 All right, Madam city clerk. Do we want to go ahead and call the roll and call us to order? Yes. Thank you councilmember Tibbets Councilmember Schwedhelm here councilmember Sawyer councilmember Fleming councilmember Alvarez President Ice Mayor Rogers Mayor Rogers here Councilmember Sawyer have you joined us? Councilmember Fleming have you joined us? Okay, let the record show that all councilmembers Are present with the exception of councilmember Fleming and councilmember Sawyer Great. Thank you council before we begin. We'll do our traditional housekeeping Just as a quick reminder keep your audio on mute unless you are speaking Staff will remain muted until they need to speak as well as members of the public join the meeting They'll be participating as attendees their microphones and cameras will be muted And only today's panelists will be viewed during the meeting If you're calling in from a telephone and choose to speak during the public comment portion of today's agenda For privacy concerns the host will rename your viewable phone number to resident with the last four digits of your number And the city of santa rosa is committed to creating a safe and inclusive environment free from disruption We will not tolerate any hate speech or actions that are well staffed to monitor the that everyone is participating respectfully Otherwise, they will be removed Now madame city clerk, could you please walk through for the public how they might better engage during public comment portions of today's meeting? Yes, after each agenda item is presented the mayor will ask for council comments and then open it up for public comment The host and zoom will be lowering all hands until public comment is open for the agenda item Once the mayor has called for public comment The mayor will announce for the public to raise their hand if they wish to speak on the specific agenda item If you are calling in to listen to the meeting audibly You can dial star nine to raise your hand The mayor will then call on the public who have raised their hands Public comment will be limited to three minutes and a timer will appear on the screen for the council and the public to see Once all live public comments have been heard the meeting host will play voicemail public comments If you provide a live public comment on an agenda item But also submitted an email e comment or recorded a voice message public comment Your email e comment or voice message public comment will not be duplicated red or played during the meeting Additionally, there are two public comment periods on today's agenda to speak on non agenda matters at item 13 and 17 This is the time when any person may address the council on matters not listed on the agenda But which are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the council Great, thank you so much and with that mr. City manager. Let's go on to our study session yes, um Item 3.1 water and wastewater cost of service study proposed fiscal year 21 22 through fiscal year 24 25 rate schedule and proposed update to water shortage Charges jennifer berke director of santa rosa water leading us off Thank you. Good afternoon. Mayor rogers and members of the council As city manager mentioned i am jennifer berke and the water department director We are pleased to be here to provide a study session to the council on our proposed four year Rate schedule as well as an overview of our financial strategy during a water shortage Which is required as part of our water shortage contingency plan The proposed rate structure before you is a culmination of two years of work by water department staff Including the development of a 10-year financial model and an engineering evaluation of our catastrophic reserves The proposal before you also represents approximately six months of work by the board of public utilities closely reviewing the initial recommendations and providing feedback Using the board's input and direction as well as concerns from the council and the board about the impacts of coveted on our community and customers We were able to develop a modest rate recommendation that takes into account current impacts While still assuring a reliable and resilient water and sewer utility as well as wastewater treatment In particular, we were able To reduce our first year water and wastewater rate recommendation considering the impacts the community is facing due to coveted With me this afternoon is kim raley zanino our deputy director of administration And bob reed one of our rate consultants deputy director zanino will start off today's presentation covering the impacts to the water department billing And what we are doing to assist our customers in relation to the pandemic And then bob reed will cover the rate study our cost of service study our rate recommendation and our water shortage rate recommendation I will then wrap up the study session covering the outreach plan that we have implemented to date And the next step next steps for the rate recommendation So now i'm going to turn it over to deputy director zanino Can you move to the next slide, please? Um, this is just an agenda showing you what we will go over. Uh, director burk has already covered this I will talk about a coveted 19 pandemic billing update And then bob will be taking you through the rate recommendation The study and the water shortage contingency plan In relation to water shortage rates next slide, please Thank you. So prior to moving this presentation over to our rate consultant bob reed We wanted to share some information on how santa rosa water has responded to the covet 19 pandemic As well as the effects to billing and revenue In march of 2020 when the shelter in place orders began around the state a moratorium on shutting off water for non-payment was put into place Santa rosa water has complied with that mandate and in addition restored any water services that had been shut off prior to the order This has created some challenges for us As with all other water providers this process is used as a tool that puts us in a position to keep customers from getting so far Overdue that they can never catch up Many times it's just the start of the notification process that gets customers to reach out so that we can work with them To develop payment plans to get them current or to a manageable status In addition to suspending shut off processes santa rosa water also discontinued charging delinquent fees to our customers at the same time We have also implemented processes for customers to make payment arrangements That are outside of our normal payment plan terms We allow them to make any terms they are able to commit to There has also been increased outreach for the help to others program Making customers aware of the program the qualifications to participate and how to apply And lastly city staff is monitoring any state or federal programs that may provide assistance to our customers As well as working with the county and our regional communities to stay informed on the possible bill assistance That may become available and how we as providers will be able to help customers with program participation Next slide please We also wanted to make you aware of the work being done to address the tracking of customers and bills that are overdue To start there have been some constraints on how and what we can track based on how our billing system is set up Our system by design is set up for our policies and practices Which did not allow customers to become overdue by more than 90 days And therefore tracking customers at that level is data that would never have been tracked or collected for reporting purposes Modifying the system is not a consideration to accommodate the current situation since it is expected that we will return to normal business at some point And changes to policies and procedures would need to be considered and approved prior to designing or redesigning the system Core system changes are also very costly and time intensive And they um what we would never want to make any changes without a thorough evaluation So therefore we have found ways to work around the system First payment plans, which are a large part of our collections process during normal operations are tracked and automated If customers make arrangements and then do not keep them the process for notification of disconnection is automatically started in the system Because this process is suspended currently arrangements with customers are being handled manually In addition We have made modifications to the internal reports that allow us to identify the number of accounts In the over 90 day a rearage state And their total balances What we have been able to determine With the modifications to the reports is that roughly 1700 accounts are more than 90 days overdue And that the total balance of these accounts is 1.4 million dollars I would however like to give some perspective to those numbers The 1700 accounts are approximately 3 of our customer base, which is not outside of our normal normal range of overdue accounts This means the majority of our customers are paying their bills in a timely manner As for the total balance We can't compare it to prior years because accounts would not have been able to be overdue by that amount of time So the perspective I can give you or provide is that it is approximately 1 percent of our revenue And the tracking of this data was developed for several purposes One of them being to make sure that it is not creating an unmanageable financial burden on the current budget Which it is not at this point Even if this were to become a revenue loss Santa Rosa water would remain financially stable and budget would be sustainable Because of higher than projected water sales due to higher customer use this year and existing fund balance coverage I do however want to point out that this is not considered a revenue loss The customer is still owe the balances and Santa Rosa water will make every effort to collect the amounts due With our restrictive regulations on our rates We cannot just forgive account balances. So we will continue to work on the collection And helping customers with assistance that may become available to them Currently we continue to bill customers monthly for those amounts As well as make monthly reminder calls that the bills are overdue and to please contact us We will have to come up with some solutions On how to collect the funds after the moratorium is lifted, which we are already working