss two closed session items the first was a conference with labor negotiators involving all bargaining groups second item was one item of anticipated litigation council received a report from and gave direction to the city attorney's office with regard to that one item of potential litigation there was no reportable action thank you for that report is there an update on item 17 on the consent agenda regarding statement of disqualification yes uh thank you mayor brunner um i i've reviewed the fppc regulations and the um the distance between the project site and the council members uh residences and there is no conflict of interest great thank you for that update moving on to agenda number eight the city council will review the meeting calendar attached to the agenda and revise it as necessary i'd like to call on the city clerk to provide any updates to the calendar there are no updates thank you now we've come to the consent agenda portion for members of the public who are streaming this meeting now is the time to call in if you'd like to comment on consent agenda items number nine through 23 instructions are on your screen please remember to mute your streaming device and you can raise your hand either by dialing star nine on your phone or selecting the raise hand feature on your webinar controls of your computer if there are any members in the public who would like to comment on consent agenda items nine through 23 you may sign in at the front podium to the right of the dais all items will be acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a council member for further discussion are there any council members who wish to comment on or pull any items council member comings i have a comment on nine a question on 13 a question on 14 hold on let me write this down nine comment yep question on 13 question 13 question on 14 question 14 comment on 16 comment on 17 and a question on 20 question on 20 are there any other council members council member brown thank you mayor i have a question on 14 as well and uh question any comments on 16 16 16 thank you council member mires i just have a comment on 14 okay and then uh for myself i had a comment on items 12 and 20 okay so we'll start let me get back to my notes i will start with item agenda item number nine which is resolution extending the emergency declaration in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic by 60 days and there's a comment from council member comings yeah i just wanted to um bring this item up because i've heard from a number of small business owners that you know there's been attempts and discussion about removing some of the outdoor dining areas um and also just um some frustration around being able to operate outdoors and i think that it's just worth this recognizing that um you know we're starting to see upticks in COVID again santa cruz county in particular is one of the areas in california that's seeing an increase in COVID and there's other states um i was reading an article about how main and Puerto Rico are also seeing even though they have high vaccinated populations that they're starting to see people who are being infected with COVID-19 and just wanting to for us to keep in mind that we're still in this pandemic and we really need to be facilitating businesses to operate and also making sure that we're keeping the community safe as best we can because we don't know where this is heading and as we saw last winter we had the biggest spike um you know a year after the pandemic had first started so i think just trying to keep in mind that this is going to take time and we need to be supportive of our community as we continue to grapple with this thank you thank you council member comings um let's see the next comment is agenda item number 12 minutes of the april 26 2022 city council meeting and i just wanted to um address a member of the public who had emailed a concern about the minutes reflecting in um our last meeting correctly uh regarding santa cruz police department's ar 15's being added to the ab 481 military equipment list and that was indeed the fact the revised list does include ar 15's in the military equipment list and um i just wanted to confirm uh that i was able to confirm that as well with the city attorney's office so thank you for for reaching out with that our next item is council member comings with a question on number 13 thank you mayor um this item is fees associated with sidewalk vending ordinance administration enforcement i'm just wondering if um maybe the parks and rec director if someone's available to just speak to what uh those permit fees would be and what we're anticipating in terms of um how much those permit fees would be i know that you know the intent of the law is to try to facilitate um local vendors or street vendors to be able to bend although you know we're seeing impacts negative impacts on the community we're trying to address though so i'm just wondering if we if someone could speak to what the anticipated costs of those permits would be uh council member comings um i will be able to answer that question um chairman head and jones the ministry of uh services supervisor for the parks and recreation department um the parks permit fee will be an annual fee it's $50 it's a flat fee and it's used for making reservations for the various areas that um folks will be able to bend in parks or downtown so it's not a per reservation fee it's a flat fee for the annual rate okay thank you thank you uh next we had uh two questions and a comment on item number 14 the california state library building forward library infrastructure grant resolution and i will start with uh council member brown you had a question thank you mayor and this is a question that i did send ahead to bonnie lipscomb and i think i got it answered but i just want to make sure that i um get it out here so the um and thank you uh thank you bonnie for responding um so the the state grant program that i had some questions from the uh members of the public about this under um sb 129 the state grant program is seems to be uh focused on uh in a couple of areas um and one of those is uh renovations and so i just wanted to so there's a low income priority category um which it sounds like we're fitting into in um some ways um but the on the questions around what the the purpose of the the grant funding um it appears that renovation is a big focus and so i'm just wondering i wanted to ask and members of the public were um curious about how that might affect our competitiveness for this round of funding because we are looking at new construction um thanks for that question council member brown and and i do appreciate you sending sending the question by email as well um so we were actually encouraged to apply for this grant by the california state library and they did give us feedback both through the application process in this middle that our application was very competitive and was a good fit for the program so specifically new construction is an eligible category for the grant particularly if it is more cost effective than repairing or rehabilitating an existing facility which applies to this project based on both the 2019 cost estimate prepared uh by jason architecture and mac five and the updated cost estimate um just prepared in this last last few weeks um by the cost estimator so in having these we did share uh these cost estimates you know the information from them with with the um with the state library um california state library and they did give us a feedback that absolutely what we were doing some of the features in the old one what we're not cost effective to um from a safety perspective um we're not cost effective to for uh renovation and that this is exactly the type of project that these funds are are made for thank you thank you council member brown council member comings you had a question as well yeah this um part of it was somewhat answered in the last response but um one of the things that came up in the agenda report was how this grant is for high-poverty areas and so i'm just curious how santa cruz fits with in that criteria and how competitive are we for that grant and maybe you can speak to how they base you know what a high-poverty area is um i am not looking at that part of the grant you remember my grant team at ed did pull together some of those elements of the project i will say overall for typical grants um particularly when we're looking in uh low-income areas the downtown is isn't is considered a low-income area that extends and includes the area of the beach flats and lower ocean so we typically when you're looking at from a census block perspective we fit right in there with this area in some of the lowest income areas of santa cruz so um that is based on census tract data um i will follow up after i touch base with my project team from that element of the grant if if the analysis was different than that but that is what i believe was used as the basis for this yeah i was curious because i wasn't sure if it was you know the um high-poverty area was the city as a whole or if it's just the neighborhood where the library is located so just trying to get some clarification around that because i think eddie was you know how competitive are we for this grant but if they reached out to you and said you should apply then obviously there's a high potential of success so thank you thank you council member mires you had a comment on item 14 yeah i just wanted to thank the staff um and i also want to recognize um our new county library director um yolanda will burn she is also i know working with our staff so on this grant um so this is an amazing opportunity and i'm just thrilled that you know we are working collectively to bring these dollars back to build a state of the art 21st century library in our downtown so um bonnie i just want to recognize you and your staff you guys do a lot of these grants and um i'm just thrilled that we're going for it and also just excited that the state of california recognizes that libraries are the most important institution a community can build and they wouldn't be putting these grants out if that wasn't the focus of what we should be doing to accomplish all kinds of things in our communities so thanks for your work thank you council member mires and i will say that uh library director yolanda will burn is watching this meeting and if needed she could jump on to the panel but she is watching and she has been and her whole library team has obviously been a huge contributors um to the library portion of the project and yolan particularly has connections with this grant and was involved on some of the original sort of grant eligibility you know uh don't have all the details of her involvement other than i know that she was very um intrinsically involved in the early stages of even developing this opportunity for libraries across the state so she has a lot of firsthand knowledge of the grant the eligibility and um the overall process so she's been our go to in both guidance and in following up with specific questions that we had during the process thanks for mentioning that bonnie i mean i think her guidance and her really her knowledge of you know this this opportunity that the state really wants to offer to communities around california is i'm not sure that in recent times we've had this kind of money that would be available so again you know this is just great and i've just been so impressed um in watching the two organizations working together so closely to try to try to bring this grant home so thank you thank you thank you council member mires next uh comment we have two comments on consent agenda items 16 and this is uh to award a construction contract for the monorail bay sanctuary scenic trail segment seven of the rail trail and um council member comings yeah i just wanted to thank the staff and congratulate them on all the hard work that they've done to help us get to this point um city of santa cruz has been making significant strides towards building the rail and trail and this is just another example of good work paying off to be able to get the funds necessary for us to move forward with this next segment that's going to be really critical in helping us provide a continuous trail uh in our community along our rail corridor and so i just really wanted to express my thanks and appreciation for all the hard work um we've made a lot of progress since i've been on council and i know that this is decades of hard work um you know finally paying off so just wanted to thank you all um for all your efforts and also that the community know that we are moving forward with building our trail and maintaining our rail and so i hope that uh we can continue doing this as we move into the future thank you council member comings council member brown you had a comment on agenda item 16 i actually have a couple of questions my comment has already been made so i'll just um say ditto uh thank you for all of the hard work to get us here and yes we can do we can build our build out our rail uh trail and get that trail built um alongside the rail line and um we're the city of santa cruz is really leading the way in showing our community that it can be done uh countywide as well um so my questions are one i had a question about the um kind of well there's there doesn't seem to be a fence um in the plans between the railroad tracks and the lagoon itself and so they're i heard from some members of the community that they um were interested in understanding why that is um there is you know some concern about encroachment on into the lagoon um with more activity along there which in many ways could be a positive um but just kind of wondering what um fencing yes or no and what the constraints might be around that um so that's one question and then i have a few others on lighting and some other things that someone wrote in about that i want to try to get answered sure uh nathan wendt assistant director of public works and happy to answer those questions there is a smooth wired cable fence that is required as part of the project that separates the trail from the rail it's the exact same fence that we have installed on the first phase of the coastal rail trail so it's the corp 10 steel posts with that smooth cable fencing wires about i think there's about four or five of them and that bottom wire is actually at a height about i think it's 14 to 16 inches to let little critters kind of cross the trail there thank you um but nothing on the rail on the other side not in between the trail and the rail but between the rail and the um lagoon itself is not specifically as a part of this project but there is discussions working with parks and rec as well as our wastewater team around trying to get some additional fencing around near you lagoon and the wastewater treatment plant to reduce impacts that um that are occurring in that area great thank you so much for that so these are the the next questions i'm going to ask are from a member of the public who wrote in and wrote in again today and hadn't had those questions answered so i just want to see if i can get them out there um one um and first she said that the the charts when you enlarge them or you're zooming in are kind of hard to read they get blurred is because of the pixels i guess i i didn't have that issue but um it was a comment so if i don't know if we can get higher resolution um charts in yeah i can work on getting working with the rtc i received those charts when working with rtc but i can work on getting some um a more higher resolution charts for the for the final agreement i'll make a note to work on that too at the rtc end of things um so uh there the um some of the charts make reference to light posts and lighting and security cameras um there isn't a plan attached to that to show where they would be i imagine that's gonna take time to sort out what the details on that would be um but just wondering um kind of what the thinking is on how those are gonna be mounted i think the concern is um one that i share related to the potential effects of lighting on wildlife um in that in that space so um just anything you could say about uh lighting and how what kinds of considerations we've made to keep our skies dark yeah i have to speak to the lighting on the on the coastal rail trail project um on our city of Santa Cruz dot com slash coastal rail trail web page uh the plans for segment seven phase two are on that are online and the uh they do include lighting so on the sheets the construction plan sheets on that plan set um does show the light posts as well as the type of lighting that's going to be installed it's going to be very similar or actually the same fixture as what you see at aronah gulch uh trail but it's going to be a little taller and then the security cameras right now the project includes the infrastructure meaning the boxes the conduits um for future security cameras to be installed on the rail trail and those cameras are going to be installed on every other light posts again that is shown on the on the um plan set that you can find online and that was the at the request of um you know uh fire and safety as far as having those additional cameras as well as having lighting in that area with regards to the specs of the lighting it is dark sky compliant i know that there was additional comments about potential glare you know facing up into residents and that is a common thing that we get with some of our roadway lighting projects or crossing improvement products we have in neighborhoods we do have the ability to install shields on those lights to help reduce that glare or reflection into people's whether it's bedrooms or you know front living rooms or front yards etc but we do want to make sure that we're maintaining uh lighting or having lighting on the trail itself uh you know making sure that we have that feature um for the community um so um one more question um i've been thinking about this a lot myself so i want to make sure i get this one asked um related to environmental mitigations for work on long this rail line um uh related to testing uh and any levels detected for arsenic and hexavalent chromium in particular in this case but just in general um you know environment the environmental mitigations um and and what you've found so far in the process yeah as a part of the implementation process of this project we've had to work with county environmental health services um and uh in doing that um we've done additional boring and sampling along all the segment seven so from natural bridges to um you know the Pacific Avenue roundabout um and of course this is a real line out there and over the years there have had some weed abatement so the the thing that we're finding as far as the highest level contaminants out there is arsenic and in working with the county environmental health um so what we're proposing what's being done as we did on phase one is providing a protective cap so that is placing i think what we have is four inches of asphalt and other four inches of base rock um as part of the trail section itself so the the trail itself actually acts as a protective cap and the fact that we have um a retaining wall on one side and then the smooth wire fence that i mentioned earlier on the other side we're really kind of keeping trail users um on the trail itself and not necessarily directing them to um the railroad which is you know we want to keep we want to keep the public actually off the rail line itself and on the trail thank you okay thank you council member brown i'm going to pause where we're at right now we still have a comment and a couple of questions on our consent agenda but we have a time certain presentation for four o'clock and that is the sister cities committee presentation the hands christian anderson writing contest awards and the award winners and sister cities we're pleased to have a special presentation of the santa cruz sister cities committee hands christian anderson writing awards this is such a wonderful writing competition for children for teens and adults and it's sponsored by the sister cities committee i'm pleased to introduce anita wood who is chair of sister cities committee along with isabel tuncer chair of the subcommittee for our sister city of siastre levante italy thank you mayor and city council all right santa cruz sister cities hands christian anderson essay competition is presented as part of the hands christian anderson fables bay competition held in our beautiful sister city of siastre levante hands christian anderson live for a short time there and it's considered a favorite sun this is the 55th year of the siastre competition and is part of a larger celebration of childhood and youth over 800 submissions have been received worldwide this year making this writing contest one most popular in italy the winners will be announced on june 11th during the anderson festival in italy the competition is open to writers in four age groups four age categories three to five years six to ten years 11 to 16 years and 17 plus the essays essays can be about any subject that must be an original folk or fairy tale a committee of readers determines first through fifth place of winners in each age group and these winning entries are submitted to the siastre competition we're so pleased to be back this year presenting in person and are joined by our fantastic writers without further ado i would invite mayor bruno to join me to present the awards thank you thank you it gives me such pleasure today to acknowledge these creative and talented writers and winners of the santa cruz sister cities committees hands christian anderson writing contest we're really proud of your efforts and we wish you the best of luck in siastre competition we ask that you please hold your applause until the end so i'm going to announce the winners for ages six to ten the winners are in fifth place the humble little woman by marianne hammer is is marianne hammer here please come forward to the podium and in fourth place tallow czar the dragon slayer by lohe vandemere please come forward welcome congratulations third place the mystery of the borrowing witches by jasmine harris shankin is jasmine here with us okay second place the two legos by leisle hildebrand congratulations first place drumroll the rich farmer and the poor man by sci zakariah sci is not here with us but congratulations to all of the age six to ten winners okay for ages 11 to 16 to 17 the winners are first place 19 by stella kukusa is stella here with us congratulations stella and in the division for adults ages 17 and up the winners are third place the big old farm the dutch dog and the little baby chicks by coach redowns second place finding friends by colleen douglas we'll save the applause to the end it's very exciting i know i have a tie for first place the first winner is jumping jaden by silvi patience and the second winner is windfall by jone f preblech okay congratulations thank you to all the participants in our sister cities committee we are really lucky to have such an active committee and such a talented group of young writers and adult writers in our community thank you for joining us today thank you very much have a good day we will now return to the consent agenda portion of today's meeting and we are currently in the uh comments and question stage of the agenda let me return to those notes here okay so uh we had a comment on agenda item number 17 from council member comings that is circle of friends community llc uh it's approving the final map yeah i just wanted to um make a comment on this because this was something that um we had a extensive amount of feedback on and um and i've still been hearing from people in the community about um what's happening at this site and just wanted to highlight that um you know there's been some people who have been saying that there's going to be a massive apartment complex and i just wanted to be clear to members of the public that these will be single family homes on these lots um and you know unfortunately the city does not own this property it's private property um and when the transaction went forward um the private owner the people who bought the the property have decided to move forward with creating residences there and so we're not in a position to you know really legally stop this from moving forward and um just want to acknowledge all the work that's been done around that the city you know did for the community with looking into a historic preservation and a number of other different items but we are here today to um you know um approve the final map of this project and um well i know there's a lot of strong feelings around the circles and the circle church um you know this is um a part of the public process and um and today we're here to to approve this final map which will be for single family homes built on on lots on that property so just wanted to acknowledge that this has been a very long process and i just want to acknowledge all the work and feedback that we've been hearing to get to this point thank you thank you council member Cummings uh the last item with uh item number 20 Kyuga street striping improvements budget adjustment uh council member Cummings you had a question on that i did um for members of the public um and i know that there's been some concern around safety on this street um it's a pretty wide street as many of us know and there's been speeding recently there was an accident where a member of the public was killed and so i just think that um in addition to the Kyuga street improvements that um i hope we can consider other streets in Santa Cruz i know that there's excessive speeding on almar there's excessive speeding on beach street especially in the early morning when there's no cars down by the boardwalk so just wanted to express that um you know there's there's definitely a need for us to look at many streets in our community and and look at improvements to reduce speeding but the one question i did have i know that um you know striping is one way of kind of bringing to the attention um where bike lanes are and you know trying to keep people to kind of stay within their quote unquote lanes pun intended but um having visited other cities i know that there's been um other ways that have been used to address kind of safe biking and and safe streets one is moving parking for example off of curbs so that the the space between where cars are parked and the curb can serve as a protected bike lane it also reduces the um width of the streets that ultimately slows traffic and i'm just curious if that has been taken into consideration and because you know Kyuga street could be a good example of a potential implementation for that kind of safe bike lanes and and slowing up streets and so i'm just curious if there are other um ways that have been taken into consideration around how we can create safer streets for pedestrians um bikers and also people who are driving cars i see that assistant public works director Nathan you and is here and um i'm wondering if you could speak to that sure how could i answer that question uh yes you know we did look at some uh different kind of initial designs or concepts i'll say on Kyuga street i think what you're referring to is considered a a parking protected bike lane when you move the bike lane off the curb and the bike riders are in between the parked cars as well as the the curb as you know that there's definitely uh pluses and minuses to a lot of the different types of designs and you know that one being that there's a lot of driveway approaches that you would cross and so um that makes it a little bit more challenging for sight distance as far as getting in and out of driveways and the turning radius is that you need when you move the car um you know in this case maybe seven feet off the face of curb um on Kyuga most of the street is while the fields wide now it is going to be considered a really a kind of a standard width street um in the sense that the bike lanes where they will be generous at six feet and the travel lanes are going to be reduced down to 10 feet in the southern portion of Kyuga we do get to get some buffered bike lanes so there's some new treatments there and that will give you some more space and uh to make it a little bit more low stress as far as riding in the bike lanes further south in Kyuga and i will say just add one last thing that this is really you know a what we considered more of a phased approach to that in overtime uh we'll be looking at evaluating the bike lanes and see how they operate over the next year and as you mentioned there are many streets in the city that um have been asking for this and um that is part of the challenge as far as is trying to find and uh trying to find funding and priority and uh and uh dedicating staff to this type of work so appreciate the comments that thank you for that clarification on you know why certain um protected bike lanes and bike lanes are better options than others and you know the issues with the driveways wasn't something that i thought about or had been brought to my attention so thank you for that i did have one follow-up question um on i'm just wondering um because i know that sometimes for construction sites um temporary um speed bumps are brought in or rumble strips that kind of you know make people want to slow down and wonder if there's any opportunities to implement some of those strategies on certain streets where there's constant excessive um speeding and yeah if there's any opportunities for those to be implemented in the interim yeah you know the challenge with having traffic calming uh doing pilot programs is finding the again the staffing the funding to kind of dedicate to that um in developing a neighborhood traffic calming program putting out uh you know potential uh you know like you mentioned temporary speed bumps um things of that nature is you know building the consensus and having uh again the staffing and resources to apply towards that um if in the future we are awarded a potential um quick build grant is what we'll be looking at maybe the following year an ATP cycle six uh grant where we can try doing some of those more um i don't want to say experimental tempting uh traffic calming measures but being able to pilot them to see how effective they are and then determine which path we want to go for next as far as finding funding to do more permanent traffic calming solutions and so but we're again what we have here is a kind of a phase approach towards that's to making kayuga you know and some of the other streets in our city you know a neighborhood creative way great thanks and yeah i'll just say that it'd be great to see if we can you know if there might be some consideration of some of these um intersections uh with the rail and trail because oftentimes people will be biking and those kind of bike out into traffic and if there's a way to slow um cars on some of those streets it could help so that people are more aware that they're coming up on those intersections and should be cautious of pedestrians crossing on bikes and walking so thank you thank you councilmember Cummings uh i also had a comment on item 20 and uh i just wanted to really call out all of the work that staff has done um to this point working with the neighbors um including uh uh on our police department our traffic lieutenant moray coming out uh to the neighborhood meetings and uh setting up the radar trailer and collecting data on speeding on the street and um assistant director and nathan ewin also engaging um extensively with the neighbors and their concerns and addressing public safety uh concerns and looking at um the phased approach for um this street as well as other streets in our city and how we can implement