 If council members can turn on their cameras, we will be starting everyone one more minute before we begin looking to see who's all here. Looks like we have great everybody council member Boulder. So let's begin. Welcome everyone afternoon. Welcome to our two o'clock session of the February 8,022 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council. I would like to ask the clerk, please call roll. For commentary Johnson. Present. Thank you. We will be starting this session with a presentation item, a mayoral proclamation declaring February as Black History Month in the city of Santa Cruz. I would like to invite those here for the proclamation to turn on their cameras. Brenda Griffin of the Santa Cruz chapter of the NAACP. Pat Willis of Black Health Matters Initiative and Bishop Router of United Way. Thank you so much for being here today. Full mayoral proclamation that I will be reading and presenting to you all in person after following this meeting. And to the city. Okay, whereas National Black History Month in February is a special opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of African-American history, who acknowledge the centuries of struggles for equity, equality and freedom, and to honor the many black leaders who have contributed to the progress of our nation. And whereas the mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Color People, the NAACP, the nation's oldest, largest and most widely recognized grassroots based civil rights organization founded in 1909 is to ensure the political, educational, social and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination. And whereas the Santa Cruz grant of the NAACP was founded in 1949 to address local housing issues and has worked for decades, both throughout Santa Cruz County, equal economic opportunity, criminal justice reform, environmental and climate justice, civic engagement and education, including awarding scholarship to high school students for most secondary education. And whereas the Santa Cruz grant of the NAACP and President Brenda Griffin play a vital role in our community. Organizing annual community-wide events provide advocacy and support and facilitate community connections from which other groups and organizations have sprung, including that the Black Health Matters Initiative. And whereas this year's National Black History Month theme explores black health and wellness. And whereas the Santa Cruz County Black Health Matters Initiative led by Director Pat Willis has focused needed attention and developed community partnership to address the social determinants of health in our local black community and to ensure our whole community is not just surviving, but thriving. And whereas United Way of Santa Cruz County applied survey research, Santa Cruz County NAACP Black Health Matters Initiative, blended bridge and the Santa Cruz County Black Coalition for Justice and Racial Equity Advisors commissioned the Santa Cruz County Black Health Matters Spotlight, an initiative that shares data on the social determinants of health impacting historically underserved black African American population in Santa Cruz. And whereas acknowledging and understanding these struggles for social justice, racial equity, and equal rights in our black African American community in Santa Cruz can strengthen the insight of all of our residents regarding the issues of human rights, the continuing struggle against racial discrimination and poverty, and the great strides that have been made in the efforts to eliminate the barriers of equality for minority groups. Now, therefore, I, Sonia Brunner, Mayor of the City of Santa Cruz, do hereby proclaim the month of February, 2022 as Santa Cruz Black History Month in the City of Santa Cruz with special recognition to the Santa Cruz NAACP, United Way and Chief Executive Officer Keisha Browder and Black Health Matters Initiative. And I encourage all citizens to observe this plump by acknowledging and learning the history and challenges faced by the black community in Santa Cruz and paying tribute to supporting and engaging the many groups and leaders in the community for their contributions, their strength, character, and perseverance, all of which enrich our lives. Thank you. Thank you so much for being present today. Your work is noticed and will continue. You are making history. Thank you so much. Is there anything you'd like to say? Give you an opportunity to say a word? Any of you? Yes. Go ahead, Kat. Go ahead, Kat. Brenda, please. Brenda, please. Brenda, please. Well, Mayor Brunner, City Council members, thank you so much for uplifting the historical and concrete and achievements and legacy of Black Americans and those people who are of African descent. Mayor Brunner, you've put on so many wonderful things in that of transformation. I'm so grateful for it and for you. Thank you so much. I do want to ask once, I ask you all, ask Unity members to protect the rights of our educators, to teach us in its entirety, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Thank you so much for that opportunity. I'm so appreciate it. Thank you, Brenda, for coming. Kat Willis. So much. I'm so honored to be here today and I'm so honored to be a part of this community and this work alongside all of you. Did write something down to help me articulate that. I wanted to say I'd like to thank you, Sonia, our Mayor, like thank every single city council member and the city of Santa Cruz for proclaiming and highlighting our American history, Black American history. And I celebrate and honor by celebrating and honoring the future of our community and honoring that legacy. Thank you to all of you and Brenda, the one who's been doing this work in our community. We're not here today as well, in honor. Pisha Browder. Good afternoon, Mayor Brunner, city council members, our community. As you know, you're a United Wake, and you're spelled late. We started 27 years ago with community assessment project. We run the nation's longest community assessment project in partnership with the five survey research. So it's not a surprise that we partnered again to conduct our county's first quality of life investment for the Black and African American community here in our county. And we look forward to sharing those insights. We learned a lot. And as you all know, as leaders in our community, what gets measured, it's done. So now that we have this data, where we move out of the other category, and we have the data about our quality of the words from our residents, now that we have this data, we look forward to partnering with you as a city to examine policies, practices, to ensure that there is a quality of life here in St. Andrews that can truly be shared by all. This is a beautiful place to live, to work, to play. We wanna make sure that it is healthy, thriving, safe community for all who do come to us. So thank you for this opportunity. It has been amazing to partner with the NAACP, the Intercounting Black Health Matters Initiative, and others to get this data done so that we can really take a look at our quality of life in those ways that we can improve everyone. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for being present today. Okay, we will move on in our agenda. I have a few announcements, and then we will continue with the regular meeting. Today's meeting is being broadcast live on Community Television Channel 25 and streaming on the city's website, cityofsantacruz.com. If you wish to comment on an agenda item today, call in at the beginning of the item you're wanting to comment on using the instructions on your screen. Please mute your television or your streaming device once you call in, and listen through your phone only. Please note there is a delay in streaming, so if you continue to listen on your television or streaming device, you may miss your opportunity to speak. When it's your turn for public comment, press star nine to raise your hand, or press star nine to raise your hand, and please note public comment is heard only on items that council is taking action on and not on regular updates and reports. The items that will be opened up for public comment on today's agenda are numbers six through 21 on our agenda. Our agenda is posted at cityofsantacruz.com under meetings and agendas. I'd like to ask the council members before we continue if there are any statements of disqualification today. Seeing none, I'd like to ask the city clerk to announce any additions and deletions of the agenda. Communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak less on items that are not on the agenda. Oral communications will occur today, immediately following item 21. I will try and give a general time as we get closer towards the end of item 21. If you wish to make a comment during oral communications, please call in towards the end of item 21. I'd now like to call on the city attorney to report on our closed session items. Yes, good afternoon. Mayor Brunner, members of the city council. This afternoon, the city council convened at 1 p.m. by Zoom to discuss two items. Item one was a conference with legal counsel involving significant exposure to litigation. Council received a report from legal counsel and gave direction on that item. Item two was a conference legal counsel involving liability claims, claims of Brooke Elaine Burdock and Rhonda Elaine Reina. And those items, those claims are also listed this afternoon on your consent agenda as item number 13. There was no reportable action closed session this afternoon. Thank you so much. Now I'd like to call on the city manager to provide an update or if there are any updates or reports. Mayor, that's all good to be heard this afternoon. Everybody see my screen? Yes. All right, very good. So a few quick updates to provide for you this afternoon. I wanted to start with a little bit of good news. Well, this part chart might look scary as we move to January of our overall officer and are now reporting a decline in overall cases, largely attributable to the homicron cases. Finally, moving down the backside of the belcher. So that's positive news, particularly light of the fact that January resulted in the highest case counts. The start of now almost three year long pandemic. In one to two weeks, we're also projecting a more rapid decline in overall case, hoping that the impacts to schools, while with so many of our organizations are to decide as we move through the bulk of the impacts from homicron. Related to that, the state of California has also announced they are going to be relaxing the indoor face mask and date. I know that'll come as welcome news to many of us, myself included, those that we are moving into a more table period of the pandemic. Also some good news on the treatment front. There are more therapeutic medications that have arrived and are being burst through healthcare providers, in addition to the traditional vaccines that have had access to accounts for several months. All of that is adding to the tools that we have available to fight the virus bolstering our efforts overall. I also wanted to share with the community that Depot Park testing location will need to relocate a few weeks so we're in the process of looking for a new testing site in the downtown area. We'll of course share that information as a final decision. We're pivoting out and talking a little bit about some work that's been underway for the last several weeks. Staff have been working with ad hoc city council focused around revenue opportunities, typically the possibility of bringing sales tax measure for the June or November ballot. The part of that work over the last couple of weeks hired a pollster to create a public research for likely voters. This work was really just in a general sense of the community's feelings around how the city's doing overall, our need for additional resources, areas of greatest concern or need, challenges that we have in front of us to help inform those decisions as we move to coming days and weeks. I thought I would share some of those top line results for council and communities benefit. Starting off, this first slide shows overall sentiment around communities' feelings about the job we're doing as a city. You hear friends over time, this goes all the way back to 1998, believe it or not, for conducting these polls. You can