on We are looking at options to create a collections process for the arrearages separate from the current charges That will allow us to return to normal business practices Another reason to collect the data was to help with industry tracking and evaluation That is being done by many state and national water associations that are working to provide input on legislation and relief bills And then finally we also felt it was very important to begin to identify which customers and the number of customers That we may be able to help with assistance programs as they become available And that concludes my update on the kovat 19 response And I will now be turning the presentation to over to our rate consultant bob re Good afternoon. Mayor roger's members of the council It's a pleasure to be able to present this information to you this afternoon if we could move to the next slide, please Um, I'm going to start this presentation talking about the general water and wastewater Rate study that's been conducted over the last couple of years. This is looking at the rates necessary for normal operations And and then subsequent to that we'll talk about water shortage conditions and steps taken with water rates to Help mitigate water shortage conditions and the financial impacts of that For the general rate study The rate study is generally comprised of three main elements. The first is to identify the revenue requirements This is the amount of revenue needed on an annual basis to cover Operations and maintenance the debt service obligations the capital improvement programs associated with utilities as well as maintaining prudent financial reserves And taking into account other revenue sources to the utilities To do this we develop a 10-year financial plan where we're looking not only at the at the current year and the current needs but also Looking out into the future for a 10-year planning period This helps us to anticipate things that may come up and it also allows us to smooth the rate increases out Over an extended period of time to help avoid any great shock or spikes The second part of the analysis is the cost of service analysis And this is where we once we've defined the revenue needs We take the the costs and we allocate them out to different customer classes and the different Great components based on the service demands of the customer base So we look at the number of accounts by customer class the meter sizes Which is a indicator of the the potential demand that customers can place on the system We also look at water use characteristics and peaking characteristics. We also look at wastewater flows And the different types of wastewater flows the strength characteristics and going through the wastewater analysis So this is a way of assigning the cost out to all the different customer classes And then finally we go through a rate design process and within this study We're not making any Significant changes to the rate structures at all We're just really updating the cost of service analysis and reflecting the the revenue needs of the utilities the next slide, please So this is a simple schematic that shows the financial plan and the different funds and reserves associated with both the water and wastewater utilities And on the left side, we have the revenue sources of Water and wastewater rate revenues use of rate revenues of the primary source of revenue There are some other revenues interest earnings demand fees Other miscellaneous fees and charges And then also for capital improvement program. There are Debt proceeds loan and grant proceeds also that get factored into the analysis And then the utilities are covering operating and maintenance costs Meeting your debt service obligations on long-term debt and then also spending money to Rehabilitate and upgrade the water and wastewater systems through a variety of capital projects There are also some designated reserves associated primarily associated with with debt obligations Next slide, please So some of the highlights of this study One of the real significant things that happened just a few months ago was the issuance of new long-term debt With wastewater system and this provided new money for the regional wastewater system and providing about 70 million dollars for the ultraviolet project at the treatment plant It was also an opportunity because interest rates were at historic lows have been To refinance some of your existing long-term debt And so with with that that is going to save Ratepayers and the wastewater utility about 16 million dollars over the next 14 years in interest costs So really took advantage of market conditions and the financial markets to Save some money as well as to provide the funds needed for this uv project that's that's coming up Also during the course of this study Santa Rosa water had Consultant another consultant look at catastrophic reserve needs And we've looked at that information and incorporated recommendations for the water and the local wastewater catastrophic reserves Based on those recommendations the Recommendations for the sub region over the regional wastewater treatment system Are still being reviewed and so we've got a placeholder for that But have not reflected that completely and then we went through as I mentioned the cost of service analysis associated with water and wastewater Updated the rate calculations And as part of this I suppose one one change that we are recommending is the elimination of the automatic pass-through associated with Purchasing treated water from Sonoma water That's been something that's been in place for a number of years But Sonoma water has also become much more unpredictable in terms of their changes And to build in anticipated increase in that cost into the rate schedules that are being developed will save the city from some of the administrative costs and So on associated with those automatic annual adjustments And also provide greater certainty for the customers in terms of what the rates will be for the next few years So It seemed to be a good change to to make at this point in time Next slide please So back to the catastrophic reserves so the water utility the current reserve is about 5.75 million dollars and the recommendation from your engineering consultants to increase that to 17 and a half million dollars Currently there are cash reserve balances Undesignated balances that could be used to Fill up that bucket if you will to fully fund that that catastrophic reserve That's not being done at this point, but is part of looking at updating the reserve policies Um, uh, that is an opportunity but for our financial analysis, uh, there are sufficient funds to meet that new Um water cath catastrophic reserve target For the wastewater utility the current Catastrophic reserve is 6.8 million with the recommendation to increase that to 21.5 million dollars another significant increase between existing reserves and the Um favorable debt financing that you just went through there's sufficient cash also to fund that reserve if that Is a decision that's that's that's made Again, actually moving that money will be for a future Decision consistent or at the time that the policy is being brought forward to the to the city council For the regional wastewater System the current reserve is 1.7 million dollars Again, you've got a preliminary recommendation from your engineering consultant, but that's going through review there will probably be some discussion with the other user agencies for the regional wastewater system And so we've put a placeholder of 10 million dollars into our models But that's a a preliminary number and subject to change But we felt it was a reasonable recommendation to include at this time and then the geysers Um catastrophic reserve recommended increased to go from 1.25 to 3.3 million and we've got that reflected in our modeling as well So as I indicated There will be an up recommended updates to the reserve policies coming forward at a future date and we made some recommendations with staff about Broadening the range of potential uses and making other modifications to that policy including inflating the Target levels for inflation each year so that they don't lose their value over over time due to inflation Next slide, please So this graph is a is a pretty high level summary of the water financial plan for the water utility A lot of information here So I'll I'll stuff you through this the the top graph here shows revenues and expenses on an annual basis over our 10 year planning period The stacked bars in blue represent costs to the utility the lighter blue is annual operating and maintenance expenses Including purchases of treated water and then you have a small amount of debt with the water utility and that's the cross hatched Part of that stacked bar in the graph and then Money is set aside each year for budgeted Capital improvement projects And so that's the darker blue at the top of those stacked bars on an annual basis And so you can see the growth over time with Each of these costs as we go through this planning period and then in the background in green are revenues to the utilities and at the bottom is non-rate revenues, so these are are miscellaneous fees and charges interest earnings Demand fees and so on that they come into into the utility and then the middle shaded green part is the Existing rate revenues and then the lighter green at the top in the background triangular wedge Is the increase in revenue coming from adjustments to the rate? So if you don't Adjust the rates at all over this planning period and you would just go up to the second part of this shaded area And you can see as costs increase. We need to increase revenues to continue to match those the second graph in in this slide shows what's happening to the Fund and reserves for the water utility the bottom Dashline in red is a minimum Operating reserve. This is a level that you would never want to go below. It's providing funds for working capital and cash flow needs and Real emergency position, but we would never plan on going below that and then the the next line adds to that the catastrophic reserve Target level and so you can see the increase In the first year and that's because we're looking at assuming that that target reserve level for the catastrophic reserve Is funded and then the blue line in the second graph is showing the end of year balance in the water utility And you can see the most part we're above those target