the best traffic calming measures for each location um so thank you so much for prioritizing safety on um our streets appreciate all the work okay that concludes our comments and questions from council on consent agenda items now i will bring it back to my notes this time if there are any members of the public that would like to speak to any item on our consent agenda now is the time to do so if you're a member of the public and have signed up please line up on the right of the dais and if you are a member of the public joining us virtually please raise your hand by pressing star nine or raise hand feature in your uh webinar controls on your computer you will have three minutes to speak and i will begin with our uh in person member of the public welcome thank you mayor bruna and council members jillian greenside i have to say uh it is very nice to be back here thank you welcome uh i'm going to comment on um item 16 and specifically about the measure d funding for the construction of segment seven phase two of the rail trail in 2016 measure d was very controversial and some of the strongest supporters of the rail trail were urging a no vote and the feeling was if it failed that a much stronger ballot measure could be put forward that didn't have some of the features that a lot of the rail trail people didn't support um i was conflicted about whether to vote yes or no um i did not want to have that money spent on constructing a trail and so when i read the ballot measure language and the fact sheet this is what it said and i'll read it the eight percent from measure d going to the rail corridor was for infrastructure preservation and analysis of options analysis including environmental and economic analysis of both rail transit and non rail options for the corridor rail line maintenance and repairs on the basis of that i voted yes so today to see that measure d monies is putting being used towards the cost of building the rail trail i feel is a violation of public trust the public i feel should expect with your when your ballot language is clear and based on that one decides how to vote and then to look ahead six years and find that the money is being used for what it was not intended for that that does not feel good the library measure s was the same issue the word relocation was buried in the fine print and i know many people besides myself voted yes on the assumption that the downtown library would be renovated where it stands this i feel is a disservice and leads to a lack of trust i'm not one of those people who does not trust government but this sort of bait and switch leads to a feeling of i don't think i would support any other measure if this is how it's going to play out thank you thank you okay at this time i will go out to hands raised in the virtual attendees list and the first hand raised is david heart trails ah good afternoon can you hear me yes hello you know i think most meetings would benefit from timeouts for sa awards just to remind us what it's actually all about so i wanted to acknowledge that in your efforts to work for the public good and most of the time we members of the public you know we stay home because everything is is just fine and silence i guess means you know thanks all y'all and then you know we only show up to comment when we're outraged about something so just for variety i want to actively say as a citizen thank you for all you're doing and of course especially for the several steps forward on the rail trail related items thanks and the new library looks super exciting too and that's all signing out thank you our next name with a hand raised for consent agenda item i wanted to look at the numbers nine through 23 on today's agenda and the name is whitney ramos good afternoon my name is whitney ramos as policy manager for the santa cruz county business council i'm here to express strong support for the library mixed use project we respectfully request request your i vote authorizing the submission of the california state library building forward library infrastructure grant program application and the acceptance if awarded as described in agenda item 14 the santa cruz county business council was founded in 1996 to provide a collective voice for countywide business owners executives and members of our local workforce today we continue to practice informed advocacy for projects policies and practices that will make the county a better place to live work and do business the library mixed use project is one of these projects the many opportunities for public participation has resulted in a robust community engagement and led to a project design and site program that exceeds our initial expectations as the project gets closer to its final steps we continue to see the city's thoughtful and proactive approach to designing the library mixed use project has paid off we thank you for your continued leadership on moving this project forward and look forward to supporting the implementation of the final design thank you thank you our next member of the public has the name i am watching you well thanks uh are you aware measure d is on the ballot in june uh why are there real trail spending items on this agenda at this time this seems fiscally whoopsie risky at this time what's the rush as to i am nine you seem to prioritize and always list as the first order of consent attention to business the extension of the covid emergency base solely for two reasons first the state's agabitator hasn't lifted his two-year-old emergency declaration so he can enjoy more of those dictatorial 47 executive orders and his suspension of 200 state laws and also maybe the something worse could maybe maybe happen fear monger reason i don't believe he gets it yet covid will persist in less of the emergency levels but so many of the covid mandate narratives have been so fairly discredited by courts and by those who look at all the real science and dare to publish it the powers that be have stopped pushing it and are going to let those vaccine and other covid mandates slowly sink into the abyss of silence without admitting to the atrocities of their mandates until they need them again perhaps you haven't noticed but the national narrative has moved on to war three and about face on a corrupt western puppet ukraine turned into a proxy war that could care less about peace and the leak the abortion debate ruling in an attempt to divert attention from about a dozen massively failed policies and prices of the biden administration including failed borders biden inflation supply chain disasters interest rates rising into a recession bear markets food supply issues energy issues the negative real standard of living affordability and creating a ministry of misinformation 1984 style free speech assassination just aside a few they know getting eight or ten vax doses into everyone isn't going to happen getting young children vaxed against their parents and any sensible notion of real risk to them isn't flying anymore mass are a joke i cannot think of one benefit to me personally state one if you can but i can think of several reasons to be done with it emergency is used by some to continue their unjustified vaccine apartheid venue admissions it perpetuates a climate of fear it renders the state assembly useless and powerless it circumvents the separation of powers has become nothing but just plain abusive to the rights of everyone everywhere it still exists because i suppose the power to abuse it seems irresistible to some thank you thank you our next member of the public to speak on consent agenda items 9 through 23 peter be here hello city council um i don't know if you can hear me um i just wanted to reiterate the city council member just in comments um comment on the the input on the item number 20 and also he's mentioning of beach streets and several members of the community from beach flat has also given me lots of all worrisome about the speeds on beach street just this morning or car almost crashed and also took over someone a member of the community last night yesterday was also scared and just some several members of the community also have mentioned maybe the possibility of having speed bumps in that area so i've also i know of a cat and a dog from the pets community have been killed by speedsters throughout the that area and so they're also just not only in kayu hoga but also in beach street the speed is everything you're getting out of control and i'm just sharing what the community at this time is working so i'm speaking through their voice thank you for your consideration and good work thank you all thank you peter are there any other members of the public that would like to speak to our consent agenda items today items nine through 13 nine through 23 thank you for the correction council member brown okay i'm not seeing any so um i'm now bringing it back to council and i'm looking for a motion i'm happy to move the consent agenda okay we have second that vice mayor Watkins and a second by council member golder and council member Cummings yeah i just wonder if someone from staff might be able to um respond to the comments that were made by a misjointed green site about the measure d funds um she brought some good points and i think that it'd be worth us having staff respond to some of what was brought up sure uh nathan wendt assistant director of public works it's an excuse i'm happy to kind of make a comment or response to that you know the 2016 measure d uh approval um was a county wide measure um it did um dedicate eight percent for the rail corridor um but 17 percent actually was for active transportation which included the coastal rail trail staff whether it's at the city of santa cruz as well as santa cruz regional transportation commission um is leveraging that 2016 measure d funds in order to do local matches for active transportation cycle grants highway safety improvement grants the congestion corridor grants so we are using the funding as we stated back in 2016 to use these local dollars to leverage them for additional grant state and federal grant dollars to um you know get the coastal rail trail constructed as well as uh you know do maintenance on the rail corridor um and do some neighborhood projects so just wanted to give you that background great thank you that's helpful because i think it's in our best interest to ensure that we're spending public dollars appropriately and so having a little bit more um background on where that funding fits into the measure d funds i think is helpful um for me so thank you very much thank you council member Cummings okay so we have a first by vice mayor Watkins and a second by council member golders may we have a roll call vote on the consent agenda thank you mayor council member it's calentary johnson i boulder i Cummings i brown hi miers hi vice mayor Watkins hi and mayor brunner hi that passes unanimously thank you next on our agenda is consent public hearings for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if you wish to comment on items 24 through 27 now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen all items will be acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a council member for further discussion are there any council members who wish to comment on or pull any items council member brown i have a comment on 25 and 26 okay and i had a comment on item number 26 so i had council member Cummings i was gonna had a question on 27 on 27 and i was gonna hold 26 okay so we have item number 26 pulled and so we will come back to that and we will continue with comments on item number agenda item number 25 council member brown yeah just real quick i wanted to just make a statement that i will be voting no on that item even though it's part of the consent public hearing agenda i wanted to register my no vote and i just wanted to say why for the record we we talked about this pretty extensively at our last meeting so i won't go into detail but i i continue to believe that eliminating the prohibition of development on slopes of 50 percent or greater represents what i believe to be a significant retreat from the city's long-standing environmental concerns that continue to be expressed as a high priority for our community it's a prohibition that is one of the only objective standards environmental standards the city has left available to us and eliminating it is going to open up uh every steep hillside essentially in our community to development um it's i think that i'll just leave it there um i can't support uh that element of the proposed changes i was willing to look at the other the rest of the ordinance revisions but um i'm not gonna support that so i'll leave it there and i'll save my comment on 26 for since it's been pulled by thank you council member brown okay our next item is count a question on item number 27 council member comings thank you um this item is the hud action plan in 2021 2022 home arp plan um well you know earlier today we heard about the pacific station south and it looks like there's about three million dollars from for the pacific station north project in the home funds i'm just wondering if there's any um any estimate estimate on the total project cost and how much in tax credits being applied for and kind of when we'll hear more about the final decision on that project yeah so it's a work of progress here in that um you know we've had inflation we're having supply chain issues um mortgage interest rates going up so we're we're juggling a lot of moving parts um but right now the project is uh on a per unit basis it's it's north of 700 000 a unit um and again remember we're doing a lot of uh green building features that are being added in addition we're working on maple alley here as well as the metro transit station is a part of this so there's there's so many more complex parts that are associated with pacific station north as compared to pacific station south which is one of the reasons why we wanted to push to get pacific station south going um because we knew pacific station north would be a little more complicated um but with that note with this home arp funding and home funding being applied to this project we're closing the gap and basically down to just affordable housing tax credits at this point which has to be the last in committed funding source so every other source has to be committed before applying for affordable housing tax credits um so we are moving forward um working with the building department on on getting plans ready um but we also need to be a little bit further down the road in order to apply for those affordable housing tax credits um and again this is just a much more complicated project in terms of we need an interim bus operations plan going as well as you know all the all the complexities with the asic funding and the iig funding and the improvements that are going to happen on front street and around that that general area so um we we are super close and with the home arp and home funding that will help close the gap to make this the last source before affordable housing tax credits great thank you very much that concludes all my questions thank you councilmember comings since uh agenda item 26 was pulled at this time i will um go out to members of the public who would like to speak on items 24 through 27 with the exception of 26 you can uh follow the instructions on your screen if you're joining us virtually and press star nine to raise your hand members of the public joining us in person you can sign in here at the front podium and uh line up to the right side of the dais let's go out to members of the public joining us virtually and i'm not seeing any hands in our virtual room okay are any members of the public here to speak on items 24 through 27 with the exception of 26 please step forward hi there which item are you speaking to i'm going to speak to 24 but i'd like to be able to comment also since i can't bring it up during the consent agenda um so we've passed that part of the so just commenting on 24 thank you okay uh i find it very interesting how the county of santa cruz supervisors and the city of santa cruz with the items that they choose to bring up and talk about it's kind of like this race course um so i made public comments twice with the county of santa cruz regarding the small cell towers um submits some stuff in writing thank you next we have our next member of the public joining us in person welcome thank you mayor brunner city council members um just briefly on item 25 i'd just like to express support for the comments made by council member brown seems were um more and more um encouraging development in areas that are problematic in terms of erosion fire and uh viewsheds etc and uh i think the main point that i would like to support is the comment that uh when we're looking for objective standards we seem to be having some trouble getting to a place where we have objective standards so we have some local control which has basically over development been taken over by the state so i think that this is a bit hasty in this climate to um amend the slope ordinance which has stood us in good stead for many years thank you thank you okay it looks like that concludes our in-person public comment i will bring it back to council for a motion let me bring back my notes i'll make a motion to move items 24 through 27 with the exception of 26 i'll second that okay we have a first by council member golder and a second by vice mayor Watkins council member Cummings yeah at the i wasn't sure when the best time to do this was so i was going to wait until uh this point in time but i'm also going to register a no vote on item number 25 i made comments at the last meeting related to environmental impacts and my concern with that also related to the objective standards and so um for the same reasons as the last time we voted on this i will be voting um registering a no vote on item number 25 thank you council member Cummings okay with that it looks like we are ready for a roll call vote please thank you mayor council member is calentary johnson aye boulder aye Cummings aye with a no on 25 throne aye with a no on 25 mires aye vice mayor Watkins aye and mayor brunner aye that passes with two noes and five yeses on item number 25 now we return to our public hearing consent public hearing item number 26 which was pulled by council member Cummings and i had a comment um and this is item 26 related to the second reading and final adoption of ordinance number 2022-09 ab 481 military equipment use and we have um uh staff here from our sanikers police department for any questions um but my comment was related to um some of the public comment we've received and some of the comments received uh from our last meeting regarding standard uh standard issue equipment um specifically we discovered that ar-15 assault rifle rifles were part of standard issued equipment and was um included we had decided to include that in uh the military equipment list and so um i'm wondering if and perhaps this is um what you may have pulled it for if there could be some direction in in um listing uh standard equipment on the transparency portal yeah i'll just i guess i'll follow up to that um at the last meeting um just given what we had heard there was also additional feedback that we received um wanting for the community to want to know what that what standard issued equipment was out there and um wanted to see that listed on the transparency portal as well as the mayor just mentioned and so um i provided some language and it would be great to hear feedback on it but the direction would be to also have staff list standard issued equipment for the sanikers police department on the transparency portal by no later than december 31st 2022 and provide counsel with an update when that list is made public this similar to the military grade equipment would have um standard issued equipment just listed on the transparency portal as well um so that the public could understand what is uh technically considered standard uh issued equipment and so that's the intention of this just to provide additional transparency and um i don't know bonnie we could have that on the screen for members of the public to see as well thank you councilmember comings just confirm uh that would be separate from the ab 481 and the uh matter of hand today correct thank you so since we're bifurcating both issues uh would we want to talk about staff time and what standard issued equipment is by definition at some point between now and then i guess my answer would be that i think that that would be personally i think that's okay and i think that's a question for the council i think the intention was to try to make it pretty simple um but i do recognize you know i have it needing to define what is standard use equipment and i think part of the reason why we were providing the timeline december 31st 2022 is to provide that space and time for uh staff to be able to work on it and not a very rushed manner um so i'll defer to my colleagues on this one but i'd be happy to um if we want to have something come back for our discussion about what is standard use equipment how it's classified i think that would help for transparency as well sure thing i think we can put something together that does define it and then we can attach staff time to that and i think that's extremely reasonable we appreciate the time allotted for that and uh we'd support that for sure yeah i guess can i can i ask another question yes councilmember comings i'm just wondering if we wanted to have um that item come back where we can have a discussion around standard use equipment and um staff time when would be a good time for that item to come back to council i i think we could accommodate having you know all that information i think 30 days is reasonable so really quickly i think we can turn it around okay and councilmember comings if i could chime in um as we move into main june with having some heavy agendas around the budget hearings i might suggest that we have time to bring that back after the summer recess so that we can fully explore the request and ensure that um if it's the council's desire to move forward with the proposal that we're really meeting the spirit of spirit and intent behind it okay uh so is there a language are you making a motion no or direction this this has to go out to public comment first yes um but i you know given what um police department staff has said and the thoughts around bringing something back um before this gets implemented i'm just wondering if there's any discussion around timing for that personally it sounds like it can come back soon but you know we say before the second meeting in october that provides flexibility and then we can provide that further direction but i'd love to hear from other members of this council councilmember brown yeah i i was just gonna say um i think given what we're hearing from uh the rpd representatives that whenever it is you know you feel that you're able to accommodate that and also with our schedule that after the break makes sense um and have putting some you know by no later than date makes sense so that seems reasonable to me i'm looking out at the folks who would be um responsible for uh implementing that and i'm seeing okay great thanks um i think from uh my perspective from what i've received and feedback is um posting the list of what is standard equipment for santa cruz police department to the transparency portal um and notifying us with an update is sufficient um and there is a um input questions comments complaints area on the transparency portal um so that if the list was posted on to the transparency portal there is a mechanism for the public to contact and comment um or or have any input to that so um at this point i think it's um um i'm not feeling it needs to come back to council i think it's standard issued police equipment that as long as it's posted on our transparency portal i think that that would show transparency and as long as that mechanism mechanism is there for folks to um comment and give feedback that that would be fine i'm open to anyone else councilmember coming i just want to see if there's any um response from our staff from PD on that because i'm happy to move in either direction but i just wonder if there's any comments if i may the the only thing i could add is that with the public safety committee that's something we can have come to us if we need to have further discussion or an update at that time too and if it really warrants the need to bring it forward to the full council we can make that determination um with you mayor in terms of scheduling so maybe as part of the direction that um that uh it can come to the public safety committee for review before posting would that be i don't know if it needs i mean it seems like it just needed to be posted is that correct yeah i think it just could be you know if there's an update or anything that needs to be brought to our attention it could come to the public safety but i think if you want to post it um i think that's pretty uh clear so i don't think it needs to be coming before review or for before posting okay i just wanted to make sure it's clear so um i'm happy to to you know when the time comes provide that additional motion language but maybe if we can get it on the screen so that other people can see what that is um in case there's any public comment okay so at this point in the um item number 26 which um let's let's start with that and um this is uh the second reading and adoption of ab 481 military equipment use and um i'm going to bring it out for public comment at this time we have one member of the public that's present to speak in person go ahead good evening it's really nice to be able to speak on various items i appreciate what was reiterated from the previous time when this item came up it seems like you guys did a very clear job on answering those all of those questions so i thank you for that i don't really expect much comments or support from many of the other subjects i bring up but uh our executive branch has a really important duty in this country executive branches have really important duties in all countries uh because they they hold accountable the judicial and the legislative system so it is directly about the ar-15 it's such an efficient tool and i think it's really important that law enforcement is given the proper tools but so much was not really discussed as far as the other items in this which the county went through much greater length in describing and i've spoken in this room before about this and several times with the county supervisors there's a lot of dual use technology that's just not even being discussed like the technology is already in use and is hypnotized more than the 50 percent of the population um so there were just several items that weren't repeated that are standard issue and that's all the small cell towers and the large cell towers there's a lot of powerful ones here uh so i thank the support of law enforcement um and i'm just kind of concerned about issues that people seem to not disgusting discussing like they're hypnotized and i wish not so many people that i observe were hypnotized thank you thank you for your comment i will look out to our virtual attendees if there are any hands raised if you'd like to comment on agenda item number 26 you can press star 9 to raise your hand or choose the raise hand webinar feature on your computer okay seeing none i will bring it back to council for a motion on item 26 council member Cummings i'll move the um the i'll move to adopt ordinance number 2022-06 adopting a final oh sorry that's the wrong one sorry motion to adopt ordinance number 2022-9 adding chapter 9.90 AB 481 military equipment used to the city of Santa Cruz municipal code and also direct staff to list standard issued equipment for the Santa Cruz police department on the transparency portal by no later than December 31st 2022 and provide council with an update when the list is made public all second okay all second thank you okay we have a first by council member Cummings and a second by mayor Brunner and council member Cummings you have one more yeah one comment i would just like to to say is that i think it would also be good with this list if there's any information on how specific pieces of equipment become standard use i think that would also help members of the public understand that process because um i think many people were shocked to see AR-15s as standard issued equipment and many people ask how does how did an AR-15 become standard issued equipment and so if there's any information that can be provided to help the community better understand the process by which certain pieces of equipment become standard use versus some other process where there's special use i think they'll be helpful for people to understand correct thank you thank you all right may we have a roll call vote don't remember Calentary Johnson aye boulder aye aye fires aye face mayor Watkins aye and mayor brunner aye uh agenda item passes that motion passes unanimously thank you thank you at this time we're going to take a let's do a five minute bio break and we will return in five minutes it's now 505 at 510 thank you okay if council members can turn your cameras on we will return to our agenda in this meeting next up on our agenda is item number 28 which has been continued to our may 24th uh city council meeting so that moves us straight on to item number 29 transportation and public works commission transportation and public works commission appointment for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you wish to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen we will begin with questions from council if there are any then we will take public comment and return to the council for nominations and voting to appoint someone to the transportation and public works commission okay so I will bring it to our city clerk Bonnie Bush if anybody has a nomination or if we can start from left to right or right to left and just get a nomination there's one opening say that again uh does anybody have a nomination okay so council member Calentari Johnson yes I'd like to nominate Zenon holding up his last name sorry Eliott Crow Eliotte Crow thank you council member Golder council member Cummings council member Myers John McElvie on this right oh sorry okay never mind sorry sorry council member Myers did you have someone or no okay John McElvie didn't apply for this okay does that conclude nominations okay so the process now we have um three nominations we have two two nominations Zenon Eliotte Crow and Joy Shendledecker do we go out to public comment at this time I'm going to look to our audience and we have one member of the public present welcome hi all thank you my name is Zenon Eliotte Crow I'm a first year at UCSC and I'm applying to be a member of the Transportation and Public Works Commission I really wanted to kind of use this time to talk about where I hope to bring experience this position and what positionality I hope to bring I literally finished class 15 minutes ago and I biked down here and as I was biking down here from campus I noticed 30 kids that didn't make it on a bus the bus just pulled away because it was full and there's nothing they can do and the next bus for those students that are going to all different parts of the city won't comfort another 30 minutes that's another 30 minutes that they're going to be stuck doing something when they could be studying they could be going to a job they could be studying you know there's there's so many different things that transportation especially affects people with and so as a student we are 55 percent of Santa Cruz metro bus riders and we are one of the most significant mode shares