see the ebb and flow over time of how overall the community is doing that we're doing an either excellent and or good job range of purposes we offer. A little bit of a bright spot, we actually saw an increase from the poll we conducted last year, where we came in around 38% and for this most recent one, was just last week at about a 40% overall, a approval rating, and I would point out not, but interesting polls that have been conducted. When we asked a question of a need for more money, City of Santa Cruz, for a number of questions, we generally talked about these resources, whether or not there may be a need for additional financial support, a strong recognition that that was the case, 68% of the community, getting that we had either great need or some need for additional resources related to the services that we offer. We also asked a series of questions that what turns our community has, what issues that they seem to be very serious or generally just problems for the community as a whole. They come as no surprise that the item on the top of that list is a fact of homelessness on our support and space related and closely followed to that is need for more housing and shelters for homeless community members. Following that was the high cost of living in Santa Cruz, a need for adequate water supply. You can see a number of other items that have tripled down below that. I think it's important to note, one of the encouraging trends on this list was that crime in Santa Cruz came in around 31% significantly lower than some of the other items on the list and I think reflective of progress on that front. So overall that led to a question where the community may fall with regards to supporting a potential bill tax measure. We did see a drop in overall support from both the initial votes that were indicated in the 2021 poll from the numbers that we're seeing 2022 full of about nine percent. So an overall drop, we attribute that to a number of things. We partially related to the ongoing inflation and the impacts of having on folks' pocket books as well as indications that interest rates are gonna be rising as well as just the current uncertainties on the other front of having on our economy families in a number of different ways. Important to note that a 59% overall approval is still a very strong indicator of support among the community for moving forward with the measure. And based on that feedback, we are planning on moving forward with bringing a question to the council on March replacing ballot on a measure on the June ballot for a sales taxing. That work will really be aimed at aligning an expansion of revenue courses with the upcoming 22-23 budget process as well as the council's future plan work that'll be happening next couple of months. So I think the timing aligns really nicely. That will ensure that as we're doing this opportunity that we're aligning it, what the community is telling us is most important as we work on expanding our homeless response capacity, as we work on downtown revitalization work, as we pursue opportunities for community housing and trying to put long-term solutions in place to the high cost of living in our region. I want to talk a little bit about our homeless response efforts. We can underscore in the whole that this is the high concern of the community, high concern for us as an organization as well. So over the last month, we have been putting a lot of work into developing an integrated, statewide action plan for homeless response. We held a workshop last week holding the second workshop tomorrow with all of our department heads, as well as our homeless response team to really develop a solutions-oriented approach to putting long-term solutions in place to ending homeless. That'll be presented to the council and the community on March 8th. This work is really aimed at balancing individual support, community needs, as well as activating our value of health and safety, resource stewardship, economic vitality, collaboration, as well as others. And this will be part of an ongoing effort going forward in providing a quarterly homeless response of the council and the community. So both the council and our residents understand the work that's underway, budget decisions that are being made, and really our overall approach trying to end the cycle of homeless response. Another big effort that's underway is our transition from at-large to district election. So we're in the process right now of collecting community feedback, maps, craft maps in the survey are now available on our website. Address on the screen. Folks that are interested can also look at craft maps to increase some locations, including City Hall, the Downtown Library, and London Nelson Peace Center. We are also in the process now of putting together a community engagement effort to allow other opportunities to provide input. Chief and I after dates, that'll include some public forums as well as some coming council public screen. So plenty of opportunity and we look forward to hearing lots of input. We have some really exciting affordable housing projects that are in the pipeline, making their way to getting a shovel in the ground. And I wanted to highlight a couple that we're really excited about. The first being the Pacific Station North. This project is a vibrant, excuse development that's going in at the Christine Metro Station, the former Great Ham Station, and our big plug and shout out to our economic development for carrying a significant amount of funding to help subsidize this project, really helping to bring this dream a reality. Last week we announced that $29 million in funding was being provided by California Housing Community Development Department for the 100% affordable Pacific Station North mixed use project. This project is expected to break ground in 2023 and will provide 95, 100% affordable one, two, and three bedrooms. So very exciting days at this part of downtown. I look forward to seeing this project off the ground. Want to talk a little bit also about the library mixed use project. Now it's a project that a lot of Chris and Sightman community, this project will provide a childcare facility, well as at least 100 to 125 units of very low income housing, a public parking component that'll include 310 spaces. That's actually a reduction from the original proposal of 400 units. And in terms of the current phase of the project, that schematic design drawing that are underway, community outreach is planned for late February and early March to collect input on where the current design is headed. We contracted with an arborist to complete a report progress. And then discussions are underway to find a new permanent location for the farmer's market. That's really great conversations with the operators of our downtown market and are excited about finding a location where they can compete at thrive downtown for many years to come. So more information on that as the project moves along but we very much look forward to I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. The manager Matt Huffaker, are there any council members with questions? The council member things? Well, thank you Matt for that very thorough and current report on kind of where things are at in the city. I'm very much appreciated. One question I had is with the numbers from Omicron going down, I know that we've been getting contacts more now, at least I have from people who are wanting to know when are we gonna go back in the thing in person? And I'm just kind of curious about if there's been any thought put into that and any discussion about going back to in person. Yeah, thanks for raising that question council member coming. It's a conversation that Eric Brunner and I have. Currently, just in doing so, you can see the way I think with Dave relaxing the face mask and I think we're getting closer to that point of being able to hold these meetings again. I don't know whether that'll be as soon as February 22nd or not, but as soon as we make a decision on that we'll be sure to get that out. Councilman. Okay. Yeah, next question I had. I want to express my appreciation around the revenue measure. I just had one question slash concern that came up presentation, which is that given that we've seen the, and if you can maybe scroll down the slide to show the voting like how the polling went, but I think that decrease in, and the gaslight seven, seeing that these from 70% to 61 and other reductions in support of the revenue measure. I'm wondering what would vote on this at March meeting is that going to give us enough time to be able to launch a strong campaign to be able to support them. So that's just one concern I have since we're seeing kind of lower numbers, how do we do that we're gonna get the cut? I think we're well positioned to do that council for Cummings. That would be, you know, community wide effort. We can advocate, educate from a city standpoint. We're also expecting that there will be community members willing and ready to help support that outreach effort as we move over the next months. But we think the example of time to do that and make sure that our community is making warm decisions again. That's that would be our goal. Okay. Thank you, I appreciate that. Next question is on home. I had pretty much one question for each of the different topics. The next question with regards to the homeless response plan. First off, thank you very much because something that I was very frustrated with and a lot of folks in the community were frustrated with was just like, you're kind of haphazardly creating different policies and programs about there being a coordinated effort around what is the goal and what is the actual plan that we're gonna have around kind of address homelessness. So I very much appreciate that, you know, a month in you're tackling this the way I think it's gonna be well received by many members of our community. The one question I do have is that there's been a lot of reports and a lot of outreach and outreach done over the years. And I'm just curious how those is a homelessness reports are being incorporated into the process. Hi, so thanks for the question. That's for coming. We are collecting data from a lot of sources. A lot of great work that's happened already over the years to collect input from the community on the topic of homeless response. There's also some great work done at the regional level that we were a part of as well as the other jurisdictions throughout the county and formed the county line homeless response plan. And we've got some great experience from our own team that are on the ground every day providing services to our homeless communities. So we're collecting information from all those sources to help inform the action plan that we're bringing forward and doing it in an intentional way that we think will align nicely with the regional work we're partnering on with the county and other jurisdictions in our region. Great. And then follow-up, is that in that plan are you gonna expect to see numbers around staffing and budgeting or is this kind of just gonna be the general description of what that plan is? Yeah, we want this to be a tangible action. I would differentiate it from a saying that we're gonna see specific, measurable actions we can take and we, best we can, are gonna have some place tags attached to that work as well. So we understand what we need from a resource standpoint to remove this work forward. And some of that, of course, will include staffing capacity, that we, from an organizational standpoint, we have the resources we need to work forward. And it'll all be forwarded to you. Great. I don't want to labor this topic because we can talk for hours to come, this is, I will just, I guess I'll just make a comment then rather than ask it a formal question, but I actually, no, I'm gonna have to ask this as a question. When this plan comes to council, we have, will this be a kind of like an opportunity for people to provide input? And then it will take that input and bring back the final plan or is that expectation that this will be the final plan of the C, trying to get a sense because I know that there's a lot of discussion in the community on what might be C and I feel like if it comes and it's like, this is the plan and people feel like they haven't had