reserves And as I indicated before we're not saying that that catastrophic reserve would be fully funded at this point in time You might leave some of that money as undesignated funds But there is capacity to do that if if that decision is is made And then at the bottom of this slide shows the annual rate increases and we've Estimated those for the 10-year planning period Our recommendation is just for rate adjustments for the first four years And over that period of time enough things will change that you'll want to update the financial plans and recast things out for another 10 years But you have a sense that of what we're looking at over the entire 10-year planning period here and for the next four years We're looking at a two percent Followed by two years of three percent and then a four percent annual rate adjustments And then so just some statistics at the bottom You're easily meeting your debt service coverage ratio in each year Here as well as this is indicating the level of capital spending or money being set aside for your capital projects each year And that gradually creeps up as well over the planning period We move to the next slide, please This shows the same information for the wastewater utility Again the top graph shows the revenues and expenses Expenses are in those stacked blue bars And you can see here that Significant more debt for the wastewater utility. Most of the debt is with the sub regional system But also some local wastewater debt as well But this is reflecting both the local wastewater costs Which is essentially the collection system cost to get wastewater to the treatment plant and then the regional costs are for treatment and reuse of Treated wastewater And then at the very top of this again is the capital improvement spending of this plan The the middle graph here again, we're showing able to Meet the reserve targets Throughout the planning period here With a little bit of cushion and you can see throughout the entire 10-year planning period very Nominal rate increases in fact. We're recommending four years at 2% and then beyond that We're looking at just 3% or very close to the pace of inflation for the remaining the planning period And again Debt service coverage is is not an issue. You've got plenty of capacity there. You generally need to be Required to be above 1.2 or 1.25 and recommended targets to be above 1.5 And you're up to four and a half five times coverage factor. So so the Debt service obligations is not being overly burdensome and that's a number your the financial community looks looks at And then you can also see the capital spending the reinvestment in the infrastructure at the bottom of this both for the local wastewater collection system as well as the regional treatment system Next slide, please So again very modest annual rate increases for both the water and the wastewater Utilities over the next four years. We've tried to keep the initial rate adjustments as low as we could because of the pandemic Issues and and the stresses that that's creating in the community But you can see very modest annual adjustments Throughout this this planning period next slide, please So the next step is to go into the the rate setting and go through the cost of serving Cost of service analysis and the calculation rates and here we're looking at a various rate setting objectives one to make sure We have sufficient revenues So financial sufficiency and sustainability and that's really looking at the financial plans and revenue needs We need to comply with the legal requirements and rate setting I'm meeting proposition 218 requirements and that is really supported through our cost of service analysis Encouraging water conservation has been a long-standing objective of the city and the in the utilities to Make sure people are using water efficiently and not being wasteful with a precious resource And then also looking at revenue stability and predictability Minimizing rate increases over time and then being sensitive to affordability issues as well as having rate structure that the customers understand How it works and I think we've got a rate structure now It was simplified a few years ago. I'm keeping that same rate structure I think your customers are pretty accustomed to it at this point Next slide, please So as we go through our cost of service analysis, there are several principles that help guide us Certain types of costs are allocated out to customers and through customer classes in different ways There are what we call customer costs and these are Costs that are assigned to each customer equally On an equal basis. And so I think of things like meter reading sending out a bill Customer service type costs those things where it doesn't matter whether you're a single family home or a large business Or or something else that those sorts of costs are The same regardless of the the type of customer the amount of water that you may use And then there are capacity costs These are assigned to customers on the basis of meter size And that's a meter size is used in the industry to be an indicator of the The type of demand that could be placed on the system by the customer So a customer with a four inch meter is going to pay more in terms of The customer cost or the capacity cost than somebody with a five eight inch residential meter So that's a way to assign costs on a proportionate basis related to A potential demand on the system and then our commodity costs are those things that we want to recover on the basis of usage So on water usage or on wastewater flow Which is estimated generally for residential customers based on winter water use And then and then we get into more specific detail for the tiered water rates for residential customers Where we look at where water supply costs and conservation costs are being applied to help us Justify the tier rate structure and then with wastewater. We're also looking at strength characteristics So some of your businesses will generate higher strength Waste which takes more to treat and so we have different strength categories for the non-residential Customers for wastewater water rates. So all of this goes into our cost of service analysis to help us develop the rates Next slide, please So this is just a very high level summary of where How much costs are allocated to each of those major components for both water and wastewater? You can see most of the costs are going to be recovered through the commodity and component based on usage And this helps to encourage water conservation both on the water side and on the wastewater side And then the next chunk is the capacity cost Which is allocated out based on meter size generally and then the small component is is those customer costs Costs that are allocated out equally to each customer So this is just a basic summary of how those costs are allocated to those components for each of the utilities Next slide, please So I wanted to spend just a moment talking about the water usage rates And this shows the proposed rates for the upcoming year and if we if we start With that center bar For the multifamily and commercial customers those customer classes will be paying Happen and will continue to pay a uniform usage rate in which all the water is charged at the same Amount regardless of usage And so this is really a blended rate it reflects all of those commodity costs that we were talking about water supply conservation A whole bunch of general costs that we allocate on the base of usage and that's that that's center bar For single family customers We have a two-tier structure and and their general costs that are included in both of those tiers But then when we get to water supply costs We allocate those a little bit differently Most of your water is treated water purses from Sonoma water We have a little bit of groundwater which is less expensive to produce Then the treated water from Sonoma water So we put the benefit of that lower cost water into tier one and so that means the water Supply component in tier two is slightly higher because it doesn't have that the advantage of that cheaper groundwater cost and then we also put water conservation program costs for Residential single family residential customers into tier two and that again is to help us provide a little bit of a price signal to two customers That are using more water and and allocating conservation costs Into that tier two usage Some customers will only be in tier one most customers Many customers will go into tier two at least in summer months When they're irrigating more but it really varies from customer to customer We have a similar structure for irrigation customers here. It's a two-tier structure as well It's a little bit different structure and and here the tier allocations are based on water budgets for each particular Customer based on size of the landscape types of plants and and whatnot And because of the dynamics and the nature of that It's a little bit different price differential between the first and the second tier relative to single family Again, all of this is reflecting the cost of service analysis That's gone into not only the allocation of cost across customer classes, but also to each of the rate components is as well Next slide, please This slide simply summarizes the Current water rates and rate structure and the proposed rates for the upcoming year just for the first year So effective in july of 2021 and then the last two columns show the the dollar change in each of those components as well as the percentage change and you can see all of these are in the You know two to three percent range in in general. There is a little bit of variation and again, that's a reflection of the Cost of service analysis. I'll also point out that this rate schedule reflects the rates for recycled water You have some irrigation accounts that use recycled water. They also have a two-tier structure and those rates are reflected here and then also on different service charges the the rates for recycled water are slightly discounted to offset the Customers cost the customer side costs of having to use recycled water including signage and having a Recycled water manager on site supervisor Looking at the use and so on and this is all a reflection of of policy that the city has had regarding the pricing of recycled water the next slide these This shows the wastewater rate schedule that's proposed for the upcoming year Again current rates proposed rates and