 Good afternoon folks. Welcome to today's city council meeting. Madam city clerk. Can you please call the roll? Thank you mayor Councilmember Schwedhelm here councilmember Sawyer here councilmember Rogers as it councilmember McDonald here Councilmember Fleming as it vice mayor Alvarez Mayor Rogers here that the record show that all council members are present Great, thank you so much. We have no closed session today. We had no study sessions We don't have any report outs from there. So we will go on to our proclamations at the start of the day We have item 6.1. It's a proclamation in support of our sister city, Cherkaisi Ukraine this did not appear on the council's preliminary agenda the Brown act says that we have to have things listed 72 hours before the meeting unless there are circumstances That dictate urgency where it was not foreseen that we would need an item on here so what the council would need to do in order to take up item 6.1 is to have a motion have public comment and have a vote on Finding urgency and need to add the proclamation here Absent the Brown act so first I'll open it up, and I'll see if there are any questions from council Otherwise, I'll see if there's any public comment on folks on adding the proclamation to the agenda And we can have public comments separate on the proclamation after should we go forward Thank you. I'll see if there's any public comment on zoom Mayor there are no hands raised great. I'll entertain a motion from the council So moved Second right motion from councilmember Sawyer and a second from councilmember Rogers to find sufficient urgency to add the item to the agenda Let's go ahead and call the vote Councilmember shirt my apologies. We have a question from councilmember Fleming. Yeah, I was wondering City attorney if you could review the thing there's is there more besides just something that we couldn't have foreseen Pardon the it is to determine the two required findings under the brown act are That there is a need for immediate action and that the need for action arose after the posting of the agenda Which it did the early agenda policy which is a separate the local policy Does not apply here because this is not a This is this is a proclamation and and that does not apply to proclamation And how would we define need to do this? Brown act does not define it So that is up to the council to determine again whether there is a need for immediate action Since we have a motion on the floor, I'll just say that while really important I'm not sure that I see a need to take action today. I think we could take action At our next council meeting it would have about the same impact as it would today Let's go ahead and call the vote to add the proclamation to the agenda Councilmember Schwedhelm. Hi councilmember Sawyer. Hi Councilmember Rogers. Hi councilmember McDonald. Hi councilmember Fleming. No Vice mayor Alvarez Mayor Rogers hi that motion passes with six eyes with councilmember Fleming voting no Great. Thank you so much madam city clerk. Mr. Sawyer. Could you please read the proclamation? Well, thank you mayor Whereas the city of Santa Rosa has been a sister city with the city of Tricassee Ukraine since 1990 and Whereas the cities of Santa Rosa and Tricassee have developed deep and meaningful bonds of friendship through the cultural exchanges of people of all ages Santa Rosa and Tricassee residents Staying in each other's homes and sharing each other's lives and whereas American-Ukrainian relations have long served as an example and a foundation for security freedom the development of democracy And human rights in Eastern Europe and across the globe and whereas Ukraine and the Ukrainian people respect represent a distinct culture with a long proud history and whereas Self-determination is an inalienable right of all people around the world including the Ukrainian people and Whereas a free and independent Ukraine is a vital importance to protecting the Ukrainian people their history culture literature music traditions language and art and Whereas the county of Ukraine or country of Ukraine is facing Unprovoked unrestrained and unconscionable military aggression from the Russian Federation and Whereas the Ukrainian people their league leadership and their president have shown the world what it is to lead from the front The spirit resolves strength fierce defiance and patriotism of the Ukrainian people are to be celebrated and Whereas the city of Santa Rosa recognizes the horrors and the humiliate Humanitarian crisis that this war has brought upon the Ukrainian people including those in the city of Tchaikovsky Now therefore be resolved the Chris Rogers mayor of the city of Santa Rosa on behalf of the entire city council to hereby condemn the violation of Ukrainian sovereign nation borders independence and territorial integrity and Oppose the unnecessary and tragic loss of life this unprovoked armed conflict has caused And affirm our support for our sister city Tchaikovsky Ukraine and the sovereignty Independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine signed by mayor Chris Rogers on this date Thank you so much councilmember, so we will be sending that obviously to the mayor of Tchaikovsky We've we've reason we'll hear some comments here as well from folks who have Been in contact over the course of the last couple of years with them and then the city manager And I had a discussion earlier tonight the square will have blue and yellow lights In honor of the proclamation and sending our love and support to our sister city With that I will start with public comment and then bring it back for councilmember comments. Should anybody want to make any? Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Fred Petutia I'm the president and co-founder of sister city Santa Rosa, Tchaikovsky When we first started we are actually a different name sister cities USSR because the Soviet Union still existed back in 1989 Since the founding of ours We have had over 400 Americans have visited Tchaikovsky Which is a city of about 300,000 people 100 miles south of Kiev and About 300 Ukrainians have come here some as students to go even to the JC and Others to have short-term stays at various high schools in our community Perhaps one of the more amazing statistics of our long-term relationship of over 30 years as we have had 25 marriages between Americans and Ukrainians since the program started or almost one a year I Would say this gives tangible reality to the phrase make love not war Getting back to what's going on right now. I have a cousin Lydia Who fled our sister city with her six-year-old son? I got word yesterday. She has now arrived safely in Berlin. Well, they have a family friend Well, she will be staying her older brother Who the wife and two children was given a choice? He could stay behind to fight the encroaching Russians or he could had to Safeguard his wife and two children. That was a tough one But he made it that he's in the short run there staying in a small village in the Carpathian Mountains close to the border with Poland Luda Melnick who is my counterpart on the Ukrainian side of a series of adventures called climbers for peace In which we climbed iconic mountains around the world including Elbrus in southern Russia carp the peak in alpetry in Crimea which was Ukraine now is claimed by Russia. I mean by by Russia and Also, Horvala in the Carpathian mountain, which is the highest peak in Ukraine Many of these avid Adventures were with along with Russians along so it was fine. They are like brothers and sisters It's a historically very close relationship. So one thing you have is a little bit like a civil war With you know Russian shooting at Ukrainians. It's like what happened in our own civil war And there are many intermarriages between Russians and Ukrainians and I can think offhand at least a half a dozen Couples that I know where either husband or wife is Russian. You know, there's Ukrainian So this is a really great tragedy playing out. I just hope and pray that this I think everybody called Putin stupid or but he's acting in a stupid manner in this Unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. So I thank the mayor and the council for your support especially There are also we have a sister rotary club relationship between the Santa Rosa East West rotary and We raised over $2,000 just today at luncheon to be able to send supplies or at least send money To our sister culture Kasi at Ukraine So and many different levels we are reaching out one community to another at a time of great tragedy And again, I thank the mayor and the council for a very articulate and I would say emotional Proclamation, thank you Thank you, sir, and thank you for being here Mr. Dwayne do it Hello, my name is Dwayne do it and in the past I was a former president of Santa Rosa sister cities also and I brought a newspaper with me today From back during that time. This was printed in April of 1999 and we had had the YWCA director Miss Lisa Carano Come with us to Chikasi as well as the then police chief Michael Dunbaugh It was a very good visit There was a lot of good things discussed and we've had many Chikasi youth come to Santa Rosa over the years It's really important. I think that here we realize one thing about this relationship of our country helping these Ukrainians We've been an example to them of the opportunity to express ourselves in a bit of freedom and liberty we Participate in a form of democratic Republic that's something that they had longed for when they got independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 There had been a terrible tragedy before World War two which the Ukrainians call the Holodomir and that's where millions of Ukrainians Starved to death during an enforced famine by the dictator Joseph Stalin Many folks do not realize that perhaps the current leader of Russia is enacting his own form of dictatorship So I've brought this paper today to submit to you so you'll have it to look at It has a picture of the ambassador of The United States to Ukraine at that time and he was from Sebastopol his name is Steven Pfeiffer He's down at Stanford University right now And I think it would be a good thing for some of you folks perhaps talk with him about this situation I'm gonna read one quote from this paper from 1999 Addressing the current state of affairs in Ukraine. She said they are all experiencing economic difficulties and problems But they would rather have freedom than go back to the old regime So I'm hoping that we'll stay strong in our sister city relationship with them that will help to fund and Support the woman's center that the city of Santa Rosa has been supportive of in the past That's called the Santa Rosa sister city women's action project and we've helped there for decades on dealing with women's issues domestic violence and Basal basic social equity issues So I know you sometimes see me here more than you might want and you think why does that guy do that? It's about freedom Thank you kindly Thank you We have any other comments in the chamber. All right, let's look to zoom There are no raised hands on zoom and we have no voicemail public comment on this item Okay, I'll let bring it back. Are there any other additional counsel comments member Rogers I Just wanted to thank Congressman Mike Thompson's office specifically Brendan Sweeney for Taking concerns that I received from residents here in Santa Rosa that have family members Friends that are there and in dire need of trying to protect themselves and escape from the violence and assisting I've never seen our government move in that way I've never been in a in a position of leadership like that But just to see how swiftly that we do move and how we are able to Provide a helping hand to people that are in need It was very quick and I did get a follow-up text message that the families and the orphanage That we were trying to protect that the children did make it over the border and they made it over safely So that did I really mean a lot to me and it really meant a lot that the people that we have in leadership That they were just able to act so swiftly and to get that done so I did want to say thank you to them and also To our mayor Chris Rogers and our city manager city manager Smith. Thank you for taking this so serious I know it's not on our soil and I know that we go on in our everyday lives but just because we're able to go to work and go to sleep and not hear the bombs and Be safe. Does it mean that everyone around the world is safe? So the fact that we're able to take it serious And take a stand I think really means a lot to a lot of people and people do have families and people that they love All over the world and so just because it's not here doesn't mean we don't need to take it serious And we don't need to take a stand. So thank you so much for doing that Thank you Thank You council member Any other comments council, and I do also want to thank the mayor of Sebastopol Patrick Slater Sonoma County is actually the only place in the world that has three of its cities as sister cities with Ukraine So Sebastopol has a sister city relationship as does the city of Sonoma And so I got a call from the the mayor of Sebastopol over the weekend Asking that we all do this in solidarity And I'll note that other mayors have also jumped in to show their support as well. Healdsburg Passed their resolution last night. They lit up their bridge in solidarity And so it's great for us to be able to do it as a unified front because it is a broader impact than just on the folks within Our community obviously so thank you so much counsel for for this one Madam city manager if we could go on to our staff briefings Thank You mayor Rogers and members of council and I would also like to thank our clerk Stephanie Williams For helping move this forward as well So item 7.1 COVID-19 response update with the with the declining case rates and hospitalizations California, Oregon and Washington jointly updated their masking guidance in California starting today March the 1st mask will no longer be required for unvaccinated individuals But masking is still strongly recommended for all individuals in most indoor settings After March the 11th in schools and child care facilities mask will not be required but strongly recommended Masks will be required for everyone in high transmission settings like public transit Emergency shelters healthcare settings correctional facilities homeless shelters and long-term care facilities Local jurisdictions still may have additional Requirements beyond the state guidance and more information about local response to COVID-19 is available at socoemergency.org Thank you Item 7.2 community empowerment plan update I would like to introduce director deputy director tell us who will give the report. Thank you Good afternoon mayor Rogers vice mayor alvarez My colleague they is here director of community engagement with an update on the community empowerment plan So the Mary blue lowrider control car the car is complete So please join us for the big reveal on Saturday March 26 from 4 to 8 p.m. At City Hall parking lot There will be a lowrider car show a pomo blessing live entertainment and more The ceremony will include speakers from the Sonoma County lowrider council Who will talk about what this project means to them as well as local and state officials? There will also be an opportunity for photos with the Mary Lou and this