when it comes to especially non-autodependent transit and so as a student I really hope to bring that perspective of someone who is a transit user someone who is a bike rider someone who also owns a car and parks it downtown having all of those perspectives is what I really hope to bring to the table in being part of the city transportation public works commission and really kind of beginning to figure out how we can make sure that that demographic of students which are a third of our city begin to feel that representation especially on our city commissions and so with that in terms of some personal background experience I've worked at the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transports District for a few months I have been a lifelong transit advocate and cycling a safe infrastructure advocate since I was 15 I even came up with and proposed and instituted a bus route for my high school and so these are all things that I've had experience with and I've been really passionate about and I really hope to bring that passion to the transportation public works commission so thank you I really hope you guys will encourage my appointment to the position and I yield my time thank you thank you I will look out to our virtual audience and see if there are any members of the public joining us virtually I have one hand raised joy s go ahead and unmute yourself welcome hi this is joy shendledecker hi zenin I do appreciate zenin's enthusiasm and that he could bring a student perspective to the commission I also think that I have a lot to bring to the commission as someone who uses all different kinds of transportation biking walking driving I've lived in Europe where I you know love to take trains everywhere my kids bus my teenagers which is great to save me from driving them around so much I also have a chronic illness that sometimes disabling and sometimes I've it affects my mobility not to the degree of other people that I know but it's really helped me to be more aware of accessibility issues on a from a personal perspective and I have friends who do use mobility devices so that's a perspective that I think that I can bring to the commission and I applied last year as well so I'm applying for a second time it's it's something that I would still like to do and I would really appreciate the chance to participate in this way okay and if anybody wants any more information about me and my application it's attached in the agenda okay thank you very much thank you are there any other members of the public that wish to speak on the transportation and public works commission appointment we have one member of the public and one member virtually go ahead and thank you uh good evening everybody I'm glad I made it just in time to comment on this item um we probably had time to read all the applications but I just wanted to make my case for this opening on the transportation and public works commission can you speak into the mic oh sorry you can move it as well to fit your height I'm used to zoom it's all very new to me here um but yeah I've been a resident of Santa Cruz for the past five years a student for a full-time employee for one um recently more involved in the political sphere um but I've seen what this commission has been able to do and the ability of the transportation department and the public works department to really make the city more accessible and friendly for everybody I've been a member of the San Lorenzo park neighbors which has been working to help beautify the San Lorenzo park the playground and the park in collaboration with the public works department which has been a great experience and I'm glad to see the changes that have been made there um somebody who's car-free I uh I'm very familiar with what it's like to live in Santa Cruz without a car and get around only on a bike and I think that this is an option we should make more um possible for a lot of the members of our community and something that I would work towards um I'll just leave it there uh thank you for your time can you state your name ryan mechel thank you all right I will bring it out to uh virtual there's a hand raised marina maize go ahead and unmute yourself oh can you hear me yes hi um my name is marina I just wanted to throw some support behind um Zenden as a candidate I think it would be really useful to have some ucse representation on the board uh especially because they are the ones that use it so frequently so I just wanted to provide some support there thank you thank you marina okay it looks like that concludes public comment I'll bring it back to council and city clerk we could do a roll call vote and there's one opening so you would just vote for your option calentary johnson zenin comes from our berg older I just want to say thank you to all the applicants and encourage you to keep applying um if this one doesn't work out for you but zenin you said zenin zenin that makes I'd also like to thank all the applicants enjoy I too want to thank all the applicants and encourage you to uh keep your applications on file and current and um hopefully we can find a place for you it sounds like you've got a lot of great ideas and you've done some great work uh I'll I'm supporting joy I also want to thank all the applicants and look forward to having you keep your name in the in the application pool for for our committees and commissions and my vote will be for zenin vice mayor Watkins same thank you and continue to serve or want to serve our community but I I too vote for zenin and mayor brunner thank you uh for all the applicants for this volunteer position on one of our advisory bodies and my vote is for zenin zenin is five to two thank you very much welcome to the transportation and public works commission appointment thank you ryan thank you joy and thank you to marina for calling in and to any other applicants um that applied our next agenda item is item number 30 re-envision santa cruise interim recovery plan update and draft citywide work plan for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you wish to comment on now is the time to call in using instructions on your screen the order will be a presentation of the item by staff followed by questions from council and then we will take public comment and return to council for deliberation and action and at this time I will hand it over to our assistant city manager the wonderful Laura Schmidt well thank you mayor for the adjective I really appreciate it I'm here to present our quarterly update for re-envision santa cruise our interim recovery plan that was born as a result of the impacts of the pandemic and then I will also be bringing forward to you a draft two-year work plan that will help us bridge between the interim recovery and a an updated three-year council strategic plan so we'll talk about the accomplishments related to re-envision santa cruise and do a brief overview of the metrics and then transition over to the proposed citywide two-year work plan so on the re-envision santa cruise front our focus areas just to ground you were our three the first one is fiscal sustainability basically rebuilding our financial foundation and making sure that we have a secure financial outlook moving forward and rebuild our reserves the other second focus area is downtown and business revitalization investing in our diverse locally owned businesses and focusing on the downtown as a center for housing especially affordable and workforce commerce and transportation and then ensuring an equitable recovery for our community and finally infrastructure and this is where the council did something I think unique uniquely santa cruise and amazing included in the infrastructure piece is not normal just the normal facilities and systems but also our open spaces and parks areas so the focus on resiliency climate adaptation and supporting a high quality of life for health and equity as well our accomplishments for the quarter under fiscal sustainability are the dale vega golf course this is just a subset of what is in the full attached report in on base on the disc golf course we've made strong progress of putting together a memorandum of understanding to put together a pay for play feasibility analysis for the disc golf course we developed a citywide grants inventory and targeted grant application areas for the city overall on the sky prop a sky park property staff has developed an environmental characterization working with a consulting firm firm and have a draft report prepared on the cannabis front there's progress on enforcement of illegal cannabis activities and staff is targeting fall of 2022 to bring that back to you for the downtown and business revitalization focus area there's been amazing work done by economic development on pacific stations south and north both putting together agreements as well as winning millions and millions and tens of millions of funding dollars um throughout various channels we've also made progress on baseline housing policies such as the housing element update as well as an update to our objective standards and then on the permanent outdoor expansion program we are working staff in economic development is working on developing pre-approved parklet design models and bringing back the overall program structure with the permanent revisions back to council shortly on the infrastructure side in the workforce development area we have a funding proposal put together for the congressional community projects program and that's informally known as the earmarks process so we have a workforce development proposal in that group of items on climate action 2030 staff has made really great insignificant progress working with the community and various groups in our city and we're anticipating bringing back that to you for adoption in august of 2022 and then finally another highlight is fleet electrification and implementation plan and a mobile vehicle solar battery charger and our first electric refuse truck operational within the next three months on the metrics front and remember that the quarterly report for the metrics lags one quarter because there are certain reports that we get back and numbers that we get back especially on sales and use tax that lag a quarter on the business front we're still experiencing mixed results our business licenses are down as compared to year over year the previous six months two years ago and but we are stable from the last quarter and business related utility terminations continue I forgot to finish the thought they continue we're still having terminations for utilities for our businesses on the construction and building front our permits our applications for permits in that construction space are relatively stable our valuation if you look at the report looks significantly lower for the six months as compared to the six months two years ago but that's largely attributed that the law bahia permit was in there in fiscal year 2020 and that one was a substantial number on the revenue front recovery where we're doing a really great if you look on all the different major revenue sources our recovery is getting back to the pre-pandemic levels but we need to offset that with what's going on in the larger economy as it relates to inflation and our growth in anticipation of growth is not going back to pre-pandemic yet levels yet towards not quite there as it relates to health and all policies and our metrics in that space there's a smattering of items here that the staff's been working on on the parks and recreation front there have been logged about 2,000 volunteer service hours related to park adoption so that's pretty amazing that the staff is coordinating and working with our community organizations and volunteers to do that on the DevNet graphics front staff is working with information technology to include as part of the new land management system business licensing attributes as it relates to health and all policies as well as demographic information for building permits in the new land management system and then you will see included in your agenda report the first draft maps that overlay business closures with our identified opportunity zones as well as the capital investment program major projects for fiscal year 22 also overlaid with our opportunity zones the second part of the conversation with you today is related to our citywide work plan so the timeline for an updated strategic plan the interim recovery plan re-envision Santa Cruz ends at the end of this fiscal year so what happens at that point the proposal that we have in front of you is to plan in October for a fundamental update to our city's strategic plan and then do communities a community survey and the November December timeframe as well as a departmental citywide survey including all of our departments in the same two months of November and December and then as we get a new full council seated begin to have council interviews and have individual sit downs with council members with all of that converging to a publicly noticed council workshop in January with the newly seated council and then put together a draft updated three years strategic plan for the city and then go through a conversation and edits and finalization have it come back to council for another round of reviews in February and then finalization in March so that's where we want to go for an updated strategic plan to replace re-envision Santa Cruz what do we do in the meantime our proposal is that we bridge a citywide work plan and I tried to get two pictures like the bay bridge when it was being built and then the other one and they were both out there but it just didn't work it was just like okay that's just not working so that was my intention so this is the new bay bridge which is kind of the city through your strategic plan so the work plan the two-year work plan would be our bridge and the focus of the two-year work plan are the projects and this is an illustration that we often use when having conversations amongst the departments because the stuff that you see and the stuff that you prioritize in this project space is what sits above the waterline there's a giant part of the iceberg underneath the waterline so all the staff and the resources that we have aligned to deliver ongoing services to one another and then more importantly to the community that's what sits below the waterline and the projects that we prioritized for the citywide two-year work plan sit above the waterline and in reality that's probably about 75 to 80 percent sits below the waterline and 20 to 25 percent sits above the waterline even given that there were a ton of items that we wanted to put on the citywide work plan but we couldn't get them all on there because we also wanted to keep the list manageable and consumable in two to three pages and we managed to whittle it down to two pages so the process that we went through is working with all the departments going back to what you guys have identified as priorities throughout the conversations with you and and applied a risk-based analysis to all of those as well as other aspects like health at all policies and we whittled down the list to consolidate and summarize it that is the bunny that we whittled we also took liberty to update the categories so our three categories and focus areas for re-envision Santa Cruz our fiscal sustainability downtown and business revitalization and infrastructure and then we went further as we identified the projects and all the different things based based upon risk-based analysis that kind of came to the top as we did the whittling we also said what have we heard from the council and the community as far as priorities and tried to listen to that and and basically the body of work that we've been directed to go about in the last few months in the last year so based upon that we broke out development and other foundational policy updates because there are some critical ones there that really are going to drive the future of Santa Cruz and we thought that let's make that and highlight that and put those into a section of its own we also heard a lot of priority from the council and the community and the work that we're doing related to health and safety so our homelessness response work fits in here a lot of their prioritization around equity and diversity fit in here as well and then finally there's a lot of great ideas and thoughts and priority related to employee and organizational vitality we just had a really neat conversation about managing stress and opportunities for employees and our workforce in this space and it is one of the additional categories that we've added to the two-year work plan oopsie some additional details that you'll see in the draft work plan we considered the impact and the consequences of doing the project we also considered health and all policies and what the main driver area was as it relates to health and all policies and our three pillars equity health and sustainability that's not to say a lot of these projects in the list hit all aspects of health and all policies we just tried to pick the one that had the biggest skin in the game essentially and then finally we categorized the service and in a lot of cases that that's mixed as well but we had mandatory regulatory so that's a must-do service we have to do it and then essential is related to public and health and safety and then it's something that we have to do and if we avoid to do it we're going to have a failure of a delivery system our water system would be an example of that and then discretionary they're not required by law or other mandate but we are in that business to deliver that service to the community because it provides some level of value or high value to constituents so that's the first part of the first page of the two-year work plan i'm not going to go about it in any level of detail each of the color lanes represents one of the categories there is the actual lead department the impact and consequence so that's the risk if we do it or not do it the relationship to one of the pillars of health and all policies and then the service category the outcome that that project aims to achieve the start date and the end date and in these um Gantt chart you'll see the start date and end date graphically with certain highlighted milestones related to them so that's the draft of the two-year work plan hopefully it gives you and the community a flavor of as we transition out of re-envision center crews and await the final three-year strategic plan these are the top priority project areas that city staff is working on as it relates to council direction and community needs and these are the major milestones that you can expect and the trajectory of the timing of how we're going to get there so that's the proposed draft our recommendation or council is to accept the most recently quarterly progress update on re-envision Santa Cruz and provide us feedback and then review the two-year citywide work plan that will act as a bridge to transition us from re-envision Santa Cruz to the new city strategic plan that's um we are anticipating having uh delivered back to council for final adoption in early calendar year 2023 and that is the end of my presentation uh thank you Laura Schmidt uh for that presentation and thank you so much for the visuals I really appreciate that it's very helpful um amidst all the text so there were some great updates here I know I um the re-envision plan did come about before I joined council and um it's great to see at this point a lot of the progress that has been made to date in in very specific areas and the ratings of the health and all policy in the three pillars um I'd like to bring it out to council for any questions and any of my colleagues have questions for okay we have a couple comments okay so one of the items in the list was the downtown plan expansion and so I just and I know that was heard at the planning commission and I'm just wondering if um we have a sense of when that might be coming our way I kind of see it in a window but I'm not sure when it might be coming to the council and there pops on Lee Butler thank you Laura and council member brown um we anticipate having the um alternative land use scenarios come to the council at the first meeting in June that is uh June 14th and so then council provide direction at that point um that kicks off the next phase of the project that um has us developing policies and doing the environmental analysis and um then it will be roughly a year of that work before we're back in front of the council for final adoption welcome thank you council member brown okay council member mires um I just have a question Laura sorry I'm looking on the on the work plan there's the capital investment program financing and then there's also the revenue sources and so it looks like those are all queued to find out if you know item a gets you know you know if these get approved and then is the is it envisioned that the capital investment program sort of builds off of off whatever those sources may be I'm looking at page one under fiscal sustainability yes council member mires yes but it also builds um just above the capital investment program you'll see a long-range financial right okay project that long-range financial plan is um a process where we will go through working with a consultant put together a long-range plan for us and part of that is also how do we systemically fund capital in the city because as you know from your experience with the council we always intend on our budget we always intend to fund the capital cip from operations in the general from the operations but from the general fund and with the backlog of triple digit millions of dollars of deferred maintenance we will never have that type of funding to be able to do that so the long-range financial plan part of that output is to determine what is the funding mechanism for us in the city for capital correct that you answered my next the next question I was going to ask was how does that relate to the long-term financial plan so and and then the kind of related to the two top items on the new revenue sources we um you all formed the budget and ad hoc revenue committee and we continue to work with that committee on additional sources of revenue for the city and that um they recommended the current item that is now measure f on the june ballot and that's the sales and use tax and then we're also exploring other revenue options that could come forward as a recommendation for the council to consider for the november ballot okay and that rolls back up into the interim recovery report which still just goes a constant of deferred maintenance basically deferred um capital maintenance I mean it just sort of keeps rolling forward so all of that gets tied together once we know the revenue sources we do a long-range financial plan okay great thank you you're welcome I know people care about um all of our buildings that are in our parks and everything else so that's important for the public to understand that unless we plan for those things and we try to reduce you know identify and secure revenue sources that number is just going to keep rolling down the hill be more expensive so thank you absolutely okay uh let's see no other council member questions I will bring it out for public comment and I will ask if any members are in person to sign in at the sign-in sheet at the front on the right of the dais and I will look to our virtual attendees and if you are attending and joining us virtually you can press star nine on your phone or choose the raise hand uh webinar feature on your computer so the first hand raised is the name I am watching you yes hi I have regard for the work of the city branch of staff and I know they're mostly just doing their jobs very well while accommodating your directives as they must do it's not just this item but I do usually feel a bit of mental gagging while reading some of these items I think it's a defective leftism ideology of high up creeping into everything and every plan for example I question the priority rationale behind cannabis event privilege permits rewarding someone with a prior cannabis conviction even weirder their mother their sister their daughter or someone who is merely low income if nothing else start calling high up social justice warrior ring in all policies this is side loaded with trash leftist equity logic it's more of chopping some people down actually unfairly discriminating against them usually for no other reason than they belong or not belong to some group identity you define then assigning privilege to others of some other group identity claiming justification exists without real common sense proof of reasonable justification of either action that actually applies to the specific individuals involved and then blithely call it equity the majorities of the plans contained here do have considerable independent validity in spite of your strange beliefs but probably contain equity contamination flaws I find it amusing you regard the maximized chasing of every single source of new funding creating an unchecked ever bigger government is somehow creating sustainability nothing is more unsustainable than a government that continually outgrows our economy as I've always said one government purpose is to provide what the pervasive majority of the people want need and are willing to pay for with ballot challenge to the next news library ballot challenge to the rail trail making major commitments to unfunded ever more new projects galore and although I respect your right to ask for more money I haven't seen a whole lot of normal people saying yeah I want my taxes raised it is entirely possible you don't get the basic nature of government purpose as I have simply explained it getting funding alone or signing high up doesn't make whatever a good idea if the funding isn't local it's possible you're doing what someone else wants needs and is willing to pay for it not us making commitments without funding can be a bad idea making all decisions based on social justice dogma can most definitely be a bad idea buying the way waving of business permits and code upgrades to the timeline of the current covert emergency declaration isn't needed although for the purposes of economic recovery due to the covert government response damage those restorative ideas stand on their own similarly the dogmatic leftist utopia of equity is itself a farcical injustice but while an economic recovery for all affected is not they don't need coupling I'm saying we need economic recovery but none of the worst of the leftist equity beta sigba re-envisioning thanks thank you for your comment let's see if there are any other members of the public who would like to comment on re-envision Santa Cruz interim recovery plan update and draft citywide work plan and seeing none virtually or in person I will bring it back to council for deliberation and action and vice mayor Watkins thank you mayor and thank you Laura for the presentation and for the work I think this might be like truly the smallest you could have snuck something in here and I wouldn't know I'm just kidding I saw them but I just I really appreciate your thought process as it went into identifying these and their priorities it really is very transparent and clear completely disagree with I am watching you I think health and all policies are a really great thing for us to integrate into our decision making sustainability equity and health and well-being is really critical and I know that the various departments have really taken on what that means for them and I just want to applaud them for what they're doing and I saw even the equity and budgeting I mean a really true shift and really appreciate hearing that that's coming forward in this interim approach as well as the metrics to identify success along the way so with that I'm happy to move the recommendation which is to accept the city's most recent quarterly progress report on re-envision Santa Cruz a 12 to 18 month interim recovery plan and my feedback is great job check and two to review a draft two-year city-wide work plan to bridge the transition from re-envision Santa Cruz and a new city strategic plan to be developed in early calendar year of 2023 so that's the motion in the recommendation we have a first by council vice mayor Watkins and a second by Calentari Johnson council member Cummings I had a question slash comment I'm just wondering the timeline for the three-year strategic plan I'm wondering if you could speak to that a little bit because it's kind of looking at the timing of that and since that's right around the November election also knowing that you know there could be you know a shift on the council depending on the outcome of that election I'm just wondering if you could speak to that and have a follow-up comment on that here council member Cummings this is very like I feel like a tennis person because I need to look over here to look at the slide here and then I miss over here so the intention was to do the community survey in November or December because we're reaching out to the community at that point and not necessarily the council members who may be running for office and who may be elected and that was also why we were targeting the department input during that cycle in in the fall late winter and then once we had the election results and we knew the makeup of our council we could start to schedule council member interviews because that's council members should be seated in December and our first meeting in December before we recess and we'll be able to start getting on their calendars at that point to work with the consultants to do the interviews and then be able to mash the inputs from the community the departments and the council members okay and then that and then the three-year strategic plan in terms of putting all that together that would happen in that kind of like mid-January to like kind of early March exactly got it that's probably the that's the kind of work that you'll recall that we did on the interim recovery plan when you were mayor it's that whole process of going to count doing the offsite coming back to council for discussion of the draft going back and getting feedback doing an edit and coming back again got it that's much clear I think when we were going through this in the presentation that kind of was going in different years but that makes total sense so thank you and that helps with all my questions great are there any other questions council member calentari johnson just some comments I also want to just say thank you for the presentation report and all the work this is quite impressive and it's provided to us in a really succinct way so I really really appreciate that I really appreciate the infusion of the pillars of the health and all policies and the connection to all the metrics that we've developed for the health and all policies just a couple of the pieces in there I would love to see the grant opportunity matrix and provide any support that I can there it's really exciting that we have that in place and I noticed in the work plan that we may be pursuing the illegal cannabis enforcement ordinance and if that's the case there's a community group called community prevention partners that has extensive experience in addressing these types of policies so when and if we get there I would love to connect with them and just again thank you Laura and everyone on your team and everyone across our city because it takes it takes all the departments to do the work that we're doing so thank you you're very welcome the the departments were amazing as far as giving time and input to the process and we had an interim at the time our now chief Odie participated and then we also had acting water department director Heidi