then the change in dollar and percentage terms Again, these rates are reflecting Changes due to the cost of service analysis the uses rates are going up and you can see some of the Service charges are going down in this case again. It's a reflection of Updates to the cost of service analysis in the study I think the easier way to view the effects of the rate structure is with the next slide if we could move to that, please What we did was we took looked at a number of different customers Throughout the service area different types of customers a variety of single family homes low medium and high water use variety of multi-family apartment situations and then a variety of different types of businesses Including information on meter size their water use their wastewater Usage and so on and then we show their current bill comprised of water and wastewater charges and then proposed bill under the new rates For water and wastewater charges and then the last column here shows the the dollar change in those combined bills as well as the percentage change and you can see that across the board all of the the bills here are in the One to two percent maybe some a little bit over two percent But you can see this is a sort of a reflection of the fact that That we're not making rate structure changes that we're seeing some modest Changes due to the cost of service analysis and we have very modest overall rate increases And so the impact to customer individual bills across the broad spectrum of different users is pretty modest as well If we go to the next slide, please This is simply a summary of what a typical residential single family residential Combined bill for water and wastewater and the different components of that bill in the in the pie charts So you see the blue wedges there represent the different elements of Of the water bill. We have the fixed charge on the left there and then tier one and tier two usage and then The sewer bill is is reflected in green with fixed and usage based charges as well for this Customer using seven thousand gallons of water and and a 4400 gallons of Wastewater flow as determined by the sewer cap Their current bill is about 148 dollars and you can see that increasing by two to three to four dollars a month With each of the four rate adjustments going forward In the first year because we are adjusting each component of of the water and wastewater bill not all bills will go up by Fixed percentages, but in years two three and four there are no rate structure changes And so water bills will all go up by three percent wastewater bills will all go up by Two percent in the second year and similar for years three and four And if we go to the next slide please We also looked around at many of the Neighboring communities and what their water and wastewater bills look like for a typical single family home And so that's shown in this graphic The blue part of the bar shows water bill and then the tanner brown shows the wastewater part of the bill You can see City of Santa Rosa is right in the middle of the pack here and with the initial rate adjustment will continue to be in the middle of the pack I will indicate to you that a number of these utilities Also have multi-year rate plans that they're in the middle of And some of them are even in the midst of a rate update of their own to Look at their financial needs. And so all of many of the communities will gradually adjust their rates on a annual basis most of them do have some sort of adjustment on a annual basis, but We we believe that you and you are currently in the middle of the pack and will continue to be in the middle of the pack going forward And if we move to the next slide please so that concludes the presentation related to the General water and wastewater rate study again looking at normal water supply and demand conditions And the revenue needs of each of those utilities and the next part of this discussion Is going to be on the water shortage contingency plan looking at shortage conditions. So if we move to the next slide The water shortage contingency plan is a component of the city's urban water management plan This is a state mandated document that's prepared every five years The urban water management plan has comprehensive information about water supplies water demands customer base characteristics As well as information on water conservation activities And then a part of it included in one of the appendices in detail But there is what they call a water shortage contingency plan And and that is a section of the urban water management plan that deals with specifically how you would address a drought situation And as you know, California is subject to droughts from time to time Including potentially the the year that we're just moving into So the state has prescribed certain stages for water shortage And as well as water use reduction goals And so part of the update to the water shortage contingency plan is to Reflect those state guidelines in developing the plan So we have incorporated that we've also updated the financial analysis that's associated with the Water shortage contingency plan as well as the water shortage charges and excess use penalties Both of these are things that are part of your current water shortage contingency plan It's been part of the utilities centrosa waters policies For a number of years now and again, we were updating those to reflect the current Plan or the new plan coming coming forward. So if we move to the next slide, please we'll go into more details I'm going to focus on the financial aspects of the water shortage contingency plan I'm sure the urban water management plan and other aspects of the conservation program will be brought to you at a separate time But I'll be talking specifically about the the financial components In particular because this information needs to be included in the prop 218 notice That goes out to customers prior to a rate hearing. So this will be part of the rate adoption process The the new water shortage contingency plan for the city has eight stages of shortage that have been defined The first stage is a voluntary stage with only voluntary measures measures associated with it And that's where a a condition or a situation where you're looking for up to 10 water conservation. So fairly nominal target there And could be met likely through voluntary measures and then we move into mandatory stages of Conservation in different levels different stages here Stage two through stage eight and you can see the use reduction goals associated with each of those stages in the center of this table The the water shortage charge that we'll be describing Comes into play starting in stage two And this is the first mandatory stage of use reduction goals. And this is to provide a little bit more revenue to cover the Financial deficit that's created during a short situation. We'll talk more about that in a moment And then starting in stage five. There's also an excess use penalty And this is Something that comes into play if people exceed their water allocations that Also come into play at stage five Any customer that doesn't meet those Stay within their allocation Maybe subject to an excess use penalty The penalty would be something that all customers could avoid If they if they stay within their allocation, whereas the water shortage charge would apply to all water usage And so everybody would pay a little bit in that water shortage charge if they're if they're using water We move to the next slide Go into a little bit More more detail here The financial strategy that we develop for the water shortage contingency plan is not just relying on these The the revenue from the water shortage charge But we really looked at a three-prong financial strategy to bridge the financial deficit created by a shortage One is we look at it utilizing a part of the financial reserves that are available within the utility Might be undesignated reserves or it could be a portion of the catastrophic reserves That could be used to bridge the financial deficit and in fact in stage one where where we wouldn't have that It's all voluntary measures. We wouldn't have the water shortage charge revenues from that We would be looking at reaching into the pocket to our pocket and using some of our Available reserves to cover that financial gap And then starting in stage two we'd have that water shortage charge And then a third prong here would be the Opportunity or the ability to defer a part of the capital improvement program as a way of preserving cash So the three prongs of this strategy are to use available cash to generate some additional cash And to preserve cash by deferring some capital spending And again, I'll mention that the excess use penalties while they might generate some additional revenue They aren't intended to If any revenue is generated they would be used to help Defray the costs associated with shortage Replanished the the reserves that have been drawn down and and whatnot, but we're not planning or anticipating specific revenues from those excess Use penalties next slide, please So I mentioned the financial deficit being created with shortage and what what this Graph does is show what that financial deficit may look like at different stages of shortage And and this assumes shortages that go on for a year So a 12 month duration in a normal supply situation our revenues and our expenses are Generally in balance and so you can see that in the the first two bars here in the normal supply They're in balance as we move into the different stages one through eight We have less revenue Because we're selling less water so that revenues not coming in our expenses decline somewhat We're buying less treated water for example But but the revenues will decline more than the expenses will there will also be some additional expenses You'll probably spend more Put more effort into conservation and outreach activities to help people Meet the use reduction goals and and and so on so some expenses will go up in a period of shortage But we went through a financial analysis looking at what happens as both supply and demand Are curtailed and you can see the the financial deficit widening As we get into more severe stages of shortage So our financial strategy is how bridge that gap. So if we move to the next slide This really shows the uh, that three-pronged strategy here And so now we've taken that gap the difference between revenues and expenses and