 Okay. Is the city clerk ready? Council members. Okay. Thank you for your patience. Good afternoon. Welcome to the three o'clock p.m. session of the August 9th, 2022 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council. And I would like to ask the clerk to please call the roll. Thank you, Mayor. Council members. Calentary Johnson. Present. Holder. Cummings. Here. Brown. Council member Meyers. Present. Vice Mayor Watkins. Here. And Mayor Brunner. Present. Thank you. We will begin today's meeting with a presentation from Central Coast Community Energy Annual Update. And I'd like to invite Gabrieliz, Senior Commercial Accounts Manager of the Central Coast Community Energy. Welcome. Much appreciated. Thank you for the council's time today. I'm going to go ahead and just start to share my screen here. But I just wanted to introduce myself. Again, I'm from Central Coast Community Energy. I'm a Senior Commercial Accounts Manager. I do a lot of work in the Artrae County here in Santa Cruz San Bernardino in Monterey. But also working with a lot of our ag customers, a lot of my focus in my time goes up and down the Central Coast. So pleasure and I appreciate everyone's time today. One second here. I have my own technical difficulties. And just to confirm, everybody can see my screen. Correct. We can see. Thank you. Alright, so thank you again. So this will be this year's 2022 annual member agency update for the city of Santa Cruz. I like to start with just some details on how a CCA operates. I think it's good for new council members and the public attending this event to understand that. So really what we do as an agency is we go out and we procure the energy. So we buy the energy that goes to the grid. We do so from clean and renewable sources and also making sure that we are providing this energy at an affordable price. So really making sure that the community has access to clean and renewable energy at an affordable price. You still work with your investor own utility PG&E in this case. So they still maintain the transmission line substations and billing. But they, you know, in a meter reading. So that is still all done by the investor own utility. But one thing that we do is the revenue that we generate from the generation portion of your bill. We reinvest back. So right now there are 23 CCAs in the state serving over 11 million customers. And I think that's an important piece to understand that we're seeing a lot of growth when it comes to community choice. Really the goal of CCAs is to support their local governments and doing a couple of different things, meeting their climate action goals, providing residents and businesses within your area with more energy options and really just to ensure local transparency, accountability, and to drive economic development. You can see that over more than 200 cities and counties throughout California have chosen to participate in a community choice aggregate. So the agency is made up of 33 members. We call them member agencies, if you may say throughout the presentation. Member agencies are the cities and counties that have collectively agreed to provide their communities with cleaner energy. CCCE is the electricity provider to over 400,000 customer accounts along the central coast. Geographically, we are the largest CCA in California and represent a very diverse community. So within each of these communities here, we participate in different business and industry associations and as well as community-based organizations. So I'm also pleased to say that we have a 34th community that will soon be joining Central Coast Community Energy. The city of Atascadero recently voted to join as a member and we look forward to their future enrollment. So we are governed by two voting bodies that is our policy and operation boards. These boards are made up of city managers, mayors, council members, and other elected officials. Voting seats are determined by population. So just as an example there, if there are any member agencies over 50,000 people have their own voting seat, any below 50,000 is grouped together. So you can see there just as an example, of course, the city of Santa Cruz maintains a voting seat throughout our boards. And then as an example, you can see below that, you know, the other cities are grouped together. They can be shared. So, you know, the rotation, how many years one city staff member may be on the board is completely up to the group there. And we also have our community advisory council. And so they're really made up of qualified and committed individuals who have important connections to our diverse community. They serve as the advisory body to our policy and operations board and to CCC staff on different matters, policy recommendations, customer programs and community engagement. So Central Coast Community Energy serves over 94% of eligible customers in our service area. Some of the accomplishments that we've achieved in the last 12 months, we've increased our 3C prime. That's our 100% clean and renewable option by 40%. We've increased enrollment, making us again the largest geographically the largest CCA in the state by 25%. And our agency is right now, we are staffed with around 30 employees between two offices in Monterey and now San Luis Obispo. And since 2018, CCC has allocated over $27 million to local energy programs and has provided $50 million in customer savings. And we've also established there in our clean energy topic, we've also established their increases. So those numbers that you see on the clean energy side, we've actually increased our renewables. That number has increased by 49% and battery storage by 23%. And also something I always like to point out, which is I think kind of a great achievement from our executive staff here. We were able to receive an A rating from the SMP, the first CCA in the state to receive an A credit rating. And really this just allows us to do more for the communities that we serve. So really our goal is clearly stated, right? We are trying to provide our areas with, you know, clean and renewable energy, 100% of that energy coming from clean renewable sources by 2030. So in order to reach that goal, we have agreed to approximately over a billion dollars in long term solar plus storage contracts. We have executed 14 contracts with cleaning energy renewable providers. These projects that we are looking at are right now our goal. So those four, those projects here with that goal of 60% by 2025. Right now we are going to be able to reach that goal with the contracts that we have in place and the contracts come on between now and 2030. That will get us to that goal of 100% clean and renewable. So some big changes that we've had historically are rates have followed what we call the IOU minus model. So what we did essentially was take, simply we take the investor on utility rate and we apply a percentage discount. So one of the things you can see there, you know, obviously the years and how that has increased over the years. But something that I'd like to shine light on is, you know, in light of the pandemic and what was happening in our communities, we felt it was our role to create more value for our customers through a rate reduction. So our board unanimously voted to cut 50% of all three CE electric generation charges for the months of May and June in 2020. So, you know, with our customers in need, we just, we just figured this was an action that would provide a discount at a critical time. Since then throughout the year, we have been providing a 2% discount to our customers below the investor on utility rate. One thing, so we have had some changes to that. So with our new model, we call this our cost of service model. Really why it came is people came to us and said, okay, that's great that you're providing this discount to us, but the rates keep going up. And as the rates increase, we all in that model have to increase our rates as well. So to the end, we have created a new generation rate that will no longer follow the investor on utility generation rates with the goal of providing predictable, stable rates over a three-year period. We've simplified what we believe is the rate process. We feel that this is fair rates across all rate classes and staying competitive as well so that we're still competitive over a 12-month period in practically all rate classes. So it's very important for people to understand in the community to understand. To point out where your money is going, we talk about accountability. What we do is we would say of your bill, about 90% of that goes to what it costs us to buy the energy for a customer. Then what we do is we have 4% that goes to our energy programs. We have another 3% that goes to our rate stabilization fund. That is the fund that we partly dipped into to provide that 50% discount in 2020. And then another 3% goes to administrative costs, contracts that we have and such. So just to highlight some information here from the city itself. These are the number of enrolled customers, commercial and residential. 96% enrollment in the city of Santa Cruz, which is fantastic. That is above our average and I would say one of the highest enrollments that we have throughout our service area. And just to highlight some of the programs that your residents have taken part of. This year we had 161 applicants for our electrified ride program that consisted of e-bikes, electric vehicle purchase, rebate that we offered, commercial and at home charging as well. And then we also had a construction electrification grant. So this money went towards any project that was an affordable unit, affordable housing project and all electric. So these are the programs that we offered this year. Our fiscal year begins in October, but we have ag electrification, school bus electrification, school bus electrification. I believe we have nearly a dozen buses that are going to be hitting the ground I think by the end of the year. So we're very much looking forward to that. We have a new program now, our residential electrification program that is going to provide, rebates and incentives to customers to make switches in their homes. And then also we have a battery storage project that I will speak a little bit more about. But what I do like to highlight again is you can see in terms of funding towards our energy programs and how much money we are devoting and reinvesting back into the community. That has increased over the last four years. So here's the electrify ride program. Just a couple of things that I'll point out here is that again this is good for commercial and at home charging. There is additional rebates available to anybody that is income qualified. So if you're income qualified you can get up to $4,000. One thing that I really like that we did on our website was that we were able to, if you went there to apply for this rebate we would actually connect you with other organizations that provided rebates as well. All of our rebates are stackable. So if you want to use our rebate and rebate from another organization you are more than welcome to. So another project that we worked on, we have an RFP that was put out earlier this year. This is for local storage projects. We are working, right now we are working with I believe eight member agencies. We had 15 in total member agencies submit 90 sites for this project. I think we are down to eight and the sites are being assessed at this point. But really what this is