a chance to have their input incorporated and they might be a little frustrated, just wondering kind of what that process is around how this plan comes forward. Okay, so there's a couple of things I would say to that. We're gonna be meeting with you individually in advance of the council meeting to collect input from you as well as input you're receiving from community members. I think that's important. We also have some very time-sensitive work we need to do. So our hope was to plan as close to final, to bring it on the eighth, but of course that will also be part of a public dialogue and we would welcome you members that have interest in the topic, going to meetings, share their thoughts and where there's opportunity, and of course we'll be open to incorporating that back. Thank you. Great, one comment is that I'll make, and thank you for finding that, which would be helpful. Comment on the library project, one thing that I've heard discussions with community members when there was the mention of the green roof, I think one thing I mentioned in the last council meeting was have access, what I've been hearing in the community is some people didn't mention the green roof could be space for people who live in the housing type gardens for growing food, vegetables. So having an opportunity for people to actually spend space providing. So just thought maybe add that as a suggestion since there's a lot of meeting with architecture folks like that to see if that could work. And then my final question is related to the district maps since you brought that item up because you also had informational item in our binder related to the committee that was formed back in late November. And I know that there's been discussion around creation of potentially six districts that directly elected mayor. And that's kind of what there's come back and forth with the memo about the possibility and given that the group was charged with bringing back process if that's gonna be the case. I'm just wondering where that's at and what are we expecting to kind of come out of if we are gonna move in that direction of a six districts and directly elected mayor. It seems like that process needs to kind of happen pretty soon. And so I'm just curious and then he's obviously coming to council for approval. So I'm not wondering based on the memo to receive and what you had mentioned earlier about district where that happened. Yeah, you're asking his million dollar question. He actually just met with the subcommittee just before today's additional direction with regards to what options have going forward and based on the subcommittee's direction will likely be moving forward with bringing the options to the full council in the near future. We don't have that date written yet but it does need to happen to your point. Council member Cummings, your honor. Edgewell, we are working towards that with the goal of bringing something to the council for a full discussion as soon as possible. And as soon as we have more information on that we will be sure to share that with the community as well as the council conversation. We just had this afternoon went off the press in that direction. I just like, I guess, and my recommending that if we are to go in that direction that we have some kind of public process for getting input since even with this going to district collection seven districts. If there's a lot of process but with some of the people in those earlier meetings and I think there's only been, we were told to recommend some people who could sit in on some meetings for the redistricting group and they think only had one meeting by knowledge. So if there can be a, we're gonna move in that direction of having the process on for how we can get any input on what they would like. Would be really helpful if you're gonna. And we're committed to doing that but I appreciate that comment and we'll be doing sure that we're going to transfer it. Yeah. Thank you council member Cummings. We are taking questions on the city manager's report. Council member Myers and then member. Two quick questions. That is this our point available. It will be published with the packet or is there a way that available some of the findings holding my interest would be us or. I can probably do all of you above. Council member Myers, I'll talk with Bonnie about that. We'll attach it to the packet. So we'll find one site and you will look up. I was just curious about the uptick. There was some kind of a low, low periods there for a couple of years. Is there anything in the poll that the pollster was able to sort of point to in terms of that uptick with sort of overall like the city was on the right track or you know that. I thought there is. He's out why people are in the world. They feel that. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there. A lot of it has to do, including going all the way back to the late nineties, kind of fluctuations with the economy. It's a major indicator about how people are knowing about where things are going based on, their own personal experience and where the economy is headed. So that has something to do with it. I also think at the time we're conducting a poll, there has been a little bit of a light of the tunnel when it comes to Omicron, but it's starting to see the impacts of it waning a bit. That has had some influence over it. I'd like to think too that some of the information we've put out publicly around things that are a comprehensive approach around homelessness, developing some pensionals, strategic work around that, hoping around public perception, but hard to say. Now it's, we're happy to have a little bit of a positive uptake. Now it's an opportunity for us to kind of keep that moment. Great, thank you. Thank you, Council Member Myers. Council Member Brown. A quick follow up question to Council Member Cummings later question related to the process, because I think it, I just want to make sure for the public, I'm pretty clear about this, but I didn't hear it come out back and forth here and it wasn't sort of clear in the memo that we received. So the public knows, in terms of the process for doing anything beyond what's been called the safe harbor move as part of our negotiations to avoid a lawsuit over district elections, to move to seven districts, other changes. So if we were to consider six districts with an at-large error would require a vote. So we are not in a position to make that decision ourselves, is that correct? That's right. Council can establish seven district structure by ordinance. Not inconsistent, but the part lays out. A chance to establish an independent at-large elected mayor is incongruous with how the charter speaks to the process and would require a charter amendment, which requires a vote. Thank you for that clarification. So given that is the discussion at this point contemplating putting something on the tune ballot because again, that would have to happen pretty quickly and I personally feel pretty uncomfortable voting to put that before the voters with potentially a month turnaround without real engagement on that piece. And I just wanted to remind everybody that when this was established back in November, there was recommendations about a process beyond recommendations that could take a particular action. So I wanted to put that up and ask where you're at. So I don't want to get too far down the road on this item today, but I will just say yes, that is what's being contemplated. Yes, so we'll have to move fast and you will have an opportunity to press your outside of the program. I'll just press the council, but that is what is there. Thank you, that's clear for the viewing public as well. Thank you, Council Member Brown. Are there any other questions for city manager update part? Okay, let's move on to item five. The city council will review the meeting calendar attached to the agenda. And I'll now call on City Clerk to provide any updates to the calendar. There I know it. How is the consent agenda first step? Items six through 18 on our agenda. For members of the public who are streaming, now is the time to call in if you would like to comment on items six through 18. Again, the agenda with those items is on our city website, cityofstanakrews.com. If you'd like to press star nine, raise your hands and listen for the cue saying you have been unmuted. Please remember to mute your streaming device and press star nine to raise your hand. 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 or pull any items before we continue? Okay, we have some hands. Council member, I'm aiming. The poll, item number nine, I have a question for item number. Question, okay, poll nine, question for 15. Council member Meyers. Just have a comment on item 14. Comments 14, thank you. Council member Brown. So I also wanted poll nine and I have a question on, so I'll raise the, close it. Okay, so I will begin with the comment on question number 14 and 14. Item number 14. I saw council member Connfield. Thank you, I just saw that too. Council member Cullen Terry Johnson. Thank you, thanks for bringing that to the mayor's attention, council member Cummings. I also just wanted to comment on 14. Okay, two comments on 14. Item number 14 is Housing Matters Hygiene Bay remodel project authorization to advertise and award item from public works department. And so council member Meyers and then council member Cullen Terry Johnson. Thank you mayor. I just wanted to thank our staff and also the council that both Cullen Terry Johnson and Housing Matters, I should not miss Housing Matters. They are key to this. I know during the by two last year there was a lot of discussion about how to get this facility back up again. Full infrastructure for those experiencing community. And I know that there was a lot of effort putting in partnership to try to get this part away and get it away. So I just want to again thank our homeless team, the homeless resource team that has been working on this. Also press my thanks to also matters structure backup. Thank you. Thank you council member Meyers, council member Cullen Terry Johnson. Thank you, Maria. I'll echo those sentiments. Also want to just acknowledge and thank all the work that's gone into making this happen. I know it's been a little while that we've been waiting for this. And I want to acknowledge that I think Housing Matters for all the amazing work that they do, this is going to be critical for the services that they provide to our most vulnerable in our community. So thanks for everyone's work on it. Thank you council member Cullen Terry Johnson. Okay, let's see. We'll move on to the questions on item number 15. Item number 15 was the purchase of the recuse truck. Also public works department council member Cummings. Thank you, Maria. I just wanted to bring this up because I know in the past, been a lot of interest and I think and well received by the city in purchasing electric waste trucks, refuse trucks I should say. And I'm just wondering, I know that we bought one that's electric currently. And I do understand that these are kind of in their early phases of health. I'm just wondering if the public works director can just comment on where we're headed in terms of transitioning our fleet and the need for these two trucks at this point. Sure, thank you council member Cummings. That's a great question. As we stated in the report, we have purchased one truck. It should be here in April. We just received a grant for a second truck. We're just finalizing that right now, the grant. The one item we have before you are not electric at this point but our focus is on getting the infrastructure in place so that we can charge these vehicles when they get here and that's critical. So that's for that effort going. We're working with PG&E to increase the size of our transformers and the service that we can provide these heavy duty vehicles. We met with the finance director today talking about a grant for an electric dump truck, also an electric, just a heavy duty truck. So we are continuing to move in that direction as the projects come forward, as we can get grants for these vehicles, they are still not, can't just go to the store and order one and have them delivered. So a lot of them are special built. They are working through it to learn how they work with the infrastructure