Another opportunity for city departments To table and for our community to get more information about the very width from the various departments That make up the city the multicultural boots project March is women's history month Our team will highlight five amazing women throughout March in honor of women's history month And again, we really want to thank The following people and their families and great bird charlie to late Toledo Bernice Espinoza Rima marcarian and the monarch project as well as grace chung shulman. Thank you so much Our team is also hard at work at putting together a multicultural boots project display for the Mary Lou lowrider patrol car event and the booth will include an overview of the project along with Highlights thus far and also will be an opportunity for community members to share Their own stories of lowriding and healing and what the project means to them For the choice grant program the partnership receives 17 applications for cycle 11 Grant and the grant review team has been selected and we'll have more information To follow in June about the non-profit agencies and organizations that The grant review team selected we want to Launch our school outreach pilot program in collaboration between the office of community engagement and violence prevention partnership Our team is launching the school outreach pilot program and the pilot program has four goals Um The first is to mitigate youth's involvement in unhealthy behaviors Develop youth's emotional vocabulary and conflict resolution skills Expose youth to positive extracurricular activities also known as pro social activities Raise awareness of the violence prevention partnership resources and direct services This program was born out of the uptick in school violence that our local schools have and are Experiencing many of the root factors associated with issues Which are social emotional and financial issues created or exacerbated by the pandemic We'll be implementing the pilot program at two schools A high school and a middle school And the pilot program will include working with each school's restorative specialist Conducting weekly life skill sessions with participating youth Linking youth and families with our choice grant partners for additional support and services and those services That the gamut is pretty wide. So And there will be opportunities for pro social activities outside of school and these have been We've seen these called out a number of times via our conversations not only with community But with the violence prevention partnership Partners as well So staff will evaluate the pilot program using a pre and post assessment survey with the youth So more to come on that and that is the end of my report. Thank you Thank you so much director. Do we have any questions from council council member mcdonald Hi, I just wanted to make sure I heard you okay. Um, was it march 26? Is that the day of the event that you're having in the time for that and location? Yes, thank you, and it is march 26 from 4 to 8 p.m It will take place at the city hall parking lot. So it will be outdoors. We will continue all COVID safety protocols Any other questions? Thank you so much director. We really appreciate all the work and i'm looking forward to being out there for the for the launch Let's go on to seven point One second we'll go to public comment on our staff reports for tonight If you do have a comment on item 7.1 or 7.2 Go ahead hit the raise hand feature on your zoom Or if you're in the chambers and like to come up to the podium go ahead and queue up I see no hands and I see no one in the public. Did we have any voicemails? There are no voicemail public comments. Excellent. We'll move on then to item number eight Start with our city manager report. I have no report this evening. Okay And our city attorney report Thank you. Mr. Mayor. Yes, we are going to give a report on the charter review committee The charter review committee has been continuing to meet and doing its work And we have the chair of the committee patty sisco here to give the update. Thank you. Thanks patty Great. Thank you. Hopefully you can all hear me Patty sisco chair of the charter review committee Uh Here tonight to give you our second update of our progress on the charter review Uh, you may look in the chambers and see uh, vice chair or nesto all embarrassed there Who said he might be stopping by to give some visual support for our report tonight Um, since the last report, uh, we had our second meeting looking at the issue of the directly elected mayor I believe at the last report. I told you that the initial reaction Was tepid to say the least at our second meeting. We have the benefit of Two mayors who are directly elected Mayors, uh, mayor treisa barrett of pedaluma and americate colon of san rafael came gave us Wonderful presentations about how the directed directly elected mayor is working in their cities And the positives of having a directly elected mayor following those presentations the committee took up the discussion and Robust discussion and that we took a stockpile to see where the committee stood It was a very very close vote And because it was so close we decided that it was more fair to not make a recommendation one way or the other but To give you the benefit of a full report as to Our thinking the presentations Etc as opposed to trying to write up About language at this point or making a strong recommendation one way or the other So we're going to put that in more capable hands when we Finally hand over our report at some time in may Our last meeting we took up the issue of ranked choice voting We for that meeting we had the benefit of diva proto from the registrar of voters office Following her presentation and following su gallagher's presentation the committee's discussion resulted in a majority decision To not recommend placing ranked choice voting on the ballot We keep at the forefront of our discussion What problem are we trying to solve and the committee in a majority way Felt that the cost of implementing and continued administration of Ranked choice voting was very high and the research provided by staff Showed very little benefit or change in the ultimate result of elections that we're utilizing ranked choice voting We do meet tomorrow our meeting At that time is going to involve prioritizing the remaining items on the list that you provided I believe I told you we separated out initially and prioritized those things that could only be amended by charter that those being the directly elected mayor ranked choice voting and council compensation and Now we have the remaining nine to look at And we want because we only we have just a short amount of time. We want to prioritize What of those nine should be looked at The We've also In terms of our meetings have had a couple of more items added to that list that the committee is interested in taking up One being looking at council vacancy appointments given the Bit of the awkwardness of the last council vacancy appointment process And also a suggestion to take a look at non-citizen voting those two proposals came from committee members And we did get a proposal to look at from one member of the public lowering the required signatures for referendums We do have a letter from the public also urging the committee to take up the police auditor oversight to be included in the charter So that's in support of something that is part of our prior case the prioritization list Our process of doing that sue and rob have put together a little Just sort of descriptions of each of those items where some of them have Been dealt with By ordinance which does not mean that we can't recommend that they be dealt Also within the charter, but we wanted to give the the committee the full benefit of These are the items. This is what has or has not already been done by ordinance in the city or other types of plans types of things and so adding to the list those three items that I just described And then giving the opportunity for The each committee member to give their top three So that we come up hopefully with a consensus as to top two to take a look at Again, uh, our commitment to you is to take up everything that you gave us in some form or another And I think this method we will have at least gotten a description in front of the committee Anything that we don't recommend or don't do the deep dive on we should be able to hand back to you In sort of a parking lot format as to what you may or may want to do with that in the future Following that prioritization tomorrow night, we're going to be beginning to look at ballad language For the measure or measures that will make modifications to the charter to remove Unnecessary references like to the school board and to bring into alignment our switch from at-large elections to district elections We had been referring to those as omnibus measures. We've we're not going to call it that any longer So it's going to be charter amendment measures that modify existing language different from these more major charter amendment credentials we We may be looking at the two-year budget cycle other things that staff Departments may even want us to take a look at to include or change in the charter And we will be looking at a modification that allows at at your will to Take a look at reviewing the charter more frequently Than the 10-year cycle So what we were seeing is they may be that at some point you would want to take up district elections So you might want to take up Rick Joyce voting and you wouldn't be Your hands would not be tied by language that exists in the charter that says that can only be done on a 10-year cycle so looking at those kinds of things for general ballot language To to modify those items We we need to finish up the council compensation discussion One of our next meetings we should be getting to take a look at that of a variety of options for ballot language for council compensation And finalizing that language and then hopefully by that time we will have staff will have had the opportunity to To do some research and review to begin to give presentations on the other priorities that the committee chooses to look at Again, our timeline is to be able to deliver a complete report to you in early may So that you can go about doing the work that you need to do with those recommendations or report so With that If you have any questions be happy to answer them Thank you so much, madam chair. We'll see if there are any questions from council members Councilmember Fleming Thank you very much, and I appreciate all the work that you and your colleagues are doing I'm just curious to know how the standard for determining whether to move forward on something became That you were looking for a problem that it was solving rather than Some other standard like, you know general improvement or the value that we'd get for the effort I think it's it's not the only thing that we're looking at. It's one of the lenses that we've been looking at Throughout this this process similar to, you know, we're also looking through the lens of equity principles that is a standing item so it's just I think it's a it's a Question in the back of everyone's mind. Is there a problem? Do we need to, you know, and I think it's all encompassing as to what you said Is there something to be improved here? Is there something incomplete about How we want our charter to read It's very helpful. Yeah, I would just offer that sometimes there's a great opportunity for improvement That may not be directly tied to a problem, but it sounds like you're looking at it very holistically Thank you. Yeah, I think that's what we're doing. Yeah. Thank you Council member mcdonnell I just have a question for clarification in the charter and maybe this is currently in there and sue might be able to Help me with this but as far as if we needed to amend the charter Can you do it by like two-thirds vote of this council to bring it back for consideration? Is it something like a bylaws amendment of a nonprofit or it's only every 10 years? They're able to bring those back for consideration Thank you for that question The charter actually in my view is a little bit ambiguous And so the proposal is in this general amendment is to clarify that yes, there will be a review Every 10 years or the committee may decide that should be a shorter time period or longer period But there will be that comprehensive review at least periodically But that will also clarify that at any time ballot measure could be put Could be put before the voters to make a charter amendment at any time if it becomes You know necessary or appropriate And that those ballot measures for a charter amendment could be done by initiative citizen initiative or by Ordinance adopted by the council so two avenues to get there But again at this point there is not that separate provision for Hey, you can amend the the charter at other times if there's an if a need arises But that's what we want to clarify Thank you Thank you so much for your leadership on this madam chair. We'll go to public comment on the update particularly on our charter review update I'm looking to see if the vice chair has anything that he wanted to add since he did grace us with his presence today No All right Let's go to mr. DeWitt Hello, duane deWitt from roseland. I wanted to thank miss sisco And the city attorney for the comments they've just made and miss philemming for the questions that she just asked miss mcdonald also These are very important things One of the most important things to remember is that a charter review Should try to have these equity principles that you mentioned social equity Should be ingrained in this, but it's not This process so far has been exclusionary because it's been zoomed This whole thing has basically been under covet and it's only today where you can stand up here and speak without a mask That people can come in here and be a part of what's going on So i'm asking that tomorrow's charter review meeting be held in a city facility Where the people can come to the meeting and participate without having to zoom Because they're actually zoomed out a lot of folks that would like to participate They have questions They want to make sure that equity principles help us to get a popularly elected mayor This has come up before because essentially the mayor on a two-year cycle is picked by associates typically people that they knew From the chamber of commerce From the labor unions that they might have worked with things like that having the support to get them into that position Rather than the people choosing who their leader is This is very important. I came down here in the past and I spoke about the idea of term limits And that wasn't mentioned by chair siscoe A one-year budget review That is Imperative that we keep that if we go out to two years We're going to lose the oversight that the public might have had We've already done that in the last few years by changing the amounts of money That require a report or require a competitive bidding It used to be much lower and now you've bounced it way up into the millions so Vacancies and non-citizen voting and council compensation that stuff that's been generated Perhaps by the folks on the council more than the community there should perhaps be publication Put things out into the newspapers Letting the public know that this is happening now and if they want to get their word