Ugenbach help out and Lisa Murphy from human resources there was a small subset of us that really went off and did a line a line share of work to be able to propose back to the departments so we had a lot of fun working together and that was we called ourselves the brain trust and we had a lot of fun putting everything together but I really appreciate comments and I know the team will as well because we did really want something to be simple even though I know it's an eye chart exercise printed out on 11 by 17 or plotter paper it looks great so thank you thank you all right council member Myers just bring poster boards from now on okay I just want to yeah just also compliment you guys and I just also just want to recognize the metrics you know like we went through COVID and all the unknowns that was what you know and who knows what's ahead of us financially and you know it's really hard for people to grasp the scale of you know as individual people and businesses and others have collapses in their lives that of course will affect the city and then that affects services and some of the long-term goals of the city including trying to create more affordable housing is a good example so it's this whole kind of you know house of cards you know and once it gets unstable it really spreads very quickly so I think those metrics are really great because you know they give you some hope that things are turning around and you know I think as we move into the next phase of strategic planning you know really being thoughtful about the metrics and tying it back to health and all policies you know hopefully that will stay the standard you know and that that way we can really chart long-term decade long change in the city so I appreciate you just continuing to bring a lot of information in a very readable way and also just to be able to do those quick checks on how we're doing so thank you thank you I think one of the things that this has engendered within the departments and in the city is that balance of the narrative and our accomplishments and achievements and the work that we do in a qualitative way and then the quantitative piece of the metrics and having both because sometimes the metrics bear out one story and then the qualitative impact that we have working with the community and our businesses that that has a different story and it's the combination of those two and the council really pushed us to have that balance and I think it will be long living even beyond the interim recovery plan we've already talked about it what are we going to continue with on and moving this forward but we've really appreciated the balance of it and it sounds like you have as well so that narrative piece of it and the qualitative this is what we've been doing versus these are the numbers and both of them tell the story together thank you okay we have a motion to accept the staff recommendation in the agenda and I'd like to ask for a roll call vote thank you council member it's calentary johnson hi holder hi come in hi brown hi pliers hi nice mayor what can i and mayor bruner hi that motion passes unanimously thank you thank you at this time we will recess and we will return at 7 p.m for oral communications oral communications will be for any item not on today's agenda and we look forward to seeing you then thank you and if council members could turn off your cameras there we go okay good evening welcome to our 7 p.m session of the may 10th 2022 meeting of the santa cruz city council we've just returned from break and i'd like to ask the clerk to please call roll number is calentary johnson present holder present coming here brown here higher here nice mayor what can here and mayor bruner present thank you this is the part of our agenda oral communications which is an opportunity for members of the public to speak to us on items that are not on today's agenda for members of the public who are joining us via streaming virtually if you would like to comment during oral communications now is the time to call in instructions are on your screen oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not listed on today's agenda if you're interested in addressing the council you may raise your hand either by dialing star nine on your phone or selecting the raise hand webinar controls on your computer and you will have three minutes to speak members of the public who are joining us in person welcome and please line up to the right of the dais you will have three minutes to speak we request that you sign in to ensure spelling of your name however it is not required please remember this is a time for council to hear from the public we are not able to engage in dialogue in this portion of the agenda with each member of the public but when we are able we will address questions raised after oral communications has completed all right thank you so I will start with our virtual panel I have two hands up there and in person it looks like there might be a couple of folks ready for oral communications as well so I will begin with the first person in line go ahead and step to the podium please welcome members of the community and city council every day increases the unthinkable threat of nuclear war the u.s regime wants to crush the russian regime two psychopathic bullies are prepared to sacrifice all of us the ukrainian people the american people the russian people in a conflagration with no winners biden floods ukraine with weapons he blocks support for diplomatic solutions like the minsk accords and ukrainian neutrality do we sit silent while these privileged psychopaths raise escalation to its nuclear conclusion do we wait for the blast the fallout and the nuclear winter the imperialist russian invasion of the ukraine has prompted legitimate outrage in the world community but what about nato's wooing and arming of countries adjacent to russia the u.s government spends more on preparations for war its military budget than out of the combined military budgets of the next largest nine governments combined the santa cruz community that's us must speak now loudly and clearly every day every hour until this war is stopped ukrainian nationalists have warred against the eastern russian speaking provinces since the u.s supported coup of 2014 a civil war with 14 000 dead in the last eight years we must demand real peace negotiations and the sanctions against the russian people change the phony narrative stop the war by shutting off the weapons spigot only the armed sellers and their hawkish politicians stuges benefit we call upon the santa cruz community to begin visible and sustain protests immediately against both these governments particularly ours stop the suicidal escalation before its likely fatal outcome huff homeless united for friendship and freedom calls for the withdrawal of all russian troops and the neutralization demilitarization of ukraine before the first nuclear use produces the inevitable and unthinkable outcome each dollar spent to fund the killing denies housing and support to someone here at home huff calls for will support and will join any community demonstration please don't wait for the city council or the legislature any community demonstration demanding this madness stop before it consumes all of us housed and homeless alike thank you i will now go out to one of our virtual attendees the first name with hand raised is steven svete press star six to unmute yourself welcome thank you very much can you hear me i just yes clearly thank you appreciate right good evening members of the city council i'm steven svete and i live in santa cruz i'm not speaking to an agenda item but to a broader issue of governance as it relates to measure s and the mixed use project the hour downtown our future initiative was submitted one week ago today the initiative forward to sustainable creative and fiscally responsible vision for santa cruz's urban core the city clerk determined that a total of 5051 valid signatures including mine were received a number that is currently being verified by the county elections clerk the number is certainly far more than the 38148 required to qualify for the november ballot so we very much expected to be something we'll see in november unless the council chooses to fast forward this and therefore it's responsible to take a pause and allow the voters of santa cruz to decide the fate of the library and of lot four many who signed were deeply offended by the supremely questionable ethics surrounding what happened at city hall after measure s passed in 2016 it has been reported that 70 percent of the city's yes on s voters had assumed they were funding an artful renovation of the church street library a site where a library has served citizens for over 100 years and it's a verdant civic center site apparently city officials were quietly developing alternative plans there are several problems with the bait and switch activities that ensued whether technically legal or otherwise foremost voters will begin to doubt the honesty of intentions of future bond measures and begin to reject them by practicing this form of bad faith local governance this city council is gambling with its own credibility rather than ramming the current concept through full speed ahead as the political machine is apparently hell bent on doing the right thing to do now is to pivot to respect all citizens acknowledge the genuine community engagement project that is now certain to come through the initiative a public vote is coming and i believe it's time for the council to take a pause on a further action on on the lot four and allow for the better vision of downtown to be presented to the voters thank you very much for your time thank you our next member of the public i will in person please come forward to the podium thank you mayor bruner i'll try to look around a little more this time when i speak instead of like boring into your eyes but um don't count on it i'm up here uh during public comment today because i want to speak on the issue of truth telling and um as much as it seems like a kind of theme for catholic school first graders or kindergartners or mothers trying to school their children i really think that we can't have any kind of functional society if we don't have a basis in truth telling so i'm here tonight to talk to you about truth telling and abuse of power in times of national emergency and so it was back in about 2001 i was an activist in san diego and the bush administration was beating the drums of war um after the twin towers had been um bombed and the argument came down to weapons of mass destruction they were never ever ever ever found in iraq and anybody who wanted to educate themselves about nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction i argue that that would be the conclusion that you would come to there were never any weapons of mass destruction in iraq the drum beat was to involve the united states in an aggressive attack upon another country that was basically not founded although there were terrorists who of course attacked our country not trying to forgive that what we need in this country desperately is debate and truth we need a lots of debate for people to present their sides we need for people to respect each other they can be heated debates they can be fierce arguments but we need debate and we need truth telling and we're not getting this the concentration of power has now resulted in a plutocracy that is also arguably already pretty deep in a fascistic type of governance where big wealth can win all the time they don't need to be violent most of the time so i want to bring this back to something that's been really concerning me since it started which was the covid scare covid was actually real i i believe that there is a real threat it was a threat to our health and it was an epidemic the questions remain and they have not been able to be aired in a public forum where hot fierce debate truth telling is respected so that we can come and form our own conclusions i asked people to look at the results millions of businesses are gone i argue that this was the result of an elite abuse of power thank you very much thank you our next member of the public is joining us virtually with the name helen you and story go ahead and unmute yourself hi good evening mayor and council members i'm helen you and story with the community action board of santa cruz county as you know cab has been the county's designated community action agency tasked with eliminating poverty and creating social change through advocacy and essential services since 1965 we're also part of the national network of over a thousand community action agencies across the country who are celebrating community action month this month in may community action month is a time for us to reflect on our mission our partnerships our values of equity and inclusion and the difference we make in the community in 2021 this looked like serving over 10 000 low-income people in our community by providing services such as rent assistance to nearly 2000 people to avoid evictions food assistance to over a thousand job readiness support and placement assistance to over 500 youth and adults COVID information to over 1300 people including indigenous language speakers and impacting over 7800 immigrants and their families with immigration legal education and advocacy services and we sincerely thank the city for its partnership as well as current and we hope a future funding support that helps cab make this type of impact in the community including our hope for expansion of immigration legal services in the city of santa cruz hopefully with core funding in the future to celebrate and raise awareness of community action month cab is co-sponsoring events highlighting housing issues immigrant voices and experiences and climate resilience in the month of may we'll also be posting highlights of our work on social media on impact wednesdays weekly in the month so look out for a post tomorrow and if you want more information about community action month or cab please follow us on social media visit our website at cabing dot work thanks so much for your time and support thank you our next member of the public is in person welcome please step forward my name is and simonton and i know a lot of you from being on the commission here for the prevention of violence against women and can you speak into the microphone sorry yes i recently attended santa cruz together meeting and i saw four of you there and i was very distressed actually by what happened at that particular meeting because i found that the majority of the council was present or mermaire donna mires martin watkins member colin tarry johnson and council member renaick older city business was openly discussed and specifically the redistricting plan supported by the council members that is clearly a violation of the brown act in my as i understand it as a commissioner what's worse was uh made when council member colin tarry johnson was openly campaigning as the head of santa cruz together lin renshaw discussed to donors how to get around campaign contribution limits imposed by the santa cruz county code i'm providing you tonight with a letter that i've sent to the santa cruz county district attorney i didn't do this easily it was something that i had to really think about pointing out that i believe that the four council members that i've mentioned and particularly council member mires and calentary johnson and violated both state law and our local county camp campaign contribution ordinance and i have this letter for you to look at just to i'm i'm asking the district attorney to investigate to prosecute if he finds legal violations i don't know whether they will find that and it's really maybe it doesn't really matter i mean i i hope that it would matter i'm going to do what i can to let people know that this happened and to prosecute those who participated in that meeting what you did was illegal and was done with impunity which was more surprising to me than anything was as if you all four get together a lot or and they wondered where sonia she's not normally here at these santa cruz together meetings where sonia and you know that was something that you all seem to do openly and brazenly i see that as being brazen misuse of your our electorates when the four of you met without any public notice and discussed your plan for district elections and shabra the last meeting was pushing a map that's used in the june election that's not the map that the city staff recommended and you what you've done by doing that with that map that you have put before the the electorate in june it has split up vital minority areas in our community as sounds it sounds more like you're acting like republicans actually and i think the sea change and how districts are elected is of being done without ample time to understand and discuss the implications thank you very much i'm hoping that we can have better representation in the future thank you thank you our next member of the public is joining us virtually hand raised is phone number ending in 2174 go ahead and unmute yes um i believe i am can you hear me yes hello thanks yes thank you very much it was much easier to be in person this afternoon jillian greenside calling in because i was very concerned and disappointed that there was no public comment allowed for the presentation this presentation the one on the update on the library um i had participated in that before so i listened again but i expected that we would be able to make a comment now the issue of whether members of the public can comment at something labeled presentation rather than being on the regular agenda that was raised as an issue and clarified a long time ago over pg and e and they were wanting to cut down trees over gas lines and they came to council and made it as a presentation and no member the public could comment well as you can imagine some of us including myself were very disturbed about that and we followed up and i believe it was clarified legally that members of the public can comment on anything that's on the agenda obviously not closed session stuff um the mayor of course can decide to give little time but to just not allow comments and i did have a comment about the trees which i appreciated um council member Cummings raising that but the response was totally inadequate in fact it was avoided um so i obviously can't comment on that now because that would be considered an item that was on the agenda but obviously but i asked into the question of whether the public can legally make a comment after a presentation to council and i believe you'll find the answer is yes and if the city attorney's determination is that it's not allowed i'd ask for a second look at that thank you very thank you our next public comment for oral communications is in person thank you welcome i i keep stepping forward a little bit early i'm sorry about that that's okay lift the microphone up a little bit there we go thank you so last week i attended my first city council meeting um and i was excited to be there and is this reverberating or anything um and i was excited to be there and see how this all works now in person and um i was actually kind of disheartened by what i saw during the first portion of the meeting during oral communications and afterwards um because there were so many members of the community that shared out about uh mainly two topics um and i was super excited to learn about the topic that the other group um who i wasn't familiar with was talking on which was about uh cigarette litter on our beaches and i really appreciated them there were a young lively group of locals who were super energized by that project and um and i felt also that in the response to that public comment there was a lot of excitement from the council about that project too and not as much acknowledgement of the homelessness concerns that my peers were expressing and i just want you to know that there are a lot of young lively individuals who are also involved in nonprofits and groups around the county who are super excited to um hopefully work on the project of um improving the lives of our neighbors who are houseless and Santa Cruz um and that we will continue to show out um in the future and that i hope that there is more back and forth on that concern um and i know that there's a lot of history that i've missed um coming in i started working with Food Not Bombs five months ago and that's uh i know there's been years of this uh kind of interaction so i just hope that uh we can work together and continue to really like talk about this going forward thank you our next member of the public joining us virtually is i am watching you hi there i wasn't going to call in here but i would mention i went to the Santa Cruz Together meeting attended by council members and i didn't think anything improper was discussed by them member Myers simply explained Measury Johnson told her life story some and anything else said was by other people i didn't get to speak to item 28 the district elections because i was fooled by the agenda into thinking it wasn't part of the consent agenda and enlisted only as a public hearing but uh i thought it was identified as a separate item i wouldn't mind speaking now to that a little you can stop me if you have to uh in last meetings all communications was explained why both the six and seven district election plans you finally decided on were probably the two worst variations of possible to present to the people the opponents of measure e wine about the lack of rank choice voting the rank choice voting only occurs in 52 of 19 500 us cities and mostly just for an at-large mayor in cities also that have district council elections and rank choice voting only picks a different winner than the most first place vote getter 10 of the time that seems like a very weak argument against Measury my opinion is what should have happened is uh something different presenting on one but two charter amendments including a better more balanced district equally fair six district plan as described last meeting but also a novel better seven district charter amendments that ensured a public voting from among the future council members to be a two-year term mayor and then as a default this kind of seven district planners uh uh should neither of those uh measures gain the most votes over 50 percent and at least have a public advisory mayor vote for the seven district default option all could have been managed been manageable with variations of an interim two-year period accomplished a seamless balanced full transition by 2024 sadly it's not going to happen uh i believe in public oversight more the better and a two-year publicly elected council mayor with seven districts does that but that seven district future will only still be possible if he fails this leaves me voting for the best least bad option which i'm not sure what that is right now leaving the matter to the 12th hour meant no time was left for further reconsideration the idea people with top executive and government knowledge and experience are going to possibly end uh their high paying careers to run at large for a short term lower paying their job are few instead the most likely assortment are experienced people like ex-council members giving a part-time effort some with two jobs and then the usual assortment of inexperienced unqualified radical narrow-minded idealized maximizing the talent pool and public oversight are both important and what is presented as a choice either way isn't completely doing that i suggest that people should eventually be able to elect the mayor either way measure ecos i point out the current tradition of appointing the recent highest vote getter to mayor in a vote for four type ballot which is not for mayor really allows the everybody's fourth choice to actually put the most votes to become mayor it also excludes the most experienced on the council from being there sometimes appointing total newbies we can do better time is up okay thanks thank you okay uh i'd like to invite our next member of the public here in person welcome oh my name is james it's really a pleasure to be here it's been like two years since i've been here before title of the grand juries all their their all their cases for 2020 was what a mangled web that is one timeless title uh during the break i just went through and found you know at least three journals that wrote about this time shared publicly or maybe actually i wish that i had so i'm glad i took some notes uh so where is the city manager he was on the screen earlier uh ultimately our city and county councils really captured individuals the folks that voted for you don't realize and often you folks don't even realize that once you become a council member you are actually beholden to city and county managers and this has really been clearly established before 1915 yeah it's 105 years ago um so i'm happy that i was able to make the comments i did earlier this proceedings is a little bit different but i'm glad i was here and it's just like where to start this is something i wrote three years ago that i've shared in this room that i don't have enough time to share that's okay so i personally love to be proved wrong i've thought of doing game shows what's james wrong about this time and i had made copies of information that had to do with the um w e f's making more plans this month may 22nd through 28th to have all countries really lose their sovereignty um this has been a plan 1992 179 nations signed onto it and i'm probably talked to i don't know at least 50 people that i looked up to to when i asked questions to give me an answer so my friend made me feel kind of foolish yesterday because i actually thought that uh treaties superseded our um constitution and my friend he loves me you know he kind of said you're providing misinformation so this is about this is only about seven pages but it probably goes into about 21 different areas where treaties don't supersede the constitution thank you thank you our next member of the public is joining us virtually uh darius mosin and welcome uh yeah hi i would just like to make a suggestion that i'm not sure what the um status of the tenant sanctuary contract is but um i have a number of tenants that actually contact me seeking assistance and there just continues to be a lot of usurious for lack of better work perhaps egregious landlords out there that are still taking advantage of tenants either by um security deposits keeping security security deposits unnecessarily without good reason uh trying to violate just cause uh for eviction provisions um and one thing i've noticed and i and i do and i offer to these tenants is landlord to landlord mediation and it's quite successful the next time you try to uh attempt to stand up a tenant rights tenant assistance organization uh city funded may i suggest that you engage with landlords to be part of it so they can actually act as peer counselors that's quite effective and it's a lot cheaper than uh going to going to court thank you that's all i have thank you our next member of the public is in person welcome thank you mayor brunner and thank you city council i'm gonna once again thank you all for being here in person and allowing there to be public presence here um because i think that takes some effort that'd be a lot easier to stay at home and be in our pajamas and leisurely have a meeting um and i would just want to say one thing i've actually a number of things i'd like to cover briefly because i know i have just three minutes but one thing is is actually uh regarding community television which is broadcasting right now one thing that i find a little bit offensive is that they in the midst of every person speaking so far they cut away to just this screen of phone numbers which to me is like if somebody takes the time and energy and effort to come here in person as you all do that there should be some respect by community television to broadcast who it is and what they have to say rather than a bunch of phone numbers because that's what's on the screen when somebody is calling remotely i don't think that gives people the initiative to be present and this to me is a little bit of more of a democratic process of the council getting to know their community and the community getting to know their council so i would just like to make that request of community tv um one of the things that i feel concerned about with santa coups at this point is actually some of the developments that are progressing in town um a number of them are on the website for um the planning commission and um one of them i will just take as an example is the uh development that's happening over well is planned for where the santa coups community credit union is i think most of you are familiar with that i think it's a luxury hotel or that's what it's being called with 225 rooms uh one of the things that i feel very concerned about is that they i think at this point have and i might may not be totally accurate but i think their first meeting that i that i watched on zoom they were proposing that they have five parking spaces for 225 room luxury hotel that to me is just offensive and i i'm i just it's pretty unbelievable like and their their explanation is that they would have their valet parking people use the public parking lots that actually belong to the public to park all of the other vehicles in for their hotel it's just ridiculous and i i think you know they should be called out on that and i i'm concerned that they're playing a game because they've done other hotel developments it's not their first one so i feel like they're gonna be at a point be like oh yeah you know you're so right yeah we'll put in 75 parking spaces and we'll give you $200,000 for some project um that that's still game playing and i don't think that i think if they're gonna build a large luxury hotel they should be able to build parking for the people that are going to stay at that hotel and i think uh they need to be called out on that and i don't know if that's your responsibility or the the planning commission but well i covered one one issue thank you thank you i'm just checking our attendees virtually and it looks like that's it in our virtual room and if you're not okay you're not in line it looks like that concludes our oral communications thank you before we continue on with our next agenda item i'm pulling up my notes i just wanted to go over some of the um points raised during oral communications and um one of them was uh from a member i'm not sure of the name but um it was in regards to landlords being part of the process for um any type of city funded assistance to our nonprofits and i'm wondering if um one of our staff can speak to that and maybe it would be someone in um economic development and housing or uh perhaps Bonnie Lipscomb or Lee Butler if either is available hi thank you Mayor Burner Lee Butler here um and um i'd be happy to talk with Darius offline about um options that he sees um you know the tenant sanctuary funding is something that comes through the council on an annual basis and the outreach that we do um is it you know primarily related to development projects and the the tenant sanctuary funding is is somewhat separate from much the tenant and landlord relationship that the city oftentimes doesn't necessarily um have a direct connection to um and so um those are the comments that i have but i'd also be happy to talk with Darius offline and and explore the thoughts that he has okay thank you and i know council member brown you had also a question yeah i'll i'll just say very quickly with in response to the tenant sanctuary item um that is something that the city council has uh supported funding for the past couple of years and