in place. So we are definitely focused on electrifying our fleet as soon as we can practically. Appreciate that. I think it's helpful to know that we're, the city is doing everything it can to kind of build infrastructure that we can, so that we can then have electric plates and we're also wanting to test that for diving and blasting one purchase these trucks and have them not meet our needs. So we appreciate that update on letting us know that electric truck is coming and we'll be looking forward to hearing more about how it works with our city. Great. Next question I had, it was, I know we're, we have some mandates, state mandates around where we're at place. Pick up, I'm just wondering if the purchase of these two refuse trucks, how are they gonna be, how will they be out there to help us keep those lands around the question of, the new question of organic pieces. Right, these are replacement trucks for our existing fleet. We are working on a separate route for our organic pickup. We've ordered our containers, they're six yard containers, they'll be rolling them out, they come in and we'll work it out in phases throughout the city so that we can work with neighborhoods so they get this equipment and they know how to use it, effective program. We'll actually have a separate route to truck that will service the whole city for organic waste and we'll add to those routes as we need to but if we, with the rollout, be fine and we'll have our existing fleet be able to operate without some. Great. I have a question of the element. Thank you, Council Member Cummings. Council Member Brown. Mayor, well, Council Member Cummings asked, started the ball rolling on the questions that I, as you could imagine, would be asking. Dettel, I have two follow-up. The one is related to this question around charging capacity. I think it's important for all of us and the public to understand what that entails. We're not talking about, like, at your home, putting in a charging station that where you can charge your personal vehicle and that seems like a pretty, a relative, if you have the resources, it's a relatively straightforward thing. And so this lengthy process to get the charging capacity that we need to really transition to our fleet is definitely take longer, it takes more resources. Can you give us a sense of what, how long you anticipate that's gonna take if there are roadblocks, there are other things that, you know, I mean, we can't control PG&E, but I, and thank you for having those conversations, but, you know, anything that we needs to happen that we can make this happen as quickly as possible, kind of the landscape for that. And then my second question is, and again, I think it's important for folks to know what's going on. Why can't we hold on to those infrastructure for a little bit longer in order, I know they're on a cycle, but could they run longer so that we could perhaps be a technology cut up? Yeah, those are great questions. Let me ask for the second one first. We budget our refuse projects, they're paid, they've been our rates, they're paid off in year five, them to year seven. So we get two years of use out of them that there are paid off. By that time, they've done over a million stops. They are ready to be replaced, they're worn out. So it's not economically feasible as far as maintenance compared to continuing to keep them going. If we do have a truck that still has good life in it, we're not gonna change it out, we'll change that one that we're having problems. So we do monitor that and operate that way. As far as the infrastructure that's required, you're right, need a major coming into the courtyard, that's where we have over 30 refuse trucks. Think about each one of these products needs a very large amount of electricity to a transformer to be able to charge those trucks and we have to be able to charge them overnight. And so we're starting slowly, we also ordered a mobile charger in case the vehicle cannot make it through the route and we have to go in and boost that vehicle to get it back to the yard to get it overnight charge. So we'll have a series of quick chargers and triple chargers that'll work overnight to keep it going. As far as timing, that's a good question. If we don't fully control it, we don't have the full power yard. So that's the bottleneck that we're looking at. We've ordered our equipment that's the unknown part of the schedule is when does it all get hooked up. The other thing is we just submitted a grant to three CE to do a strategic plan for our other facilities on what we need for electric car gene so that we can fully electrify our fleet. So we are planning ahead, just for our yard we're looking at the park yard, we're gonna look at other city facilities where we need to charge these heavy vehicles. So we are thinking forward so that we can be ready when the vehicles and the economic make sense for us to do that. We're also looking at our rate study that will be coming to you probably in the next year back bring in how fast these fleets and what that will do to our rate. So there's an economic cost to provide and you'll bring that forward as we look at a rate. Thank you. That's really helpful. I appreciate going a little bit into the weeds. I think it's important to understand the complexity of this and get a little more info. So it really is. You're welcome. Also member Golder, did you have a question on? I have a comment on this. Is that okay? Yes. Okay, so just listening to my colleagues and while I appreciate your ambitious ideas, I just wanna remind everybody that according to California Energy Commission, the state of California, we're only getting about a third of our energy is renewable at this point. And so moving towards electrification while I supported in theory, like we're doing a little bit of greenwashing where we're using coal or natural gas to take the electricity. And I wanna be mindful that these refuse trucks and fire trucks and other city vehicles that are essential to keeping our city safe and clean. If we have power outages, I wanna make sure that we have appropriate infrastructure in place to keep these vehicles running before cities like safe. So I agree, but I don't think we should try to pick out the forefront here in this case. I think we should wait until the technology catches up and be fiscally responsible at this point of time. Thank you, Council Member Golder. Okay, thank you. Department Director Marc Betel, Public Works. You're welcome. If there are any members of the public that would like to speak to any item on our consent agenda with the exception of item number nine, which was pulled item number nine, resolutions amending council policy, city council meetings, oral communications and council member Humbuck. So with the exception of that item, if there are any members of the public that would like to speak, now is the time to do so, please press star nine on your phone, raise your hand. And when it's your turn to speak, you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted. The timer will then be set two minutes. If there are attendees have one hand raised, I am watching you. Yeah, thank you. As to item six, it's time to end support for COVID mandate. Only the Karen fascist and those who think government is always the solution when in fact, it is a corrupt, the least powermonger, bigger problem, aren't ready to accept that Omicron is more the flu that vaccines don't protect against, that they can live without it while insisting outpatient treatments finally should become a priority that the government still considered ignorant response mandates didn't stop COVID and also are still ruining and costing many lives or fortune that the corruption and ignorance of the government needs examination for lessons learned and heads need a role in starting with Fauci. Join England, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Ireland, and Saskatchewan who now choose reasoned freedom unlike the fascist old guard Germany, Austria, and Italy. The window to back away from all mandates before mass protests and mass civil disobedience is closing. The item 11 socialist cannabis welfare draft ordinance should absolutely be pulled for public discussion. There is insufficient time to discuss here but it's another example of lazy politicians letting our elected bureaucrats fashion every defective West idea into ordnance law without question for rubber stamp approval in what amounts to a highly discriminatory city takeover of the cannabis industry. As I had to make, I remind you every single member of the public that has ever spoken on the subject has said two minutes speaking time was insufficient. Many are routinely cut off, others are allowed to inconsistently continue. You should try three minutes as the practice as the public has repeatedly requested and experienced more public input. Public comment is now minimal for not existent but if and when a firm count of speakers indicates too many for 30 minutes then time can be shortened. Pre-shortened time or group fanning by a mayor or on a regular business basis when no such need or good reason actually rose tells me you don't want to hear from the public at all when reality is it's numerous to think seven gray matters are superior to the collective wisdom of the many. You need all the divisive diverse opinion you can get. Racketing of time certain for open indications may isolate it from the meeting. Break time policy is not needed. Take a break when you want. Thanks. Thank you. I am watching you for calling in. I don't see any other attendees. I will now bring it back and I am looking for a motion on the remaining items of the consent agenda. Items six through 18 with the exception of item nine that was pulled by council member Cummings and council member Brown. See it back. Council member or vice mayor, Martina. Thank you mayor. I'm happy to move the agenda. I accept with the exception of item number nine and council member Cummings. Second. The motion by vice mayor Watkins is seconded by council member Cummings. I'd like to ask the clerk to take a roll call vote. There is one more hand that was on that or. Okay. We can go back before we vote. I'm sorry if I missed that hand. I do see another hand raised. Looks like LR are the initials. Yeah, solo. Can you hear me? Yes. Welcome. Oh, thank you. You ready? Go ahead. 20 on item 13. My name is Leonie Reina. I am the aunt of Brooke Murdoch and a recently retired sergeant with extensive excuse. I have video but STPD did to my niece and it is extremely horrific and disturbing. Brooke was only 13 years old and the alleged victim of a parental kidnapping. Although council is voting to reject the claim, I hope you all take the time to watch the video and ask yourself if this is how you want your daughter's Brooke did nothing wrong. You did not commit a crime or any infraction. She was a victim. So I cannot understand why Santa Cruz used any force on her, let alone the exorbitant force used to include standing on metal handcuffs attached to the child's ankles as she screamed out in pain. Ms. Mayer, please follow up with the independent police auditor and chief of police to ensure this does not happen to any other child. Thank you. Thank you for your public comment LR. I will now bring it back to council. And we do have a motion on the floor. We have a motion by Vice Mayor Watt. Second by Cummings for consent agenda items six through 18 with the exception of item nine. And I'd like to ask for these to a roll call vote. We're going for Johnson. All right. The motion passes unanimously. We will now come back to consent agenda item number nine. That is resolutions amending council policy 6.6. City council meetings, oral communications and council member handbook. And this is the city attorney's office item. And I will council member Cummings. Mayor, this is actually similar to what the caller mentioned during public comment, which was that many boards that I've sat on destroying the council have had three minutes, maybe a lot of time for public comment and our policy currently allows Mayor discretion over increasing or reducing that time. But as a standard, you know, having three minutes as the policy, I think would be good, especially when we have items that are on our agenda where there's not going to be present. To the