in They should do these letters because apparently that does get addressed as miss siscoe mentioned those things came up One of the things that I think is really important was mentioned by the city attorney just now The opportunities to amend the charter This could be one of the most Impactful changes if you put that in and allow the charter to be amended Instead of having to wait 10 years down the road like we've done I've been through three of this the third time i've watched this with any type of Oversight and I know it doesn't work well. Thank you Thank you Mr. Mayor I guess I shouldn't pass up the opportunity to speak to you since I'm here in the chamber, but Uh, chair siscoe did a very gave you a very concise report and update on what's going on with the charter review But what I want to do is I want to thank you for The thought that went into appointing the charter review committee From my perspective is a very diverse committee And I also want to thank the city for Providing us some of the resources like so coral shields who came in to talk to us and guide us through some of the equity principles That we need to consider But it's also interesting that as mr. DeWitt mentioned that traditionally we tend to see some of the same faces on the charter reviews Meaning those that are very familiar with local government. This is different This is different in that we have some that have not been engaged And I think what that brings to the committee is a different thought a different thought where people don't make assumptions about What may or may not be appropriate to bring up to the committee, but they're open to to provide those new Views and input as well. So I just wanted to acknowledge that because from young to More senior folks like myself. I mean, it's a it's a very very diverse group And I just want to thank you for the effort that you put into bringing this group together. So thank you Thank you so much I'll go ahead bring it back and I do want to echo my my thanks I've watched a number of the charter review meetings that have happened And I've been very pleasantly surprised and and impressed with the level of discourse that's happened amongst folks And as the former mayor said not just people who have traditionally been involved in the city But we have high school students We have folks who have never served on boards or commissions that are asking questions about how does the city operate And how can we make it better? And it's been really a lot of fun to watch Council any additional comments? Okay, let's move on to our next item any statements of abstention from council members tonight and thank you very much madam chair Thank you Mr. Vice mayor Thank you, mayor. I'll be able to abstain from item 12.7 It is cannabis related issue and I am in the Kansas issue Okay, thank you so much any other statements from council members statements of abstention Great, we'll go on to our mayors and council member reports who wants to start Mr. Vice mayor Thank you once again, mayor This morning. We sat with the downtown subcommittee where we discussed A lot of party that's being planned. So I'm hoping that people are getting ready to come out and enjoy the community We were informed that four of the general parking spaces which served as a electric vehicle charging station Will be converted to a charging station only we were also made aware of Of the reduction fees that have been occurring since July 2020 through the summer 2021 And I want to inform the community of the amount of free parking spaces And and parking garages that are available to them when they do come visit downtown For example, we do have free parking at first third and seventh street garages on the weekends free garage parking 5 6 a.m Monday through Friday in the garages free Saturday parking at fifth and D street garages Free for our first hour is free at our third fifth and D street garages And we were also informed that in the actual free reduction between July 2020 to december 2021 This 842,000 with the projected fee reduction The first half of 2022 to be three hundred and seventy thousand dollars And I also want to thank you mayor for for for being there president this morning And with that being said, we're also we also prove the the deterrents that will be placed on our our public Furniture so to speak to deter escape orders escape borders and and type of vandalism And it's actually quite Unique design There are oak leaves with acorns that you will hopefully be seeing soon there in the downtown Courthouse Square. Thank you, mayor Thank you, mr. Vice mayor Any other report councilmember Fleming? Sure, I'm thank you, mayor I'm pleased to report that last wednesday the metropolitan transportation commission met and prioritized funding for the sales force transit building which would be in downtown san francisco And many may wonder why this is important to us here in san aroza but it will end up connecting to cal trans and bart and riders from golden gate bridge district and It will move tens of thousands of people around the bay area more equitably and reduce carbon emissions It is Really an exciting project and I look forward to bringing you more updates as it moves through the funding process Additionally on friday the red housing fund met for the first time and we were pleased to And little, you know, it's difficult when you're oversubscribed But we we are oversubscribed. There are more builders who want to build affordable and market rate housing in downtown san aroza and our nearby neighborhoods and You will see shovels in the ground in the next few years if not sooner It is really really exciting. No decisions were made, but there will be more information forthcoming Councilmember rogers Um, I just wanted to point out that we were able to I was able to participate in the point in time count. I believe that is the correct Name for it. So I wanted to thank council member schwedhelm for Pointing that out to the council And although I know we're always invited giving us Another invitation to do so Because it was a very awesome experience and it was my first time doing it, but I can guarantee you that it will not be my last So thank you for getting me out there at five a.m It was an enjoyable experience and um, I hope to be out there again next year. So thank you very much Thank you council member council member schwedhelm Thank you, mr. And I just wanted to also reflect on the point in time count, you know, this year was different It's usually the last friday in january, but due to cove in some other Issues it got moved to last friday. Um, and what's also interesting is, you know, how quickly we've come with the new technology So the county and the continuum of care identified this new app, which I think hopefully will lead to some increased accuracies Going from the last previous years that I've done it where it's literally a clipboard and pencil checking boxes writing in We're now having it all electronic The downside to it was kind of a sense of community with all the hundreds of volunteers that participated typically would meet At the family support center over there on 7th street. Have a nice, you know gathering Break up the team. So this one you started off on your own But I think both you and mayor rogers for participating It is early, but it is a very valuable data point for our community moving forward. So thank you for your participation Thank you so much council member And I was going to report out on that as well and just mention that It is a good opportunity for folks to get out there and see how we can collect data and how we can use that data to better move Our policies forward our funding forward And so I do want to thank council member schwedhelm for his continued leadership on that issue And for helping to organize council members to to get out there and to participate We are curious to see what the numbers will look like this year partially because of a change of methodology partially because Of all of the efforts that we've put in But we were in the downtown core And I will say it was much better than I've seen it in a long time And I know that we had a lot of folks that were also over at the warming center But those numbers in that district as well were also down from what they've been previously So I am excited to see sort of what the the results are as we move forward I wanted to make a couple of Appointment announcements. We had left a couple of positions open and had put some folks in temporary positions While we were seeking our new council member. So I do want to make sure that we get council member mcdonald Putting in as many hours as we can possibly get out of her Here as our Phil injectivates and and taken over for that district So I will be appointing council member council member mcdonald to the open bpu liaison position Council member mcdonald will be replacing me on the open government committee Council member mcdonald will be replacing The vice mayor on the climate action committee And then we'll also serve as the alternate for the health action board as well as the alternate for the library advisory board The only other opening that we had was for downtown as you heard from the vice mayor. I joined that this morning I will be appointing myself to be the third member of the downtown committee But vice chair or excuse me the vice mayor will continue to lead that committee as the chair But go to our oh, and I will make one more announcement Received word from staff that they are in the process of changing finalizing updating our park lit program So we actually are going to pull item 14.2 for today We're going to hold that item for future work from From our staff and bring that forward with more public input looking like in middle of april And i'll make that announcement again when we get a little bit closer to that item So 14.2 will not be heard tonight. It will be heard in april With that let's go to public comment for our staff or excuse me our council member reports And are they in the chamber like to provide comment? I see no hands on zoom. Did we have any voicemails? No voicemail public comment. Okay We'll keep moving then Let's go on. We have no minutes for approval tonight. Madam city manager. Can you please introduce the consent calendar? Consent item number 12.1 is a resolution authorizing authorization for request of low carbon transit operations program funding for fiscal year 21 and 22 Item 12.2 is a resolution Approval of a purchase order for two vat con combination sewer and storm drain cleaners and one vat con hydro excavator to vat con ink Green cove springs florida california under source will cooperative agreement number 101 221 vat Item 12.3 is a resolution Approval of purchase order under the houston gallison area counsel cooperative agreement r a 0 5 21 to motor robot solutions incorporated To replace and modernize existing transit radios Item 12.4 is a resolution waiver of competitive bid award fts forest technology systems ltd Remote automatic weather stations Item 12.5 is a resolution Making required monthly findings and authorizing the continued use of teleconferencing For public meetings of the city council and all city boards commissions and committees Pursuant to assembly bill 361 Item 12.6 is a resolution rescinding resolution number res 1221 200 And adopting a revised resolution authorizing the submittal of an application Requesting an amount not to exceed 13.29 million To the state of california department of housing and community developments home key grant program For the city to be a co-applicant on st. Vincent de paul commons and authorizing the city manager our designee to execute the application and the home key documents Item 12.7 is a resolution cannabis equity grant acceptance and authorization. Thank you Thank you. We'll start with questions from city council members Are there any questions on the consent calendar for tonight? Seeing them we'll go to public comment Dwayne you look like you're ready Yes, sir. Dwayne do it from roseland I wanted to thank you for this new process of this teleconferencing in the sense that It makes it available to people who cannot come to city hall By the same token, I ask that you keep it Keep this available all the way through to the future. It's part of your open government approach and Also publicize better that now these chambers are open that now that the mask mandates are falling by the wayside We could be having meetings where people can come to our government facilities again After two years It's time You can open these things up if they can hold super bowls With 50 60 thousand people together You can have meetings With us sitting six eight ten feet apart whatever you might want to choose It is the kind of thing that's going to make us more Collaborative I believe people will feel like we're back with our government and that's a positive then regarding the um approach that gets taken On this resolution for the st. Vincent de paul comments That's a wonderful thing that's going forward in many ways But a lot of folks don't know anything about this type of a project and how it's going to be a positive thing for our community They just see st. Vincent de paul over there Near the tracks and they just see folks hanging out out front and they get a An image that sticks with them thinking that it's only for the downtrodden and it's not helpful This is a helpful resolution. I believe and this is a good thing But it's not well publicized. So the people in the community don't understand that you're not um Giving something for nothing to these people I've actually heard so many comments recently, especially about the homeless count Like why are we bending over backwards to help people who won't help themselves? I don't believe that I know that you need to help these folks and I know that there's a need Even greater. You probably didn't get account of a lot of folks that were out there I um will bring that up during public comment But I just wanted to once again say please publicize that you've opened up city hall to vaccinated people And get it out there in the newspapers a lot of us older folks aren't tuned in Like the smartphone generation. We still read newspapers And a lot of us don't even have computers at home I have to do my stuff at the library and when the library is closed We can't be at the public meetings That you folks hold early in the morning like the downtown soap committee things like that the library is not open yet So thanks for listening to the older folks a little bit all the best to you All right, let's see if there's any other public comments Seeing none. I'll bring it back. Mr. Vice Mayor. Do you want to put a motion on the table? I would thank you mayor. I move items 12.1 through 12.6 with the exception of item 12.7 As requested by myself vice mayor alvarez and way further reading of the text Second We have a motion from the vice mayor and a second from councilmember soyer Any additional comments? All right, let's call the vote Councilmember schwethelm. Hi councilmember soyer Councilmember rogers. Hi councilmember mcdonald. Hi councilmember fleming. Yes vice mayor alvarez Mayor rogers. Hi that motion passes with seven eyes All right, i'll entertain a motion on item 12.7 Oh moved second A motion from councilmember soyer and a second from councilmember mcdonald. Let's call the vote Councilmember schwethelm. Hi councilmember soyer. Hi councilmember rogers. Hi