going to allow us to do is to store energy at cheap times and put it back onto the grid at expensive times allows us to reduce the cost to our customers. Then in terms of our community engagement and outreach that we have done, we did 10 farm worker outreach events this year. We worked with local radio stations working on educating the Kivaya certain communities, specific communities. We do a lot with other community based organizations. There is a lot with chambers and other business associations as well. But I think we have a very, again I go back to how diverse our community is. We have a very strong focus on making sure that all income levels have access and are aware of the programs that we offer. It is very important that all of our customers take part in our programs and take advantage of the money that is there for them. Then lastly here I just wanted to share another bit. In terms of any services that the agency is looking for, whether it is for marketing, legal services, this is our venture registry that we develop. What we like to have local businesses, so the money that we spend on these contracts stays local. We are working with different chambers getting the information out there because we need these companies, these local businesses to register on our website. Once they do, when we are looking for services, we can go and communicate with them again trying to keep the money local. So a big focus on what we have been doing here at Central Coast Community Energy. At this point I would be happy to take any questions. Thank you so much Gabe for that information and those updates. Very helpful and interesting. Would you be able to share those slides with us? Yes, yes I believe... City Clerk has them? Yes, yes. I will look to any council members for any further questions. Council Member Brown. Thank you, thank you Gabe. For the presentation it is great to hear about the growth that is happening with 3CE. Having been on the policy board when we started up with Monterey Bay Community Power in the early days it is exciting to see all of the growth and the great work you are doing. I am really interested in the storage projects and the movement into that space because I know there are some real challenges with that related to not just resource challenges but regulatory challenges and other issues. If you could talk a little bit more about that and maybe a little bit about the projects that you are pursuing right now and what the thinking is for expanding upon storage capacity and support for local jurisdictions interested in that. Absolutely. I would say we are looking at the... We put out was to get about... We are looking for one... The goal is to look at each individual project anywhere between 1 to 5 megawatt battery storage project. Overall we want to get to 100 megawatts of locally stored batteries. I know that in the process right now we are looking at... I think we have narrowed it down to 8 sites and they are just going through verification making sure that it is the right site. This is the best for us if we need to pick different sites for whatever reason. I don't know exactly where those sites are currently at the moment but I know that will be shared once that has been decided. You mentioned that with some of the challenges and of course there are resource challenges out there right now and supply chain issues and there is no doubt that that has been a fact not just for us but across the industry. I will say that recently that the standalone storage is now a tax credit. That is information that I just received earlier today. We are still diving into that a little bit to understand what that really means and how we can take advantage of that to really drive more of these projects forward. Thank you. Wonderful news. Thank you Council Member Brown. Any other questions for Gabe? Okay. Wonderful. Thank you so much for that update and annual presentation. Thank you. Can the City Clerk make a note that Council Member Golder is now present? Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Okay. Now we move on into the agenda and the presiding officer's announcements. I have a few announcements. The first announcement I have is a community celebration this week. It will be Thursday, this Thursday, August 11th at La Barranca Park and that is located at 700 Bay Street. This is the groundbreaking for Coastal Rail Trail Segment 7 Phase 2. I believe Council Member Brown and Council Member Golder will be in attendance with me as well as other local people and festivities and groundbreaking. We have a poster up here on the slide. You should be able to see that. It is from 12.15 to 12.45 p.m. and there will be free bike valet and parking. All the details are on the City website if you have further questions. So we hope to see you on Thursday. The next announcement I have is from PETA. PETA is the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the US PETA has named the City of Santa Cruz as one of the top 10 vegan friendly beach towns of 2022. They listed 10 cities. We are in the top 5 actually and preceded by San Diego, California, West Palm Beach, Florida, Charleston, South Carolina, Santa Cruz and Newport Road Island. Moving on, today's meeting is being broadcast live on Community Television Channel 25 and streaming on the City's website, CityofSantaCruise.com. Our rules of decorum are on the window ledge to my left if you are joining us in person. It is my job to keep the meeting running without disruption and we ask that you respect your fellow citizens when you are inside or outside of council chambers. For the consideration of our community, please stay home if you have any symptoms of a cold or flu or feeling unwell in any way. If you are joining us virtually today and wish to comment on an agenda item, call in at the beginning of the item you are wanting to comment on using the instructions on the screen at the time. Please mute your television or streaming device once you call in and listen through the phone. Please note there's also a delay in streaming, so if you happen to continue to listen on your television or streaming device, you may miss your opportunity to speak. Also, when it's your time for public comment, please raise your hand. If you're virtual, you can dial star nine on your phone or select the raise hand feature in the webinar controls on your computer. If you are joining us in person, you can sign in at the front podium at the clipboard. Please note that public comment today is heard only on items that council is taking action on and not on regular updates and reports. The items that will be open for public comment during today's meeting are items number 10 through 29 on our agenda. All right. That concludes my announcements. I'd like to ask the council members if there are any statements of disqualification today. Let me check virtually. Council member Myers none. Thank you. Okay. So there are none. I'd like to ask the city clerk to announce any additions or deletions to the agenda. There are none. Thank you. Thank you. And I'd like to call on the city attorney to report on our closed session this morning. Good afternoon, Mayor Brunner, members of the city council. This afternoon, the council met in closed session in a hybrid format at 12 30 p.m. to consider the following items. First, before convening the closed session, the council voted to refer to items of real property negotiations. To closed session, first being city owned property located on Mount Herman Road in Scots Valley, bearing assessors parcels numbers 022721 0708 and 09, commonly referred to as the Sky Park property. Second item was the real property at 333 Locust Street, bearing assessors parcel number 00503303. On that item, council member Myers, appearing remotely, announced that she would be refusing herself from consideration of that matter due to a conflict of interest and did not participate in the closed session discussion. Closed session items were as follows. First was a conference with legal council involving liability claims. Claims of Denise Susan Barr and second claim involving Progressive West Insurance Company. Those items are also listed as number 16 on your consent agenda this afternoon. Item four was a conference with labor negotiators involving all bargaining groups, SCIU Temps, SCIU service employees, mid managers OE3, supervisors OE3, fire management, fire IAFF, police management, VOA and executives. There was no reportable action on that item. Item five was a conference with legal council concerning existing litigation. First item of existing litigation is entitled City of South Miami versus DeSantis. By motion, council unanimously voted to join in an amicus curi brief being prepared by County of Santa Clara on that item that's currently pending in the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Council also received a report from legal council on two other items of pending litigation. First being City of Santa Cruz versus the Regents of the University of California. That's the City's legal challenge to the University's Long Range Development Plan EIR approved late September of last year. Second item is Sunset Farms LLC versus the City of Santa Cruz currently pending in the Santa Cruz Superior Court. There was no reportable action on those second and third items. Lastly, the council received a report from its negotiator and gave direction on the real property items that I mentioned at the outset were referred to closed session. Property on Mount Perman Road commonly known as Sky Park and property at 333 Locust Street. There was no reportable action on those items. It should also meant for the record that council member Golder was absent from the closed session. Thank you. Okay, that concludes our report on our closed session this morning. We will now move on to item nine on the agenda, the council meeting calendar. I'll call on the City Clerk to provide any updates to the calendar. I have no updates but we skipped number eight. But I have nothing to add to the calendar. Thank you. And item number eight, the city manager will report and provide updates on the city's business and any events of interest. Thank you, Mayor Brunner and council. I'm happy to provide an update, although I look like a silhouette on the screen right now. Not that that's a problem. And I think Elizabeth is going to pull up the slide deck. All right, so I'll go ahead and jump into it. November is shaping up to be a really exciting election as we move for the first time to a district election and a independently elected mayor for the first time in Santa Cruz's history. There are some deadlines coming up that I wanted to make clear for the community and those that may be interested in running for one of the open council seats that August 12th is the deadline for doing so. There is the possibility that that deadline will be extended if the district incumbents decide not to run for one of those seats. The City Clerk won't make that determination until the deadline occurs on the 12th. But anyone that's interested in running, there's great information on our city's clerk's website and you're welcome to reach out to the City Clerk herself and she'd be happy to chat about the process for pulling papers. This November, voters will elect council members for District 4, District 6, and as I mentioned, the first at-large mayor to a four-year term. We also know that on the ballot we will have a decision around an empty home tax