caller's point, we want to try to make government accessible to people in our community. We want to give them an opportunity to be heard. And while there are times when we think we're at that time, sometimes even like one minute or less because hundreds of people want to address us. And, you know, we're setting standards of how we want the community to be able to approach government and try to provide them with a fair amount of confidence. So what I was hoping that we could do and when there's time for a motion, I'm happy to make a motion, but just leaving in policy point number four, just leaving that three minutes and then moving forward with other recommended. Thank you, Council Member Brown. Mayor, yeah, I would echo the comments made by Cummings. And I'll acknowledge a rare day that I am in agreement with our public speaker on issues. And so I just want to put that out there. But I think it's right that we do have our responsibility to the public and that we, you know, efforts to curtail that to I think cause people in the community to wonder the extent to which we are really interested in public, but I recognize there are other ways for that input to occur. I also recognize that it is the prerogative of the chair of our meetings to limit time under three minutes for speaker when the occasion calls for it. I do that myself as bearer of the RQP, but I think that the minute guideline, which is standard across many, many, many publications is worth maintaining. And I understand the reasons for the change in the policy related to the timing of oral communications. It is a logistical challenge always. We don't know how long meetings are gonna take or visual items. So for that, but I would like to maintain at least the possibility of a minute public comment on items. Again, prerogative of the chair. So thank you, council member Brown. This is an item and just for the public if you don't have this agenda, the current policy designate a seven o'clock time start time for oral communications and amending the policy by a time certain based on each agenda is part of the discussion as well as the current policy designates a three minute speaking period for individuals during oral communications and the current practice has been allowed for minutes and amending the policy to reflect a two minute speaking time to align the policy with current practice. However, the mayor would still have discretion to increase or decrease the allotted time for oral communications. So at this point, is there a motion, an amendment to the motion that would like made? Something off the public. Thank you council member Cummings. And at this point, we will bring it out to the public for public comment. Anybody in the public who would like to speak to item number nine on the consent agenda. Now is your time to start nine, raise your hand. I see one attendee with her hand raised. Brian trail now. Hi, this is Brian trail now. You know, I've been participating in transportation policy for over 20 years with Santa Cruz and actually ended the RTC meetings for the last 10 years and I'll tell you, the zoom is really beautiful. Isn't it you guys? And so just to comment on the two minute, three minutes. Yeah, you know, I have found that two minutes is starting to work and you know, everybody's time is very precious. And I'm finding that the two minutes, I found it to be a little rushy, but at the end of the day, I think we can all really communicate our point in two minutes. So that's just my experience right now to zoom. And so that's my two cents. I appreciate all the work you all do. Thank you. Thank you so much for your public comment. And we have another caller, I am watching you. Yeah. I guess I got confused on the numbers there before, but I don't have too much to add except really, you know, two minutes. Like I write a lot of speeches and deliver them and I write single page, you know, 14 point huge type. And you know what? Nobody can read that in two minutes. It would be blazing fast and you wouldn't even understand a word they said. And so, you know, that's not much to ask. A single page, you know, take two and a half minutes probably spoken in a way that people could actually understand a list too. And virtually every speaker runs out of time normally and they have a few more sentences. I think that the idea that two minutes work is really just wrong. Thank you for your public comment. Are there any other attendees that would like comment? Item nine on the consent agenda. Okay. I will bring it back to uncle. And I see vice mayor Martin Jochen. Yeah, thank you. Mayor, I actually kind of have like a clarifying question. My understanding is, and maybe this is for you, Tony, is that, and also my recollection of prior mayors for as long as I've been on the council that the two minutes has been sort of consistent amount of time, but there have been nights or evenings of interest where there's numerous people for oral communications and that had been decreased in order for everybody to speak or others where there is additional time allowed. So I don't, so that discretion will still exist even though it's sort of acknowledging the two minutes as sort of the average time, correct? That's right. The two minutes has been the standard or not the standard, but the practice for well over, probably close to two years or so. And really it's just policy matter for the council, but under the existing policy as well as what's proposed here, the mayor would have the discretion to either increase or decrease the amount of time allowed. Okay, I appreciate that. Yeah, I mean, I think for me, I think that, you know, one of the things that we can remember is the community is just to reach out to our, your house members, reach out to us, the email or phone or otherwise to help us understand the need that you have that you want us to be aware of that would speak to us at oral communications. And I think with technology and access to email and other forms of communication, oral communications has shifted over the years in terms of what it's in the past. So I just want to state that please do contact us so we know your issues and be able to address them in more time. And for the purposes of meeting management, knowing that we've had some very, very long meetings, I think, and for transparency with the community, I think, you know, unless the mayor's interest in wanting to move it to three, I think the two makes a lot of sense to me personally and that if the mayor wants to increase it to three or decrease it given the, you know, the community input, that feels comfortable to me in terms of practice. So I guess I'm just, I'm not necessarily sure if the three minutes is the direction to go unless that's something that the mayor wants to do at this time again. That's sort of how I feel about it. Thank you, Vice Mayor Watkins. And, you know, I'll bring it to Council Member Cummings. And then I'll move it. I was just going to make a motion, move item nine with the exception of changes before. Second. We have a motion by Council Member Cummings and a second by Council Member Brown. Can I ask for clarification on that? Yeah, item nine with, you said something about number four. Yes, I can clarify in the policy statement. So the attached Council policies, page 9.6, the changes that are highlighted in red are on numbers one, two and four. And so the motion is to move the recommendations with the exception to the changes that were made to item number four, which is no individual will be allowed for them to believe those changes. So just for clarity, I just want to remind the Council there are two resolutions in front of you. One, amending policy 6.6, the second one amending the handbook. I think the motion can be stated that the recommendation is to adopt the resolutions, but in both the handbook and the policy retain the time limit of three minutes as opposed to two minutes. Did City Clerk Bonnie Bush get that? I did, I was. Did you have your hand up? Yeah, I was gonna make the decision. Okay, thanks. Okay, thank you. So is there any discussion, further discussion on this item before we do? I would like to say. I just wanted to share as the person who's. And I think these are all valid points that have been brought up. And I wasn't aware of the minute policy. My experience has been the two minutes. And given that we receive a lot of communication outside of oral communications via phone and email and in person, and in the spirit of meeting management and time management, having the opportunity to increase or decrease regardless, it makes sense to kind of align what practice has been. So I'm happy either way because ultimately, the discretion is with the chair, the mayor, and if it sounds a little more accessible to the community, then I'm happy to align with the motion that was made on the floor, knowing that there is discretion to reduce the time as need be with certain items, certain agendas. For any other further discussion on this item? Okay. I'd like to ask the clerk to take a roll call vote. I want to read it down. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Okay. I believe that concludes our second agenda. Next up on our agenda is item number 19. This is a public hearing. It's the second reading and final adoption of ordinance number 2022-01, repealing chapter 16.03, plumbing fixture retrofit regulations of the Santa Cruz municipal code. For members of the public who are streaming this meeting, if this is an item you would like to comment on, now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen. And let's see, item number 19 is the water department and Rosemary Monard, water department director is present. Is there any presentation? No, we briefed this at the last meeting so this is the second reading and I guess if there's no comments then you can move to a motion. Okay. Thank you very much. And no emails were received but the city council at cityofsantaacruz.com email address as well. So we will call on council member Myers. I'll go ahead and move the item, second reading and final adoption of ordinance number two adopts, I'll move to adopt ordinance number 2022-01. I'll go ahead and move the item, second reading and final adoption of ordinance number 2022-01. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Brown. If you are interested in commenting on the second reading and final adoption of ordinance number 2022-01, repealing chapter 16.03, calming fixture retrofit regulations of the Santa Cruz municipal code, press star nine on your phone to raise your hand. When it is your time to speak, you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted. The timer will be set in a minute. I don't see any attendees with their hands raised. Bringing it back to the council. We have a motion on the floor by Myers. Seconded by Brown. I'd like to ask for your roll call vote. Member Calantari-Jones. Aye. The motion passes unanimously. Plain, I'd like to call a short break, 15 minute break before we move on to the next item, general business item number 20. So we will return at 350. Thank you. Okay. We will now continue with our agenda today. Recording short break. And next up on our agenda, let's make sure everybody's ready. Next up on our agenda is item 20. Opposition to the potential adverse abandonment actions for heavy freight rail service on the Felton branch line and Santa Cruz branch line. For members of the public who are streaming this meeting, if this is an item you would like to comment on, now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen. The order will be a presentation of the item by the council members who brought forward, followed by questions from the council. We will then take public comment and return to council for a deliberation in action. I'd like to introduce Sandy Brown, council member Brown, who is our representative on the Santa Cruz County regional transportation mission, as well as Guy Preston, who is here with us as the director of the Santa Cruz County regional transportation mission. And so I'd like to hand it off to council member Brown to start us off and then council member Cummings and myself and then Guy Preston. Thank you, mayor. So I'll be brief with my remarks is an item that came up for the RTC at our last meeting and we had an informational item to talk about the possibilities of