councilmember mcdonald. Hi councilmember fleming Mayor rogers. Hi That motion passes with six eyes with vice mayor alvarez abstaining All right, and then council we're three minutes away from our public comment for non-agenda items We can't begin that until five. We also have a public hearing set for five o'clock I don't want to be disingenuous and just move on to the next item and and have Then come late. So we're going to take just a quick two minute recess here until five o'clock Come back to public comment for non-agenda items Then do our public hearing and go through the rest of our our meeting agenda. So we'll be right back I just need this I will let brian know. Yeah, okay. So there's none where you're sitting now chamber your mic is on Thank you All right. Thank you everybody. That was a long two minutes. Let's go ahead and call the roll and reestablish our quorum Thank you, mayor Councilmember schwethelm here councilmember soyer here councilmember rogers as it councilmember mcdonald here Councilmember fleming here vice mayor alvarez Mayor rogers here at the record show that all council members are present Great. Let's go on to our public comment for non-agenda items. We have Three minutes for folks if it's within the jurisdiction of the city of santa rosa We can't get into a back and forth But what we can do is take down some notes and ask the appropriate staff to get back to you So if you want to provide comment go ahead make your way towards the podium Testing that on Yeah, make sure you get really close to that microphone so we can hear you I would like to thank the santa rosa council for allowing me the opportunity to speak My name is josé arturo ibarra and I live in woodside hills community located in district four of santa rosa On behalf of my community, I would like to also thank victoria fleming jesse aswell andry triple sherry meads for their communications with us regarding short-term rentals Our community's hoa ccnr strictly prohibit short-term rentals Yet we currently have two homeowners who are conducting short-term rentals and who are now seeking short-term rental permits We are not asking our city council to enforce our hoa ccnr's We are asking our city council to honor and respect What has been established for many many years in our community and that of many other hoas in our city of santa rosa Our current emergency short-term rental ordinance lacks such honor and respect A simple sentence requesting hoa approval incorporated into the permanent short-term rental ordinance indeed Will honor and respect our long-standing covenants officially recorded by the city of santa rosa in sonoma county In accordance with our discussions with city representatives regarding the current emergency short-term rental ordinance Over three months ago. We submitted many violations from both of the short-term rental properties in our community And none of them to date having addressed by code enforcement We were told by email via email on february 24 2022 Just two business days ago that the assistant shift building officer Official in charge of code enforcement has resigned and the code enforcement department has had a large staff turnover So I ask you How are we to proceed when the emergency ordinance is apparently not being enforced? The ordinance does not honor and respect our santa rosa citizens Our santa rosa police department our santa rosa fire department and our santa rosa city workers Additionally santa rosa is experiencing a severe and ongoing Housing crisis that has been worsened by the wildfire disasters that have repeated since 2017 The conversion of housing units to short-term rentals reduces the supply of housing available to severe To serve long-term residents and increase housing costs for both renters and buyers There are approximately 400 short-term rental operating within the united santa rosa city limits A number that will continue to grow unless a clear path is established to limit or eliminate short-term rental operations We respectfully ask that our city officials here Honor and respect our points and act on our behalf to protect the rights of property owners and affected by out By out of control short-term rentals and preserve our neighborhoods from corporations and out-of-town investors Conducting a for-profit enterprise in residential neighborhoods and our turning our communities into hotel zones We don't need hotels operating in residential neighborhoods All right. Thank you so much. Like I mentioned with public comment for don agenda items We can't get into a discussion tonight. It's a violation of the brown act But you do have staff that's been taking notes And can circle back and help you and work with the issue and that is an issue that'll come back before the council Here, uh, not too long from now Mr. Duit My name is duane duit. I'm from roseland and I wanted to Say thank you to that gentleman for speaking about this topic tonight. That was a very important Discussion that he just brought forward and I hope it will be acted upon I wanted to talk about the good work you folks did the other day with the count of the unsheltered people on that morning Not going out as early as you folks Looking at the roseland neighborhood We don't want to go out there in the dark because people feel Uncomfortable with strangers coming near their campments Their encampments are on city land City land that has a sign that says illegal to camp And yet they've been there some of them for over a year It's a sad situation when anyone has to live outside He might have seen the recent press democrat articles About a very large encampment upon a piece of private land next to roseland creek Sometimes euphemistically called the mud pit because of the big rains that happened in the past and it never really cleared up One of the dilemmas there is that people have been Depending upon the city to solve it and they might not be getting the best approach Some years back over on richmond drive near the junior college One homeowner was derelict in his neighborly duties if you will So the city worked with neighbors To file a complaint against that property owner for nuisance and for vicarious liability For the other property owners nearby being negatively affected And a suit was able to go forward And monetary damages were brought And that property owner then made changes Because the property owner at the mud pit is an affordable development housing Housing developer out of clovis california It would seem that you as the city council Could work with your code enforcement people To get that same type of legal approach taken for this nuisance that's there. It's actually a public health problem too It's polluting the creek. There's a lot of problems that were mentioned in those stories So you don't have to take it from me go out there and walk The sonoma county water agency recently upgraded the pathways on roseland creek Without paving them keep that in mind also. It's not asphalt or concrete. It's hard pack And you can go by there and you can see the mud pit for yourselves And last but not least I want to thank you that you're trying To resolve these problems with the unsheltered Think about seniors and veterans extended stay suites That's a model that can work Thank you for your help Thank you, mr. Dwight. Do we have any other public comments for non agenda items? See none on zoom. Did we have any voicemails there are no voicemail public comments on this item Okay, let's go ahead bring it back. We'll move on to item 15.1. That's our redistricting hearing As for folks who are new we do our public hearings as close to five o'clock as we can for maximum participation We'll come back to some of our report items our 14.1 and our 14.3 And again, we polled item 14.2 For a pending date, but we'll let's go on to item 15.1 Item 15.1 is a public hearing redistricting of city council districts fair maps act Fourth public hearing in a series of public forums. I would like to introduce city clerk Stephanie williams who will give the report Thank you council This is our fifth public hearing we held a community outreach meeting on february 17th For a demonstration for the public on how to use the district our tool and to submit any maps We did get one map submitted that was included in your packet However, the consultant who is to present I don't see on the call unless they are On and can raise their hand to let me know Otherwise I can walk through the presentation as best I can In their absence If you want to go ahead and bring the presentation up sandy Thank you next slide So as you know, the california fair maps act requires that The a set of criteria must be followed when redistricting plans Districts need to be relatively equal in size and must be continuous And they must maintain communities of interest Districts should follow city and censored designated census designated place boundaries And should keep districts compact compact in appearance and functions and by functions. I'm That would be a communities of interest Homeowners associations Things like that next slide So from communities of interest to maps with more cities and counties using Community-based redistricting We move redistricting out into the public with maps driven by community of interest testimony So input from community drives the process with multiple ways for the public to engage And by that they can in our case they can provide a Hard copy of a map submitted to the city clerk's office They can go on the district r-tool where it will be saved and Uploaded all of the maps are there for the public to see And then the rules for process emphasize the importance of traditional criteria and minimize divisions of neighborhoods And then we release the maps for feedback by the council And so there will be maps presented today that may spark more public engagement Next slide, please So district r is our mapping tool and As I mentioned before we did hold a community outreach meeting this state Says february 24th, but it actually was In on february 17th at the finley community center at 6 p.m We we've received eight district maps from the public and have received two community of interest maps And then just as a reminder The city council can uplift any maps submitted by the public to be considered as an official draft map So over the map submitted including the ones that were presented at the last meeting any of those council can uplift For consideration as an official draft map That can be adopted Next slide, please So this is one of the maps submitted it was hand written And really there are no lines drawn, but it is Saying that they prefer district one should be essentially the same Next slide So this map only Um outlined a couple of areas the blue This is a community of interest the blue is the town and country area The red and purple identified as the roseland neighborhood The teal color is identified as junior college neighborhood And then the gold as the mcdonald historic district Next slide So this map submitted shows a population distribution as you can see on the right there the Districts are pretty close in population And this is map identified as 104 953 There's no name associated with this, but this has been uploaded to district r For the public and council to see Next slide, please Another map submitted is uh, submitted Santa Rosa emw design A map 109 846 and again the districts are pretty Equal And you can see the various colors and how they this map has been submitted Next slide This map 103881 titled s r7 again A different shading of maps and different district lines as you can see from the Various colors and they are pretty close also And it looks it looks like most people who are submitting maps are Getting the districts pretty close and are not breaking them Up and keeping them pretty contiguous Next slide This map has some Minor adjustments, so it looks like this may have been submitted Earlier, but this is map 102 252 And this just shows some minor adjustments to our current district team Next slide map 101 628 Submitted by Chapman or titled Chapman This shows it districts a little differently As you can see and again the district populations are pretty equal And at the bottom you can see I just noticed this now the deviation there on these maps This one is 1.19 Next slide This map 105 507 titled gigs plan this has again some Uh districts are pretty equal with a deviation of 0.73 percent Next map And this map is uh 105 165 I'm titled Victoria Fleming and this is just showing one district and the deviation here is 4.3 percent But there's an assigned population as you can see since this was only reflecting one district Next slide map 114 211 again is only showing one district With a population of 25,537 and the deviation for this district is 0.14 percent Next slide And then we are just reviewing the three maps that were submitted these were created by our consultant redistricting partners And we provided these again as Draft maps and approved for release as draft maps to the public and each plan has an overview The data table individual district pages and web map that has been provided to the district and is available on the city's redistricting website Next slide So this is map a I believe And this is showing the existing lines Next slide And then this is showing the data for that map And the different Deviations for each of the districts And then the bottom portion of this is showing the citizen voting age population For each of the districts also A number of population Next slide So the total deviation of the plan is the sum of the absolute values of the highest and lowest district And so here this plan deviation is 20.6 percent Not sure why that was highlighted. I'm sorry So map a was created based on minimal changes to the current District lines and it was changed to decrease total deviation From the current population Next slide So this is map a Next slide And then draft map a with the existing Um The strict lines showing So you can see where some of the districts cross over the current lines To adjust the population deviation Next slide That just highlights where it um crosses over bumps out Next slide And again, this is uh the census Um Information for draft map a and the citizen voting age population for draft map a So the total deviation for that is 3.7 So draft map b uses major highways streets and neighborhoods to divide boundaries And then with notable neighborhoods of D1 of bennett valley south park d2 junior college greater cherry street bourbonne gardens D3 kenwood D4 rebly wallace cobblestone lomita heights d5 lincoln manor copperfield West end d6 apple valley and d7 roseland Next slide So this is a draft map a b Next slide And then this is draft map b with the existing Um district lines showing so that you can see where um The new draft map crosses over or The existing district lines Next slide And then this is the uh census and citizen voting age population information for draft map b With the total deviation of 5.5 percent And then map c was based on a district or submit a district or submission Next slide This is a draft map c Next slide And then this is the draft map with the existing district lines showing And you can see where the changes are Next slide And again, this is the uh census and citizen voting age population for draft map c With a total deviation of 3.8 percent Next slide So what's next is the city council can make use of these mapping options in a number of ways