as well as amending the city's general and downtown plans under the initiative Our Downtown, Our Future. And before the council for consideration this afternoon is a transient occupancy tax as well. So looking forward to moving through and hearing from the community in terms of their positions on those items. Next slide. As our local economy continues to rebound from the pandemic, our economic development team has been busy at work providing support to the downtown and our small businesses throughout Santa Cruz. A few things that I wanted to highlight that I thought would be of interest to the council and the community include we just closed the second round of applications for a six-month retail pop-up opportunities along Pacific Avenue. This is an opportunity for entrepreneurs, small businesses in our area that are interested in moving into a brick-and-mortar space, being able to do so at a lower cost, lower overhead. And our hope will be that these service incubator spaces and provide opportunities for more businesses to permanently locate in the downtown. We have a number of exciting new businesses either relocating or moving into the downtown area. Those include Botanic and Luxe. That's a business many of us are familiar with. We're excited to see them relocating to a larger, more prominent location in the downtown. We're also welcoming Motherload, Santa Cruz, the Buzz, Sushi, Angel, Ora, Boutique, and Big Basin winery tasting room. So it's great to see those empty spaces coming back to life in our downtown area. Coming soon as Halloween approaches, we'll have Spirit Halloween pop-up, Yacht Restaurant, Gobi, Mongolian, and Farmers Insurance, Pedro Gonzales Insurance Agency. All businesses moving into our downtown area, and of course we are excited to have them. Next slide. I wanted to take a moment to also highlight the progress on the Newell Creek Dam project. This is a massive complex, and I would also add a very cool project that our water department has been shepherding over the last several months and years. So some of the highlights include a two-year project to replace the inlet, outlet, valves, and pipeline. The reservoir line is complete, and the three new intakes are now fully installed. Excavation of approximately 1,500 feet of 11-foot diameter tunnel around the dam is complete. I had an opportunity to go out there and see this firsthand as the work was occurring. Massive project, and exciting to see this really once-in-a-generation effort moving forward. What's next includes installation of a new 48-inch pipe installed inside the tunnel, roughly one-third or 500 feet. The tunnel will eventually be back-filled to prevent water from exiting, and again this is a major infrastructure improvement and investment of our most important water source. This is a major improvement for our service area. So I just want to give kudos to our water team for leading this effort, and we're excited to see it come to completion. Next slide. Unfortunately, as many of us were closely watching the returns from the midterm election, the final vote tally confirmed that measure F failed by a razor-thin 50 votes. This measure would have generated much needed revenue to support the standard and range of essential services that we provide ourselves on providing and that our community expects. With that said, we must pursue other revenue streams and continue to take a critical look at our operations, including ensuring that we are reaching full-cost recovery as well as looking at other operational efficiencies and ways of doing business differently so that we can operate within the resources we have. So big decisions to come, of course, will be engaging the council and the community and our employees as we work through these challenging budget season we find ourselves in, and we'll continue to move forward with working to get the city on a healthier financial footing. Next slide. And then lastly, I wanted to provide some brief updates on our ongoing homelessness response work. At our next meeting, the council will receive a quarterly homelessness response update with significantly more details on the wide range of work that our homelessness response team and all of our departments, frankly, are working collectively on. But I did want to provide some brief highlights based on some of that work that's underway. That includes the ongoing work around the oversized vehicle ordinance. As the council knows, that moved to a appeal process and hearing in front of the coastal commission on July 14th. The commission at that point in time based on coastal commission staff recommendation found substantial issue with some of the elements of the coastal permit and ordinance. As a result, that means that DeNovo hearing will be set later on this year where the commission will act on that permit. That gives us time, staff time to work with coastal commission staff to try to resolve some of the concerns that were raised by both staff and the commission. And our hope is that when we reach the DeNovo hearing, that permit will get over the finish line and we can move towards full implementation of the ordinance. In the meantime, we continue to prioritize establishing the tier one, tier two and tier three safe parking programs. That's not waiting on the outcome of the DeNovo hearing. We know it's important that we have safe sleeping options for all individuals that may need one and staff is continuing to make progress on that work. Lastly, I wanted to also just note and provide a quick update regarding the closure and restoration work around San Lorenzo Park and the Bench Lens. This is a tremendous amount of work occurring across several departments working on the planned closure and restoration of the park. The first phase will include the fencing and closure of the upper park. That will be followed with fencing and closure of the Bench Lens itself. And the plan is to move through a phased closure and relocation of the campers that are currently residing in the park. That is contingent, of course, on also concurrently standing up additional shelter resources as part of that effort. So that work is ongoing. There's significant work happening every day also in concert with our colleagues at the county. And Larry and Wally, our Homelessness Response Manager, will have more details on that when he brings a quarterly update at your next meeting. That's all I have for now. Thank you for your time. Thank you for that update. May I ask a question? Yes. Council Member Callentary-Johnson and then Council Member Cummings. Thank you. When we get an update on August 23rd, will staff or can staff speak to the point in time count numbers that were just released? And what the county's response to it is, as I understand, they heard about that today at their board meeting. Yes. In fact, thanks for that question, Council Member Callentary-Johnson. So just last week, the county released the results of the first point in time count that had been conducted since pre-pandemic. We do intend on providing an update to the council and the community as part of the quarterly response update. As you noted, the board received an update today. Thank you, Council Member Callentary-Johnson. Council Member Cummings. Yes. Similarly, I'm wondering if there's any information on what the, if the county's going to be standing up any additional services. I mean, I know that they just shut down the armory and that has resulted in a lot of the people who were there who didn't have a place to go now, either going to the Benchlands or potentially other points in the city. And it should speak worth enough understanding, you know, how much shelter the county is providing currently versus this city so that I think people can be aware of what role the city's playing, what role the county's playing. And, you know, if it's disproportionately that the city's taking on a lot of this, I think it might be worth a conversation. How do we try to see how other jurisdictions in particular the county can step up more to help us with shelter? Yeah, thanks. Thanks for the comment, Council Member Cummings. And we have been meeting with our county colleagues on a regular basis. We have emphasized the fact that standing up additional emergency shelter is and will continue to be one of our top priorities. We are pursuing housing on several fronts and that includes home key projects to try to access some of the state funding, pursuing additional permanent supportive housing opportunities. That's all important. And we have a desperate need for additional shelter spaces throughout the county. So that those conversations are ongoing. We've stressed that importance with the county and we will continue to do so. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much. That concludes the city manager's report. We move on to our consent agenda. These items are 10 through 25 on our agenda. For members of the public who are streaming this meeting, now is the time to call in if you would like to comment on items 10 through 25. Instructions should be coming up on your screen. Please remember to mute your streaming device and raise your hand either by dialing star nine on your phone or selecting the raise hand feature in the webinar controls on your computer. All items will be acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a council member for further discussion. Are there any council members who wish to comment on or pull any items? I will start on the end. Council member Calantari Johnson comment on 14. Council member Cummings. I'm going to pull 14. I have a question for 18. Pull 14 Cummings and question on 18. Yes. Vice mayor Watkins. I had a comment on 14 and then a comment on 15. And council member Brown. I have a comment on 22. Thank you. 22. Council member Brown 22. Okay. I'll start with the comments and the questions and since 14 was pulled, we'll start with a comment on item number 15. Vice mayor Watkins. I just want to thank my colleagues. Council member Brown and mayor Brunner as well as the city attorney's office and for all the due diligence and work that went into the investigation and just wanted to make a comment in that, you know, we take seriously the importance of creating a respectful workplace and environment for our workers and interactions and we'll do all we can to further refine and improve our policies and uphold what we value, which is a respectful and safe workplace for all. And hopefully that this individual who felt comfortable comes, you know, feels more at ease now that we've done this investigation and have come to this conclusion. And just really want to thank everybody for putting in the due diligence and time to ensure that we are upholding our standards for a safe and respectful workplace. And that concludes my comments. Thank you so much. And item 15 is the sister cities committee member code of conduct issue. Thank you. We have a comment on item number 22, the Santa Cruz grand jury response. And that was council member Brown. Yeah, I just wanted to say this is a response to the grand jury report on city of Santa Cruz water delivery system, our water delivery system. And, you know, we have on our consent agenda almost every meeting number of items that reflect the significant amount of work that goes into our really rebuilding our aging water infrastructure and improving our water delivery system. And they kind of go by with little fanfare and controversial, but it represents a huge