we've backfilled it So that's what's shown in these stack bars here In a stage one situation with um, just voluntary measures As I mentioned before we would be looking to uh, using available reserves to to bridge that gap And so that's the only component there when we move into stage two We're instituting that capital shortage charge and generating some additional revenue from that and as we move through the higher stages Um of of shortage that would generate some additional Revenue along the way as well. And then also in that middle green shade part is Um, uh, reduce cip appropriations or reducing our spending on capital projects to to preserve cash And that's a third prong now There is some discretion between each of these as we go through the different stages and and so what you would actually do At any particular shortage condition would would kind of depend on the the facts on the ground at the time that that Occurred but we are providing this multiple tools in your toolbox if you will Or managing the the shortage situation So if we move to the next slide This provides uh, the the details of how the water shortage charge the excess use penalty would would work in the rate structure So the first column in numbers here is simply the water usage rates that are being proposed for upcoming july so july 2021 using this as a just for illustrative purposes These water shortage charges would not affect the fixed monthly service charges that all customers pay It only applies to the usage component of the water bill And what happens is this water usage charge is effectively a an increase in those water usage rates With each each different stage And in stage two you can see up at the top here There would be a five percent water shortage charge So each of the usage rates would increase by five percent In stage three that would go to seven and a half percent Stage four ten percent and you can see as you work your way across there the water shortage charges increasing So as an example that five 97 that tier one rate with the five percent Sir, uh, a water shortage charge would increase to to six twenty seven With that five percent added in and you can see that with the additional rates As well as you go through stage four Things change when we get to stage five and this is a stage where Allocations of water would be made for each customer for residential customers It would be a function of the number of people per household At least initially at that point there would also be an allocation for some irrigation water usage as well When we get out to stage seven and eight there may not be provisions for irrigation even And then for non-residential customers there would also be allocations The tier structure That we have for residential and single family and irrigation accounts would be Revert to a uniform rate that would be the same as for multifamily commercial non-residential accounts So everybody would have the uniform rate, but then it would also Create this excess use penalty so that if you stayed within your water allocation You can see at the bottom here Tier one would then become up to 100 percent of the water allocation for each individual customer Would be at that uniform rate And then if you go over your allocation up to 150 percent You pay an initial excess use penalty This is the tier two rate and in stage five that would be a 10 percent increase over the tier one rate And then in tier three if that would apply if you're over 150 percent of your water allocation That would be a 20 percent excess use penalty so that being applied on top of the tier one rate And then it gets more stringent as you go out all the way to stage eight Where we're looking at water use reduction goals in excess of 50 percent Again those excess use penalties can be completely avoided by all customers Simply by staying within the allocations that are given to them A lot of information in that slide so But it really provides the details on how this all works. So if we go to the next slide This sort of summarizes what it really means for a single family residential customer What all these different charges mean in different stages of water shortage The top half of this table shows what happens to a single family customer that might in a in a month And this might be a typical summer month where they're using 10 000 gallons of water In a july or august time period say And so if you go across look under normal conditions, they would have a service charge Plus their usage charge would be in their bill Stage one This customer that is meeting that use reduction goal through voluntary means is using a little bit less water No change in the rate structure or the rates But you see their bill goes down a little bit because they're using less water When we get into stage two and three and four We start to see the water shortage charge coming into play and that applies to each unit That's that little percentage increase in the water usage rates And that's starting to generate a little bit of additional revenue And then when we get into stage five six seven and eight we get into excess use penalties the water shortage charge continues Because this customer is needing The uh water use reduction goals and staying within their water allocation in those high stages They never pay an excess use penalty You can see the total water bill in the second of the last column here and then the change From their normal bill associated with Water usage at each of these stages and you can see those customers that are meeting the use reduction bill Even though they're paying a little bit extra in that water shortage charge Their bill goes down relative to what their normal bill would be with normal usage And that's because they're using less water That they they get they see that benefit The bottom half of this table shows what happens if a customer doesn't reduce their water use consistent with the use reduction goals and here They continue to pay all of their current charges But also that water shortage charge and even that excess use penalty when you get into stage five and above And you can see some pretty dramatic bill increases particularly in the latter Stages the more severe stages of shortage If if they don't reduce their water use consistent with the needs of the city at that at that time So I think the real takeaway from this slide is if you're meeting your use reduction goals Customers will see lower bills and then they would normally have is as a result of of this strategy But if you're not cutting back To help the city get through the shortest situation, they could be paying some additional money So if we move to the next slide I think i'm going to turn it back over to Director Burke at this point in time to wrap things up. Thank you So, um, we wanted to finish up the presentation with providing some information on the outreach campaign that we've implemented to date And then talk about next steps with our rate proposal So, um, we have developed and implemented a comprehensive multimedia outreach campaign We really wanted to showcase the value of the services that we provide to the community and highlight the investment required to maintain our critical systems And the programs that we implement to enhance and protect our environment Initially, we had planned on a lot of in-person meetings and information sharing But we quickly pivoted to a virtual campaign And so we are using all of the digital and written tools that are available to us and listed on this slide Including three videos that hopefully, um, you've seen through various social media outlets, but we can also share at some point That really highlight what we do the service that we provide and the importance of investing in our infrastructure If we go to the next slide, this campaign is then going to pivot and transition to focus directly on our four-year rate proposal The setting of water and wastewater rates must comply with proposition 218 This requires us to provide a mailing To all customers and property owners informing them of the proposed rates 45 days prior to a public hearing And the notice must also let them know how they can participate and when the public hearing will take place We are planning to mail the prop 218 notice later this month And we have currently set the public hearing to occur at your meeting on may 25th If we go to the next slide I also wanted to Acknowledge and recognize the work that your board has done On the recommendation before you we Worked specifically with the board of public utilities budget subcommittee They met with us four times to review and provide input on the process And the recommendation that is before you today based on their input We did make changes and it has resulted in the recommendation that is before you today The bpu also as a full board reviewed this and study session on february the fourth and then they unanimously recommended The four-year rate schedule and water shortage charges that are in front of you today We go to the next slide So as part of the study session today We're here to answer any questions that the council may have and receive any direction on this rate recommendation If there is support Then we will send out the notice later this month if there's questions or things we have to come back to council on We are prepared to come back on At your next meeting on march 16th if needed. I think sorry. That's a typo the 23rd is typo. Apologize for that So if we go to the next slide So what we're here today again just a summary We're here to answer any questions and get direction on the recommendation This is the four-year rate recommendation for the water and wastewater Both the fixed and usage charges And then also we'll be putting out information on the water shortage charges and excess use penalties as presented earlier today If again, if we are Get approval to move forward Then we will be putting out the prop 218 notice later this month and then we're coming back to the council for consideration of this recommendation through a public hearing process on may the 25th And with that that concludes our presentation and we're happy to answer any questions that the council may have Great. Thank you so much director council. Who wants to start any questions? councilmember squadel Hey, mr. Mayor Thank you for that presentation all we did that Jennifer the first question I have regarding the water shortage Have we what's the highest stage or the lowest stage the worst