Identify preferred plans with an understanding that none of these are final plans It is an iterative process You can suggest possible changes if there are a map that the council Would like to see changes to and adjustments can be made to any of the draft maps and you can provide direction to staff for us to work with the Um consultants for the preparation of a new draft map to be put out for public input and future review and adoption And consider new draft maps at a public hearing scheduled for the next regularly scheduled council meeting Which will be held on march 29th Next slide That concludes the presentation As best as i can do in the absence of our consultant I appreciate that madame city clerk. Do we still not have our consultant on zoom? Should we take a five minute? Yes, we could take a five minute break. Let me reach out to them and see if they are If I can get a hold of them. Great. Thank you. We'll take a five minute recess and we'll come back All right, we're back madame city clerk. Can you please call the roll? Thank you mayor councilmember schwedhelm here councilmember soyer here councilmember rogers president Councilmember mcdonald here councilmember fleming here vice mayor alvarez Mayor rogers here let the record show that all council members are present All right council, so we're going to make this up a little bit as we go So we still have not located our consultant yet and we do have somebody who will be joining us who will be able to Answer questions and get us through the assignment. So what we're going to do is we're going to actually put item 15.1 on pause We'll come back to it later in the meeting and we're going to move on to item 14.1 Which we do have our staff for and we can do our discussion deliberations on and we'll come back to 15.1 After this item Assuming that we have somebody who can answer our questions Now we'll we'll come back to item 15.1. Mr. DeWitt Mr. Madam city manager Item 14.1 is a report Recommendation for consultant for homeless solutions strategic plan I'd like to introduce kelly keikendall housing and community services manager. Thank you Thank you city manager smith. Good afternoon. Mayor rogers and vice mayor alvarez The item before you this afternoon is a staff recommendation For consultants who help the city develop a homelessness solutions strategic plan Next slide, please This slide provides you an outline of my presentation I'll cover the requests for proposals or rfp including the purpose and scope The proposals received and staff recommendation Before I jump into that. I just want to say how excited I am to be Presenting this or bringing this to you this afternoon You all know that addressing homelessness in the community is a top council priority And you have demonstrated that by increasing your investment in homeless services over the past several years And you've done so to the best of your ability and alignment with housing first and best practices And the goal of the strategic plan is to guide the city's efforts to address homelessness in the community moving forward Next slide, please The purpose of the rfp Was to seek A professional consultant to help the city prepare a five-year homelessness solutions strategic plan And step by step action plan to address homelessness in the community And achieve functional zero homelessness and alignment with the sinema county continued care I'll talk briefly about functional zero This is an approach that acknowledges that we're not going to end homelessness That people will continue to fall into homelessness But we will try to make sure that that experience with homelessness Is rare brief and non-recurring So the ultimate goal is that if we have someone who becomes homeless We're able to quickly shelter them and quickly house them ideally within 30 days Quickly resolving their homelessness Just to touch briefly on the intent and intent of the strategic plan Is to identify existing resources and gaps To develop clear and concise goals that are measurable and actionable And implement strategies to effectively reduce homelessness in santa rosa Next slide This slide covers the scope of the rfp and there are three phases the first phase is To conduct an assessment of existing systems and stakeholders and this will occur Subject to your approval this this afternoon evening between march and may of 2022. So starting this month And the first phase really is a needs assessment And involves stakeholder engagement including with our continuum of care As well as internal city city meetings and out of phase one We'll have a work plan a communication plan and findings from the needs assessment Phase two this is drafting the plan itself and that will occur between may and july And phase three this is the the phase where we'll be finalizing the plan That's to occur between july and august and the goal is to bring this back to city council for your review And hopefully adoption in august Next slide So the rfp was developed in consultation with the council housing and homeless ad hoc It was issued on december 7 2021 It was due on december excuse me due on january 7 2022 and six proposals were received in response to the rfp This was a great response. We were very excited about it and the evaluation committee to review the proposals convened on january 26 2022 There were nine members and that included staff from the city manager's office housing and community services transportation public works and human resources staff from the sonoma county community development commission A subject matter expert from the private sector A community continuum of care coc board member and council member schwethelm who is also on the continuum of care Next slide, please So this slide is the criteria that was included with the rfp and Used by the evaluation committee to score the proposals I'm not going to go into each of these in detail. I will share with you that under experience This did include a diversity equity and inclusion component so we were looking for plans or proposals That demonstrated an experience addressing equity and alignment with this council priority And under other we were really looking for the quality and completeness of the proposals And any other factors that the evaluation committee deemed relevant related to the rfp itself Next slide, please So for scoring as I mentioned we received six proposals the six agencies are listed here in the slide The scoring was broken down into three tiers. The first tier is Focus strategies and home base They have direct experience An extensive experience developing strategic plans to reduce and homelessness The second tier was third plateau and leaps solutions And the third tier was public works in earnston young Next slide, please So following the evaluation committee and the scoring the committee recommended that we interview the top two proposals As you could see in the previous slide The the scores between focus strategies and home base were very close So interviews were conducted on february 9th and then following the interviews Uh, the group uh recommended or selected focus strategies and that is the consultant that staff is recommending this afternoon I will say um They were uh between focus strategies and home base as you saw with the spores and then following the interviews They were both very close and uh focus strategies just had Slightly higher scoring in both the scoring and the interviews and that's why they're being selected this afternoon or recommended this afternoon I'll touch briefly on uh, both of the consultants So focus strategies and home base, uh, as I mentioned have extensive experience developing strategic plans They both submitted quality proposals They both have local experience. So home base is currently working with our continuum of care to develop a county-wide strategic plan and focus strategies has experience with our prior continuum of care board homeson emma county And is currently working with the county as a technical assistance provider with their project home key applications both of the um Both focus strategies and home base in the interviews Raised that implementation is a key part of the process that it has to be built into the strategic planning process otherwise At the end of that process you end up with just a plan on your shelf and nothing that can be be implemented So I'll bring it back to why we landed on focus strategies again. I want to tie it back to the scoring in the interviews Focus strategies had just a slight edge above above home base and in both of those I do Want to highlight three things that stood out with focuses with focus strategies Proposal as well as the interview that includes their experience developing city specific strategic plans Within a county framework. They're currently doing similar work for the city of anion They also demonstrated a depth of knowledge related to diversity equity and inclusion in their interview and In the interview and also in their proposal demonstrated experience developing detailed In depth and into individualized work related to strategic plans Next slide please So focus strategies is based in walnut california. That's in southern california They have 15 years experience as I mentioned they have experience consulting and as a technical Uh assistance firm and extensive experience developing strategies as well as local experience Next slide please So the professional service agreement which is included in your packet The budget for this project is a hundred thousand dollars About 89,000 of that is for the project itself So the strategic planning work and then we've budgeted about ten thousand dollars as a contingency for additional work at the request of the city Should we need it? the initial timeframe in the rfp requested Proposers are consultant to Consultants to complete the work by june or july of this year We realized that this was too ambitious if we want to do this right if we want to have a comprehensive strategic planning process So in the agreement, we have it set up for an initial six month period And an option to extend that for additional six months. Should we need it again? We don't want to rush. We want to be sure that we do a comprehensive process Also aligning with the continuum of care and their strategic planning efforts, which are underway and are anticipated to be completed by december of this year Next slide please With that it is recommended by the city manager's office that the council by resolution One approve a professional services agreement with focused strategies In walnut california for the development of a homelessness solutions strategic plan In the amount of a hundred thousand dollars for an initial six month period march 1st 2022 to august 31st 22 2022 with an option to extend for an additional six month period september 1 2022 to february 28 2023 And authorize the chief financial officer to appropriate hundred thousand dollars for this purpose from homeless fund 1209 reserves that this concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have I know that megan curteff curteff shats if i'm saying her name correctly And hannah gossett with focused strategies are listening in and are prepared to speak during public comment. Thank you Great. Thank you so much. Kelly. I'll look to council to see if there are any questions on the item councilmember fleming Thank you mayor and thank you miss kreikendall. I do appreciate it and that as well as to the the selection committee For all of your work. I'm curious to know with this organization that's been recommended Have they demonstrated that when their strategic plans are adopted and funded and executed that there has been A reduction in the amount of people who are experiencing homelessness That is an excellent question And I have done some research on their their their work and followed up with their references. I have not Gone to that level of detail and as I mentioned focused strategies is Is listening in and prepared to speak during public comment So anticipate that they would be able to speak to that question. Okay. Thank you Thank you Any other questions Councilmember mcdonald I just have one question since we did the count on friday I'm wondering when those numbers will be available if this is something that Would be beneficial for these partners to work with so that they have current numbers and current situation of our unhoused population Thank you for that question. Typically we have the the count results In the summer usually around the june or july time frame. So this that Data or that information falls within the scope of of this RFP and within the scope of the strategic plan All right, nothing any other questions from council members. Let's go to public comment and we'll start on zoom with megan great well Good evening mayor rogers and council members. Thank you so much kelly. This is megan curtiff shots and the president focused strategies And we are thrilled to have been selected to assist you in developing your homeless solutions strategic plan We're hopeful that That you will prove that recommendation this evening As kelly mentioned, we are a nationally recognized technical assistance provider We help communities across the country to reduce homelessness and advance permanent housing solutions Our approach to planning is closely aligned with your goals and priorities Which is why we're particularly excited about the opportunity to develop your plan if approved For example in our work We help communities lift up the voices of people with lived experience of homelessness and advance equity for people of color and other historically disenfranchised groups Our work is most well known for being data informed and holistic in nature Our goal is to work alongside your staff Stakeholder and community leadership to determine which actions will help you reduce homelessness the most with available resources I want to take a moment to acknowledge council member of plemmings question, which is an excellent question We do have a very strong track record of helping communities to reduce homelessness um, and I will say in recent years um, some of what we're helping some communities do is reduce the number of additional new people becoming homeless And staying homeless for a long time I think it's really important to acknowledge that being successful with planning work Requires what kelly mentioned in her remarks, which is excellence in implementation a plan is only as good as um, the the extent to which it is implemented and we work very hard with the communities that we work with to advance implementation opportunities and lay the ground work for implementation along the way Um at while we're doing the planning work I would say the communities where we have done planning work where we have been successful in working with the staff To lay the tracks for implementation This are the places we have the strongest track record of having a meaningful impact And the numbers of people experiencing homelessness When there isn't that capacity locally, um, or the ability to implement the strategies identified in the planning process is when Our firm and I think all firms of who do good work on this topic really struggle to to make an impact um I'm focusing my comments right now on that side of things because the that you know We are entirely mission driven and all of our work is about helping communities advance and we want to make sure that we are um If selected and approved