when we initiated that contract we did include direction and they do they do involve landlords in their um leadership in their on their board so um tenant sanctuary at least i know is um set up that way thank you council member brown okay um thank you i know that there were some other questions brought up and i know a lot of the information is currently on the city website um uh regarding uh some of these uh points and questions there was a question about improving lives of the houseless and our full um information and homelessness response plan is on the city website um city of santa cruise dot com slash forward slash homelessness and um we also have various staff and any of us who would be happy to um talk with you further in a more dialogue situation um and then also on the uh potential hotel there was an application for a hotel on front street and that um all of the updates as it goes through its process is also on the active planning page of the city of santa cruise website so you can follow updates as it progresses through the various stages and i believe including parking concerns that have been brought up um okay thank you everyone for oral communication and for bringing your concerns to us and i will bring now oh and congratulations to community action board for community action month i'm really happy to hear that community action board is uh um has been a very effective and vital part of our community so thank you for bringing that to our attention i look forward to connecting with you on that we are now at our agenda item number 31 homelessness response our quarterly update so for members of the public streaming this meeting if this is an item you would like to comment on please call in using the instructions on your screen the order will be a presentation of the item by staff followed by questions from council and then we will take public comment and return to council for deliberation and action public comment for this item will be two minutes per speaker and we do have one group that reached out for four minutes and that is uh robert norse with huff at this time i would like to uh hand it over to our homelessness response manager larry and walle and i believe you're joining us virtually yes good evening mere brunner members of the council larry and walle helms response manager for the city of santa cruz um and i'm here this evening to provide a quarterly update um and i will share my screen here for the presentation sorry is my screen there it is yep there we go thank you thank you it was a delay on my end uh for our quarterly update this evening uh there's three broad topics that we'll be covering the first is an update on the homeless response action plan and the implementation the second broad area is an update on our regional collaboration on homelessness with county partners and in third a general quarterly update and progress report on other areas of our homelessness response so the first topic is implementation of our homelessness response action plan uh at um the march eighth meeting uh we presented the homelessness response action plan to council it was adopted as a guiding document but in that process uh council asked us to come back at this meeting um in early may uh with specific requests uh related to uh additional detail they'd like to see with respect to the action plan and specifically was wanting to see more detail on objectives and outcomes uh wanted more detail on terms of support of different homeless populations and how that's articulated in the plan in addition uh there were city staff positions to support the work in the action plan that council desired to see more information on and similarly uh for some contracted roles that are specified in that work plan as well so we're returning this evening with updates on on each of those items listen overview to start again the the homelessness response action areas that were part of the plan there were five broad areas uh with articulated goals in the plan the first being building capacity and partnerships the second addressing permanent affordable and supportive housing in the city the third area basic support services meaning hygiene sheltering storage fourth area was care and stewardship and then the final area of the plan uh was community safety and so those the broad areas the goals were included in the plan as those guided the guiding documents and now we're focusing on developing the implementation details and so staff has been working on developing the implementation plan related to this that has the detail um is beginning from the detail that was requested by council so um in your agenda report attached to it was the implementation plan this is an example from one of the goal areas uh that to orient you and the public to the information that's contained in the implementation plan that is working on that detail um to communicate to council and the public uh based off your request and so what we've been working on since march eighth um are the specific objectives and developing outcomes and thinking about metrics uh where that's possible on each of these areas so you can see in that detail each of the goal area articulates a number of objectives that are related to move us towards that goal uh we have identified across the city departments which work teams are responsible uh for leading each of those efforts this is the permanent affordable and support housing um goal area so you can see that planning community development and economic developments are identified in a number of these you know as well as the homeless response team and so we've done that for each item we've set some target dates um to keep us on track um and uh where we are currently in process so whether we're underway um if it's something that's moving right now um and we'll continue to update those over time and so we've done that for each of the five uh goal areas um and I think the other important aspect to keep in mind that this is really a living breathing evolving documents uh that's going to based off uh it's going to shift based off of changing conditions and needs new policy direction um and based on as well as what's working so um this will be updated over time um and we'll continue to bring this back and provide status reports that are quarterly updates on each of these items I think in particular one of the things I wanted to to highlight with respect to metrics and outcomes if you'll notice um in many places there's a level of specificity that's not there yet it's more increase expand decrease depending on what the metric is and if you look through one of the areas that was articulated in building capacity and partnerships was really addressing the need for data development and the development of regional data systems around homelessness response and working with the county on this process so presently there's not robust systems in place to be able to um you know measure some of these things in a quantitative sense and part of the work plan is to really work towards that so part of the revision we expect to see over time as those systems get developed our ability to collect data and report out on data uh whether it's through HMIS in partnership with the county or data collection that we do for our own programs that may not be in HMIS um will be revised these and come up with more specific metrics so at this stage of the development we're trying to uh for the outcomes indicate directionality where there are places where we have specific target goals in place we've articulated those but much of that work continues to be part of this process a second area that council requested additional information on with respect to the action plan was more detail on how this plan supports different homeless populations and so some of the key areas that we identified those specific target populations uh in the plan are with respect to working and coordinating with the county on their coordinated entry system there's you know assessments that prioritize vulnerable vulnerable populations this includes women children families seniors veterans so the extent that our staff and our programs work with the county to get people connected to the continuum of care it's connecting to a process that that assesses for some of those uh those specific populations as well as within our own programs that we're starting to stand up that we're looking and and implementing ways that we're prioritizing those populations in our intake process as well and so one example is as we're opening up the program with salvation of army up at the armory building we've identified a list of folks and part of that assessment process is screening for those populations as well some of the other things that we're looking at in the plan is that the plan calls for the creation of an additional transitional community camp and we've talked about having that focus on a specific population and a couple of the ideas that have been considered are either focusing it for persons with disabilities or mobility issues and or having this particular camp be focused on women only in addition and other areas of the plan in terms of basic support services care and stewardship we've called for expansion of mental health liaison staffing for crisis response to put people more in connection with first responders that are attending to mental health needs and as well as looking at partnering with the county and how we can support the county in advocating for the expansion of mental health and substance treatment services so some of those those are some of the key areas where we've specifically looked at different homeless populations within the plan the next area the council asked for additional detail was with respect to the staffing that was articulated in the plan to be able to support the implementation of the plan and to accomplish the work that we've identified and so this slide really represents I mean trying to show and illustrate the city-wide involvement of every department in this work so just to orient you really quickly with what the different color boxes mean you can see it in the legend but the gray colored are really existing positions existing departments that play a role in this work every department has a role in this and will continue to have a role in this but through this planning process if you can see in the left hand side that where we're trying to build capacity to do this work are focused initially at least in these these areas and at the March 8th meeting you are council approved an initial set of positions that are in the process of being hired those are the deputy city manager the homeless services coordinator and the outreach specialists and the community service officers there were other positions that were identified and at the March 8th presentation that we're going to be brought back to you and we're bringing back those positions to you today so this shows a view and where they are the next slide will drill down on those specifically a bit so just as a reminder of the action that you authorized at the March 8th meeting those specific positions again technically added back the planning community development director as as Lee Butler was serving in both the capacity as deputy city manager and planning community development director it's moving over back full time to the role of planning and community development director and there is always in the hiring process for a deputy city manager one that will be providing executive level leadership over homeless response among other duties in the city manager's office the other actions that you approved were with the home adding three positions on homeless response shelter and outreach specialist and one FTE of a homelessness services coordinator and really what those that action did is move presently temporary positions to create permanent positions for those roles with the addition of there was an additional 0.5 FTE in the homelessness response shelter and outreach specialist through this action and then as well the addition of two service officers so the process of recruitment is underway for each of those positions and should have those staffed in the near future so that is moved forward the other positions that were presented to council but we're not presented we're shared with council but not presented for action at that time are the following positions and we're asking for authorization to move forward with those tonight and those positions are a halftime building maintenance worker that is going to support facilities and equipment related to the homelessness support services the shelter programs that we're establishing are going to need maintenance on the structures the showers and other facilities to make sure they're continued to be operational and then this position will be part of a new division within public works that's focused on homelessness response so that's the first position in addition there'll be two new positions that are being requested for a homeless response field worker within public works this was presented at the march eighth meeting under the title of land and resource management positions so we've been working through HR and in conversation with public works to identify what this role is and give it a more specific title but this is the position that was called land resource management the last meeting in addition as part of that division they've articulated the need for a supervisor for this crew a public works field supervisor and then a senior field worker homeless response field worker who's more experienced and who could be part of a crew lead so those positions work presented on march eighth they're part of this new division to do this work and the capacities that are needed to support it these will be replacing existing positions that are vacant currently in public works and then the last position that was also presented at the council meeting on march eighth is requesting a halftime community relations specialist to work with the communications manager to implement the community engagement plan for a homelessness response action plan and in your agenda packet you will find a draft communications plan that is in the works that will articulate the work that this position will be involved in the third area that requests the council requested more information on where some of the contracted roles that were identified in the expenditure plan for the homelessness response action plan and this is part of the 14 million dollar allocation from the state of california so those positions were the contract not positions but those contracts that were articulated were first a contract expansion of a contract with the city county of santa cruz to increase the number of mental health liaisons from two full-time equivalents to four full-time equivalents and again this will allow for expanded hours of county behavioral health staff to assist first responders to work on a crisis response for persons experiencing mental health challenges the second area is a planning and proposal development consultant again this contracted role will provide some specialized technical and professional support for the development evaluation of requests for proposals for the city prepare operational plans and processes return on investment roi analyses cost forecasting models and templates for some of the contracting processes again if you can see through the reports given the complexity of the implementation plan the steps to support this plan and manage the various components are significant and this additional support to develop that infrastructure is needed the third area is a legislative advocacy consultant again this consultant will support the development of our annual targeted state and federal legislative assets and policy reforms and funding related to homelessness response mental health and substance abuse disorders will support and tracking legislation and support advocacy efforts for the city on those issues and they will also support and facilitate efforts to build a statewide coalition of municipalities to advocate for legislative change and funding request from the state and that was identified as one of the goals in building partnerships and building capacity in the action plan in addition there's a contracted role for land and resource management this is really to provide refuse services to on an ongoing basis for related to encampments and then some special operations related to cleanup of particularly large encampments that require external capacity beyond what we can do with staff again we currently contract with a couple of vendors to do this work presently so this would continue to be part of the plan in the last contracted role that was identified in the plan was for a vehicle abatement contractor to support the abatement of abandoned vehicles and inoperable vehicles on the city streets and to work with issues related to those vehicles being on the streets again more detail on each of those is included in your agenda reports the next steps in this process is that we're seeking authorization from council to begin pursuing proposals for vendors for these services keeping in mind that any specific agreements for this work will be brought to council for approval in a manner that's consistent with the city's policies around purchasing and procurement so the second agenda area are updates on our regional collaboration on homelessness with the county and then three broad areas in the updates so the first is related to our work around implementing the the work related to the funding from the state of california the 14 million dollars key areas where we're working with the county with respect to those resources are one the hygiene bay remodel on the housing matters campus in the city is released an rfp to do that renovation and remodel the bids are closed and on thursday may 12th so we're moving forward with that and we'll be moving into contracting it'll be about a six month project so anticipated contract in june work starting in july and being completed by the end of the year is the expected timeline and again this will in addition to remodeling the hygiene facilities there's also shelter space on the upper floor of that building so that remodel will provide an increased level of services on that campus for more persons to be served the second rfp that we're working on with the california 14 million dollars in funding is a pre-development funding pool and we've collaborated with the county on developing the details and the criteria for this rfp and this is really to be a funding pool to make grants to provide financial support to local entities that so they can complete pre-development work that is necessary in order to successfully compete for state and federal funding like a project home key application and this will be for those projects that are providing permanent supportive housing shelter or transitional housing projects so there's been 500 000 dollars that's been allocated to this funding pool we expect to make individual awards in the range of 50 to 125 000 so presently the the draft rfp is circulating through risk and legal for review we hope to release this at the end of the month and then begin to receive potential proposals approximately a month later that in June and so we envision this being a there'll be an initial deadline to review applications and then if the funds aren't fully expended there'll be a rolling deadline to consider applications they come in as long as they're still funding in this pool the third rfp that we have in the works that is being funded through the state funding is master planning related to coral streets this rfp is on a similar timeline to the pre-development funding we're finalizing that rfp it's being reviewed and we can't expect to have that released by the end of the month and then be reviewing applications and awarding in contract ideally in june and then the final area this is funding for eviction prevention this was presented to council on april 12th again in partnership with the county this is related to the the end of the moratorium moratorium on eviction protections the county allocated $500,000 to support eviction prevention for people who are that submitted their applications for relief from the state the city authorized $150,000 to be awarded through the contract that's in place with community action board to continue to support that eviction prevention work tenant counseling legal assistance and that came out of the california $14 million the other updates are related to our work with the county just the housing for health partnership so the regional continuum of care organization is now called the housing for health partnership instead of the homelessness action partnership there's this the new government and structure that was rolled out on april 20th and again the role and function remains the same and similar it's the principal planning body develops a strategic plan for the regional plan to address homelessness the city has two representatives on the 15 member policy board and again participates in the offsetting overall policy providing oversight and is involved in the various working groups so the former formerly the housing homelessness action partnership is now the housing for health partnership and then i also wanted to highlight a new county funded grant project the city is collaborating with that has been in the works i mean we're one that just completed and a new one that is ramping up so the first one is a california the governor's 100-day campment challenge the council the the county submitted application back in december council provided a resolution and support and this work was it was county wide but the city of santa cruise participated as well working to reduce the number of persons experiencing homeless in some targeted areas through some innovative practices so that kicked off in january they concluded in april again in the agencies and organizations that were part of this regional homelessness response system work together set goals streamline six systems and relationships to be able to connect and coordinate with one another to better serve persons experiencing homelessness and at the end of the 100-day challenge there were 33 people experiencing homelessness unsheltered who were experiencing homelessness that were placed in the housing and another 54 were put on the pathway to housing using a combination of shelters and managed encampments and for the city's part city staff were integral partners in this process our outreach staff and 29 of 54 people countywide that were reported to be on a path towards housing were actually participants in the city's 1220 river transitional community camp and then the new grant project that is coming online is the california encampment resolution grant i believe we mentioned this briefly at march 8th county received 2.3 million dollars to fund a variety of positions and some housing scholarships to work with people living in encampments along the sand that runs a river area to provide flexible funding to address barriers and challenges to move people on to a path towards permanent housing so to be an outreach case management and these flexible housing scholarships to use in a variety of ways to address the needs they have to be able to make progress towards housing again the city staff is working with county staff to help coordinate this outreach and so we've established those meetings and again sharing information making those connections to the from the city who already know persons living in those encampments to connect them with the new county outreach staff to move that forward so that'll be that'll be ramping up and working to a focus targeted rehousing effort there and then the third area now in our quarterly update in progress reports the first area is an update on our existing safe sleeping and sheltering again the first is our the transitional community camp at 1220 river it continues to be fully enrolled with 30 participants again the participants have participated in weekly case management meetings this program every participant is enrolled in HMIS the homeless management information system they've had access to on-site county benefits specialists that have actually gone to 1220 river to enroll in for you know public benefits we've also had special resource fair that's connecting and helping support the acquisition of vital documents so that they can enroll for those types of benefits and then so far we've had six persons that have been enrolled in our program that have exited to a more stable housing situation in the four plus almost five months that the program has been up and running the next program that i want to update you on is the armory city overlook program that is going to be operated by the Salvation Army this is our 20 this is our 247 program with meals transportation and storage with a 75 person capacity this program is going to be starting next week may 16th for an initial 20 participants and it will begin to add you know 20 or so participants in subsequent weeks until we get to that full enrollment so we're hoping that will happen and by the end of may or into early June so the first week we'll have three different days we're moving people up and then we'll have two days a week where we are transporting folks up and rolling and then taking persons up at the armory building so that was a little bit delayed there was because we share the transportation for that program with the county's program there was a positive covid test that caused them to stop intake we were scheduled to actually open this last week but had to hit the pause button but we have a green light to go next week in addition to those programs we're looking at expanding shelter in a number of ways as we mentioned in March 8th we are working with housing matters on expanding shelter capacity at Coral streets we're actually working with housing matters in the county in discussions in the last couple of months now the plan that is evolving is that the city will be purchasing the pallet type shelters the sleeping cabins for the shelter expansion housing matters will stay the operator but the county will be contracting to actually pay for the program operation costs there we had that cost included in our 14 our expenditure plan for the california 14 million so those funds could be we can look at using those funds to expand shelter capacity in other ways and so specifically what we're looking at doing is supporting a program inside the armory building for an additional 60 to 80 person so continue to operate the city overlook program with the 75 person program but then when the county program ends there's through state funding so they won't be continuing after June 30th they'll be looking at other ways to resource shelter but not at the armory building so we're looking at moving in and starting a new program that's operating the inside after the county exits on June 30th and that could be funded by the funding that had been remarked for the coral street expansion so that is something that we're pursuing and looking into how to make that possible so that would greatly increase the safety sleeping shelter capacity for the city the other area is related to the county again so the county program will close the county has been working and focusing on having a rehousing plan for the persons that are currently in the program in the inside the armory building they're looking at master lease options with local hotels or motels conversations with a non-profit operator that would provide the supportive and wraparound services for persons in those and so city staff has been working with county staff to provide information on on different hotels and different options so we'll have an update at the next quarterly update in terms of what develops out of that process but the county is actively looking at how they can continue to expand other shelter opportunities in the area as they're ramping down some of these other programs and then one new development again county funded but in the in the city of Santa Cruz uh is opening a super living shelter that's a focused population you're looking at doing an accounting parcel adjacent to the county jail using one of the mobile trailers that is being decommissioned at housing matters so I think it just today's uh board of supervisors meeting they approved uh 350 thousand dollars uh to start that program so that is in the works for additional shelter within the city of Santa Cruz update on the status the city state parking program tier one is operational at the Santa Cruz police department lot with three spaces there has not been anybody utilizing that space sorry um in particular uh PD um in their outreach has been referring folks to our tier two program so uh that's where we've been having some enrollments again enrollment is still is limited at this time there's only been two there's two active participants we have additional space there's currently six spaces available um at our existing lots four and five that are being utilized for this purpose we also have additional space at those lots when uh when the need and demand arises as well as expansion plans for other city lots in order to reach the 30 spaces that um were directed by council as part of the oversized vehicle ordinance so that's where in the planning process and the implementation process for tier two tier three is the full-time program 24 7 with case management and uh presently we're in contract discussions with the prospective vendor and we are expecting a start date in july for a program that will accommodate approximately 20 vehicles and an update on the oversized vehicle ordinance again in the process of uh getting the coastal development and design permits uh through the process again started off with za hearing then went to planning commission and then the planning commission was reviewed by council on april 12th on april 12th council reviewed and approved a coastal development design permit um an appeal to coastal commission was submitted at the end of last week so there will be a hearing with the coastal commission as part of that appeal that is slated to take place when the coastal commission meets in mid july either the 13th 14th or 15th again keeping in mind that the enforcement of the midnight to 5am restrictions will only be permitted after that process is complete sorry thank you for that and um and again um the ability to operate safe parking programs uh in the coastal zone won't be possible until um the permit is approved as well so the locations that we are looking at and implementing right now are outside of the coastal zone uh and then uh with respect to encampment management we're also in the process for preparing for the benchlands closure uh that we have targeted for july again that is a fluid timeline setting a target date to be in to drive our planning process and next steps but again this will adapt and the time is fluid based upon uh how efforts to connect people to housing and expand shelter are moving forward so the initial steps um our focuses are really on expanding safe sleeping and shelter capacity in the city um i gave you a quick update on where we are in the implementation process and what else is coming online so our focus is in trying to expand that then the other part is working in coordination with the county on connecting folks with services and connecting with rehousing and housing navigation services so we're working the city staff and county staff on outreach case management and rehousing efforts in that area some specific programs um and staff that are out there are healing the streets program i mentioned the additional outreach and rehousing related to the encampment resolution grants um and in particular uh we're working with county to