adverse abandonment as a piece of the puzzle of what we're going to be doing with our rail line, our rail right of way. And I'm going to let director Preston provide the information that's really helpful for the council and for the public. And so I don't want to get too far into this, but it did not respond to the community concern as an RTC member and the RTC representative for the city. I received over 6,000 messages response to this item being discussed at the RTC. And I think that while we did not take action, we heard a lot about those concerns and I wanted to provide opportunity for the city council to also weigh in in conversations prior to this meeting about this item. I did speak and as did other members of the committee, I'll turn it over to them and just a moment or the signers on the agenda item of the committee did talk with our city manager who thought it was useful to have a rail banking 101 from and kind of contact and issues related to this item for the council members who are not as immersed in these. So I'll just leave it there. I do have some other thoughts, but I want to give my colleagues an opportunity to pick up and then direct the questions and do all the, an opportunity to ask questions. So thank you for putting this on the agenda and look forward to hearing from you all. Thank you council member Brown and council member Cummings. Thank you mayor and thank you members of the public for joining us. Thank you guys for being here as well. When I came clear that there's going to be an item on the RTC, the regional transportation commissions agenda on February 3rd related to adverse attainment actions for heavy freight rail. It wasn't clear whether or not that it was going to be an informational item or the action was going to be taken. As a result, many members of the public talked to me and were very concerned about the direction that the commission was taking and the potential for action be taken. And they urged me to actually bring forward an emergency item at a last city council meeting because many members of the public really wanted the city of Santa Cruz and the city council to take a stance on this item and to have the city weigh in on the decision. Ultimately, the transportation commission only had an informational item and to council members Brown's point there were over 6,000 letters sent to the commissioners and I received feedback from a number of commissioners about how much feedback they've been receiving. The majority of which was opposition to the abandonment action. Subsequently, we were able to have an opportunity to go on our agenda for members of the public to be able to have time to see our agenda report. And I've still had members of the public expressing that they really wanted to see us take some kind of action even regardless of whether or not something ideal will be worked out between RTC or in camp regardless of whether or not this won't come back to the RTC. Many members of the public have expressed that they wanna make sure that city is on record, especially because for years, city of Santa Cruz has been very supportive of rail and trail is something we have unanimously voted in support of and at this point, we're seeing the potential for an action taken that would not only hurt us, a local business that brings in revenue for our city, but also the potential for future rail. And we've also received a letter that has been signed on by many of the fire departments in the area. And they've all expressed that the freight can be used to fight fires. And if we move forward with this abandonment, that would significantly impact the ability for fire to use those rail lines in the event of an emergency. And so I'll stop, I'll leave my comments there. And I just wanna thank Council Member Brown, Mayor Brunner for putting this, I am really hoping to bring this, helping to bring this forward, sorry. I was tied a little. And with that, I will do my time. Thank you for coming. And thank you, Director Preston. This was an item that I received a lot of, inquiries about and written communications, several emails and burned the constituent. And I think even though we have a representative of the city on the commission, the RTC, the Regional Transportation Commission, there is an opportunity here for the Council to discuss a stronger stance. The Council supporting the opposition of the person of this item. So I appreciate your time to share information and to give us your report. Thank you, Mayor Brunner and fellow city council members for having me here today. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss some of the challenges that RTC has been facing on the trajectory French rail line and how the special and central adverse amendment act, great rail service on the Santa Cruz branch rail line and mountain branch rail line. RTC is very interesting. Before we get there, I wanna emphasize that over the past year, RTC has had several discussions on the best use of the corridor and how best to preserve the rail right away. Although RTC desires ultimately use Santa Cruz branch rail line for commuter rail between Pajaro, Junction and Santa Cruz, a trail reaching an entire length down. The line is currently only used for freight rail in Watsonville, Roaring Camp has been using a portion of the Santa Cruz branch rail line for our iconic H train running to the Santa Cruz borderline. Belt and line is separate from the Santa Cruz branch rail line but the two lines connect on Chestnut Street at about the intersection of Maple Street downtown Santa Cruz. Roaring Camp uses a short portion of the Santa Cruz branch rail line to reach the boardwalk. They also use the Y located between the Wharf and the Park from their trains. RTC is very supportive of that line. Both the Felton branch line and the Santa Cruz branch rail line are part of the federal freight network. Today's discussion will have a heavy emphasis on these lines used for heavy freight rail service. Santa Cruz Big Trees Railway, owned by Roaring Camp, designated common carrier freight Felton branch line with the obligation, provide freight service on reasonable demand. RTC contracts its freight obligation, St. Paul and Pacific Railway on the Santa Cruz. There hasn't been any freight on either line beyond Watsonville since at least 2017. No major freight through Santa Cruz since the CMEX plant closed in 2010. As I explained to my commission last week, Roaring Camp will be affected by whatever RTC does, doesn't have a branch rail line. I also realized that since both railways travel through city limits, the city will also be affected. Before I look forward to hearing your input regarding the city's priorities regarding the rail. In the summer of 2020, RTC's freight operators on the Pacific Railway provided notices of intent to terminate RTC's freight license agreement with them and filed for abandonment freight rail in the Santa Cruz branch rail line. Yeah. Essential abandonment caught RTC's attention. Due to these notices, the commission has been considering all of the potential assignment of the freight license agreement, termination of the agreement, and potentially rail banking. Current freight license agreement is RTC's third such agreement purchasing the line. Template for agreement is based on the concept that the rail line could primarily pay for itself with revenue, freight, and recreation rail. 2018, after Iowa Pacific RTC's second operator neglected the line and used the line mainly to store rail cars in the Waspville Slew area, RTC sought its third offer. However, the line was down and a serious state was prepared. 2017 storms quickly washed out two locations. There was storm damage full of seven sites, debris removal needed for the entire line. Therefore, when St. Paul Pacific Railway associated the current RTC, they required that RTC form initial repairs in line. Initial repairs include all storm damage as well as damage bridges, overpasses, rustles, culverts, and track needed for freight recreation rail for the entire line. RTC secured FEMA funding, storm damage repairs. RTC also has now passed Measure D, which has category for rail preservation. However, the cost of all repairs are seed-available revenue. State and federal funding freight repairs also limited and the Santa Cruz branch rail line does not well against other high priority freight projects in other regions of the state and the nation. Nonetheless, RTC has been working on trying to store the line freight rail service. RTC has completed millions of dollars of repairs despite our progress staff estimate that 50 to 65 million of additional repairs are needed to restore regular freight service. This estimate is for repairs needed for heavy freight and recreational rail service only, not include travel construction or work needed for a future commuter rail service. House of recent transportation legislation may seem like a good time to apply for and receive grant funding pay for all repairs. However, the likelihood of RTC funding for freight be based on project applicable performance measures. In other words, grant reviewers will consider how much freight we move versus the cost of the project determine whether a grant award should be considered. Typical high priority freight project in California be work at the Port of Oakland, or to long be one of the railways or highways leading to ability. Since the branch line is currently does not move freight and has limited prospects, future freight on Watsonville, branch line does not complete the funding programs designed for freight movement. So why is RTC discussing rail bank? Initially, RTC started discussing rail bank as a potential response. All this affects no disadvantage of intent to abandon the Santa Cruz branch rail line. You'd have 30 days to respond. They call in Pacific where to follow through with that notice RTC was to take no action. RTC would be at risk losing the continuity of the rail line. What's really at risk? Railroad title is our company. RTC holds a mix of key and easement ownership in the Santa Cruz branch rail line. On the abandonment, a railroad may lose many rights as asked for transfer parcels of land than the quarter to which nearly holds an easement whose use is limited to railroad purposes. RTC understandably took the abandonment notice very seriously and staff started exploring rail banking possibility reserve the rail right away. Since the notice to rail bank be required, as I stated, than 30 days of filing for abandonment. What exactly is rail banking was designed to prevent railroads from reverting under state law and underlining key owner after a railroad distance new service. Rail banking provides an alternate alternative to completely abandoning a railroad right away by allowing a railroad negotiate a trail use agreement with a prospective rail operator while preserving the rail right away for potential future freight deactivation. Rail banking is a voluntary process whereby a freight railroad company and a trail agency agreement use the corridor that has been approved for abandonment as a trail or for some other use, including either rail or potentially a rail with a trail. Till such further time when the railroad might order again for heavy freight rail service. When rail banking is, rail banking is a separate decision from unity debate as to whether the rail line should temporarily repurpose for an interim trial prior to a freight reactivation. As RTC explored rail bank, we also found that it would provide relief property rights associated with RTC's plan construction of a trail within the rail right away, even if there is no desire. As mentioned earlier, some of the rail property is held as easements for rail purposes, creates potential complications affecting the trail, underlining property owners saying that a trail and is therefore not permitted on the easement. Although the situation may not seem significant, RTC holds most of the title and key, RTC negotiate the objections of only one property owner significantly impact the trail. Rail banking does not eliminate potential property owner claims, however, after rail bank, the property owner claims that alleged that a trail is not permitted the railroad easement be directed to the federal government as a process for addressing their financial claim. Rail banking thereby provides