that we are able to help you move forward and we hope to do so by really advancing that Implementation work. Um, thank you very much. We really appreciate the opportunity and hope to be Selected this evening. Thank you All right. Thank you so much Megan We'll go to saves Hi, this is Gregory Farron. I guess I need to change that back. So it says Gregory instead of saves, but I think I'm speaking for them We look forward to working with Megan and Hannah and we wanted just to make sure that Another resource that she may or may not know about I believe Kelly does which is the banny off study that was done a few months ago the data for that their interviews with An awful lot of homeless I think would prove valuable in their research and in their work in the strategic plan And I I know that they'll probably be both aware of the strategic planning efforts by the coc But I would hope that we could dovetail Both strategic planning efforts and have them. Um, you know, at least learn from each other and perhaps share some of the process In Sonoma county, as you know, santa rosa and Sonoma county Are both going to be spending a heck of a lot of money making decisions about 400,000, I mean four million dollars worth of arpa money, which is definitely going to be aimed at homeless solutions In the next six months. It's in our arpa process There may be even more money coming out of the 34 million that the county still has to allocate Related to homelessness and then of course as Tom knows and others that the coc has its own pots of money that are coming down the pike Haps three you will have another four and a half million dollars for homeless programs So with all of that on the line, I would just try to urge as much as possible Either early indications of need and early strategic planning efforts To dovetail into decisions that the coc Will be making there's a new as Tom knows a new strategic Coc that will be elected tomorrow And so the timing is perfect for having a strategic plan and I I thank the city for Taking the initiative to be able to help put the city and in part of the driving force for How homeless services are delivered? So I just wanted Megan and Hannah to know about They're not alone in the process of trying to come up with what we had to do with what money is coming available And I and saves and everybody else as Stakeholders in the process will be working very closely with them. Thank you Thank you sponsor Gregory See no other hands nor anybody in the chambers moving for the podium. Did we have any voicemails? There are no voicemail public comments on this item. Okay, council member Sawyer. You had a question. I do thank you, mayor And maybe this I'm not really sure who would who's around to answer this question. It may be Councilmember Schwedhelm, but was there anything that stood out in our community that was unique Enough to mention or different than the other communities that the consultants dealt with that made us Uh, either more challenging or or maybe the other way made me Opened up more doors of possibility for for success And I was I was thinking I kind of forgot that Megan was on the only had three minutes So I I was I was kind of hoping that she'd be around to answer that question Kelly do you want to answer that first and I can add anything because I know you talk with a couple of jurisdictions Yeah, are you I was trying to follow the question council member Sawyer. Sorry and um Are you are you trying to get more information about you know from their references that Just was there anything that that stood out of santa rosa's in santa rosa's situation that was um that made our community either more challenging or Actually, or maybe where we had more opportunities for success Something that stood out that that made us unique Or not well, I think so, you know And may I may I just interrupt? Um, certainly that's a a very good question and Kelly, I just wanted to caution to not reveal Any references or or what they Specifically said but in terms of if you are aware of differences between the the communities Certainly can address that and that's a very good question. So In terms of differences between communities in santa rosa and some of the other communities Um, there's nothing that stands out to me Uh, you know Generally speaking speaking Something I learned through the process is just Um That you know, there's a strong desire in our community Um, and there's a lot of I mean, I think we're already aware of this, right? But this came as a learning through the process um There's a willingness to To work on this issue and there's a a a drive in soma county in santa rosa Uh to work on this issue and in a strategic way And so I think that our community our community is ready for this um and uh I think it's going to be really helpful for us to have a consultant to to guide us through that Community process That's good news. Thank you. If that answers your question It does indeed and I appreciate it. I didn't mean to blindside you It's a kind of a Um, a curiosity question in a way But you know, that's that was for the committee to to listen to and decide on in their interviews and in their In the production of their recommendations. So I appreciate your answer. Thank you And if I can add I'll keep my eye on the city An attorney if I venture too far one of the unique Or not so unique thing about This type of work is that I've heard from several consultants that a lot of cities and counties don't get along They don't really play well and quite frankly. That's where we were a couple years ago But due to the awesome job that kelly did in the evaluation committee We had someone from staff of the county. We had an elected official from another jurisdiction That's not in santa rosa. This is a regional issue and I know both of I think I could say this They recognize that that you guys are a little different because it appears that you're playing well in the sandbox We're collaborating on this issue that affects us all and that although they weren't as specific as I was Each of the consultants at least when we did the interview just recognize that not all Jurisdictions get along as well as they appear to be up here in sonoma county Excellent. Thank you Any other questions or comments council? All right, let's go ahead and put a motion on the table. I do believe that this is councilmember schwedhelm's at up Eddie Mr. Vice mayor go for it I appreciate it. That's what I get for not being there in person, right? My question was more of a general one in on page five in the contract Additional services. I was wondering what what typically falls under additional services if you can give us a few examples Excellent question vice mayor alvarez and I think Let me just look at you're looking at page five. It's a contract. That is correct Uh nine additional services So it's you know, it's not specifically Defined in the contract and that's why we put in the the contingency of that $10,000 I think as we move through this process if we identify that there's additional work That's not identified in the scope We want to provide ourselves some flexibilities some flexibility to to engage You know engage in that work. So I don't have that defined right now And I think we're going to learn that as we move You know through the process if we stray too far from the initial Scope or intent of the work and staff would you know, bring that back to city council for for their input and certainly If we went over the budget, which we don't plan on doing we have to bring that back to council Very well Would the applicants happen to know from their experiences anything that they've run into in other other cities that Might have produced the need for additional services So, you know focus strategies would have to answer that. I'm not quite sure how we do that in this Format I would defer to the the mayor or I'm gonna look to the city attorney. Is it okay if we allow the applicant to answer a couple of questions Yes, you may ask that applicant to answer those questions. I do see that makin has Hand up on zoom Quite sure what the right thing to do was Could we refer back to the original question of examples that you might have experienced as as As needed in other in other cities that you work with Yes, I so I just want to make sure I'm understanding. So I think the question you're asking is in Other places. Have we had a contingency fund and if so, how was it used? Yes Okay, um, mr. Alvaro tells me about alvarez is frozen. I don't know if on if you guys can hear me We can hear you for sure Uh, but yeah, the vice mayor does appear a little frozen. So I think his his question was Have you had a contingency fund in other jurisdictions and what did you end up doing with the contingency fund? If anything Yes, we have had some some cities just have a policy that all of their Contacts of certain kinds have a 10 percent or 20 percent contingency So those are the instances I'm we've most commonly had a contingency fund I would say the most common use of the contingency fund In my experience is to begin implementation work Which I highly recommend if possible. Um, which I didn't have enough time in the public comment period earlier to sort of finish that conversation The council member Fleming brought up around, um, you know, how how do you know that your work is? The plans are implemented and actually reduces homelessness And the answer to that really is dependent on the quality of implementation So I would say that is the most common use and I would say it's often the highest and best use If that opportunity were to emerge. I'm not even sure that that falls within what Kelly was thinking so but I'm just sort of You know trying to answer the questions fully as I can The other case where we have used contingency funds is in a case where you find that there are stakeholders or people who've lived experience or marginalized communities who are Overrepresented in the homeless population or the housing unstable population Who are perhaps not Having meaningful opportunity to engage in the planning process because of some kind of You know scheduling accessibility different kinds of issues and so we have In the past been able to use those funds to expand the opportunities for stakeholder engagement That is also an excellent use. Um, and we've also had contingency funds that We did not use because we finished the project As planned on time and on budget All right. Thank you so much And we'll see if we can get the vice mayor back here But in the short term, let's see if there are any other questions from council Okay, mr. Schwedhelm Hey, mr. Mayor, I'd move a resolution of the council the city of santa rosa Approving a professional services agreement with focused strategies for the development of a homeless solution strategic plan In the amount of $100,000 for an initial six-month period, which is march 1 2022 to august 31st 2022 with an option to extend for an additional six-month period, which is september 1st 2022 through February 28th 2023 and authorize the chief financial officer to appropriate $100,000 for this purpose from homeless fund 1209 reserves and waive for the reading the text Second We have a motion from council member schwedhelm and a second from council member rogers Let's go ahead and call the vote council member schwedhelm I will have time for comments after the vote. Thank you council member soyer council member rogers I council member mcdonnell right council member fleming count vice mayor alvarez Mayor rogers I That motion passes with six eyes with vice mayor alvarez absent And council member schwedhelm I do just want to comment on a couple things First the comment about that dead data It was kind of interesting because home base did provide feedback to our strategic planning committee with the continuum of care And they analyzed the data regarding the last point in time count. Well, that was from 2022 So two years old and I asked them that very question. How do you incorporate that? You know, are they're the same trends because what's happened between 2020 and 2022? So they're in a tough spot there the continuum of care But as we get additional data, they'll be trying to factor that in and then I really did appreciate council member fleming's question about the success rate And I always look at consultants says, you know, what we're hiring Focus strategy to do is a process consultant and not what they call a doctor consultant In other words, they're not coming here to fix our community It's incumbent upon us and that's why I think it's a great reminder We're going to come up with a plan and it's up to us and I think kelly mentioned it It's not going to sit on the shelf And we need to be actively engaged and we need to keep it a priority And this is in my opinion or it will go like many of these other plans do there's great plans But if it just sits on a shelf, that's all it's going to do This is going to be action-oriented and I know the city manager is going to make sure we incorporate all this and so That's that big difference. So I don't think it's a hundred percent reflection of the consultant because they can do all their great work But if the entity or the client aka city of santa rosa if we drop the ball and we don't Commit to what we said we were going to do that's on us. So but it's a great point to stay focused on it And I do just really want to thank kelly for The process that she was able to come up with Developing the first round of questions, which was great But the the panel there that collaboration from throughout different aspects of our community and it was rich It wasn't folks You know, I think all of us have been on some of these panels where Some people here's my numbers and there's no engagement. No dialogue. That's not what occurred during this process And especially when we got to the point where there's two top, you know, tier one candidates Then kelly developed an additional set of questions with input from our community She also did, you know, some of the background check that we won't talk about But some of that stuff had helped us develop questions for when we had the in-person conversations Not the in-person but the live conversations with both the consultants who are very well qualified I think we're in a great position of it's going to be a win-win So I really do appreciate kelly. I I've participated in a lot of these but you did an outstanding job with this and I think it's just going to be Reflective of the end product that we are going to get to functional zero Within the next couple of years because I think this will set that roadmap for us to be successful Thanks Great. Thank you so much councilmember Any other comments questions Great Thank you again kelly for all of your work and thank you to the the panel that really dug into the rfps We're looking forward to seeing what the report says when it comes back Council let's move now back to item 15.1 And again for the public we polled item 14.2 for the day that will come back at a later time So we'll move back to item 15.1. That's our public hearing Mr. Mitchell, thank you for joining us We did have a chance to run through the initial Presentation from our city clerk and so we were where we were at was Questions from council members about some of the different maps And I'm wondering if you had anything you wanted to add first in terms of context From the presentation or if we should just jump right into