amount of work, a huge investment and really the very capable water department staff that we have. I know I say this often, but I just wanted to say that that and as my introduction to just making a comment on this item, I also have a tremendous amount of respect for the people who serve on our grand jury. They take that job very seriously. They do a lot of work and I appreciate the comments that were shared and, you know, and I know that that was a lot of work and it was based on real, you know, thoughtful engagement. So, and so the responses being what they are, I just wanted to really thank our water director Rosemary Menard for putting together such a clear, you know, set of responses that I think are really explained in a way that we don't get to talk about in these meetings, what our water department does and the seriousness with which these issues are addressed. So for people who are interested in what's going on with our water system and the work that's happening here, I recommend looking at it. I think it's just really clear and articulate and helpful and with much gratitude to the water department staff. Thank you, Council Member Brown. We have a question on item number 18. Thank you, Mayor. Number 18 is with regards to the State Route 1 and 9 intersection improvements on the contract amendment and this is less so about the contract amendment and more so about the improvements that are occurring at Highway 1 and 9. I think about a week ago there was a woman who was crossing that intersection with a four-year-old child who was hit by a car and who ended up dying because of her injuries and her son or their child survived. And in 2017 I actually had a friend who was struck at that same intersection and who was killed and so this is something that's very personal to me because as many people have reached out with concerns around the expansion of Highway 1 and 9, a lot of it's been around pedestrian safety and how we're going to make sure that pedestrians are going to, how the intersection improvements will improve pedestrian safety. And given that this is the second fatality we've seen at that intersection roughly the past five years, I'm just wondering if we can get an update on as we're making these improvements and what is being done so that we can reduce these kinds of deaths from occurring at this intersection. Hi, are you here to give an update? I'm here to respond. Wonderful. I wasn't sure if someone would be available to respond on the spot or okay, thank you. Joshua Spanger, Senior Civil Engineer of Public Works. The improvements at the intersection with the current project that's happening right now, there's not a whole lot more that we can do to improve pedestrian safety there. I mean we are, formerly there, well still right now, the southbound one, if you want to turn right on the southbound River Street, there was a free right there, so pedestrians would have to cross the turn lane and then the main line to cross. That's going away. So that's going away. We're putting all updated 88 ramps and improvements on all the crossings. But there's, unless Caltrans wants to spring for an over crossing or something, there's really not a whole lot more that can be done. The median is being widened so there will be a more pedestrian refuge if you cross the main line there, but other than that, I mean new signals, new lights, and that's about all the projects doing pedestrian safety. As a follow-up, I'm wondering if there's any opportunities. I know, for example, when you're getting off certain highways throughout parts of the United States, they'll have kind of like rumble strips that kind of force you to slow down, slow your speed. And I'm just wondering if there might be the potential for consideration around something like that. I'm not entirely sure. That's something that the Caltrans would have to address. All the design out there has to, because it is a state intersection, although it's a city project, it's a state intersection. So any improvements, everything out there has had to go through Caltrans review and Geometrics, everything else. So if it's allowed by Caltrans, I don't know if it is. I mean, I suppose we could explore that. But as it's designed, it's certainly not envisioned that that's going to be included in the intersection at this point. Thank you. Well, I guess I'll just say as a comment that if there's an opportunity for us to reach out to Caltrans and explore other ways to make this intersection safer, that we can get people that there's physical mechanisms for getting cars to slow down as they're approaching that, especially at night. I think it would be worth this percent. Thank you, Council Member Cummings. I think it's important, and I will ask Nathan Nguyen with Public Works to also speak to this. Yes, good afternoon, Council Members of the Public. Nathan Nguyen, Assistant Director of Public Works, City Engineer. I just wanted to add on top of what Josh Van Grindel was explaining is that the intersection obviously is maintained or owned by Caltrans right away, but we are working with them on doing an expansion of that intersection with regards to the tenor yard centers. We do have subsequent meetings with them as far as developing this further developing the intersection, so we can definitely bring up some of the ideas of essentially rumble strips to enhance that intersection. I was going to also add that I think it's everybody's priority for our community's public safety at that intersection. There is an underpass along the river walk. However, I know that not everyone uses the underpass, and so whatever we can do to advocate and ensure that pedestrian safety measures are put into place would be appreciated. Thank you. We have one more member. I haven't gone to public comment yet, so when I go to public comment, you're welcome to comment on that. Thank you. That's it for your question. Okay. So now at this point, we will go for, I'm looking for a motion on all. We're going to public comment, and then I will look for a motion on all of the items except item 14. So public comment, I will look to our attendees virtually to see if there are any hands raised. You can raise your hand by dialing star nine. And while that is in process, I will now invite our member of the public to step forward for public comment. Thank you. Hi, Sonya. I actually lived very near that corner for about a half a year, and there was an accident out there one night, and it was a couple who were visiting, and it was a couple of kids from around here, and one of them I actually had known since he was very, very young. You know, he was not the driver, but he was in the vehicle that, you know, we don't, you don't know, but it is a very inherently dangerous intersection. It's very busy. It's very, it's a cluster, you know, of traffic flow. And I guess I would invite Council to look at solutions that are just along the lines of, you know, I want to say signage, warnings, and suggestions about like how people should navigate that intersection. Very tragic what happened last week. That's just awful to hear about, right? And I have a friend who, I met him when he was a grad student at UCSE. His thesis was about suggestions. Basically it was like, if you tell someone you're going to enjoy this burrito a lot, a lot, you know, and they eat it, typically they will more if you tell. I mean, people make their decisions based on that. So I mean, signage, you know, saying, please, slow down and navigate this intersection carefully. You know, words like that and, you know, sentiments like that, you know, and actually like well-produced signage, it actually makes a difference, I believe. So thank you. Thank you. I wonder if I could just interpose a comment. I think all the questions, excuse me, all the questions about safety of the intersection are completely appropriate, but I want us to be careful about too quickly attributing a tragic accident to the condition of the intersection. When there are human factors involved and a lot of investigation has to occur before a determination is made as to causation. So I just want us to be careful about making comments about the safety of the intersection, which is constructed in accordance with very strict standards dictated by Caltrans. So again, all appropriate questions and concerns raised, but I don't want us to judge the outcome of this particular incident based exclusively on general notions of the safety of the intersection. Thank you for that. Yep. A state highway that runs right through our city and, you know, we can really make sure that whatever we can advocate for in terms of the most safety possible in that intersection is, in general, is where we need to be. So thank you. Thank you for all the information and for the comments. At this point, then, if that concludes public comment, I'm looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda items 10 through 25 with the exception of item 14, which has been pulled by Councilmember Cummings. I'm happy to go ahead and move the consent agenda with the exception of 14. Okay, we have a motion by Vice Mayor Watkins and a second by Councilmember Brown. And City Clerk, may we have a roll call vote. Councilmember, it's Calentary Johnson. Aye. Holder. Aye. Cummings. Aye. Brown. Aye. Myers. Aye. Vice Mayor Watkins. Aye. Mayor Brunner. Aye. That motion passes unanimously. And now we will move on to item number 14. And 14 is a support for the protection of reproductive rights in various California legislative bills. And Councilmember Cummings, you had pulled this and Councilmember Calentary Johnson, you had a comment. Okay, so first of all, I want to thank the Councilmembers who authored this for bringing this forward. It's something that I think we're all very much interested in. I know our community is very much interested in ensuring that we're protecting the reproductive rights of people in our community, especially in light of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. I pulled this item because I had some additional language for consideration to incorporate. And since in order to make any kind of amendments to a consent agenda item, it has to be pulled. So I've pulled it for that reason. And I guess when maybe after we go up for public comment, I can incorporate that into a motion or make a second separate motion for consideration. Great. Thank you. And we'll move over to Councilmember Calentary Johnson for comment. Great. Oh, and yeah, and Vice Mayor Watkins. Okay. Okay. Just a brief comment. I wanted to thank the Mayor and Vice Mayor for partnering and putting this on the agenda as Councilmember Cummings just said this is front of mind for all of us across the country, given the decision on Roe v. Wade. And it's important for our city to reconfirm our position on reproductive rights. So just want to thank my colleagues for considering this and interested in hearing your additions, Councilmember Cummings. Thank you. Vice Mayor Watkins. I just too wanted to thank my colleagues for the work on this and the staff who helped us compile the agenda report and just really reiterating the importance of upholding our reproductive rights. You know, certainly that matters for certain genders over others and the impacts are tremendous. And in California, we can do our part at the local level. We can do our part. And then also at the national level, we can have our place as well, knowing that we are afforded a lot of benefits that