protections to the RTC from potential financial liability as he did with building an after transportation fell long rallies in any duration. RTC were the rail bank portion of the line. RTC would be responsible for preserving the rail bank right away for the reactivation of freight rail. Preservation efforts allow for a trail and is not required. RTC could leave the rails in place, figure the rail and fell, continue planning for future passenger rail service. RTC could even choose to continue some freight service on the line while the line is rail bank. Prior to any advanced discussion of rail bank, RTC and our operators, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, reached out to Roaring Camp as a potential freight operator, successor to the ACL agreement. However, Roaring Camp had concerns about taking on any significant responsibilities for making the rail long. Not only was route Roaring Camp expecting RTC form initial repairs, they also did not want to be responsible for any long-term deferred maintenance and indicated that they would need to limit their exposure to normal wear and tear of the line. This is understandable as maintaining a 150-year-old rail line extremely expensive. Summary, rail banking will eliminate ownership constraints related to RTC's use of railroad easements for a trail, eliminate for the duration of rail bank the need to complete expensive repairs necessary for freight rail service referring the need of discretionary funds from other priority projects in Santa Cruz or to implement a new dedicated local funding source to pay for the freight rail repairs. We'll also preserve the rail corridor in a manner that provide local control and flexibility on decision-making, including possibilities for future commuter rail. Also, finally, wide avenue for the current rail operator exit the license agreement and an agreement that in Pollen Pacific Railroads, Orange and RTC all find not the financially viable. However, there are a number of factors that needs to be considered in determining whether and how to rail bank on the Santa Cruz branch rail line. These issues include that the process for rail banking would require the filing with the surface transportation board, which is a federally-aided agent, an application or request for exemption or authority to abandon. That in Pollen Pacific Railroad used to hold the freight easement on the Santa Cruz branch rail line has chosen not to follow through with the filing of a notice of abandonment, even though they still desire to terminate the lease agreement and extinguish their ownership of the freight easement. But the felt in line is also a freight rail line, rail banking, the Santa Cruz branch rail line would effectively leave rail or orange camps potential freight operations as a stranded segment. Finally, that roaring camp has voiced opposition to rail bank Santa Cruz branch. RTC has been advised that if an agreement with Orange Camp Pollen Pacific Railroad not be reached, RTC's only realistic method of rail bank Santa Cruz branch rail line may be to file for what is called adverse abandonment. How the Federal Surface Transportation Board decide whether these two lines did remain part of the federal freight network. Verse abandonment is a process, a person or entity that does not own the freight. Files for an abandonment must be a surface transportation. This process is typically initiated when there is no active freight service on a line and when the requesting party desires have the freight line out of service so that the railroad right away be used for purposes other than freight service, including rail bank. For RTC to be able to rail bank Santa Cruz branch rail line, Orange Camp's objections must be addressed. Last week, the RTC affirmed RTC staff preference to address Orange Camp's concerns through negotiation in lieu of any potential future decision for adverse abandonment. Although RTC could file for adverse abandonment rail bank Santa Cruz, the RTC owned Santa Cruz branch rail line, allowing Orange Camp's objections to settled as part of those adverse abandonment and rail bank of the Santa Cruz branch rail line could be a long process to Orange Camp's objection. Therefore, another potential legal approach was discussed would be for RTC file for adverse abandonment freight only in the Felton branch as an initial state rail bank Santa Cruz. Termination of abandonment of freight on the Felton line would be based on whether there are realistic expectations for profitable freight service on that line. Surface Transportation Board does not regulate our recreational rail. The RTC would only be seeking to gain clarification whether the Felton line's current freight status can be used to stop rail bank Santa Cruz branch rail line. This action could potentially provide the resolution of the stranded line argument advanced and separate of potential subsequent actions abandoned and rail bank Santa Cruz branch rail line and terminate the freight agreement. If the STD finds cause for abandonment, Orange Camp could leave the rails in place and continue the recreational rail service, including the beach. Orange Camp could also choose to use the Felton line or fire break, which was a notable concern to the fire chief, Anne Lorenzo Valley. Orange Camp could rail bank their line. They wished to secure federal protections of property rights associated to any easements that they own, similar to what RTC is contemplating for the Santa Cruz branch rail line. RTC really has no interest in having Orange Camp move their rails, nor does RTC desire to build a trail on the Felton branch. Again, the commission agreed with staff that adverse abandonment action not heard. Instead, a negotiated agreement for Orange Camp in due consideration of RTC's financial situation is preferred. RTC understands that the rail line use is complicated and difficult issue, which will require collaboration, solution that is applicable for all parties. So far, RTC has offered Orange Camp long term these of the portion of the Santa Cruz branch rail line that Orange Camp uses today, ensure that they continue to run the recreational service portal. RTC staff has also discussed the possibility of expanding recreational service to Davenport. Nonetheless, Orange Camp still poses rail bank. I've said this many times, what railroad would want to be disconnected national rail network? I really understand their current being disconnected and have implications and limitations for a railroads ability to receive new equipment. Consideration RTC has discussed financial considerations to help move equipment, but if possible. However, trucking a locomotive also requires additional investigation. Fortunately, RTC's negotiations for Orange Camp did not go very well. Orange Camp indicated their preference as the status quo over any ramped rail bank Santa Cruz branch rail line. It's also important note that Orange Camp has been functionally disconnected from the main line since 2017. Yet still has been able to continue providing each train service. Yet the situation has left two of their locomotives stuck in Watsonville, able to travel felt. RTC was hoping to have all repairs completed by now, but Orange Camp could move their industry. Fortunately, Capitola Russell and the Seascape Russell have been deemed out of service. RTC has identified other cost of repairs needed for freight service. RTC simply cannot currently afford to seize no realistic possibility of funding for the available future. RTC could just decide to leave the current freight license agreement with St. Paul and Pacific in place until it's termination day of July 15, 2028. However, doing so would not make it more likely that RTC will find funding to be able to complete necessary freight repairs to reconstruct the line. In the meantime, we are being challenged in developing other projects on the line. Project designs are restricted by the need to accommodate freight rail in the short term, even though the line is non-functional, RTC cannot afford the repairs. Property rights issues for our rail projects are on the critical count. And to reach construction, it will be necessary to understand whether we need to acquire additional property rights fairly soon. Mission understands that more information is needed to assess the problem and options moving forward. In the meantime, the commission asked that I continue to work with roaring camp in the column Pacific, find a mutually agreeable solution that ensures the long-term success of roaring camp while protecting the fiscal sustainability of the RTC. Mayor Bruner, back with my report. I hand it back over to you. Questions, comments. Thank you, Director Preston. That was a lot of information to soak in. I will bring it to council members for questions. Any clarifying questions from council members? Council member Meyers? Yes, my understanding of agenda item is, and I believe, does you need sort of a letter from the council regarding recommendation that we express our opposition to the potential and the advance of the first amendment act? But I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you, Director, by the way. But I just wanted to make sure I'm understanding that that's kind of actioned up, right? And that would be done by letter or is it expected that, okay, by letter? Thank you. Are there any questions from other members, council member Cumming? Mayor, thank you for that presentation, Preston. I had some questions because there's been some talk in the community about how rail could function on that line. And while it sounds like there's obviously some challenges around certain segments of the rail that needs to be repaired, I'm wondering if you could speak to, you know, in a perfect world, we had the money to take the necessary repairs to the line. What would that allow us to have freight passenger rail on those lines? Would there be anything that we kind of would construct this being able to have those services outside of just repairs? In a perfect world, we would have the funding to make improvements to the rail line for commuter rail service, and funding to build a trail within its right-of-way. That's the biggest obstacle right now to being able to complete the project. But there's one other additional obstacle in that property rights that I mentioned earlier. Some of the rail right-of-way, some by easements, and some of those easement issues would have to be resolved. Additional rights would be needed for a trail in addition to the funding issues. I ask that because I think based on your comments that the easement issues are largely related to rail. And some folks in the community have been saying that those easements actually were related to being able to operate, like passenger or freight rail. So I just wanted to make sure that it was clear that the one thing that's really keeping rail moving is the funding for repairs. That is correct. Thank you. That's really helpful. And that's really the only question I have. I'll bring it to myself. That was actually one of my questions to the 50 to $60 million figure that you had mentioned for repairs for rail and trail. Was that true or just for repairs on the line? It's actually only for repairs needed for freight rail. So due to our contract with Impala Pacific Railway, we need to make repairs for them, use the rail line, freight, expanded recreational rail service. That number does not include the funding that we need for commuter rail service. That's estimated at being about a half a billion dollars, plus 25 million per year for operation. We can get grant funding for commuter rail service, but in order to be eligible for many of those grants we need to first complete an environmental document, and then we would need to provide local match, but also don't. The trail, funding needed for a trail project independent of those two numbers. So the trails of projects are moving forward independently, and that's going to be several hundred million dollars in addition to the other reports. One of the important things to note about doing the freight rail repairs versus commuter rail project. Freight rail repairs are the minimum necessary for freight service. In many of those instances, we would be doing inter-rehabilitation work on many bridges that we feel ultimately be replaced. We were to start commuter