stage we've ever hit in the history of our water shortages So the highest stage that we've implemented so far has And the stages have changed a little bit over time But it was it was a mandatory 20 percent reduction and that was during the last drought in 2013 through 2016 end of 13 through 16 Who has ballpark is stage three? Yes, I think at the time it was staged So okay and just to put it in the context our current drought. It's been the driest year in decades, correct So last year was the third driest year on record and so far this year. We're tracking under that A rainfall pattern, correct Great. Thank you. And then one other question I had was way back on slide four during kimberley's presentation As the state of california Enacted any assistance for this similar to what they did with the eviction moratorium Where you know our city attorney did an awesome job explaining that one where Landlords could receive 80 percent if they waved the other 20 percent. Is there anything like that with the water shortages? I'll answer that or please go for it. Okay um, so so far what we are seeing are Relief packages that are coming out that are Kind of restrictive. Um, they mostly call out rental and not owner occupied homes, so That creates a bit of an issue and we are making comments Back to the different agencies that are are providing some relief They also have made the Relief for utility bills so Not just water at this point, but for utility bills And so far the math is coming out that the rental assistance will take up all funding that is becoming available Before it ever gets to the utility bill phase But we continue to work with making Responses and comments on all of that and so do all of the national water associations To try to work towards working on getting more relief actually related straight to the water bill Great. Thank you for that. You know and the reason I make that comment Is serene the current condition of the state's budget and how robust it is it seems like there's an opportunity to assist Some of these issues that we just discussed today. So thank you for that Thank you councilmember and I will also do a quick shout out To senator bill dodd who I know has worked quite a bit on the low income assistance program for rate users and I Understand that he has an additional bill this year That i'll bring more information back to council on as we have details to to help with some of that aspect as well Supporting folks who are struggling Who else has questions Councilmember tibbetz Thank you. Um, I guess this would be a question for director burk help to others program What is the income threshold for that if my memory serves it was pretty low You are taxing my memory it is for um, um, low income and I can get you I can get the council Um, the income numbers they were just updated But it really is for low income customers. So it's focused and so that's been part of the Um issue that we're dealing with in terms of trying to help folks impacted by coven Not all qualify because of their income. Um, and so help to others really is focused on Uh, very low and low income and and I'll get you that I apologize. I don't have that at my fingertips No worries and I'll just make my comments now to spare everyone later I just want to say thank you and and to bob reid and your staff I mean that was a really really fleshed out presentation. I had really no questions after it Um, you know, we always hate to see those those raids go up But with uncertainty coming out of sonoma water compounded by As tom pointed out, it's probably going to be the worst drought we've ever had. I think it's it's the right direction um, I also want to thank kimberley for uh, thinking about the essentially the partial payment plan We're doing that with our tenants right now and it's a it's statements of the paul where I work and uh, You know, I think that's going to be the best way to to get people You know working on their own financial timeline. So the fact that the department Is able to work with that and absorb that, you know, I I appreciate it As far as health to others is concerned director burk if you could get us that information or at least me Um, I'm curious about what that is. I know we use cell phone tower revenue and some other odd revenue sources to fund it Back in I think it was 2015 or something Um, but you know one thing that I may ask for and I'll just go ahead and ask for it now This budget is looking at when this comes back for the public hearing in may Um, is there any Is there any room to try to look at some of those revenue sources that are non-ray payer money? Which is prop 218 bound as I understand it But uh looking at if that helped others threshold can be elevated at all and the reason why I ask is You know, I I'm looking at houses for sale in Sonoma county these days and 800 square foot bungalows are, you know $550,000 I'm just kind of like well if we're going off of the social security Low-income threshold of you know, which is basically nothing those people probably don't live in santa rosa. Anyways, I hate to say it but We may want to look at trying to get to a more reasonable Place for where our residents might be in terms of what their cash flow is every month And thanks again Thank you councilmember tidbits. We we will definitely get that information I'm trying to see if it's going to scramble up as we're sitting here. Um in terms of those income levels I don't know what the percentage is but it is In line with the housing programs that we run So a single Person household is at 39 800 a year so very low and it goes up to a six person household at 65 900 That's actually admittedly a lot better than I thought so that makes me feel better But if there is headroom the next For the next presentation and the plan definitely browning points for me, but thank you Yes, and thank you councilmember tidbits and I will just say yes, it is a cell phone tower Revenue that's really the only revenue base that we do have to use for this particular program that isn't bound by prop 218 or other constraints and We we are continuing and continuously do look at that program. We had actually Expanded the amount of support we gave to our customers So we increased the discount to actually provide for the entire fixed charge Just more recently in the last year year and a half To really help kind of make those dollars go further for those folks that are participating in the program Councilmember Sawyer Thank you mayor, and I apologize to the council and the mayor for being tardy. It was not intentional but unavoidable Um, I do have a question. It's kind of a reality check so I know that a lot of people Over the last few years have been removing lawns putting in drought tolerant plants Going to drip systems. I and I I've done those same things and really probably Uh Pretty close to my minimum water usage assuming I don't let plants start to die Um, is there any is that kind of the what we might be faced with it? If we move to the to the higher tiers Unless there is a unless the water department can come out and assess your your endeavors to try to reduce your water um use Is that the is that indeed the the what we might be faced with is actually losing plant materially even though they're on a drip because we because unless they want to pay the overage fees Um, that actually the continued reduction in use is the only way to keep those water bills lower um is actually loss of of What we might call expendable plant material Um, so councilmember Sawyer, it's a great question And we will be coming to the council with a full study session on Our urban water management plan and our urban water shortage contingency plan and we'll be Proposing what the allocation amounts would be What the cutbacks would be It is a little Just the way the timing has worked out Because we are doing a prop 218 notice we have to prop 218 notice the water shortage charges So the item that we're talking about today is really just the charges So we will do a full study session with the council in the coming months on the rest of the plan But in essence, um when we're looking at those higher stages there is minimal to no allocation for Landscape so but there are our opportunities And we can always provide tips and tools and look at other options. There may be gray water or other things that folks may want to consider Well, I appreciate that and I want to thank you It was a great presentation And I know you worked very very hard to try to keep the impact on our community as low as possible And we'll just hope we don't get into those other tiers But you know we are we are faced with a big challenge this year and going into the future So I know you you did the best you could and I look forward to that to that study session Or the the the next steps if you will in gain allowing the community to gain Kind of a gain the reality of really what we're faced with In the city santa rosa. So thank you councilmember alvarez Thank you, mayor. First and foremost, thank you for the presentation. It's very thorough Secondly, my pointy mark wash looks very highly of the bpu. So uh, and and that's uh, that's a hard thing to do So congratulations In regards to the outreach, I know that the the the building comes both in english and spanish Or are we also doing that with the video? I have I must admit I have not seen the video and as well as the radio ads We actually reach out on spanish radio So so yeah, we make sure that we publish Most of our materials in english and in spanish And so we make sure that on our website as well that it's available in both ways also Thank you very much Any other questions from council? Okay, I'm not seeing any so we'll go to public comment If you're interested in providing comment on this item today, go ahead and hit the raise hand feature on your zoom All right, Stephanie. I'm not seeing any. Did we have any voicemail public comments? We had no voicemail public comments on item 3.1 Okay, we'll go ahead and bring it back to council then Uh, is there any further direction that that you need director? Oh, I think we have the direction we need it sounds like there were no unanswered questions So we will be um going forth with putting out the prop 218 notice and then we will be coming back to council Um on may 25th Okay, that sounds great Thank you all so much Council we don't start our formal meeting until four o'clock So we're gonna actually take a little bit of a recess here and