in other states. We're not seeing awarded to them. And at a concern for primarily the women and individuals of genders who are able to bear children, the impacts that we're seeing in other states are just infuriating. And so as a woman, I feel very, very passionately about this and very happy to bring this forward and doing this small bit that we can at the local level, knowing that there's more that we can do also at the national level as well. So thank you both. Thank you, Vice Mayor Watkins. I will now go out to public comment on this item number 14, support for the production for the protection of reproductive rights in various California legislative bills. I will look to our virtual attendees to see if any hands are raised. If you'd like to raise your hand to speak to this item, press star nine on your phone or use the raise hand feature in the webinar controls. And I will look to our members of the public to see if anybody would like to speak to item 14 on our agenda. Seeing none. I will bring it back to Council Member Cummings for your additions. Great. So in addition to the support for the various state assembly bills and Senate bills, one thing to also highlight is that this is going to be on our ballot this year for the November elections. And it's in the past. There have been times when the city of Santa Cruz has taken a position to endorse state ballot measures. And so the language that I was hoping to include as a friendly amendment would be to direct staff to bring back a resolution for consideration by the city council to formally endorse and support California Proposition one right to reproductive freedom amendment, which if passed would support amending the state constitution to prohibit the state from interfering with or denying individuals reproductive freedom, which is defined to include a right to an abortion and a right to contraceptive by no later than the second meeting in September. And so I'm happy to move all the recommended items and then with this in addition to that. Okay, I'll give council members a moment to read through that it added item three to the motion and I'll read it out loud direct staff to bring back a resolution. And so I'm happy to move a resolution for consideration by the city council to formally endorse and support California Proposition one right to reproductive freedom amendment, which if passed would support amending the state constitution to prohibit the state from interfering with or denying individuals reproductive freedom, which is defined to include a right to an abortion and a right to contraceptive by no later than our second meeting in September. Okay, a motion has been made. And I'm happy to second, but I do want to also just state that that we in a past consent agenda did write a letter of support in regards to proposition one. So I think this is a great next step. Thank you, Council Member Calantari Johnson. So we have a motion by Council Member Cummings seconded by Council Member Calantari Johnson to add that additional language of formal endorsement Vice Mayor Watkins. I just have a question if if that needs to come back or if we could just incorporate our formal endorsement into the recommendation. Yeah, because that item is not on the agenda. It was my recommendation to Council Member Cummings that it be brought back. Okay. Okay, maybe we have a roll call vote. Council Member Calantari Johnson. I. Boulder. I. Cummings. I. Brown. I. Council Member Myers. I. Vice Mayor Watkins. I. Mayor Brunner. I. I. Brunner. I. Council Member Lowell. Your decision passes unanimously. Thank you. Okay. Next up on the agenda. Is consent public hearing. Okay. Pulling those notes up. Consent public hearing our items number twenty six and twenty seven on our agenda. wish to comment on items 26 and 27 now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen. All items will be acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a council member for further discussion. I would also like to make a comment I understand there has been an update to one of the conditions of approval on item number 27 and you all should have a copy of that update and I think I will is Timothy Meyer senior planner available to speak to that or answer questions. Mayor thank you. Welcome. Thank you appreciate it. Good afternoon Mayor Brunner members of the City Council. As Mayor Brunner mentioned my name is Tim Mayer senior planner with the city. Staff's memo prepared earlier today discusses the minor revisions to condition of approval number 17 of the project CP 210060. I'm happy to provide a brief overview of the recommended changes to that condition of approval as needed. If no discussion is deemed appropriate staff feel that the item may remain on the consent calendar with staff's continued recommendation for council approval of the application including updated condition of approval number 17. Thank you. Thank you council member Myers. Is it appropriate just just to clarify maybe for the public that my understanding is that there was some time frames put on that condition of approval and that's the minor that those are the major change to that condition is that correct. That's correct council member. Essentially time frames were introduced into condition of approval number 17 to prevent the application from kind of lingering indefinitely at subject to HOA approval of the request. So I'd be happy to share that condition of approval if that's helpful. Thank you for clarifying that. We can go into further discussion if that item is pulled at this point as consent public hearing items 26 and 27. I will ask are there any council members who wish to comment on or pull any items? Okay. Seeing none. I will go out to public comment for items number 26 and 27. If there are any members of the public you can raise your hand. Any attendees virtually I will look to those attendees. Seeing none. I will look to in person and we have one person who would like to speak to either item 26 or 27. Welcome. Hi. Yeah. Thank you. I've as recently as spring I've been a hotel desk clerk. I worked at hotels. I want to say as far as the county's economy goes. If you pull all of the hotels into one entity if you said they were all one company for instance, then it would it would be the maybe the second largest employer in the county. Which item are you speaking to 29 or 20 the transient occupancy. We're not there yet. Oh, okay. I thought you said both were 26 and 27. I apologize. Maybe I was my last chance to talk. Thank you. I just I wanted to be clear. So items 26 is second reading and final adoption of ordinance number 2022 dash 11 second amendment of the 555 Pacific Avenue Apartments development agreement. An item 27 is the 109 south repeater road application. And that is a long title. But those are the two items were taking public comment on right now. Thank you. Okay. Seeing none. I will bring it back to council members. I'm looking for a motion on our consent public hearing items. I'm happy to move items 26 and 27. Okay. We have a motion by council member golder. Okay. Seconded by council member Myers. Maybe we have a roll call vote. Remember is Calentary Johnson. I older I coming from I Myers. I I smear Watkins. I Mayor Brunner. I that motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Item number 28 is next on our agenda. Item number 28. This is the transportation and public works commission appointment for members of the public who are streaming this meeting. If this is an item you wish to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions that should be up on your screen. We will also look to any members of the public who wish to comment on item 28 transportation and public works commission appointment. We will begin with public comment and then I will call on city clerk Bonnie Bush to lead the council through nominations and action. Are there any members in the virtual public that would like to comment? I'm not seeing any hands raised. Okay. I will bring it back to in person. I'm not seeing members of the public who would like to speak to this item. So I will now hand it over to city clerk Bonnie Bush. Thank you, Mayor. If anybody has a nomination that they want to start with, we can start with you and then if anyone has any new ones, we can go from there. Council Member Myers. Ryan Nickel. Are there any other nominations for this appointment? Okay, we have two nominations. I'll do a roll call. We have Ryan Mechel or Chad Mitchum. One vote. Council Member Callentary Johnson. Ryan Mechel. Holder. Ryan Mechel. Cummings. Chad Mitchum. Brown. Ad Mitchum. Myers. Ryan Mechel. Ice Mayor Watkins. Ryan Mechel. Mayor Brunner. Ryan Mechel. Ryan Mechel. Okay. Congratulations and thank you for serving on our transportation and public works commission. Next on our agenda is item number 29. This is the resolution requesting the placement of a transient occupancy tax increase on the ballot of the November 8th, 2022 California statewide general election. This is a recommendation from the ad hoc revenue committee, which consists of myself, Council Member Brown and Vice Mayor Watkins. And I'd like to ask the city clerk when you're ready to pull up. I have a couple slides just to help me talk through. Thank you. So our ad hoc revenue committee meets bi-weekly and we've explored several opportunities and options. This is an authorized tax that we see as an opportunity to use Santa Cruz's large tourism industry as a revenue stream to fund essential services here in the city. Next slide. So this measure we hope would align with the county. The county recently passed measure B. It includes an increase on the rate for commercial lodging from 11% to 12% and it increases the rate for vacation rental properties from 11% to 14%. The county measure was approved by nearly 70% of county voters and our city TOT tax has been at 11% since 2013. So we would align with county Capitola and the city of Watsonville. Next slide. Thank you. The anticipated revenue that this would yield is approximately 1.4 annually and here it's broken down. The commercial yield would be approximately 998,000 and residential 382,000. Next slide. After exploring all of our options, there are many benefits that we found with this recommended transient occupancy tax and really it just creates parity with the county and creates a fair and level playing field across the region. It also helps to ensure that visitors and tourists pay their fair share for city services and focuses on the services that are most important to the community. It also really provides flexible funding which allows the city to adapt to changing community needs over time. Next slide. So our recommended actions are before you and in the agenda packet. It's to accept the update on the recent work of the committee and to adopt a resolution requesting that the consolidated November 8th, 2022 California statewide general election include a general purpose tax proposing that the city of Santa Cruz is current transient occupancy tax rate of 11% be increased to 12% for hotels, motels, inns and other commercial lodging facilities and from 11% to 14% for short term residential vacation rental properties and support the measure for the purposes of authoring arguments, providing direction regarding the authors directing the city attorney to prepare the impartial analysis and providing direction to the city manager regarding the preparation of the fiscal analysis as appropriate. We did. I also wanted to