place a mobile office unit for the various outreach staff in different programs to be able to have an operating office um in san Lorenzo park or adjacent actually on county property right at the edge of the park so this can be their mobile platform to be working with folks who are camping in the benchlands to connect with them around service service coordination and rehousing efforts um and again our our goal and conversation with the county is trying to work with everyone that is presently in the benchlands develop a housing or rehousing and sheltering plan uh and work on that plan over the next couple of months in advance of closing the benchlands so that is the goal is to have a plan in place and work that plan for each individual and that concludes my updates uh the recommendations attached to this agenda report were first received updates regarding the council the homeless response program services including council requested updates and detail on the homeless response action plan the action that we're requesting is to adopt a resolution amending the classification and compensation plans by administrative implementing and staffing to support the city's new homelessness response action plan and appropriate funds for the positions from the state of california 14 million at the general fund and third is to authorize staff to pursue purchasing options and appropriate funds for the services identified in the expenditure plan for the state of california 14 million including the mental health liaisons land of resource management legislative advocacy planning and proposal development specialists and vehicle abatements uh contractor and that will return to councils needed consistent with our standard purchasing procedures um so that concludes my presentation and um welcome your questions thank you so much uh larry and walle i know that um this update comes with a lot of hard work behind it uh thank you for um laying out those categories and breaking it down i'm going to bring it to council members for questions and i did see council member mires you had your hand up uh thank you larry for that thorough um presentation certainly a lot of numbers i have um one couple of questions for you you mentioned the pallet shelters that housing matters um would would potentially put in basically program on their i think on their campus is there account for that at all that can't that campus specifically yeah in terms of how many shelters how many more pallet shelters they may be able to accommodate there yeah so good question and then the answer is two-fold and and i apologize i should have covered that with a little more detail in my presentation um there's there's sort of two phases that we're exploring there the first is that we've been working on a expansion plan for about 15 to 18 pallet shelters on the existing campus within the campus so that's phase one if you will um the other uh the other approach that we're looking at and exploring and needs more work is um expanding shelter on what the river street shelter site which is a city property within the housing matters campus currently it's not being utilized and um really the assessment is that the cost of trying to renovate it to bring it to a level that would be appropriate and useful um it seems prohibitive so one of the things that we're exploring is uh the cost effectiveness you know do the analysis of whether it makes sense to demolish the river street shelter and sort of clear that area and either one dedicate it for additional pallet shelters and or as i mentioned one of the trailers is going to be that's been used for the demobilized they're demobilizing the recoupive care program there that the trailers that are being used county is going to use one of those for that silver living shelter but there will be there's still existing trailers that perhaps those can be moved over and reutilized as shelter space on that site so those are a couple contingencies so one would look at additional pallet shelters the other would utilize those trailers and so we don't have exact numbers on what either those would look like because part of it is just what the site layout is with you know the other activities on campus and the spacing that's required for the different type of shelter units but that's what we're looking at for additional capacity over that 15 to 18 that have already been planned in the works great thank you for that additional you you actually answered answered one of my questions although i did have a question about the recoupive care center so i know that that was a facility i think it usually provided um stabilization services and and housing for i think it was up anywhere from six to 12 people you know give or take uh is that hopefully that's not being lost in the mix of all the moving around of the pieces over there i'm just curious about a little bit of an update on that short update yes um i'm gonna i apologize i don't think i have the most up-to-date information i know we've been in conversation with the county you know through our collaborative meetings about how they're planning to continue that and i know they were planning for that but um i the specific details escape me and i can return with that or i don't know if lee has his notes with him yeah i can provide some uh general updates um the county has been exploring um with housing matters how they might be able to continue the recoupive care facility and the council is aware of the 120 permanent supportive housing units that are planned for the rear of that site we've entitled that and they're out seeking actively seeking funding for that at this point in time they think that the earliest that construction would begin would be spring of 2023 and so the county has worked with housing matters and various medical providers to they're anticipating that that's going to the recoupive care center is going to continue in the mobile units in the back there and then also those mobile units will be utilized for relocation of people from the poly loft as the hygiene bay is being reconstructed in the coming months so actually later this week the bids open for the hygiene bay and that construction is expected to commence in circa july and that'll be about a six month time frame so the individuals in the poly loft will be able to relocate to that area other portions of those mobile units in the back will be utilized for the recoupive care and then once the construction starts you know that those mobile units are going to have to go the river street shelter location is one option for those but it's still tbd what the ultimate disposition will be of that property and the coral street master planning effort the design shred and master planning effort that Larry mentioned that will inform what we want to do with this site with that portion of the site on a longer term basis okay thank you very much lee that's helpful two quick other questions hmi s system homeless management information system are most of the people who are being contacted wherever if they're at the benches lens they're at 1220 are you working to get as many of those folks into that system as possible and are we having success with that yes we are working to get as many people as possible it's it's sort of too tiered to this so the the existing mi hmi s is really dedicated to shelter programs and services so not necessarily everything that every program that the city is working on or every person in each encampment is going to be an hms uh through i guess i'll call it the traditional module but what the county is in the works of implementing is a new outreach module to hmi s that will begin to collect data on individuals outside of shelters that are in encampments so we'll be able to be to begin to get information on who and where they are what kinds of services they may have been in contact with so that we can begin to have that information and work on sort of developing coordinated plants so that is being launched very soon my understanding is that there's a couple of existing hms nonprofits that are utilizing that system they're going to be testing out that new outreach module and they'll begin rolling it out more comprehensively soon so we will have that capacity outside of formal license users that are contracted to provide shelter and supportive services and so yeah so with the city staff who do our outreach currently that they do have access to be able to test those modules as as well as use the existing module that's great correct yeah so they're licensed users and we have our program for 1220 river transitional community camp everybody has entered in hmi s everybody for the program at the armory operated by salvation armory that we are opening for the 75 they will all be in hmi s and also we've talked to the county and when we have a tier three safe parking program that's 24 seven doing case management participants in that program will be able to be in hmi s as well right and then my last question really is around um you know everything that you just talked about is somewhat overwhelming and i want to congratulate you on everything that's been going on i mean just in rough numbers i'm adding up you know 165 new shelter beds two new mental health liaisons you know 98 people you know affected by the 100 day challenge i mean it just goes on and on i mean we have basically leveraged a 14 million dollar investment and we are often running and people are actually being taken care of they're being housed there's more to come 120 units housing matters two quick questions uh one quick question seems like the relationship with the county is going well we're seeing common areas of leverage common areas of investment um it sounds like you guys are problem solving together um counties taking responsibility they got the 2.3 million dollar grant i believe they helped assist in getting the 6.4 million for the vets homeless housing up in the valley um it just goes on and on i mean the numbers are extraordinary and wonderful is the count are you counting the county's cost share in any of these investments are we both tracking our investments in this in solving this problem and if so is there any way that we can at least grossly report that or do you have any idea how to even approach that and that's my last question um i think there's a lot in that um certainly we haven't specifically talked about how we can wrap all of that up collectively about our respective investments i mean we're certainly having those conversations at an operational level and i think like the one example that speaks to it really clearly is um the development around that the housing matters coral street expansion right we're initially we were looking at expanding shelter capacity and purchasing the shelters in the infrastructure and paying for the program at costs um through our conversations the county is in a position to be able to look at taking on the programmatic costs which frees up our resources so um we're working at that level and i think um i think that could be a next step where we can look at collectively how we're investing how they're investing and really how we're again leveraging one another's resources as well as not just in a financial sense but how we are you know through working in a coordinated fashion are really being able to have a sort of a comprehensive response with respect to homelessness and in our community council member mires if i could dovetail to Larry's comments on there um i can't answer um confidently because our finance team is developing a really intentional financial framework so that we can better track the investments we're making as a city because of the ways the work touches just about every city department you can imagine it's a complex endeavor but a but an important one and i think along those lines we're certainly going to continue in collaboration with the county to help ensure that the county's investments are keeping pace with the major investments that the city is making and that we can more comprehensively report on that collective work across the region so more more to come um and part of that will daylight as we bring the budget and talk about the ways in which we're planning to more closely track those investments on the city side but your point is well taken thank you and i just i'll close i won't comment later i just want to Larry and team lee i want to thank you for housing 38 people i want to thank you for putting 54 people on a pathway to housing i want to thank you for seven people who received necessary services at 12 24 who became engaged in mental health assistance six who got jobs i want to thank you for putting 15 safe sleeping sites out for people to use and i want to thank you for getting ready another 165 shelter beds in our community um this is really amazing and you guys worked really hard and we're going to change this dynamic in this town and we're done being hands off and we're more into being active and hopefully helping people get into successful lives from here on out so these are great numbers i really appreciate it and thanks thank you council member mires are there any other council members council member calentary johnson thank you larry um and the whole team for all your work in this presentation i did send a number of questions and thank you for responding to them um ahead of time but i wanted to just um further ask a few of the questions i sent to you in advance both for the public to hear and for my further clarification um if you could further clarify the city's overlook program at the armory versus the county's current armory program and as that's going offline and we're coming online what do those numbers look like if you could um help explain that that would be great certainly so i'll start with our program that we are standing up and opening next week at what we're calling this the armory city overlook which is on the south lawn on the armory property that will be a program with 75 spaces tents so there'll be 65 folks um uh full-time and there'll be 10 on demand night you know night by night um spots for people so a total 75 capacity and that's what's starting next week to fill up and then again help me get to full capacity over the next three weeks the county's program operates presently inside the building that's their one remaining program up there it presently has i want to say around 60 so they're in the process right as they're working to wind down that program they're focusing their efforts on coming up with rehousing plans for the persons in that program so they will close that program on June 30th at that time what we're exploring is how we can establish a new program with new participants inside the armory building and so again the rough capacity is 60 to as much as 80 different configurations there's some side rooms some of the issues are questions about distancing and spacing with different shelter features the county's capacity of 60 was set by um COVID um hopefully there'll be a moment when that doesn't become integral to our planning efforts but that'll be a consideration still as we start so that's why we're projecting we can open an additional 60 to 80 spaces or beds up in the operating the inside of the building so the this will be a new population you know the county's exploring its options and ability to have a rehousing plan for most of the people in there and so they're still working through that but um we'll be starting a new program if um is that's our that's our hope and intention great thank you and um can you share what are the time limitations of these sheltering programs and what are we doing to support individuals as as they approach their sort of the end of the time limitations to assist them in getting support to more permanent stable housing yeah so this is an area that um I think we're focusing on and looking at and this is part of our conversations with the county too and um working towards having common if not you know similar if not common kind of uh timelines for staying in specific shelter programs and so um the intent is to try to have that turnover to support people to make progress um towards more stable and permanent housing and so um what we've been looking at is something between four and six months um at least as an initial period um I actually believe by by state uh code a shelter is a six month program um so that's sort of a guiding kind of benchmark um that's what we've implemented you know in our first transitional community camp is initial six months of uh of a time limit an evaluation based off of progress towards housing goals if with extension possible based off of people working their plan as well as the prospect of exiting persons in those programs uh if they are not working on the goals and objectives that are part of the uh part of their plan that they developed uh with support from staff so again the goal is you know trying to work with people who are ready to to do that work towards um securing more permanent housing so um that's where we're looking looking at now is six months with the possibility of extensions and uh one of the challenges uh too is just there's you know there's a number of people and other programs that have done the work they need to do with their case plans um have housing vouchers um and don't have a housing option so that's the tension in this process but I think conceptually trying to work around six months as a period and then really the work on rehousing plan starts on day one it's not something that is planned for in month four or month five that is one of the initial pieces so that people can maximize their time that they've got that space okay great and so just along those lines um I know we're using HMIS for tracking um I believe you mentioned in our email exchange I can't remember if it was in the gender report the by names list is is um started for the bench lands um how are we tracking across the shelters at least in the city if not in the county I know that's a maybe longer term um plan that the county's been talking about for a long time but it seems like now is a really great opportunity to really get a by names list going um get folks into coordinated entry system and then do that pathway to housing yeah I think you know with with the uh that new outreach module coming online related to HMIS is going to be that opportunity to be collecting information um on on people sort of that initial stage before they're connected in those programs so I think this is going to be the first step into that space outside of HMIS with the specific programs and specific shelters um so we do have the ability and we you know we can work with the county to get reports um for existing shelters and then we would do the same as we develop this list um they'd be responsible and partners and doing the the reporting and analysis um all on that progress but that's the new functionality is that we'll be able to have that database um to get information on everybody I think bench lands will be that first first test of that uh at some kind of scale okay great and then just two more I'm almost done um great to hear that the safe parking programs are up and running surprised to hear there's only two participating given that we've heard that there's great need and demand out there what else are we doing or can we be doing outside of PD outreach working with county partners working with nonprofits working with street outreach workers to get folks knowledgeable about these spaces and into these safe parking spaces yeah I think one is we can look at you know a more comprehensive outreach you know plan or strategy working with partners as you suggest um again we've we've put information out there um you know the PD has been front lines when they go and do um just normal parking enforcement parking is part of that as well not just PD but when they go and do normal enforcement uh there's informational flyers on the city's program that they distribute um so that's been the principal outreach so we could look at partnering with other organizations to get that information out um I think you know one of the other challenges uh is um is uh right now without being able to enforce in the coastal zone right now folks you know can park for 72 hours without citation um so an overnight program isn't particularly attractive um because you'll have to move every night rather than every 72 hours so that is I think you know something that is capping uh interest presently for a two program I think we'll get some good insight onto that when we're able to set up our tier three program and see what the interest is on a 24 seven program where people can be for an extended period of time again we're trying to align the timeline for participation in that program with other shelter programs so we're looking around six months initially that four to six month range with case management um but that might in some respects be more appealing to some folks because it's a 24 seven location that you can stay and not have to move um so I think those are some you know for the tier two enrollment right now that might be part of what is is explaining it but certainly I think we could look at additional outreach to test and validate what the reasons are for low room low enrollment at the moment okay and then just um I have other comments later but one point to pull from what council member Myers was saying in terms of counting the county investments um outside of what human services housing for health and health services agency behavioral health is doing there's a lot of other work from other departments as well I just worked with the public defender's office the DA's office probation and courts on a six million dollar grant to provide behavioral health services who for those who are criminal justice involved many of them who are unhoused so there's just there's there's a lot happening across the departments across the county that I think if we kind of sit down and dive deep we'll see that that we can leverage the resources in a more efficient way so that's it for now I'll have more comments later thank you so much thank you council member culinary johnson uh vice mayor Watkins uh thank you mayor and thank you for the presentation and uh very thorough agenda report I think has been said there's certainly been a lot done and sure we have a long way to go as well but um the process requires us to continue to keep our I'm kind of our foot on the pedal if you will I guess I have a couple of clarifying questions that um haven't been asked already in regards to the a couple of the proposed positions and I don't know who if maybe this might not be for you Larry but um there's two that sort of stood out as kind of being a little bit high to me and I just wanted to see if I get explanation and one is the halftime community relations specialist the budget being over a hundred thousand for that I'm assuming that's not a a benefited position and the other is for the coral street master planning and design services amount that too seemed kind of high so I was wondering if there could be an explanation as to why those figures are what they are so with respect to the community relations specialist position um and I may defer to HR if there's somebody here but my for that halftime position though I think uh the cost is because it it is benefited oh on top of that so so at that halftime level you know there's eligibility for benefits that are similar to a full-time equivalent cost right that's that helps I didn't realize that I assumed that it wasn't benefited but that's just based on my um other background so a halftime position of the city is benefited or potentially benefited is that correct okay and then um for the for the design services is that something that like what does that entail in terms of the work I guess the scope of work for that right so there's oh go right ahead Larry and I know I think it'd be great to have your planning hat answer all of that sure happy to um so uh we are planning release an RFP later this month for master planning effort um and design charrette and essentially that would involve a consultant doing stakeholder interviews gathering background information holding a design charrette typically these are multi-day charrette um we haven't put that specifically in the RFP because we want to provide that flexibility for consultants to come up with their own approach to how they would handle the the work but oftentimes those are multi-day charrettes where they come in and they do information gathering that first day and then they come back with with potential alternatives the second day and then they they mold those together and come back on the third day and vet some options for how we might plan for the different services and so that would involve both identification of the range of services that we need with the different stakeholders our nonprofit partners the county and ourselves with the city as well as then looking at some of the land use opportunities using architectural expertise to understand what dimensions are going to be successful for buildings and the floor plate sizes as well as for the parking needs out there and how that overall streetscape and the properties along that streetscape can be planned to accommodate all of those uses and what we would anticipate of as that from that is really a conceptual plan that speaks to here are the uses and intensities of those uses that you should potentially be considering and how they might fit together but it wouldn't necessarily include the the specific land use changes in fact I don't anticipate that it would include the land use changes that would be a subsequent effort and that would have the CEQA components to it and the real analysis this is more how might we how might we structure our investments now and what are the steps that we need to take from a land use and design perspective and and prioritization perspective in order to get there so that consultant effort would be condensed but intensive and we we don't know how much that's going to come back at but we do think that we'll have sufficient funds in there for that particular portion now there are also within that pre-development funds for future development on along Coral Street right so once we identify here are the uses that we want to focus on we need to start taking those next steps in terms of both the land use changes as well as starting to put plans together so that we can go out and secure funding and so the 14 million includes allocations for both of those the the initial master planning effort and then the future pre-development fund thank you for the clarification I was just wondering what it encompassed so I appreciate that I think that concludes my okay council member brown thank you mayor thank you larry for the presentation and thanks to the entire team for all of the work you've done I know it's complex it's challenging in many ways and it's just really wonderful to see so many of the things that I've been advocating for and many of us have been advocating for for decades now both myself as an activist prior to being on the council and during my time on the council to see this kind of coming together is is really heartening and having talked with uh somebody who's involved in the tier three uh safe parking program or hopefully going to be managing that um just you know their excitement and enthusiasm um just really made me feel like this you know this is something that's going to make a really meaningful uh difference in people's lives um so thank you um I wanted to ask since we're talking about the kind of budget for some of these additional um functions some of which are intended to be staff uh city staff ongoing and some are as contractors um and I'm gonna just say it again um I I see well about half a million dollars here for uh you know planning and proposal development consultants and then a legislative advocacy consultant um so we we have a very robust administrative and consultant budget I'll say that um and I understand that there are um good reasons to uh want to seek out that additional support and um that there can be a significant return on that investment um so I but I did just want to ask about um kind of how you're thinking about that I see that um agreements for services will come to us if they're um meet the criteria for needing council approval um but they're pretty big ticket items and um you know we spend a lot of time um this city council spends a lot of time talking about um the creating uh accountability and evaluation metrics for our service providers for um the people who are serving very poor people and marginalized people in our community we make them jump through a lot of hoops um and so I'm just wondering if um what kind of um evaluation metrics will put in place for these kinds of functions uh to ensure that those investments are um paying off and um at what point might we um depending on the outcomes determine whether or not it's it's worthwhile to continue to to do that um I just don't want to see another half a million dollars built into our budget for um things that um may or may not actually add value to the city and I'm not saying they won't I'm I'm I'm just you know I'm hoping they will um but it's a lot of money um and we obviously have um significant uh kind of field operation needs so just would love to hear a little bit more about those and since you laid out a little bit more about the um housing matters the coral street campus I thought maybe we could hear a little bit more about those too as well certainly so I think you know um starting with the legislative advocacy consultant I think certainly that's one area where we can more uh readily identify return on investment since part of that scope of work will be um doing advocacy to get policy changes that may change funding formulas that can bring more money to the city or identify new funding or potential earmarks and so I think that's at least from a fiscal sense has the potential to be more readily um evaluated in that context in terms of effectiveness of course that is just a piece of the work I think the other part is again just adding that additional capacity to be able to track the relevant legislation to give us updates to work on coordinating that statewide coalition of cities of similar size like Santa Cruz that are dealing with these big city challenges with respect to homelessness but not having the same kind of seat at the table uh in Sacramento so um there's multiple aspects to work and again there's that's additional capacity that's needed to do that work and in many respects it's not just the direct return on investment but sort of we're we're not keeping pace if we're not able to keep track of um where things are moving in the legislative arena so I think we can with that position there um and again that we'll be able to assess on an ongoing basis whether or not that's just as a good recurring investment I think too with the planning that area of planning and proposal development consultants um there are a number of items uh where again we need additional capacity as we're getting this infrastructure uh to help us work and develop requests for proposals and develop work towards a certified vendor list I think there's sort of one some one-time kind of tool development that's part of that that existing staff doesn't have we don't have the capacity to be dedicated in some respects don't have the specific expertise and experience there may be parts of that that there may be an ongoing need but I see a good part of that are really helping develop kind of the infrastructure to get us in place to be able to do our work more efficiently so um I would not expect that to be as high um if it was coming back in subsequent years and again trying to figure out the metrics might be