we'll come back at four o'clock for the rest of the meeting All right, madam city clerk. It looks like it's four o'clock and I see a quorum of the council Let's go ahead and resume our meeting. Would you please call the roll? Thank you councilmember tibbetz Here councilmember schwedhelm here councilmember soyer here councilmember fleming councilmember alvarez president Ice mayor rogers Mayor rogers here councilmember fleming have you joined us? Okay, let the record show that all councilmembers are present with the exception of councilmember fleming Great. Thank you so much. We don't have any closed session to talk about today We have no proclamations so mr. City manager. Let's start with staff briefings And we only have one staff briefing this evening. That's item 7.2 and I will turn it over to mr. Paul loanthall Good evening mayor rogers vice mayor rogers member of the council Quick update tonight for the glass fire. Just three quick items one happy to report the open space up in Skyhawk is open And the final repairs to the pedestrian walking bridge. We're done Second thing we are working towards now a june 1st deadline of having all fire debris Removed from the city the state anticipates completing their debris removal by may 1st And so our process will be to have all the private debris removal completed by June 1st and then third and final Is a request from the state on messaging to our fire survivors that are still waiting for their state debris removal We've had reports from several of the other counties that residents are taking it upon themselves to either disturb the ash or move some of the ash around In an effort to start looking at rebuilding options. And unfortunately it's disqualifying them from the debris removal program So we will be working with our survivors under Our communications team to make sure they get that message and know the state is literally on their way and hope to have their properties cleared soon And that completes our update for this week Thanks paul any questions from council? Great. Thank you so much and let us know how we can help amplify that That push there for the public as well Sounds good. Thank you Okay, uh, mr. City manager. Let's go on to city manager city attorney of reports You want to start tonight? I I think you need to ask if there is public comment on 7.2 Yeah, thank you. I always forget that on the staff the staff updates Do we have any public comment on our one staff update tonight? And that's the glass fire or it should be the uh, COVID Yes, glass fire recovery update that we just heard from paul. All right, madam city clerk. Do we have any voicemails? We received no voice message public comments on this item right We'll go ahead bring it back now. Mr. City manager item eight item eight There is no city manager report this evening Okay, and madam city attorney There's no I have nothing to report as well. Thank you. Great Item nine council. Do we have any statements of abstention? council members, uh, tibets I'm gonna have to abstain from item 12.5 declaration of homeless emergency Benefits of that program reach into my professional life. Okay Are there any others from the council? Great, we'll go on to mayors and council members reports Who wants to start? Let's go ahead start with council members. What up Thank you, mr. Mayor. Just one item. We had a continuum of care meeting on february 24th Uh, when there are a couple significant items of interest We were scheduled to make some funding decisions which included pretty much across the board 30 cuts Or some more strategic cuts in specific programs, which would have had dire consequences in my opinion But during the agenda item, uh, the cdc received confirmation from the california Department of housing and community development of an award notification of approximately 4.9 million dollars Which can go which can go towards emergency shelter rapid rehousing and administration Based on that confirmation of the funding coming to sinema county We continue the item until our next meeting which will be next week on march 10th Additionally, uh, we're starting forming some committees five committees were identified and we're starting to accept applications for those There's an ad hoc continuum of care program evaluation committee An h m is homeless management information system data committee A coordinated entry advisory committee a lived experience committee and a charter slash strategic planning committee I'll be applying to participate in that last one the charter and strategic planning committee now live it Right. Thank you so much council member Madam vice mayor Like to make a few appointments today. I'll be appointing kandace richardson um for the community advisory board that at large position and Damian square or the additional position and le elias In it, sorry. I practiced that name. So I have to say it right For the measure o citizen oversight committee. Thank you very much All right. Thank you, madam vice mayor So I've got a couple of appointments that I'm going to make tonight as well I think over the last few weeks one of the most substantial conversations that we've been hearing from our community Is in response to the uh study session that we had on the bennett valley golf course A one of the primary concerns that I and staff heard Was that there was no rfp for this process as it moved forward And so taking a step back and then talking with the city manager and other staff members We thought that it would be prudent to appoint an ad hoc committee That will specifically look at the scope of services in an rfp And then bring an rfp for public discussion to the council and a discussion of whether or not we'd like to continue on in that process Council member soyer has agreed to chair the ad hoc committee Council members tidbits and alvarez have also agreed to participate So thank you very much for your service For folks in the public What that means is that these three council members will work with assistant city manager jason nut To talk about what they've heard from the public To help craft the scope of what that rfp will look like And then we'll be able to have a study session here at the council level And the public will be invited to weigh in on what that rfp looks like And then that'll be a touch point for council to see if we want to continue to advance that conversation Or if we've heard substantially from the community and are ready To go a different direction So council members. Thank you for your willingness to serve on that committee I also want to report out to the council. We had our First let league of cities legislative committee Over the last couple of months. We just had our first one this last week I was elected as the chair of that entity working on legislation We are now past the bill introduction deadline and though every member was asked to keep their bill loads to only about 12 bills apiece We ended up with Thousands of them still to comb through so i'll be bringing back to this group Things of interest that I think that you should look into or let you know when we've taken positions on legislation as it moves forward Lots of them are still in spot bill form. So i'm not going to get too far into most of them But I did want to highlight for uh for the council Actually regulations that are being proposed by the board of forestry just to keep an eye on The latest draft of the new fire management plans that that are out there For development actually have a couple of different components that will impact some of our conversations around recovery One is a proposed moratorium on any rebuild of a fire destroyed home If it is served by a road that is smaller than 14 feet across And so when it's in the wild and urban interface I'll be talking with staff to see If and how many of those we have but there are certainly some in Sonoma county The other is a requirement that local jurisdictions work with fire professionals to identify Ridge ways of strategic importance whether from topographical elements or from a fire Fire management standpoint and then those bridge tops would also likewise be banned from any type of development Moving forward as well Happy to answer any questions on that I'll keep folks in the loop and I do know having talked with the city manager That he and the fire marshals in our fire department are tracking this pretty closely and will keep us informed on it as well councilmember tibbetz Yeah, just a quick comment. I think you said you were going to do this But it would be great to get some of those key legislative bills that are being proposed by the league to come in a study session That was really interesting about the board of forestry issue Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We can definitely bring some of that forward councilmember And one of the things that we also have talked about doing through that entity That we talked about at the council as well as when we get further in the year doing a more global goal setting Of all of the jurisdictions to talk about what our legislative needs are so that that way we have our own policy platforms that we've developed to try to Give advance notice to our members of the delegation prior to them putting together and introducing their own legislation throughout the year Any other questions? Okay Then we will move on. We have no minutes tonight. Let's go ahead and go to our consent items item 12. Mr. City manager Item 12 0.1 resolution approval for Two purchase orders to all tech industries incorporated for the purchase of three all tech hybrid aerial trucks Under a source well cooperative agreement item 12.2 resolution Authorizing submittal of grant application to the state of california department of parks and recreation division of boating And waterways for boating programs safety equipment at lake ralphine and howarth parks item 12.3 resolution extension of proclamation Of a local of emergency relating to the threat to the community health posed by covet 19 I'll them 12.4 resolution extension of proclamation existence of a local emergency relating to 2020 glass fire item 12.5 resolution extension of proclamation local homeless emergency Okay, council. Do we have any questions on the consent calendar? Okay, seeing none. We'll go to public comment If there are any public comment on our consent calendar for tonight I'm not seeing any live public comment. Madam city clerk. Were there any voicemails? There are no voicemails received for