councilmember comments on the maps Yeah, thank you very much for having me. I think just one thing To kind of give context to these maps first off redistricting In california has changed significantly over the last decade And the redistricting process is intended to be much more public facing and community based And that's why in this presentation we lead with what we've seen in Public submissions and our job really is to try to take what's being provided by the public Make it fit within the requirements of the law Because you have to make sure districts are equally populated that they're compact they're contiguous and so on And then work with you as the council members to try to come up with a mapping Uh scenario that you feel works for you for the remaining decade now There are structurally some things also to be to note in these plans Traditionally throughout the state when we do redistricting our draft plan a is somewhat of a minimum change plan And in that plan we show Not only the new potential lines that you could adopt but also where those small adjustments are made largely for population But also trying to snap those lines to any kind of neighborhoods or major streets And then uh in the end actually making a plan that is a little bit more compact than your current plan Uh, there's also one difference between that draft plan a and both b and c In that your current draft plan or your current plan has What some might refer to as kind of a a donut district or an island in the middle where you do have a district That's district number five That is in the middle of your city with the other districts all around it Uh, that allows you to have a district that has more of the downtown population in it and the uh other plans b and c just kind of like the From stepping away and looking at these kind of as a macro level The big difference in these other plans b and c is that they don't have a district in the middle All the districts come in from the outside and so structurally that might be something that Is very appealing or not appealing but that is one kind of like major Difference in this plan that relationship of either having one district that's kind of in the middle Or having all the districts kind of come from the outsides Uh, your current total plan deviation is over 20 percent meaning that Uh, you need districts to be within 10 percent total plan deviation And so you have to basically have at least have that difference between your largest and smallest districts That puts you kind of in the middle around the state in terms of the amount of change that you're going to be required to have in your redistricting We've had some redistricting where agencies have been able to adopt their existing lines because they Were under 10 percent. We've had others that had their boundaries be a 70 percent total plan deviation meaning that their largest district was Three quarters of a district larger than their smaller district. Um, so Uh, you could in this instance choose to stick with the existing structure A minimum change option or you could look at these other Plans b and c that are drawn from public submissions and decide to go in a kind of different direction with your plan for the next decade And with that i'm happy to answer any questions Great. Thank you so much. And I really appreciate you being on here and providing that context Council, do we have any questions? So I had a couple of questions on map a And I asked this, uh, specifically last time And i'm still looking for an answer on it, but if you look at the Southwest corner of district five. So you talked about the donut There there is Right along west third street There's a jut out after stony point. It's the only part of the district that crosses stony point And my question is why is it for population balancing? Is it for demographic balancing because I seemed to remember Last time when we were discussing this I dropped it into our redistricting Website changed that back to its original district, which is district seven in our existing maps And it didn't unbalance the population more Uh, or at least not not substantially So i'm wondering if you can give us a little bit of context around why that change is being recommended Yeah, I believe that that change was a change to deal with population um So it pushed Hmm But you're saying that when you actually did the change it didn't make much population difference So with the exit with the map the way that it's being presented right now The maximum population deviation is 2.57 with that jut out If That jut is put back into district seven It does push up the max population deviation, but only the to four point five points Maybe to like yeah, so I see what you're saying. So the current district seven Is at 3.1 over population So if you were to keep if you were to say I want to use draft plan a but I want to keep district seven the same Then uh doing that would Have your total plan deviation be Uh, 5.7. I think because you still have a district two that is over by 2.6 in draft plan a So 2.6 plus 3.1 would be 5.7 total plan deviation But that would be something that you could choose to do I can double check to make sure there's not an issue there with that census block, but Yeah, I think that you could say I want to use draft plan a but keep districts having the same All right, I appreciate that I just I keep asking the question dot because I I think that it should be in one district or the other But because it does stand out, uh, literally like a sore thumb And part of what we do have to do is go back and explain to the public how and why the districts Were shaped the way that they were And I I just never want to give the impression to the public that we did things for a reason other than What we were legally permitted to do or for our communities of interest. Yeah Yeah, I can definitely look into that but if it's a One of the criteria and the rank criteria through the fair maps act is that districts are understandable by voters And it seems as though following a major road there Or maintaining the existing boundary might make those lines be more understandable by voters And so that could be one way to interpret that criteria and to maintain that line there And I can look and make sure there's nothing wrong with Doing that based on there were some changes in the census block boundaries In ways that were kind of unexpected that did make some of the existing lines not possible to follow in some of our redistricting I'm not sure if that's the case here, but if something like that were the case, I could let you know but Making a suggestion like hey, I want to see a map a2 that takes a but Maintains these existing lines in seven would be a way to kind of characterize a potential New map to come back at your next hearing Okay, and then for map c Believe it's map c You can pull that one up my Maybe it's map b I apologies No, it is map c so on map c It does look like it cuts through the middle of roseland I don't think I think this is the A different map the consultants map map c Yeah, there you go If you look at the difference the line between districts one and seven That cuts through roseland, which is our predominantly latino neighborhood or one of the predominantly latino neighborhoods for our community and has been identified in portrait of sinema county and other resources as a As a disadvantaged community this map Might be population balanced, but does it meet the criteria that we have around not disenfranchising minority voters Well, I think there are a couple ways of looking at that one is through the voting rights act lens and in that lens you're looking at districts based on whether or not they Are disenfranchising voters and their ability to elect a candidate of their choice and that lens requires you to have districts that can be Majority minority latino as opposed to simply like a plurality or Some smaller percentage of latino so it doesn't become A major a voting rights act concern and what it is is potentially a community of interest concern And communities of interest in the redistribution the rank criteria is is a pretty high criteria And so if there is a identified community of interest there Especially if there were to be any public submissions of an area That a community group came forward and said, you know, this is our community of interest and we want to keep it whole Then that definitely could be something to to consider there was a roseland neighborhood community of interest that was submitted That you could utilize and say well, I want to make sure that when we draw district seven We maintain that roseland neighborhood And use that as the basis you would want to use that public submission as the basis rather than talking about the Potential change based solely on a racial factor because we don't have the protection under section two of the voting rights act to do that Um, but you could as an example say well, you know, if we bring back map C I want to see it keeping that roseland community whole And if it's not possible to do that then to just not have map C come back because you're concerned about that community I appreciate that. I'm going to bury the lead a little bit here, but I have a hard time with map B One of the maps because it splits coffee park, which is a community of interest in half And then one of our other ones map C And I might have those backwards so C splits roseland, which is a community of interest B splits coffee park, which is a community of interest Which only leaves us then really with a which is substantively what we have now And so that's the part that I'm struggling with a little bit as we discuss What redistricting looks like and into the future is We have a couple of maps that have been submitted by the public that envision things a little bit different But but really there's the out of the three that are being presented Two of them are completely unworkable to me for that For that reason so I that's why I asked the question about legal protections around it Council are there any other questions for mr. Mitchell councilmember rogers This may have been answered already In our first second third or fourth meeting, but my question is When you're submitting a map, do you have to be a resident? of the city of santa rosa and how is that checked or or not checked Um And I'm wondering because when I look at some of the maps, I'm wondering what is the motive Behind the way some of the maps are drawn and I that's just my I guess my Wondering inquiring minds want to know what people are thinking and they're drawing some of these maps And what are their their motives in in doing so and splitting coffee park or splitting rosalina Some of those things so what is the you do not have to be a resident to have submitted a map I also want to mention, you know, the mayor focused on The three maps that have been identified as map a b and c Council can also consider any of the maps obviously that were submitted by the public So those are also on the table And throughout uh every state we've worked in every local government we've worked in There has never been any agency that's restricted public submissions only to the residents of the agency It just traditionally hasn't been done but We look at these maps that get submitted basically on the face and see if they do Kind of meet the criteria and when they don't or when they split a community of interest then It's that's where your prerogative is to prefer one map over another for sure any other questions council All right, so madame city clerk, can you before we go to the public hearing Can you remind the council and the public sort of what the process looks like from here on out? This is our fifth meeting on this What are our options going forward from tonight? As I mentioned in the presentation what we need from council is to Direct us to either elevate some of these maps for official consideration and Or give us direction to modify the maps as mr. Mitchell indicated You can direct us that you like map a but want to map a too with The district line Reinstated for district seven to remain the same So any kind of feedback like that so that when we come back on the 29th We have some maps for council to Officially consider with the possible adoption of one of those maps Okay, so if the council chose to elevate one of the maps tonight It'd be brought for approval On the 29th if council wanted to modify it Do we have to come back and do another public hearing and then bring it a later council meeting the approval? We do if you modified it tonight. We do need to Make that map available to the public on the website We have to publish that modified map for seven days before the next public hearing and At that time at the next public hearing if council wants to adopt that map they can an ordinance will be provided for council to adopt the new district map For council members Okay, great. Thank you. Let's go ahead go ahead and go to our public hearing. I'm going to open the public hearing We'll start with our comments on zoom and I have gregory furan Thank you. Thank you, mayor. I wanted to give you a little bit of background on the three different maps which I evidently submitted I was Uh, the first map was not supposed to be a council district map submission. It's 446 the one that's actually in your gallery Please take that out. I wasn't considering That as a council submission. In fact, as you remember the last time you did a redistricting I was very active and one of my maps ended up in one of the final decisions So I thought wow, why don't I play with these this redistricting and see if I can do a similar job I found the communities of interest mapping much more interesting to me than I did the actual submission So the one that's in there just has my little, you know, neighborhood It says gregory So, please take it out the other two were more interesting to me And I think consistent with what you're trying to get By preserving communities of interest the first one was We had just I'd just been at a Cab meeting and as you know, san rosa together is very interested in trying to make both cab and the city And its actions neighborhood-based. So I took the cab Boundaries and used the community of interest map that you have to try to draw the cab boundaries Just to see if I could, you know, make sense of whether or not that old Map that was done for cab had anything to do with communities of interest. So there is one in the In the communities of interest that says cab It's not a submission for the city because it cab only has five districts and you have seven But it was an interesting map and I I submitted just for that interest. There is one that says SRT It's also in the communities of interest and I want to point out that that was going to be my attempt not at trying to figure out a Council district but figuring out where the communities of interest are in the city And I put three or four in there and that's what you see if you pulled up that map But it's not complete what I wanted to do and I I didn't know that I had to do it so fast But I wanted to ask everybody I know in the city to draw their communities of interest and use that one communities of interest map to try to come up with a communities of interest All city wide which then I would try to take if we were doing this logically and draw a council district districts But unless you know the communities of interest just like I know most of you