a little less direct um but um again I think we may be able to quantify in terms of you know are we successful in and streamlining some of our RFP processes do we feel like we have better better um fiscal processes or managing we can look at what our overall costs are and be in a position to make better decisions about how we're investing our dollars through some of the tool development thank you I have one comment that I know it's not comment time but I just I feel like I want to say this because it's come up and the question was about um how it is that people who are looking for safe parking um access uh an interface around the safe parking program um and I mean no impertinence when I say this but um I think that um as council member Calentari Johnson suggested looking at ways to um conduct outreach to give people an interface that is not just through the police department um will make a big difference as well I think the 24-7 thing is is clearly I mean you you really hit the nail on the head with that um but I just knowing um what I experience in the conversations I have because I do spend quite a bit of time out um talking with unhoused people and um uh being in in the encampments that like going into the police station to see if they if someone can find a place to park is not necessarily something that um a large segment of the population would be um feel comfortable with so and again I I just want to say that as a just logistical barrier and no commentary on um how the police department is handling that um I just think we should be thinking about a more um community-based approach to reaching people thank you council member Brown council member Cummings thank you for the presentation um I have a number of questions and many of which have been answered but um some some other issues if I'm wondering if first we could start if you could just define H I know people have been saying that HMIS and oftentimes acronyms get thrown around and maybe members of the public don't know what we're talking about so I'm wondering if you could just start by explaining what that is and what that system is so that people can kind of be aware of what we're talking about when as it relates to that certainly so HM HMIS stands for homelessness management information system and that is the data collection system for uh that is uh administered through the local continuum of care agency which is the housing for health partnership and that's where the information is collected on persons who are enrolled in those county um funded programs that are providing shelter and support services and so this is a tool you know it's part of the case management it has you know the information on personal information on names dates of birth um as well as then service connections you know so every service provider um that's part of that network if they receive us that person receives a service case notes and documentation goes in there to be able to track their progress you can see you know um through that whether um what their housing outcome is in terms of if they are successfully find permanent housing whether that happens or not um and so you can track that and sort of use it as a tool as well for monitoring ongoing performance but then also looking at outcomes okay and I wanted to follow up because I know that myself and um Mayor Brunner were contacted by a woman about a service called Giusecchi and um the the service was a platform that uses text messaging through phones to connect people to services and I know we forwarded this information on to staff I don't know if there's been any communication between staff and um that individual around that service so I'm just wondering if you can maybe speak to that because if that person's watching just being and not even if they're not watching just being able to give them an update on you know where that those conversations are is that a possibility of use because it sounded like a tool that could be used not only by providers but also individuals in the field who if they needed to be connected to a doctor or potential employer or what have you that they could actually use this service which is kind of using an AI platform to help connect people who need services with those services and so I'm wondering and it also tracks all the interactions and engagement and so I'm wondering if you can maybe speak to that yeah thank you for first for forwarding that information um I have not had a chance to follow up yet um but that is something on this to-do list um once to find out more information about the functionality how it might be useful how um as I mentioned you know one of the pieces that we need to develop is this process is to have better data collection tools and better systems and not everything that's part of the city's plan may be possible to work through HMIS just given the the kind of the the parameters around how they're collecting data at HMIS so we may be needing to look at different tools so that we can do some uh monitoring and data collection of our own programs in some way so figuring out that functionality um I think will be useful so that's on my to-do list great thanks and then just so other council members and members of the public are aware it sounded like the technology can also be used to determine when there are beds that are open versus um beds that are filled and knowing that that type of communication is something that will be useful especially if we're trying to move people into beds and into services it could be effective in that regard as well um the next question I had was related to um kind of the discussion around the sober living shelter and um the beds at housing matters um one of the things that was brought to my attention and some of this was answered earlier but I want to make sure that the public is aware um the county board of supervisors on their agenda today um had an item related to the sober center project um and the purchase of um a modular facility that could be used and one of the things that was mentioned in that um agenda report um I'll just quote it in one of the paragraphs was that in December 2021 housing matters informed the county that they were unable to secure sufficient funding for their permanent housing project and therefore can no longer commit to donating the modular to the county um and so I'm just wondering if we could speak to that because you know if I think we're anticipating that housing matters is going to move forward with construction of this 121 or 120 uh bed facility but based on this agenda report that went to the county today um it seems like it was mentioned that um in December 2021 they weren't able to come up with all these funding these funds to make that happen and so I'm just curious um and maybe if we could speak to it so that the public's aware kind of where that's at and what opportunities there are for the city to help because I think one thing that we all agree on is that we need more beds and if it seems like housing matters can't um find the funding to build those beds what opportunities are there for the city to partner with housing matters to make sure that we can actually ensure that those beds are built we've got three of us on who would who would say I'm happy to start but Matt if you want to go for a leave okay at the infill all right um so um back in uh December of 21 the um the housing matters team was considering whether or not they would be able to um submit for the um project home key round that would um that had the uh not technically an expiration but the first deadline of uh January 31st of this year and um they recognized that um they weren't going to be able to meet some of those deadlines in particular with respect to the lead time that was necessary for their um for the um offsite factory production that needed some more lead time and so they recognized if if we were to apply for and receive home key funding um we aren't going to be able to meet those uh criteria so I expected that um that portion of the um the board's report from the staff at the county um that was in relation to that so back in December there was a consideration hey we're going to be giving away you know they they had said we've got these trailers that we're going to be giving away and then you know as often as the case in this realm things shifted and they said all right well you know what could we be utilizing these for and they're not necessarily going to have to kick people out and move those off campus and so do we want to continue to utilize them and might they be a part of our plan so that's what I was mentioning before with respect to the use of those trailers now to house the people from the poly loft and so that has been a dynamic approach I do know that the housing matters team has put in an application for no place like home funding and they have indicated that they would hear back in in June as to whether or not they received that no place like home funding if they do not then I think that they would also be looking at whether or not um project home key the next round of project home key might offer an opportunity for funding so they're looking at a wide range of funding and um similarly to how the situation is dynamic on the housing matters and the situation has already been dynamic on our end with respect to how we've been using and planning to use the 14 million with the example being that that Larry mentioned earlier with respect to the county providing some of the funding for operations of the palette shelters or similar sleeping cabins on and around the coral street area and us redirecting some of that funding to um look at a sheltering facility up at the armory so I think we will continue to need to be nimble as we understand what the needs are and and that is a really key project for our community and one that we absolutely want to see built because that's going to provide very much needed permanent supportive housing and that that's going to be a key component to our overall homelessness response efforts. Great um follow up to that uh well actually pivoting a little bit um I'm just curious how we could speak to how many people are in the Benchlands currently and kind of what's the plan I mean it sounds like you know the there's a June date of demobilization of that um it sounds like there's some flexibility around that as well um there are people who for example are in the armory currently and something's going to happen with those people I guess there's no guarantee they'll all get into housing um and having walked past there you know a couple days ago there's a lot of tents and a lot of people down in the Benchlands so I'm just wondering if you could maybe speak to that and then I have a follow up question afterwards. Sure um so uh getting an accurate sense this is very difficult um and counting tents recently in the range of around 270 to 290 tents um and again um there's not always one person one tent some's tents are storage some of folks have a tent in the Benchlands and some other encampments so it's really hard to get a person count uh but that is you know a kind of a useful metric to get a sense of the scale of the number of people that are down there um and that is certainly an increase from the beginning of the year I think most recently um Caltrans closing encampments around one in nine put a significant um additional number of persons in the Benchlands uh you know particularly the group right um underneath and adjacent to the Water Street Bridge at that end as mostly persons from that encampment so that is the size of the problem um that we need to work on um for the demobilization um so uh it's a significant number of people that we're trying first and foremost I think to expand shelter and housing options I think that's what our first focus has been as I articulated in the you know the presentation first working on expanding the shelter and two collaborating closely with the county and through the additional outreach positions and programs through the grant funding they have to be working on the ground there in the Benchlands to make contact with everybody they can to begin to develop that plan as soon as possible so we have as much lead time before uh July to hopefully find alternative housing options so that's the that's the initial focus um and we'll see and I guess that's the flexibility we'll see how successful these various plans are of her expanding shelter and getting additional capacity to be able to move people from the Benchlands to those uh sites as well as what are the other housing options through the rehousing efforts and support services through the outreach and case management over the next two months to begin to work on reducing that number and we'll be able to evaluate on an ongoing basis how successful those different efforts are that will inform the specific timing of when we'll be closing the Benchlands and then what's required and what the plan is for the persons that continue to remain we do know that not everybody who is there right now is going to be interested in the shelter options that may be available or work on developing a rehousing plan but our goal and our effort is we're gonna have a place to the best of our ability for those who want a shelter space to be able to have one available um with this timeline thanks then the follow-up to that is um you know the 1220 River Street I mean well one you know there's a lot of staff that are being proposed to be hired 1220 River Street and somebody can correct me if I'm wrong but I do remember in the past that the capacity there was probably around 60 to 70 tents that it could accommodate and you know it seemed like things were actually going pretty well there in terms of being able to accommodate people um understanding that you know giving everybody each individual case management takes some effort but again we're investing in that right now and I'm just wondering what opportunities there are to expand the number of tents at 1220 River Street and this ties into the Benchlands and this is somewhat of a comment but one of the things that many people that I've been speaking to are concerned about is that if we demobilize the Benchlands at the end of June you know we're getting into fire season and if we don't have enough capacity and we kick everybody out of the Benchlands there's a high likelihood they're going to go into the Pogonip and you know given that we're coming off of we're still you know recovering from one of the worst fires in the history of our community I think there's a lot of concern about people going into the forest and then that increases fire risk because right now you know fire risk would be low in the Benchlands obviously we need to get people moved you know out of that flood zone before the winter but you know the concern around closing the Benchlands and then people moving into the forest I think is something that's a great concern and so I'm just wondering you know is there the potential to expand the capacity at places like 1220 River I mean it sounds like we're going to meet the same capacity indoor at the Armory we're going to have 75 more tents up there there'll be potential for safe sleeping in RVs and so I'm just wondering if we could use 1220 as additional capacity to try to keep people from moving into some of the more sensitive habitats yes I mean those that those concerns about fire risk are real and and something that we need to look at how we can mitigate with respect to 1220 River there is a space for additional tents but to do that would fundamentally alter kind of the nature of the program as it's operating now the smaller camps maxing at around 30 where they are you know we have staff that are there on site every day but not full day these are you know so to some degree self-managing communities and they're building community and you can build community amongst your neighbors with 30 but if you start to put more people into that size of space the ability to create that community and work together cohesively becomes really challenging and would make it more difficult again for the you know providing the case management and supporting people to make progress towards those you know permanent and more stable housing options so it's to some degree a trade-off between results and effectiveness and sheer number of shelter beds so in terms of the pure capacity you're absolutely right previous versions of 1220 River have had more people on that site with a very different program design it was a 24-7 staffed camp is my understanding um so it had a different level of staffing a different cost associated with that as well and was a very different environment with very different kind of end goals so that is one of the trade-offs I think in terms of trying to stand up additional transitional community camps findings locations to operate these smaller more outcomes focused self-managed camps is certainly a strategy that we're looking at implementing I think is a better long term in terms of trying to move people successfully through that pathway towards housing but it means fewer people in those sites great thank you for that and then I guess my last question just doing some kind of back on the napkin calculations looking at kind of year two just focusing on services it's about five point six million dollars moving forward I'm wondering if someone can speak to you know what we anticipate should the revenue measure move forward how much annually we could anticipate generating from that based on kind of current projections and how that you know how much of that generated revenue would go towards these services I know this is something that the community cares deeply about I also know that there are a lot of competing needs in the community around infrastructure employee compensation you know new equipment what have you and so I'm just wondering how much of this is going to how much of the revenue should measure pass how much of that would actually go towards you know kind of maintaining these services because this is all one time in the the sheet that we have and you know five point six is unfunded moving forward so I'm just wondering if someone can speak to that Miller I can take a crack at that thanks for the question councilmember Cummings so our most recent estimated revenue for measure F that our finance team put together was approximately eight million dollars annually is what we anticipate that measure to generate based on today's figures and where the economy is currently going your question as to how much of that would be directed towards homelessness response will be a future decision for the council to make it's true that the homeless action plan as it stands now does not have a number of the positions funded in year two and year three so there will be future decisions around how best to use the measure F funds if the community decides to support it and I think you know the burden is on us to continue exploring what other funding options we might be able to tap into as well the governor as part of the the state budget proposal just over the the past couple of weeks has made a major commitment to continuing to expand funding for homelessness response as well as mental health and substance abuse programming so that is encouraging and our hope is we continue moving through this including the statewide advocacy that Larry had mentioned earlier this evening that the burden wouldn't be fully placed on our general fund and we continue to explore those other options so time will tell that concludes my questions thank you very much councilmember golder so I just want to say thank you Larry and your microphone hello thank you Larry and to the rest of the team I do support I do support the idea of having advocacy at the state and federal level I think this is obviously an issue that's bigger than Santa Cruz and we won't even make a dent without that level of support and I also think that any money that we invest now in and in this will hopefully offset some of the money that we've been spending out of our general fund in other departments and it will save us money in the long run is what I'm hoping to see I do appreciate all the work being done at the Coral Street campus but I'm a little apprehensive about some of having so many things on one site and specifically I was thinking throughout the presentation like having you know families living amongst people recovering from hospitals and then in addition adding in the permanent supportive housing I just wonder if like you said having so many people at one site will make it less of a community for certain groups or isolate certain groups and so then I started thinking and I know you were talking about the pallet shelters but I have a question and I don't expect you to answer tonight but I know when my husband goes on strike teams with the fire department they sleep in like these sleeping trailers that hold like up to a dozen people and have a little bathroom and a washer and dryer and you can move them around they're like the size of a semi-trailer and so it wouldn't necessarily I don't know how much they cost in relation to a pallet shelter but I was just wondering if maybe you could look into that as a possibility yes certainly there's there's a number of different shelters sleeping cabins tiny homes there's there's all all kinds of products on the market these days at various costs with various features and so yes certainly we're we're looking at multiple pallet shelters one type and it's one that's familiar to describe kind of that is but we're looking at other ones and there's different features in terms of particularly small spaces and significantly is sort of the fire rating of some of the units and that requires if they don't if there might be more inexpensive but don't have the same kind of fire rating it means that you have to space them further apart so you can't get as many units in a space but then higher quality units with better fire ratings are much more expensive you know so those that trade-offs but there's a variety of products and we're working and doing research on on some different products to fit what what the needs are yeah I was just thinking because those are so mobile you could put it real really anywhere at any time and my own my other question is in regard to the housing choice vouchers when you're helping people get those do you also help them with and this might be a stupid question but what got them into homelessness in the first place like help them not repeat that cycle and with like credit repair and like getting their bank accounts and their identification and all that kind of stuff so that when they when they have that voucher and they're out there competing against like other people in the really competitive rental market that they're successful and able to get that housing yes certainly and in good quality case management trying to understand kind of the genesis of what brought people to their current situation and how that might identify you know a work plan moving forward is it's integral to case management not speaking about any particular case but just generally you know a lot some of the research shows that it's often some small relatively speaking event that tips somebody over the edge from having stable housing to homelessness it's a medical issue loss of employment these kind of one-time things that then because there isn't an effective safety net allows people to continue to have a unhoused situation and so you know ideally if we could figure out how to get in front of those and make those more preventative focused I don't mean us as a city but just collectively society we could find the right moment with the right intervention with each person it would be a lot cheaper to work on these because a lot of these are just their events that many of us experience in our families and just some families don't have the resources and support systems around them to be able to work through those bumps and as a result they become homelessness homeless so yeah understanding and uncovering those and helping people circumvent the nuts that's court a case of good case management and then my final question slash request is when you're out there and everyone's out there you know boots on the ground and there's kids out there can you please make sure that those kids are in school that there's personal accountability to the parents that the kids are in school because if they want to get out of generational poverty if we're not ensuring that the kids are in school how can we you know expect that to happen yeah partnering with the schools that's it my last yeah thank you thank you council member golder I had a couple of questions and thank you Larry for answering some questions prior so one thing that has come up and I just kind of want to get clarity in explaining what a hygiene bay is and you know it's really explained in terms of new flooring and new moisture barrier that's all laid out here but it doesn't really define what the hygiene bay consists of and is there only one these are some of the questions that have come up so thank you for that question so fundamentally in the hygiene bay is really it is a showering and restroom facility on the campus for a multi-person use I think I apologize I might be off the numbers but I think the plans for this include 12 shower stalls and a number of toilets but in addition to that though you know the remodel is working on the entire building and so it's also going to require significant you know HVAC you know for heating and cooling and moisture movements so that you don't have kind of the impact on the building and the degradation of the building related to all the moisture that was in the old hygiene bay so the focus is on the hygiene bay and rebuilding that but there's a lot of infrastructure to the building and shoring up the building that was part of that process and again those services are integral to around thinking of the number of people that are sheltered on that campus the day use of services that they have there and having that facility available to improve the quality of life for persons experiencing homelessness is essential thank you um that was also my next question follow-up with that is that is it a shared so it's a facility with showers and toilets and it's shared amongst the entire housing matters campus not specific to one community there Larry it's the um we actually had an agenda report in February of this year so um and it was for the public works request for proposal release and according to that report it prior to being shut down served about a hundred people daily before its closure and as Larry talked about it is a full-on restoration of not just the showers and the toilets and sinks but it also includes upgrades to the ventilation system and the existing building facility and then the moisture barriers the air conditioning etc we've got a full agenda report related to that mayor if we can also forward that on to you to pass on if you'd like thank you you're welcome the next question um is what what are the facilities at the armory in terms of showers and toilets and hygiene bay so for for the program that we're starting there will be a shower trailer um that is available um and then we'll be having portable toilets and hand washing stations up there um there is uh some within the armory building which we will not have access to immediately that would be after the county program closes there are um there are restroom facilities and a shower although it's a shared shower that kind of limits use so while the county's been operating the program they've done it similarly where they've had a shower trailer with multiple shower stalls and portable toilets and restroom facilities up there as well so that's the infrastructure that we'll have for our program and uh the safe parking sites and gray water dumping what's the progress on that yeah so similarly at all um any and all uh safe parking locations that the city operates there will be restrooms and hand washing stations there will be refuse containers uh for garbage um and uh we are working in the process of looking at how we can support um safe dumping of rv gray and black water tanks and it may be through a combination initially um the plan for the tier three program is to to work with at least initially united site services that services the port bodies to see if they can do that as well we're also looking at other mobile operators that can go to the sites periodically and um and provide dump services and we're also looking as part of the plan about trying to find a location and establish a dedicated dump station in the city that people could utilize independent of being part of the safe parking program okay thank you um what is the update on shelters across the county progress and um you know I know you spoke a lot of um the collaboration and efforts um working together the city um and the county working to provide services and some of the programs the behavioral health the mental health liaisons um but I know there was early on with this plan kind of a collective effort a lot of our unhoused folks come from across the county and there was um kind of a look at identifying uh county wide sites and working together to establish some of those smaller um shelter sites and again around that 30 people range to have the most effective uh outcomes for people and so I was just wondering if there was continued progress in that area yeah so uh I don't have an updated uh shelter capacity number from tonight from the last report but I can contact our partners at the county to get an updated number uh but to the other part of your question yes we continue to be in conversation collaboratively about trying to work towards you know the countywide goal is to have 600 uh shelter spaces okay and so when we have our collaborative meetings uh we talk about sites locations programs funding uh so we're actively working on that I think a good example is the county um partnering to support expansion at coral street is one example they're continuing as they're winding down their program at the armory and looking again at other shelter options through master leasing so um their active efforts and again we're sharing information um to be able to work towards that end thank you and developing a housing plan for everyone in the benchlands that is an amazing goal amazing goal um and has that's it sounded like that started now slowly um that process and um the county I'm just clarifying that the county will have uh case managers set up there um at the benchlands to um make those connections and services and reach each person there um is that correct correct that is the goal that's where we have not started that phase formally yet you know we're we're talking with the county and pulling together the different um programs that are doing outreach work there um it's it's happening I guess in a little less coordinated way right now so you we do have outreach that's going on there but we haven't come together specifically around this goal of having you know a rehousing plan for everybody that's in the works we're bringing people together to plan that you're right uh we've we are working with the county to be able to place a mobile office unit there or the outreach staff across multiple programs to be able to do that work um as well as the first phase is you know our our city outreach staff has uh has had a list and has worked on a list of potential participants for the city armory program for months now and so we're going to be implementing that and so that'll be there for 75 people that will be their initial rehousing plan is is moving from benchlands up to the armory so pieces of that are already under the way and uh we're working with the county to be able to do that in a more