include some outreach that we were able to do and wanted to acknowledge a lot of the challenges that some of our hotel use have had in recent years and have really been squeezed with COVID and declining bookings also with CZU lightning fires and many other challenges and staffing. And we really hope to be able to continue to work together and provide support and and have this funding source be a support to the city services that we can provide. And is there any other further comments from Council member Brown or vice mayor Watkins? I'll just briefly say that I just appreciate your summary of how we landed here and what we're asking our colleagues to consider at this time and just appreciation for the outreach and the work that has gone on not only internally in terms of our subcommittee and all those who are participating at the city level, but also in terms of being able to reach out to some of our key stakeholders in our community. And yes, thank you for the nice summary of the recommended action. Thank you. I would just add my appreciation for the committee. My colleagues on the council and the staff that's worked with us to bring this forward today. I will say just for the little history I have been on a series of revenue committees here at the city. And this is something that has been considered as recently as 2019. We did, you know, due to COVID kind of backed off on a lot of the, you know, movement forward on this revenue measure and obviously other matters. But but I feel and we and it's been 10 years since the TOT has been raised. And so I think that given the challenges that the hotel industry has faced and that history that this is a very measured proposal moving forward and being in line with the county. I'll just say for folks out there, if you vote in the city, you already voted on the county measure and that applies to county hotels and Airbnbs. And that will be the case for city hotels and short term vacation rentals for this pass. And with that, I just say thanks to everybody for getting us here. Thank you. Let's see. Let me go back to the agenda. Okay, so at this time, are there any questions from council members? And let me look at council member Myers. None. Okay. Don't want to miss you. So no questions. I will now go out to the public comment. And I will look to in person. Okay, welcome. Thanks. Yeah, I want to point out that, you know, not everybody that uses the hotels and motels here are out of town tourists and many of the people live outside do get one or two nights a month for the purposes of a shower because I can't get it any other way. And I did pay $1,800 in the hotel tax at the beginning of COVID and paid. I have to put people in hotels. So but I'm not, you know, that's just something to consider so that we're just not assuming it's all tourists that have money. Although a lot of those tourists are working people with not much money either. And but I do and also I worked with many of the hotel owners in town on making accommodations for people who live outside who either are convalescing from surgeries or whatever that we need to help out. So I do know they are struggling as well. So any way to aid them would be fantastic. Thank you very much for your help. Thank you. Our next member of the public. When I when I first worked at a hotel in 2010, I believe that the top was 10%. And that seemed high. That seemed high. And if you look at it just is, you know, from that from then to the step step up to 11%. Well, that was that was a million in revenue. And then now it's another million in revenue. So it's a lot. It's a lot of money that can be applied to lots of things. But I think Keith right, you know, not everybody that is coming to town is dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts and has money, you know, falling out their ears. You know, it's it's it's it's inflationary. It adds to what the person pays the bottom line that they pay for the hotel room. And it's kind of insignificant. The Airbnb stuff, the short term vacation rentals, that's and that's that 3% amounts to you know, less than it seems like amounts to a less than a third of what you're making from all the various individual hotels. And again, I just feel I feel it's in inflationary and kind of in its in its in its basis. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your public comment. We have a hand raised in our virtual. I will go out to I am watching you is the name. Go ahead press star six when mute yourself. Thanks. You cannot say there won't be unintended consequences of this tax increase to the tourist travel industry. You just hope there isn't the measure states the money is to be used for essential city services and not toward any particular benefit to those industries targeted or those who pay. I disagree that a formal housing for working families and the homeless are creating local jobs falls under any normal essential city service definition. But I get it. You have to fluff somehow to get approval or is essentially undefined purpose permanent money grab. Logic would indicate you're not currently then providing these essential city services. One wonders why not? Perhaps the answer lies in the definition of such or any acknowledgement of a lack of fiscal discipline. I see that we need money to spend plea but no case was made a more efficient satisfactory government is impossible without it. Government doesn't have to be or should be above economic trend growth industry considering it doesn't actually produce wealth and mostly spends other people's money by the citizens build wealth and security by living out or really beneath their means. I took a look at California to the rates and using the state controllers data for 20 20 up and 75% of the cities have a to tax rate of 11% or mostly less. Ours is currently at the top end of that 11 and 25% of the cities have a rate of 12% or more. By far the most common tax rate is 10% although 12 and eight are the next most common only 6% of cities have a rate over the 12% proposed. The very highest to a T rate cities are super attractive one country through cities like Heelsburg, Downfield, Sonoma or expensive international destination cities like San Francisco and L.A. Monterey is only 10% a little PG with the world class of clarion. Yeah, it's 12% as to whether checkers comparatively has the tourist attractiveness that supports this high rate to me as an enough raising taxes in a recession lacks timing wisdom. As to the short term residential vacation well rate by comparison of 14% hotel rate would be the highest of the high rates. Do you have it in for them? Your arguments are weak that they didn't pay one time lower permit fees long ago. Now justifies a permanent high tax disadvantage now or that they disproportionately affect neighborhoods. They are basically normal residences and look like very attractive properties to me. The reality is when the economy grows or booms, the T of T revenue goes up and has gone up a lot over time. Doesn't matter when the last time it was raised. A permanent tax increase to me dictates or indicates a government failure to employ a physical discipline. Listen to some of you bemoaning cutting any city expenses other response depending financial doom such as personnel saying, Oh, no, those real people real jobs as if that doesn't happen every day or the practice of hiring city employees twice the rate of population growth for passing on an extra national paid holiday to all city employees when I already get 12 means you don't get the message that taking a bigger and bigger more expensive government bite out of the economy is not a sustainable economic. Thanks. Thank you for your public comment. Are there any other hands raised? We have the name Casey buyer. Go ahead and press star six to unmute yourself. Thank you, Mayor Brunner and council members. Casey buyer from the Santa Cruz County Chamber of Commerce. Many of the hotels and motels in Santa Cruz are members of the Santa Cruz County Chamber and have been for years. We do not oppose the increase statistically, but we question the time clearly the city is running structural deficit. And once you the failure of the measure sales tax measure in June, there's a need to get additional revenue streams. We get that we understand that the city has to find revenue to provide the city services that the community wants. My two questions are did you do any real outreach to the hotel industry before making this decision? And if not, I would encourage you before you put this on the ballot that you have that engagement. Many of the hotel owners and property managed people don't live in Santa Cruz. So they don't have an opportunity to vote on a tax that impacts not only their business, but their employees. I think it's critically important that they be part of the conversation. You mentioned stakeholders, but you didn't mention specifically what stakeholders you did outreach. I talked to several of the owners of some of the hotels yesterday, and they told me that they received an inquiry at 4 p.m. on Thursday before you place this on the on this agenda today. So I would encourage you to actually use them. They're a major employer in the county in a new city, and they do pay taxes and create great revenue streams for the city. Also missing out of the conversation is even though it's an increase to 12% to match the counties, that's actually a 10% increase on the cost of that room. And secondly, when the hotels do group rates, that that additional cost figures into whether or not they come to Santa Cruz as a group or they go somewhere else. So those are all conversations that I've had in the last couple of days with the hotel folks, and they're deeply concerned that you may impact their ability to bring visitors in groups that usually come in the off season or the shoulder season during the summer season. And those corporate folks cater to our hotels, cater to our restaurants in the downtown. So I think you had everything broader about what this set of this tax will do and potentially the conflict. Thank you for your public comment. Are there any other attendees for public comment on this item? Okay, I will bring it back seeing none. And none in person. I will bring it back to council for action and deliberation. I'm looking for a motion on this item. I'll go ahead and item 29 resolution requesting the placement of a transient occupancy tax increase on the ballot of the November 8 2022 California statewide general election. We have I'm sorry, I spread the wrong part. I did read my part. We have a motion by council member Golder seconded by vice mayor Watkins. And is there any discussion? Yes. I'm wondering. One of the members of the public asked about kind of outreach and engagement, and I just wanted to see if we can maybe get information on that question and see if somebody can answer that question for them. Yeah, I can speak to our committee and the work that we've done. This was investigative and we spoke with a couple of hotel years. I did along with city staff in order to bring this to a vote for the November ballot. I think the real engagement will begin and continue. Most certainly, if we vote to place this on the ballot, there is a lot of discussion and engagement with the hotel years with Airbnb property owners and various community members. We also do and did in our research and discussion realize that even though this is a transient occupancy tax and primarily born to hotel