item 12 consent calendar Okay Go ahead bring it back. Madam vice mayor. This is your item move items 12.1 through 12.4 and wait for the reading of the text Again So moved by the vice mayor seconded by council member sweat helm. Let's go ahead and call the roll councilmember tidbits Councilmember schwethelm. Hi councilmember soyer. Hi councilmember alvarez Vice mayor rogers Hi Mayor rogers I That motion passes with six eyes with councilmember flaming absent All right, madam vice mayor I move item 12.5 and wait for the reading of the text Second All right motion and a second. Let's go ahead call the roll councilmember schwethelm. Hi councilmember soyer. Hi councilmember alvarez All right Vice mayor rogers I Mayor rogers I That motion passes with five eyes with councilmember tidbits recusing and councilmember flaming absent Okay Now council. We don't have any report items or public hearings Madam city attorney. I do believe we have to wait until five o'clock to do our public comment That correct. Yes. That's that's correct. Yes, okay Then we will recess until five o'clock and we'll come back for public comment for items not on the agenda All right, madam city clerk. I have us at five o'clock. I see a quorum of the council. Let's go ahead and call the roll Okay councilmember tidbits here Councilmember schwethelm here councilmember soyer here councilmember flaming councilmember alvarez president Vice mayor rogers Mayor rogers here Councilmember flaming have you joined us? Okay, let the record show that all councilmembers are present with the exception of councilmember flaming Great. Well, thank you so much for coming back council and for being here We have one item left on our agenda That's public comment for non agenda items If you're interested in providing a public comment tonight Go ahead to hit the raise hand feature on your zoom. You'll have three minutes to address the council Due to the brown act We can't get into a back-and-forth discussion about items that haven't been agendized But we can definitely take that back for future discussion and ask staff to respond as appropriately With that I see first hand up is sheila Sheila we're gonna go ahead and unmute you and you'll have three minutes to address the council Great, can you hear me? Yep. Go ahead Ripping good evening councilmembers. Thank you for your time this evening On behalf of the over 3,600 plus members and growing of the save bennett valley golf course and recreational area group We are asking for a council vote now Not a delay to the summer to rescind the authorization to the city manager to prepare the $150,000 proposed contract With cb re as you already know Many residents of our city within your districts do not want this contract the time and money Could be better spent a yes vote Will only reinforce the view that the city council is not really engaging with its constituents As you yourselves have shared time is of the essence to resolve the fiscal issues you've stated And there's a need to put the plan in place for the contract close coming up with the current operator july 2022 Your choice to stop the cbr contract Will allow for collaboration between your residents And the city council Thank you Okay, thank you sheila Is there anybody else who'd like to speak on public comment? Okay, madame city clerk. Did we have any voicemail public comments? Yes, mayor. We have three voice message public comments that I will they know Okay Greetings my name is Lynn Fitzpatrick, and I am addressing agenda item 13 My topic is Paying for parking is killing our downtown and is supported by the documents. I emailed last week Last month I visited asaf's appliance repair on fourth street at 10 30 in the morning to pick up a lamp I had delivered for repair When I parked in front of asaf's my car was the only one on the entire block After a brief transaction. I returned to my car on that street still completely devoid of other vehicles To find a parking ticket on the windshield and the parking enforcer running away. I couldn't believe it Our downtown is struggling yet you discouraged those of us who are trying to patronize local shops By requiring us to pay to park even when all the other spaces are empty Our neighbors in hilsburg understand this They allow up to three hours of free parking using a robust license plate reader system tourists and local citizens who would like to patronize their hometown merchants Can do so easily and without also paying to park And city employees remain employed. They are license plate readers instead of meter watchers An urban myth exists that merchants support paid parking meters So I walked the several blocks of fourth street between mendicino and e-street and interviewed merchants and employees Sadly 11 storefronts on just those blocks are empty out of the 24 storefronts interviewed 19 opposed parking meters vehemently Presupported them and two others advocated for 30 to 60 minutes of free parking in front of their stores Interestingly merchants discourage me from wasting my time on this. They don't believe you will do anything to solve it Additionally, I opened a comment stream on next door inviting neighbors to to describe their experiences shopping and dining in san aroza Generally, they don't go anymore It's not covet. They can park for free in Montgomery Village or Cottingtown So they have found other places to spend their money and they don't believe you will do anything about this either We've all seen too many ghosts downtowns to wish that on our san aroza and with covet and 11 empty Storefronts in just the two blocks. I walked. This is not an empty threat You have the opportunity to breathe life back into our downtown Let's suspend those parking meters. Let's get those parking spaces filled again Let's begin working on a long-term solution to parking downtown That involves all constituent voices Let's revive our downtown right now when it needs us the most Hi, my name is Nikita. It's pleasure to be here in front of the mayor and city council I'm actually a resident of charlotte, but I have a lot of family in california The reason i'm here today is because citizens across california have In high volume requested that we raise awareness in their home state With their local and state government So dear citizens of san aroza You are being donated a free trial of our police body camera analytic software This is a free no obligation 60 day trial to evaluate cutting-edge new technology To improve policing in the state of california These trials are only being offered to a select group of cities around the u.s As a donation from amazon in green key to help improve policing in this country The purpose of this free trial is to process one year's worth of police body camera data and to generate a respectful this report A respectful this report will give you the data to understand what percentage of police interactions are positive Whether racial bias exists at your pd Which de-escalation tactics and officers are most effective in the field and much more This report and our findings are confidential and will remain the property of your city and police department The problem today is that less than 0.1 of your body camera data is being analyzed Despite the fact that this data can provide valuable insight into How to actually improve policing At the end of the day, we believe that police are in the customer service business And the same way when you call a customer service vendor and they say this line is recorded for quality and assurance purposes We believe that should be mandated for police as well So again, this is a free no no obligation trial To give you greater visibility into the everyday interactions of your police department and constituents Our software can also help you to reduce cloud storage cross by significantly replacing low risk files Such as routine traffic stops with smaller versions and or transcripts of the uh interaction Thus, we will reduce your city budget if you were to adopt this technology after your 60 day free trial But i'll stop there. I'd like to thank you all for your time city council and mayor. I really appreciate it Please contact me at n i k h i t at green key tech dot com If you would like to accept this donation or have any follow-up questions I'll personally reach out to each of you and we'd love to schedule a follow-up call. Thank you and have a good day Hi, this is eris weaver from the Sonoma county bicycle coalition. My comment is from agenda item number 13 um Well, we're fairly neutral as to whether or how the city and the county decide to collaborate on constructing a shared civic center We agree with supervisor rabbit's statement in um yesterday's paper that it's a huge project A generational thing you want to make sure you do it right and look at everything and for that reason, um I and other advocates for sustainable transportation are a little concerned about how many times Parking for private automobiles was mentioned as a concern in that story Both the city and the county have adopted climate action plans You both profess a desire to reduce vehicle miles traveled in greenhouse gas emissions So you should be doing everything in your power to discourage private automobile use and set a good example with your own facilities Research shows that when parking is free and plentiful More people will drive Providing publicly funded storage for private property has become outdated counterproductive and unsustainable So a shared civic center downtown would be convenient to both the bus and the train stations By reducing parking and adding other incentives like discounted or free clipper cards Really excellent bike parking and showers Reserve parking for carpools only flexible hours things like that would encourage workers to use alternative transportation Which would also increase the demand for those other forms of transportation and therefore investment in them So as you consider your next moves about moving city hall the sonoma county bicycle coalition encourages you to Stop reducing an outdated infrastructure like private parking and instead invest more in supporting getting people To work using transit and other forms of active transportation in congruence with your stated climate goals. Thank you Mayor that concludes voice message public comments on non-agenda matters Great. Thank you so much dina. That's the last item that we had tonight. So we'll go ahead and adjourn this meeting See you all in a couple of weeks