coordinated and intensive effort over the next two months thank you that concludes my questions uh at this time I will bring it out to the public for public comment let me pull it back here so if you're interested in commenting on agenda item number 31 if you could remain over in line please sir oh thank you of course thank you if you are interested in commenting on agenda item number 31 homelessness response quarterly update now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen or in the agenda the order of um you can press star nine on your phone or select the raise hand feature on the webinar controls of your computer when it's your turn to speak you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted and the timer will be set to two minutes members of the public who are joining us here in person in the chambers please line up on the right side of the dais you will also have two minutes to speak and we ask that you sign in to ensure correct spelling of your name however it is not required and again I have approved for extra time four minutes for Huff Robert Norse I'd like to begin with you welcome members of the community and council the big issues here as raised by Mayor Brunner are in fact the real issue of how many people are homeless in Santa Cruz city area and how are they being treated at the moment how are they likely to be treated in the next year given all these new resources which are supposedly available now when I hear the kind of I don't want to call it gobbledygook but it's sort of abstract talk and possible things may soon be happening and we're working and planning on this and indeed as council member Myers has pointed out there may be again what 160 beds available for thousand to 1500 people and the real issue is my concern as a member of this homeless civil rights group is what about the majority of these folks not so much do I expect this council to provide shelter and services for everybody but I expect them not to be dumping their money into the pockets of consultants and legislative analysts and more fun grabbers that don't really produce services for the majority of the people in this county and the idiotic and I think misleading claim that you are looking for a pathway to housing when the housing does not currently exist is very misleading and deceptive and tiresome to hear from the city council but I mean my purpose is not so much to berate the council I know that's going to be what you're continuing to talk about all the affordable housing that isn't really affordable and all the shelter that isn't really available for most people in this county and all the money going into enforcement that really is what this is all about you are trying to find a way to enforce the OVO and the CSSO ordinances at least the OVO although I don't see that you actually passed this word said you're not going to enforce it until the coastal commission reverses its 2016 decision but the CSSO has no such provision here once there is affordable shelter or whether it's once there is a shelter that you have certified and you've declared the benchlands or at least your your go-to guy the city manager has declared the benchlands to be that shelter and yet at the same time as I pointed out the last council meeting this is about to be dispersed in July oh I know it's it's flexible well that's very nice but that's not much comfort to the people either living in the benchlands who can't make there any plans about what they're doing remember people do independently try to get other resources and other housing they really do believe it or not they don't really love being in the benchlands that's not what people like and the notion that you're helping 150 people and how wonderful that is it's not wonderful considering the massive resources that you've had over the last five to ten years it just isn't and people who are watching this know the grand jury knows it I think particularly homeless people know it and I realized that when you're in an insulated position like this council is you don't really feel it except in the most abstract way and that leaves the community to have to take the action here and as usual I hope that we will as we did in the winter of 2020 when we stopped your old city manager from disrupting the lives and stealing the homes of the people in the benchlands but it's really hard to tell maybe your maybe things will go like they were then maybe they won't and if I weren't so tired I would have perhaps given a better presentation thank you thank you I will now go out to our virtual hands raised and let's see our first name is Serge Cagno welcome go ahead and unmute yourself good evening the city council thanks for giving me time to speak I want to very much show my appreciation to Larry and Wally and the very informative presentation I'm hopeful that the services will continue to make a change for Santa Cruz as we are currently in mental health awareness month and as I'm a member of the county's mental health advisory board I have a few comments and three questions first I think forcing people into shelter is not necessary to fill our shelters designing our programs to be more welcoming and more appealing from the participants perspective is the missing piece in these discussions what I don't hear mentioned is trauma informed care designing care from the perspective and behavioral health needs of the participants in the participant agreement for the tier two sleep safe sleeping site and I suspect in the 20 encampments site participants must agree that they have no expectations of safety I'm confused on how we're expecting our city programs to be appealing if we make no promises of safety I have a question for the shelters and the safe sleeping sites how would enforcement of the CSO and the possible enforcement of the OVO affect those people in city shelter programs who get kicked out for behavioral health issues or leaving voluntarily doing that anxiety or other behavioral health issues since there's not housing for the thousand plus people experiencing homelessness in the city of Santa Cruz and many do not qualify for housing vouchers or have a means to pay for housing what happens to those participants at their end of their limited stay with regards to enforcement of those ordinances those are my questions I'll say one last comment Larry referred to a sober living shelter I'm confused about that I don't know if Larry is misinformed or trying to label it as shelter that sober program is just about people who are getting arrested it is not a shelter at all so thank you for your time and I hope that we continue to support people with behavioral health needs have a good night thank you for your comment our next uh member of the public I will invite forward here in person welcome thank you my name is James first I want to thank surge because although I have eight things on my list number six has to do with and accept a grant allocation that the county passed today so instead of law enforcement engaging with every issue that goes on in this county they've allocated 7.5 million for alternative sources I think that's excellent there are a few places where brevity is more important is less important than foreplay it was a lot of talking wow uh three-minor to Williams Shakespeare how much to do about nothing so if there's 14 million dollars as that has been advocated 2.3 million apparently has already been spent it'd be interesting to see what that stuff was spent on and there are it seems like there's a bunch of housing for people with vehicles that's really promising now I too took a walk um through the bench glance and wow there's at least 370 tents there uh there's no telling how many people it seems from the numbers I have heard maybe there's accommodations for 180 if they're like 1800 homeless people in this county what is gonna go on um I want to thank Danny Brown for bringing up some good observations and Justin Cummins for bringing up some good observations there were a lot of good observations particularly about fire safety you know I spoke in the county not so much here about those directed energy weapons my comment is going to be there are frequencies that literally put out fires but what's going on on planet earth there are fires thank you thank you for your comment our next uh member of the public is uh in our virtual attendee room reggie go ahead and unmute yourself hi can you hear me yes hi there great hi um I'm gonna kind of like make a narrow comment here um as I've noted in past meetings the oversized vehicle ordinance is not really a safe parking bill despite how it's advertised it's a bill to criminalize folks living in vehicles safe parking is not even defined in the ordinance only one subsection of ovo even talks about the establishment of safe parking and it simply states that the city manager is given authority to operate support or authorize sites um but this is something they were already able to do which was admitted in the drafting session of ovo where uh there was discussion about safe parking sites at the police station safe parking sites being supported by our city at afc um and safe parking sites being authorized on uh commercial lots so why am I bringing this point up again tonight well I just heard Larry Imwale admit that the city is making progress on developing safe parking sites despite the implementation of ovo being delayed because of the Santa Cruz Cares appeal so I think this is a really important thing for the public to hear ovo is not a safe parking bill it is not stopping safe parking it is not delaying safe parking safe parking is 100 moving forward and it's uh in all the ways that the city manager wants because it already was able to do that um and I want to make another note because it's very concerning to me that what I just admitted that ovo is not a safe parking bill um in the info to voters sent out by the city about measure f I want to say it is the sales tax um they note that there is a ordinance that was passed that is a safe parking bill they are referring to ovo and that is untrue and I think it is very disturbing for the city to release propaganda which is just provably false so I would like to be corrected thank you thank you I didn't know if you heard the the timer okay our next person is in person please welcome to the front thank you very much um council members and larry and lee I first of all just want to say I really appreciate your efforts to address this really difficult problem in within the realm of capitalism um and um I really sincerely mean that um it's it's really tough and I can see the work you've put into it and it's it's deep and profound um and very complex I just really sincerely want you to know that because now I am going to completely criticize this and I just want to say from the perspective of somebody who was a domestic violence victim and um had to become homeless because I was so incredibly harmed by mental health uh professionals um that I decided to take my investigation into homelessness very seriously from a firsthand perspective and so I have been in the river street shelter I wanted to see how hard it was to walk around all night looking possibly for one tree or bush where you could sleep under it and maybe get away with it without getting harmed there were none in Berkeley where I could do that and so I would walk around all night I could go on and on but I'm also somebody who is trained in the mental health profession I'm just going to leave it at that what we need in this city and in cities all around the country first of all is a continuity person because it's ridiculous that politicians come into these bodies like our city council and um and I am saying you're well meaning but you are politicians that's what you are you are city servants maybe so it's ridiculous that we have politicians come in who go out and then we're asking the same questions over and over decade after decade the HMIS system does not work for many homeless people because people are very suspicious so what we need to do is to count the number of beds in actuality I want simple presentations that tell us how many beds and where because we need to make sure that the people at the benchlands who have a city who have a home who have a place to live can go to those beds and if they cannot we will protest we will demand thank you good night thank you for your comment uh next caller is in our virtual attendee list the name I am watching you go ahead and unmute yourself yes as regard your homeless response update it seems to assume incorrectly that Santa Cruz has a perfectly normal size perpetual homeless condition the solution to which is a larger and expensive perpetual welfare just here in the city in the form of emergency shelters parking areas for living RVs and lots and lots of perpetual staff expense I see nowhere an actual stated numerical goal of a reduction in homelessness and dependence with yearly measurable metrics that we can then judge the worthiness of such expenses and effort to return to something like approaching a california average homelessness it just seems like a bigger more expensive government welfare program with no end game you seem to be embarking on a pure welfare commitment with without full funding or even a guess of future funding expenses or sources I note the footnote on the two a footnote on the two year and three year plan blank hrp plan quote funding will need to come from general fund new revenue sources or reductions other services then quote no one would lease a new car without some idea of how to pay for it besides the down payment only an inscrubulous car dealer will allow someone to sign such an agreement apparently you just forgot to mention what those other reduced services might look like as they become a lower non priority than this new welfare system welfare is a tricky business largely the responsibility of the federal state government and charity people can be just as trapped in the welfare state not daring to dig themselves out of it for fear of lost benefits even if they're quite capable of doing so such as the fate of millions of people you wouldn't hold up the citizens of san jacuzzi to blow the whole 14 million in one year and mandate funding of future programs for astronautic numbers of homelessness here by threatening the loss of taxpayer services or else would you thanks thank you for your comment let's see are there any other members of the public here in person that have not spoken okay are you are you okay great come forward please thank you welcome thank you to be uh reading this because that it's that way and um what when i heard about having a community relations specialist i thought what an opportunity that is to change the narrative we have about people who are houseless this is in the wrong place huh there we go batter we need to change the current narrative because we have other homeless people they have we tend to believe they are not like us we're different so we can choose the ones who deserve help and the ones who do not deserve help and we don't have to feel bad because they got there because of something they did wrong an individual failure houselessness is seen in this country as an individual failure but it is not it's a failure of our economy our structure our financialization of land and of homes our housing crisis and we have got to change that for the public because the fact that most of the mistreatment and the and the hate and despising that goes on in the public for houseless people it's because of that belief the misplacement of blame so i hope that i want to encourage this community relations specialist to focus on that because it is an opportunity to change how we see the members of well our other residents who live without homes and i know as a renter here of 22 years i know how uncertain my future is and how unstable it is and i know i am just like them and they are like us thank you for your comment our next member of the public for comment is virtual hand raised darius mosin i uh i i i too agree with justin and the concern for just the a pension lands uh at the height of just the height of the early the beginning of fire season uh it's we know from his we know from past experience these folks will wander back into hell's trail pova nips no hi uh fuel areas i would personally i would like to see somehow that the bench lands stay together i go i've been there probably four or five times i've spoken to people i've seen it's yeah the conditions are important there's a lot of lots of people a lot wrong with it but you have you know close to 300 homeless folks have been you've spread out through the community spread out into these fire prone areas all in one spot it's not visible that doesn't have the the blight that frost camp did it's you know below grade so to speak you've got two full-time folks there jeremy lenner chris montice i believe that are being come to have basically become the corporate knowledge for santa cruz city's homeless after uh how many months of working there and getting to know everybody uh on the other hand i appreciate the comment larry made about groups of 20 to 30 being kind of the ideal sort of size for uh managed encampments i've seen that model in gene seattle i've seen other spots up and down the west coast i don't know if there's some way to break the camp up if you will into different you know micro encampments like we had brent adam's deal with this agreement camp at one point um i would i i think that the public actually benefits from the camp on one spot i think i believe crime is down some petty thefts and other kind of crime in the city and elsewhere is down it's all unfortunately uh it becomes homeless on homeless crime in the benchlands but uh you know the tetsu nature of the beast perhaps more policing more uh more folks like jeremy and chris uh that uh with different time is up i don't know if you heard the timer thank you let's see our next attendee is calling user three go ahead and unmute yourself welcome maryland garrett i'm a retired teacher and i used to have a bumper sticker that said it will be a great day when the schools have all the money they need and the air force has to have a bake sale to be by a bomber the point is over half our tax dollars or profits like that go to the military budget and we just seen huge billions of dollars going to the ukraine and all these wars forever wars what we could do with that money not only for school but provide housing and parks and libraries and you name it it is a problem of capitalism i have an image here in front of me i wish you could see it it shows a medical person in his wife shirt taking notes and it says feeling sad and depressed are you anxious worried about the future feeling isolated and alone you might be suffering from capitalism symptoms may include homelessness unemployment poverty hunger feelings of powerlessness fear apathy and the list goes on loss of free speech incarceration suicidal or revolutionary thoughts death another and and people commenting on mental health services i'm a friend who was picked up on a wellness check so called by sheriff deputies four of them who grabbed her out of her home she 66 injected her took her off held her for days against her will she was harming no one but they were harming her and so when i hear about mental health services i your time is up patients so i think yeah we need a different structure of a system that provides for the well-being of everyone thank you thank you for your comment let's see if there are any other hands it looks like that concludes our comment from public comment period i will now bring it back back to council for action and deliberation we have a recommended motion let me pull up my notes and councilmember calentari johnson thank you i did want to make a motion i had some comments but i'll go ahead and make the motion first and that is to move um this here move staff recommendation to receive updates regarding council directed homelessness response programs and services including council requested homelessness response action plan implementation details objectives and outcomes and second part adopt resolution amending the classification and compensation plans by administratively implementing staffing to support the city's new homelessness response action plan and appropriate funds appropriate funds for the positions from the state of california 14 million in the general fund then i've added a third piece to the to the recommendation and that is to authorize excuse me no the third piece is their authorized staff to pursue purchasing option and appropriate funds for what the services identifying the expenditure plan for the state of california 14 million including county mental health liaison land and resource management services legislative advocacy planning and proposal development and vehicle abatement and return to council as needed consistent with standard purchasing procedures i've added a fourth component and i forgot to email it to you bonnie but i'll read it and then i'll email it to you um request that the mayor submit a letter on behalf of the full council to the county reiterating the need for transitional facilities bridge housing including safe parking across our county prioritization a prioritization of county funds for these purposes and the need for us to continue to work together to address the continuum of housing address the continuum housing needs in our community i'll go ahead and email that to you um so that that's so it's staff's recommendation with that last piece of the mayor writing a letter to the county okay so we have a motion uh by council member calentari johnson the staff recommended recommended three part motion with a fourth part added and that will come shortly we have a second by council member mires and now we can have discussion great so i just had um a few comments and i'll and i'll keep it brief i i want to thank people who showed up tonight here in person and folks who stayed on the line and provided public comment this is a really important issue and clearly our community really cares and is invested in us moving forward we've heard tonight from mr and molly that we've made some great strides and we do have reason to celebrate you know the establishment of comprehensive data collection and data sharing mechanisms across our jurisdictions that's a really big deal we've been working towards that for a long time um hms is not perfect absolutely and it doesn't work for everybody i know that and we're making some incremental steps towards data sharing and and using information so that we can get folks housed um we are stronger and our connection to the county our city counter partnership has not been this strong in a long time we're on the state's radar they gave the 14 and a half million they're watching us and there's real opportunity for us to receive additional resources we're standing up more supports for this population than we have really in the history of our city in recent history not counting covid year 2020 when state mandated that we stand up shelter-in-place sites and as councilmember mires stated this has resulted in people moving into stable shelter people attaining housing vouchers getting substance abuse treatment getting mental health support support obtaining employment and ultimately stability and health that's that's what we are trying to achieve as a community so i know a lot of work remains to be done this is a drop in the bucket this won't cover even a quarter of the population that we need to serve and we need to think bigger than our city um like i said we have really strong partnerships right now with our county let's continue to work on that the county has expressed not expressed the county is committed in their strategic plan that they will also provide bridge housing they've expressed interest in helping with the safe parking so let's pursue that let's think beyond our small city with big city problems and think not only countywide but regionally what can we do to bring in additional resources lever our leverage our resources and provide these supports throughout the jurisdiction throughout our county so i think i'll just keep my comments to that i want to just thank again mr. and wally um lee butler and all of the departments this takes work across our departments all the departments and all the staff and all the organizations in the community who have so far worked with us and are partnering with us a lot of work to be done so i hope this partnership will continue thank you thank you there are any other council member comments or discussion before we have a motion on the table council member comings it just want to i'm wondering if we could first see the language because i just want to you know and i think it's for the public to be clear what this additional motion language was because then i might have a friendly amendment to it but i'd like to see it so but in the meantime i will make a comment where i just want to thank the staff and not just the staff who's been working on this but all the staff that's been working on this over the many many years when that we've been trying to address this issue before i got on the council back in 2018 um in december of 2018 um i know that back then there have been efforts where they first stood up 1220 river street as a shelter model and it's been the attempts at this safe parking programs that have been implemented historically by the afc throughout our community that we've been able to and other types of shelter programs including um winter shelter warming centers that you know we've been able to demonstrate to the community uh what is effective and what we can do that has minimal impacts on our community and what is needed uh in order to make sure that we have um homeless services uh that have minimum minimal negative impacts on the community um so i want to thank all the folks who've put in the hard work to make these services happen and to help us demonstrate that um you know we are able to stand up services that um have positive outcomes um along with that i just think that you know as we're making the decision tonight this is a very um big decision that we're making uh it's you know i think one of the things that's prevented us from being so effective and being able to stand up services in the past is not having funding and i think that um you know we have a lot of positions that we're funding this evening that we don't have long term funding for and my hope is that these positions some of these advocate positions that we're funding um will allow us to seek more funds and that moving forward if these programs are effective we'll be able to demonstrate to the state the need for more money to invest in these programs and so um i'm cautiously optimistic but i but based on our ability to be effective in the past um i'm hopeful that we will be able to stand up these programs and demonstrate effectiveness moving forward and i will say that you know the one thing that also has you know resulted in us being where we are today is the fact that you know martin versus boise really made um our city and many other communities start to really have to take a serious look at um addressing homelessness i mean before this there were lots of laws in place that just pushed people around and what that law did was say that you can't just do that anymore you have to provide beds you have to provide services you have to take care of people and you know commit to that and do so adequately before you can start criminalizing people for being homeless and so i think that's also been a big contributor to helping us get to where we are today and my hope is that the state county our local government and federal government where we'll continue to do what it can to not only alleviate getting people off the street but keeping people in their homes and making sure that we're providing housing and jobs to where people can actually stay in their homes and so um fourth one transition facilities i have any further comments and uh just want to um also ask that um if we can get an update and maybe this is to the city manager but i'd also like to see if we can get an update on um you know the funding and progress of the coral street the 121 beds because if they're continuing to apply for housing or for funding and um you know if they're not able to get that funding it would be good for us to kind of know what progress they're making and what opportunities there are for the city to help step in if necessary because what's going to make us really effective at this is getting those beds online and other beds online as well and so and i guess the last thing i'll say is that um you know as we're moving through this process i think it would be great if staff could you know document when possible and when there's consent the stories of some of these people and document you know how these um different types of uh sheltering models work because part of what makes us effective is being able to demonstrate to community members what works especially when we're going to stand up new shelter that's what was helpful when we stood up the armory and when we met with community members and prospect heights back in 2020 and i believe that that's what will make us effective at being able to stand up shelter more shelters especially some of these smaller ones as we move forward so i just want to thank everybody for the hard work on this and um we'll see how it all goes thank you council member Cummings council member Calentari Johnson i just noticed a typo and email Bonnie it shouldn't say country should say county although it we it would be good for us to stand it up throughout the country but it should say county across our country safe parking across our country should say safe parking across our county the added bullet the new direct the mayor to submit a letter on behalf yeah we can send a letter to panetta as well okay thank you um so thank you again to our staff for this presentation and update um there were a lot of pieces i really encourage everyone to dive into the full agenda uh with all the information and numbers that were presented to us and again i i i believe those updates will all be uploaded to the city website as well as available here at city hall for those that would like to access some of the information um city staff is also available to answer any further questions um and really want to uh think that the collaboration is huge for the city and the county as many of us uh you know brought up because the county is where our health department lies where our behavioral health department lies where our human services department lies where our housing for health department lies and as a city as a municipality we are small but mightily treading forward with great great efforts to really put infrastructure in place getting us to work more efficiently to help folks um and continuing to move forward to support our community to support those that are unhoused to support our environmental impacts to support our neighborhoods to support everybody um that's affected by this housing crisis and really hopeful over the next three years with um the amount of low income and um very low income and affordable housing online and housing vouchers and the pipeline um we're slowly making steps towards what we can progress as a city as a municipality so thank you for all the updates and um i'd like to ask the clerk to please uh call roll on the motion please councilmember county tary johnson aye boulder aye coming aye brown aye mires aye vice mayor watkins aye and mayor brunner aye that motion passes unanimously thank you thank you everyone for being here in person with us and those of you who joined us via the virtual world um we will return may 24th this meeting is now adjourned