guests and vacation guests, that is not the case. Always there are also local folks and people who need a room for the night who are unhoused. So it is used in many ways and we hope to have those further engagement and understand that to a to a bigger level. And I don't know if city manager, if you were going to speak to that as well. Thanks, Mayor. I see the councilmember Brown wants to chime in as well as one of the committee members. So I'd welcome her thoughts. So that that outreach will be ongoing our economic development team. Bonnie Lipscomb, our economic development director has been having direct conversations with several of our of our key hotel years just over the past week. And as I understand it over the weekend, and if the council makes the decision to place this on the ballot, those conversations, of course, will will be ongoing. So we're committed to moving forward with this effort in a transparent collaborative way with with our hotelier stakeholders. And you know, also just admit that this has been a condensed time frame. We're waiting for final certification of the measure F results, weighing, weighing the implications of that outcome and what would make the most sense for the city moving forward based on a number of variables. So that didn't lend itself to having the more robust dialogue that we would typically have. But of course, we're open to continuing those conversations. Thank you. I see councilmember Myers and then councilmember Brown. Actually, Mayor, my some of my questions were answered by the city manager and by yourself. So I'll put my hand down. Thank you. Councilmember Brown. I'll just add with on the institutional memory angle. So I take that very seriously. The question and the comments about our engagement with affected businesses. And you know, I want to appreciate Mayor Brunner, your efforts to engage in some of that in some of those conversations on the, you know, very condensed time frame. But this is also a conversation that has been ongoing really since 2019 with the hotel industry. And I, as with councilmember Matthews at the time met with many, many representatives of the hotels and visit Santa Cruz. And, you know, we had a series of sessions and packed conference rooms. So and the concerns are the same in many ways the same, you know, some things haven't changed. And the timing is, you know, being what it is, I think one of the reasons that we looked at a really measured proposal. So those conversations are ongoing, they will be ongoing. And you know, so I don't think it was necessarily a surprise for the hotel age that this was coming. It's really been ongoing. I just wanted to kind of include that as evidence of how seriously we take this. Thank you, Councilmember Brown. And I'd like to call on director of economic development, Bonnie Lipscomb. Thank you, Mayor. And I just wanted to add some comments about the outreach and engagement. And this this hasn't been a typical timeline. And I think the comments by the director of the Chamber, Casey Beyer, are are critical, well met. And we have been doing some coordination in the last week, particularly to have a set of meetings both with Visit Santa Cruz, as well as with the hoteliers. And so we have a few hoteliers involved also in Visit Santa Cruz who are in the process of helping us set up an initial meeting. And then we're going to have hopefully a few more meetings and then regular meetings going forward just to keep the lines of communication open about what the revenue for in general, you know, are many of the same things that are interested, top sort of priorities by the hotels. And those are top priorities for the city. So I think a lot of our interests are very well aligned going forward. And communication is the key to that. So we will be working with our hoteliers in the months ahead. And similar to how we were pre pandemic, having much more extensive outreach and engagement for our lines or overall tourism economy here in Santa Cruz. Thank you, Dr. Lipscomb and council member Cummings. One more question. No, I was just going to follow up on the initial question I asked about this because so I also was on the Remnant Committee in 2020 and remember that we had a number of occasions where we met and it was a very large group meeting with a lot of the different hotel owner hoteliers and hotel owners. And at that time, there was polling that took place. And I think even thinking back to then, you know, they were comfortable or it seemed like the number was more around 1% for the hotels at that time. And so I bring that up because I know that we've also received communications from people in the community who've asked for more and why aren't we increasing it more. And I just want to express that even going back to then, the direction that the council is taking is very similar to what we were going to be considering at that time. Seeing that this passed at the county level and that now we have an opportunity for it to pass at the city level and there was not real strong opposition from the hotel industry. I just want to express that I want to thank my colleagues for their work on this. I think that this is you know, a safer step that we can take at this point in time. And while other folks may want to see us increase the TOT more, I think there's a lot of valid points as well around the impacts that this can have on working class and lower class people who may also want to have access to hotels. So I'm supportive of this, but also really wanted to see if we could have that question answered. And and that's all I'll leave it at that. Thank you so much. Okay. It looks like we have a motion on the floor by Council Member Golder seconded by Vice Mayor Watkins for item number 28. And I'd like to ask the city clerk to please call roll 29. Council Member Callentary Johnson. Aye. Golder. Aye. Cummings. Aye. Brown. Aye. Myers. Aye. Vice Mayor Watkins. Aye. And Mayor Burner. Aye. That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Next on our agenda, we have item number 29 resolution request. Oh, we just finished that. Sorry. I'm bringing up the notes. We are now at oral communications will be at 530. So it is 441. We will have a break until oral communications at 530. Oral communications will be an opportunity for members of the community to speak to items that are not on today's agenda. So we look forward to seeing you all at 530. Thank you. All right. Good evening. We've returned from our break and we are now at the point of the agenda for oral communications. Is the city clerk ready? I am. Thank you. Oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not on today's agenda. For members of the public that are joining us virtually and streaming this meeting, if you'd like to comment during oral communications, now is the time to call in. Instructions will be on your screen. If you are interested in addressing the council, raise your hand either by dialing star nine on your phone or select the raise hand feature in the webinar controls of your computer. You will have two minutes to speak. Members of the public who wish to address the council in person, please line up to the right of the dice. You will each have two minutes to speak. I will call on you when the time is right. We request that you sign in to ensure correct spelling of your name in the meeting minutes. However, it is not required. Please remember this is a time to hear from the public and we are not able to engage in dialogue with each member of the public. But when we are able, we will will address questions raised after oral communications has completed. And so I will begin by looking out to the virtual attendees. And I see the first hand raised is G Lee Young. Hi there. Go ahead and unmute yourself. Welcome. Beautiful. Thank you so much, Madam Mayor. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Thank you. Wonderful. Okay. My name is logo my G Lee Young and I'm part of the Boab men overcoming abusive or anger, angry behavior. And we just wanted to reintroduce ourselves to the council and to the mayor to let you know that post COVID, we're back in business again, group meetings. We've been having meetings on Thursday evenings, weekly Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. at the Resource Center for non violence. They're here in City of Santa Cruz. We promote and discuss peace, harmony, coexisting family jobs and community. And so we just wanted to let the council know that we're back business and we're meeting on a weekly basis and we're doing quite well. Thank you so much for your time. You and the council. Thank you very much. I will alternate and now I will invite the next member of the public in person. Please step forward. Thank you. Hello. I'm Andy Werner. And I would like to reason I'm here as I would like to thank you, Ms. Bruno, your mayor and the city council for the proclamation that led to the 30th of June being Andy Werner day. I wasn't able to be here at that time and I wanted to thank you all in person. And I really touched me very deeply. I think thank you. I felt you know, a lot of appreciation and and really was very, very wonderful feeling, you know, 50 years. And one of the thoughts I had is right outside first job I had with the city. I'm a tar crew. And we tarred that street hasn't been done since. That's a good thing. That's one of the worst jobs you can imagine. But thank you all very much. I really, really appreciate that. Thank you. Our next member of the public I will do virtually and it is phone number ending in 4844. Go ahead and unmute yourself. The Benchlands crisis. Check out the RC and the Resource Center for Nonviolence next Monday at 6pm. Here real Benchlands residents here, the city manager team, Africa Butler and Muali invited to explain how they will squeeze the 200 to 300 Benchlands residents into the already mostly full spaces for 200. How do we provide resources rather than threats and real space rather than comforting fairy tales. Fences, force and lawsuits with only token and disabled inaccessible places is the wrong way to go. Any more outsider regularly at risk under the city council's harsh new sleeping camping ban, which Africa has said will be enforced. Work on an emergency community response next Monday, 6pm at the RC and the at 612 Ocean Street. Nothing better than how because magical disperse them to Pacific Avenue, the neighborhoods in the Pogonip solution. Support the expansion of the Benchlands to end the destructive overcrowding there. Establish smaller encampments. They're truly low barrier. Acknowledged that the Benchlands residents have kept rough peace and civility for there for more than two years. The Santa Cruz Union of the homeless. Food not bombs and huff will be at the Monday RC and v 6pm meeting in search of real solutions in action. Will city manager Huffaker and his lieutenants Butler and Muali be there? We'll see our community and supportive lawyers successfully fought a police and forced them out of town solution winter before last. When the community stood up to police harassment and violence against people who have no place to go other than the token spots that are already mostly filled. The SCPD hide out or get out plan is neither humane, feasible, cost effective nor legal. Thank you for your comment. I will now go to the next person in in person. Please step forward. Thank you. Welcome. Pleasure to be here folks. This is my first appearance. Issues that I want to bring up are I'm a nationalist. There are two natural springs on Westcliff. They're hidden in the cuts. Unfortunately, the planning commission allowed leeching instead of something and they are horribly pleuded. Also, I would like to mention the fact that the city council and firefighters, which have been our heroes forever, but not even give tours anymore to the children that want to know about them. Nor can they give out first aid kits. And when they have a first aid kit, in order to change the first aid kit out, they have to take a body to the hospital and then get another first aid kit from the same. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. I will now go to virtual and I will ask for the name I am watching you. Yeah, thanks. I can agree composting is a better use of food scraps than is landfill. But the mandated food scrap program shares similarities to the stench of the authoritarian climate change agenda, and that it requires unquestionable unconditional compliance doesn't offer up doubts or exceptions for any reason does not allow alternative ideas. That is the government always knows best will trash the budding private food scrap recycling program here has an yet unknown probably very high cost of which we will all have to pay that you have not disclosed extra collection and trucking of the tons of this much over higher 17 to make into animal feed sounds awful for the animals anyway is very heavy handed while also impossible to check compliance. Very possibly this flunks one of my basic tests of all government programs doesn't provide what the public needs wants and is willing to pay for it. I realize this is not your idea but the state in this case with an excuse like everything you go saving the planet from us awful humans. No actual cost benefit analysis presented for public approval. Where is it? That's a joke. It will be imposed by utility monopoly. It's hard to beat the efficiency low cost and soil improvements benefit of self varying food scraps and backyard vegetable gardens. But there's no opt out for that we pay anyway. It's missing a voluntary component. I don't regard food scraps as toxic waste. They are remnants of life. It's not capitalism. Again, it's authoritarian central planning. This is tame compared to the damage climate change that mandates will do ignoring the consequences of energy starvation economic chaos reduced for life supply reducing the food supply resulting I would think in mass migration pandemic starvation and war. We see it already in Sri Lanka and idioc plans to kill off half the national range herd in Holland. Those who would ban cattle need to understand one third of the land. Thank you. I will now go to our next member of the public in person. Please step forward. Welcome. Hi. Many of you probably remember the trolley. It was it was me. You know, maybe I don't know. There's a I mean, it's always confused, you know, when you say, you know, something as a victim of COVID or the COVID era. I don't know. I mean, I think we should talk about like really where we are with COVID more, more often. I know it is there's this fatigue, you know, over that, you know, like don't want us to talk about it. There's very few people here in person. There's me and a handful of other people. Normally there's, you know, at least twice that many at council meetings. Basically. Yeah, I think I don't know. I think like this. This is one thing. The exploration center is open again. I'm happy. I'm happy to notice that they that they're liquid galaxy machine. Someone someone from local government could talk to Google directly, perhaps and have that fixed up because it right now it's out of operation. I don't know. I like the idea and this is this is just because you know, I'm kind of an like an engineering architecture nerd like your new building over here. I'm, you know, talking to those construction workers and they're like telling me there's a pool on the top floor and I'm kind of skeptical, but I think you got I mean, I think you should consider the possibility of actually tunneling through the purists of most sandstone. It's 1000 feet from here to the library is about 250 feet. You're looking at four times that that distance where people could simply walk to the beach straight from the Pacific and then you wouldn't have to answer the, you know, annoying tourists who always ask you where the beach is. Okay, thanks. Thank you for your comment. Let's see. Our next person is virtual and I will ask Serge Cogno to unmute. Welcome. Good afternoon, Mayor Burner City Council. Thanks. Thank you for allowing me to speak this afternoon. My name is Serge Cogno, the Executive Director of Recovery Café Santa Cruz. I've spoken before about Recovery Café Santa Cruz, which presently has 49 independent recovery cafes across the US and Canada. Thank you, Councilmember Brown, who came to visit our program. Thank you, Councilmember Cummings, who sat down with our group when we were first forming. In the order of supervisors discussion on homelessness, there was the talk of the intersection of mental health and substance use issues. I'd like to add also in that discussion that isolation and lack of community make it more challenging for many to engage in services. Many people experiencing homelessness are not willing to receive shelter or support services or consistently consistency and engaging in the support services they're receiving or need support to stay in housing. Recovery Café Santa Cruz believes everyone needs a community. I'd like to invite the City Council and the Board of Supervisors to accompany me for a tour of Recovery Café San Jose to see what partnership with the City of San Jose using CBDG funding can create. They have a beautiful environment to provide support services to increase service engagement, housing stability, and multiple outcomes of quality of life. I'll be sending an invite for a tour. If you're not available, I hope you're able to send a staff member in your place. I would also propose a pilot study showing the effect of Recovery Café, the Recovery Café model in Santa Cruz on placing people in housing and maintaining housing for our community. Thank you for your time. Have a good night. Thank you for your comment. Our next public or oral communication comment is in person. Welcome. Yeah, I'm Keith McHenry. And first Food Not Bombs has been sharing food with the hungry and providing water and hand washing and so on for it will be 900 days in a row on August 31st. Then we are also providing a lot of the food in the bench land. So we are there all the time and we're friends with many of the people and we understand a lot of their issues. And one of the things people are obviously don't want to really live there. And they're concerned of course when the rainy season comes, it'll be an awful mess. So we held a Union San Francisco, homeless union meeting yesterday and about 20 people from the bench lands came and they told very moving stories about the difficulties they have. One woman actually was up at, she called an armory but really was overlooked. And she is in a walker and she said that it was so frightening. The staff was so dictatorial and horrible that she found it was better to live in a bush down by Water Street. So here's a 70 year old lady in a walker who is the recently widowed individual who was so she spoke out repeatedly about the horrors of participating in the shelter system, which is very tragic. Another woman lost her was late to work and when she had to give an excuse to her employer, she was put in a bind of having to admit she was homeless, which would jeopardize her job or try to hang on to her job somehow without admitting that she, you know, was getting a note. And others have pointed out that, you know, that they really need a lot of support. So anyway, I'm inviting you to this meeting to hear the voices of the unhoused from the bench lands themselves and get an idea really what is going on so that you thank you very much for your world communication comment. You can leave those sheets there at the front. I just want to make sure that's all the comments. And then we if there's any questions, I know there were a couple of points brought up. And is there anybody else in the virtual world that would like to have any comment on oral communications, which is any item not on today's agenda? Okay, I'm not seeing any other hands. And there's no other oral communications in person. Okay. I councilmember Brown. So I actually have an oral communication, which is I'm Lee. And as I just wanted to see if I could make that I was going to go down there. But it's okay to just make a communication. First, I will say just in response to the concern expressed about somebody at the armory who may have difficulties navigating transportation with their work schedule. That's a significant concern of mine. I know others have raised it. And so I want to just underscore that and I'll continue to ask questions about how we manage that as the city takes on operations there, or, you know, through a contract, but I'm just working with the Salvation Army because I think it's a it's really important that we incur, you know, we do everything we can to make it possible for people to have safe, a safe place to be and maintain employment for all of the obvious reasons. But my oral communication is just really quickly. I wanted to announce we didn't have councilmember updates today. But tomorrow at the Santa Cruz downtown farmers market is an opportunity for low income seniors 60 and over if you're under 185% of median income to get vouchers. And this something that happens twice a year, it's a senior farmers market nutrition program. So look for the seniors council booth if you're planning to go to the farmers market tomorrow at one o'clock. This is the downtown market at Lincoln and Cedar there. You'll see a booth. And if you meet the criteria, you can get coupons, I believe it's $20 for fresh fruit and vegetables at the market. And it's one distribution or two distribution days a year and tomorrow is the day for the downtown market. It also is happening across the county in their other sites and you can find the information at the seniors council website. Thank you for your oral communications. Are you here for oral communications? Hi there, welcome. Looks like we have one more member of the in person. Are you are you here to speak? We're just concluding oral communications. And oral communications is for any item not on today's agenda. You have the opportunity to address city council. Hello. Just want to let you guys know there's a bench lands meeting on Monday, August 15th, 2022, starting at 6pm. It's part of the resource center for non violence. Which is located at 612 Ocean Street, Santa Cruz. Right across from the paradox hotel. This was this meeting is going to be hosted by the Santa Cruz homeless union and food not bombs. See you later. Thank you for your public comment. All right, it looks like that concludes our public our oral communications. And I would I wonder if any of the there were a couple of the concerns brought up that that would be included in our August 23rd update to be addressed. Yes, Mayor Burner appreciate the questions that were raised. We will certainly address those as part of the quarterly update, including transportation to and from the shelter we have up at the overlook. Great. Thank you so much. And this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.