do You can't really do a a council district map that has anything to do with communities of interest But I think that's the way to go now. You don't have enough time to do that So I guess what I'm saying is that's been my experience if you if you if that helps you understand What at least one member of the public out here is trying to do with your mapping system My overall comment is you got better tools this time I was fascinated with the communities of interest one and I think even if you No matter what you do with the district I'm I'm hoping you keep that up because I'd like to you know build maps based on communities of interest for lots of other things Thank you very much I thank you so much Gregory We'll go to brian Sorry, I was on mute Brian Ling and I'm on the charter review committee as well At the prior hearing I testified in favor of map a and want to just reiterate that That my encouragement is map a The the consultant mentioned public submissions and for somebody like me that likes the existing map I did not give a public submission other than this testimony. So please accept that accordingly My reason are minimal disruptions to the existing district boundaries One of the problems you start changing things around it creates confusion And I think confusion is probably the single reason why Eligible people don't vote and we want to give as many people to the polls as possible Additionally the the CRC Through a number of our discussions on the different items We've been consistent Almost unanimously that we need to give district elections a chance our current boundaries We have officially elected One person in each boundary We've had one election and we need to have a couple cycles and really play this out and It's an experiment that has played itself very well in the results so far And I see good things ahead And I think it's best to just keep these boundaries and and Maybe 10 years from now it might be time to make some changes and we will have learned a lot more between now and then So I support the council to continue with map a and That's it. Thank you Great. Thank you so much, brian. We'll go to ananda Good evening, mayor rogers and council members Ananda suite with the sander is a metro chamber of commerce The sander is a metro chamber supports a few key principles for the 2022 redistricting process At first we support minimal changes to ensure population balance while causing minimal disruption For the last two years virtually every aspect of life has been changed dramatically by the cova 19 pandemic We continue to face uncertainty and really need a council that can move forward and guide sander as the efforts through ongoing pandemic challenges and recovery Major changes would disrupt this needed focus and minimal challenges to the districts to ensure population balance will support an effective and collaborative city council We would also urge you to keep as many districts representing the downtown core as possible Downtown sander rosa is a critical time in its history and one that requires as many council districts as possible to have a direct stake in downtown future The reunification of courthouse square and creation of a downtown action organization were critical steps to support a vibrant downtown Investment downtown represents an opportunity to generate lasting benefits including thriving employers access to good jobs business retention and recruitment environmentally sustainable development and increased tax revenue and property value These benefits offer a higher return on investment and maximizing the opportunities to create a vibrant downtown is critical to the success of our city Our final principle aligns with the benefits of minimal change But we feel is valuable to call out on its own and that's to keep copy park and fountain grove in separate districts As both continue to rebuild and recover from the devastation of the tubs fire and have endured delays magnified by the pandemic It would best serve both communities to maintain their inclusion separate districts Allowing one city council member to focus on each area individually and better support their recovery So these principles at this time best align with map a and we would urge you to support these principles. Thank you Thank you ananda I see no other hands. Did we have any voicemail public comments? We have no voicemail public comment. All right. I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing bring it back to council So council, I think what we'll do is we'll go down the line and have folks give their Preferred choice of how we move forward either to recommend a map and see if we have consensus Or to offer modifications of a map to bring back Or to offer a couple of maps that you'd like to continue to to bring back and do another public hearing on I'll start all the way to my left with councilmember Sawyer Welcome to your new seat Thank you, mayor. Does this mean that I guess to start every time just just checking. Oh, we'll switch off From the middle out as well um I have yet to over the the years of dealing with this particular map a um The status quo I have not received one email nor I have received one phone call that complained about the map Um, maybe it's because it's new and people had not lived with it long enough and maybe in the future There will be reasons to make changes to this particular map But I agree with with the callers Um, I I truly believe that that minimal minimum changes and minimal disruption Will create minimal disruption and minimal confusion And I'm not really sure what to do about the um That one change that you mentioned mayor. I mean it would take a another um hearing But I agree with you that it's it is unfortunate that it's that it's like that It would be nice to be consistent. Um, if I was in that little ball bout I would wonder why and Whether that's a good enough reason to Um If it's not too much difficulty to to revisit that and with another hearing that I would be in favor of doing that I just um would I think in the spirit Of consistency, it would be nice not to have that that one piece if we can get away with it without creating um A going awry of the of the process and law So I'm really I'm I'm really really going to move forward with with map a Um, I'm just not sure what to do with that one little piece that you brought to our attention Thank you councilmember. We'll go to councilmember sweadow Thank you, mr. Mayor. Um, so overall I I am in support of map a with the adjustment that you talked about because really someone from the outside looking like That's the definition of jerrymandry. I'll bet you there's a council person who lives in that little bull bout So I think that needs to be fixed and again knowing that the road it's stony point road. That's to me That's a it's a it's a no-brainer. Let's eliminate that closer to what we have now And overall I'm supportive what we did in 2018 because we just did it in 2018. We're learning the community is Understanding and learning the difference between general election and district elections and more importantly who the representative is So whatever my adjustments we make so we're consistent with the law. I'm very supportive I would also In favor of getting rid of map b because quite frankly it's Trying to use the right word without sounding too aggressive, but some of the neighborhoods you mentioned it Mr. Mayor that coffee park is gone So the united states speaker the house came to coffee park on december 18th She didn't come to apple valley. Why because that community showed What it's like if you get together after you've received, you know, this devastating incident that tubs fire You come together as a community in rebuild and she said this is a place where other communities Can examine follow the lead here And if you look on this slide that tops talks about maps to review There's no longer coffee park doesn't exist nor does fountain grove And then district three they mentioned kenwood last time I checked that's not even in the city They don't even mention oakmont And again district six apple valley is in the district But that's not what district six in northwest santa rosa has been about so I would like to eliminate map b from Future discussions because I just don't think it has any value whatsoever I'm supportive of map a with little micro micro adjustments such that you suggested Thank you council member we'll go to council member fleming Yes, I do um because I for whatever reason I remain unable to see Uh street lines wonder if on map a If the fairgrounds remains in district two or if it's in district one Can somebody more able to tell Yeah, it does remain it remains in district two so the line is uh hendley that comes down on the West side of the fairgrounds Okay, that makes sense to me the the comments that I have largely been shared the one reason why I'm You know, I would like to have all of our districts be population balanced But the the jut out from district five into district seven The the real issue there for me is that it's not You know, we don't have a good rationale for it here And so if we if I can't explain something to myself I I'm not going to ask the public to try to explain it So I I think we have to scrap that on The basis that it sows confusion and when there's confusion there's doubt and and we lose trust And then I just wanted to add one other comment Which is that the map that has my name on it was not submitted by me I don't know who submitted it. It's a good map But it was not submitted by me and I agree with tom. I think it's fine to scrap map map b I know that my residents in fountain grove and Would not be thrilled to have their their neighborhood Separated into multiple districts. I think that would be Difficult for them to continue their advocacy that way Okay, councilmember mcdonald So I too am in favor of map a and I agree with the mayor on that little piece that jumps out You know, we just had for the first time somebody be able to be elected from that district And so my question it's kind of a question and a comment Prior to this little map on a that little piece was always in district seven than prior to this So with that shift in change, that's what I would be in favor of I think one of the things they talked about and discussed was ensuring that voters know where to go for For voting and I would hate to have any small change like that change even where they report to voting And I'm not sure how that would work But I think just for that consistency as mr. Lean actually mentioned on the phone To make sure that we don't cause confusion would be something I would be in favor of Councilmember rogers um, I am definitely in favor of tossing out b and c um, and um I like map a and I like stony point Going down stony point and getting rid of the Thumb or whatever you referred Even if it means we have to have another public hearing, I think that it needs to be done because that was It needs to be done. So thank you Mr. Vice mayor Thank you mayor and thank you So member rogers for staying map c to be cancelled out as well. I feel that both b and c Do divide the community as as the community of interest So with that being said it's it's I'm definitely advocating for map a For the reasons that a caller stated where we're just exploring what district elections are and I feel that it'll be very confusing To now redraw the lines. I feel that it gives us time to grow as districts And and figure out what we look at and identify and how we identify with each other The the fifth district being in the middle of Of six of our districts. I think it only speaks to how important downtown is to the vitality to each of our districts So therefore, I really do love that district five is that that don't hold the Of the bankers box of the street. Thank you All right. Thank you councilmember So I I too am gonna Throw my my shoulder behind map a I think that it makes the most sense. Um, I was Mentioning the the jet out, but it wasn't going to be a sword that I was going to fall on But it does sound like council generally agrees. Let's fix that so that we can then Do this right and be able to explain to the public what we're doing What I would want us to make sure that we're doing before we leave today's meeting though Is giving some direction to the demographer that if that change is made and it's found that for whatever reason it it unbalances the population or It needs to be changed instead of having to do Another public hearing. Let's give a little bit of context to the to the demographer on Where to balance? It seems a little bit obvious to me that If you move that chunk back into district seven Then if district five ends up below population And just look at the balance of all of the other districts district two Is overbalanced And so my suggestion would be that if the demographer needs to add some population into district five due to that change That it does take somewhere in district two so that we stay within the deviation That that'd be my suggestion, but i'll kind of look to council to see I'm seeing thumbs up over here If it helps, I've already sent the new map to this city To your staff. I've done the changes and sent it to the staff and it does fit within the 10% deviation So draft plan a two was while you were talking I was drawing So draft plan a two has been converted to a pdf and been sent to the city staff so that you can be So you can receive it Okay, so we'll still need to to see it for another public hearing because it wasn't made available to the public ahead of time And we've seen that become a problem in some jurisdictions But what you're saying is that if we get rid of that little jet out And then do nothing else to the map it should be good Your total plan deviation ends up being 7.2, but that's well within the 10% range Okay, great But I think what i'm hearing from the council is direction to bring that map map a with that one adjustment Bring that back to council as the sole map for approval for the for the public to weigh in on If we still agree at that point we'll then bring it as an action item for council to adopt that That map It'll be labeled map a two Okay Yes, we will have that ready for our council for march 29th Okay All right, any other feedback comments from council All right. Thank you so much. Mr. Mitchell. We really appreciate you jumping on To make sure we can keep this process moving forward and thank you for the quick amendment on the map We appreciate that as well Of course, thank you very much. Have a great evening. Okay Council we have no other items for presentation tonight. I will note that we have two Written communications item 16.1 and 16.2 You'll notice that there's more information provided than normal and I want to give a shout out to scottelonzo for that They don't come with the presentation But it's a little bit more context around the letters that we are sending on behalf of the city I will open it up for public comment on items 16.1 and 16.2 However, so if you do have a comment tonight hit the raise hand feature on your zoom And seeing none. Do we have any voicemails? We have no voicemail public comment on this item Okay, let's go to our final public comment for non-agenda items that's item 17 and see if we have any hands on zoom And i'm not seeing any I'm gonna double check with our team. Are we missing anything? It's been a It's been a fun meeting Okay, with that we are adjourned. Thank you everybody