rail service. We really don't want to start new reliable modern rail service on a bridge that's 150 years old scheduled for replacement. So go ahead and make the rail, freight rail repairs on a bridge that ultimately needs to be replaced. You may be throwing good money out. And what is the timing line that the commission is looking at? What is the next step on your end? Well, as I mentioned earlier, we're going to talk more in camp and see if we can kind of figure out a resolution. We're under contract right now with St. Paul and Pacific for freight rail and expanded recreational rail service. And they want out of the agreement. Roring camp is interested in taking over that agreement, but the financial hit on our seed would be fairly significant. I'd like to gain a resolution as soon as possible because our projects are moving forward and there's several significant grant opportunities coming up. And once we have environmental clearance, next step is usually to acquire additional right away. So if any of those projects have easements, some of them didn't, we would want to know whether or not we need to acquire those additional rights. Those trial projects aren't scheduled to be environmentally secured to the end of the year. We do have a little bit. The rail project, okay. The trial project. The trial project. Thank you. Council member Cummings. Did have one more question. I know that last year, I believe there was a business plan that came before RTC related to rail. That sounds like it got stalled and I'm just kind of wondering what's the next step with that? Because oftentimes having these business plans in place makes an agency more likely to receive funding than when they're applying. And so I'm wondering as well, that's something that's holding us up because that seems like, you know, if we've been as a community committed to rail and trail point, you know, it would seem as if we'd be trying to do everything within our hours, right? It's funding, make these pairs and what we can to make this move forward. So I'm just kind of wondering if you can point to that and whether or not, like what were the issues around that business plan and whether that's packed? So although a business plan is very good business practice, it kind of lays out your concepts and financial thoughts about how a project will be funded. It's not required. RTC can still move forward with the trying to find the funding for environmental as possible grant opportunities are available. The biggest hurdle right now is an environmental doctrine. Many of these grant programs do require that out of environmental parents or apply for funding. The other big obstacle which was identified in that business plan was the need for a local consort to help provide the matching funds. Measure D does not provide any funding for new rail service. Although we can use some of that funding for an environmental document. That same pot of funding is also the funding that we have available to us for freight rail. We're competing against ourselves with making the freight repairs this is being an environmental doctrine. But the biggest obstacles are really the environmental document and really having an environmental document in place would be better if and when community is ready to move forward with permitting if they're prepared by local funding necessary which would most likely be a new tax to help leverage the state and federal grants that would be needed. So that's kind of the situation that we're in right now. I think my commission wasn't ready at this particular time but that doesn't mean that sometime in the future they might see a different landscape be more comfortable with moving forward with clearing those obstacles. Council Member Brown. Thank you. I just wanted to add here I think the resource question and environmental clearance being very closely related to having the resources is really the point and thank you Director Preston. But there's another dynamic a political one that I think is worth mentioning here and largely the reason that I was interested in when I was approached by Council Member Cummings bringing this to the City Council and that is that we are currently in the makeup of the commission which is comprised of representatives from all of the municipal jurisdictions and then the members of the County Board of Provisors has shifted and we are in a deadlock. That's the reality. We are in a deadlock on virtually every consideration that we make that is related to potential abandonment. Whether the track will remain are the federal safety net for both Roaring Camp and the kind of legal safety net for the RGC with respect to the requirements. And so we are still, while I believe we're aware that there is an initiative that will be on the ballot which is intended to ask the communities to weigh in about whether or not they want to have the track torn up something that adverse abandonment would facilitate that it would be needed for permanent wide recreational trail without trail. And so it's tricky every decision we make there is a consequence for a variety of parties and interests. And so I think it's just, I don't wanna get into all of that debate. I'm sure we'll hear from members of the public who are on, I can see the participant list. So you'll hear from folks about their perspective but that's the reality, we are really stalled. And so I just wanna, I also wanna say that the RGC staff is really in a difficult position now in terms of the project because our staff and at the moment I believe that we, it's absolutely our responsibility to take the concerns of one of our beloved local business seriously. And I believe that maintaining the possibility of future rail passenger rail while there is there is a possibility legally, technically that tracks reinstalled after they had been removed and a full service trail built. The likelihood is very, very, there's no evidence that it's ever happened in cases where rail being covered. While we are stuck and nobody's happy with that situation, it seems that there will be some other decisions made and the public will have an opportunity to weigh in on that in June. And so the conversation may shift as a result of that as well. So I'm sorry, that wasn't a question, that was, I just wanted to add that though for into the picture. Thank you. Thank you. At this time I will take it out to the public for further questions. Going to invite public comment. You're interested in commenting on item number 20, opposition to the potential adverse abandonment actions for heavy freight rail service on the Felton branch line and Santa Cruz branch rail line. Press star nine on your phone to raise your hand. And when it's your turn to speak, you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted. The timer will then be set minute. I will look at our attendee list. Like we have, hands up, the first one is Brian Trail now. Hi, this is Brian Trail now. Thank you. RTC was awarded the most funds for the population of California, only second to Los Angeles. You know why? Cause guy Preston knows what he's doing. He knows how to get the money. He knows what gets funded. He knows how to fix transportation. We really need to allow him to do his job. Can't try to regulate him on that. There are three transportation corridors, highway one, hotel and the coastal corridor that all need to go. One of them is a closed right there. And the other two are going to be under construction for two and a half years. People don't realize it, but the studies have shown a world-class trail on the coastal trail who have 10 times more users than a train, equivalent to a half of a single highway one. That's what we're talking about in the way of mobility. Issue here is Ms. Park, owner of boring camp is parking her amusement park train on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk Festival, publicly owned vessel, that is walking the world-class trail. We're asking Ms. Park, work with Guy, and come up with a win-win solution. We're suggesting that they move boring camp boarding operations to be a park. Quite possibly even a world-class solution would be to have a each Raleigh's coming from the Felton. And now we create a whole new access road where Metro could even go. So we're asking the city to support Guy Preston. He knows what he's doing and back him as he negotiates with Ms. Clark who is the private owner of boring camp. And just let's just remember how bad each traffic is. I know many people who have been injured as of the tracks are in the middle of the roundabout. Very dangerous. Let's take this opportunity. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Brian. Next caller is Barry Scott. Welcome, Barry. Well, thank you. Let me just point out something. Mark Stone was my guest on Midtown Democratic Club meeting last week and I had him in a meeting talking about this whole thing. He said, look, rail banking doesn't work. Pulling the tracks up means they'll never come back. You guys lift the tracks, you're never going to come back. I want to point out that the RTC is obliged in the ACL agreement with Progressive to complete all rail repairs. That's a contractual obligation. It's true that Progressive asked to get out but that was before boring camp came in. So right now, boring camp is a subcontractor. Director Preston talked about lack of freight since 2017. Well, that's when the storms were a lack of freight because we haven't done the repairs. It could be a connection there. And I know it's a lot of money, but we need to move it consistently with the PCAA and every study that says we need rail transit. By the way, heavy freight is not a term, it's just freight. Freight or no freight, not scary heavy freight. I want to say that federal freight status is the only protection our infrastructure has from the whims of local politics that can change with a single election or the change of a single supervisor. So let's do the RTC a favor by passing this resolution and blocking this ill-advised and unlikely to succeed abandonment move. Ask our friends in Watsonville to pass a similar city council resolution and consider a future resolution condemning the Greenway Initiative and commit to protect our regional rail plans, please. Thank you. Thank you for your public input. Our next caller is Mark Miss Miller. Go ahead, Mark. Yeah, good evening, Mayor Brunner and council members. My name's Mark Missidy Miller. I'm a professional civil engineer and a 39-year resident of the city of Santa Cruz. And I just want to mention a couple of things. Kind of change is very real. We're all suffering from the adverse effects and they're getting worse. This is not going to get better. There is no silver bullet that's going to solve that problem but there is silver buckshot. And rail is part of that silver buckshot. That's how we're going to reduce vehicle miles traveled. That's how we're going to get trucks off the road. That's how we're going to reduce greenhouse gas. Rail banking is a term that sounds really good. The fact of the matter is that there is not a single case anywhere in the 39-year history of rail banking where tracks have been removed, rail constructed, pavement and all the stuff. The rail removed and the tracks went back. It doesn't happen. And one thing that director Preston did not mention but I'll bring up tonight is that at last Thursday's RTC meeting, the RTC staff presented a plan for removing the rail bridges across highway one as part of the highway one widening project in APHIS. And with rail banking, those rail bridges do not need to be put back. And guess what? The plan is not with the rail bridges back. How likely do you think it is that once the highway's widened and the rail bridges are gone, those rail bridges are going to come back? They're not. Federal protection of our freight railroad is the only way to protect the integrity of our railroad line into the future and make sure that when the time comes, we can implement passenger rail and get 20,000 cars off the road every single day. Thank you. Thank you for calling in. Our next caller is Rafa Sonanfeld. Go ahead, Rafa. Hi, good afternoon, council members and mayor. My name's Rafa Sonanfeld and thank you for considering this letter today. I'm calling to oppose the adverse abandonment of the Felton branch rail line, the Santa Cruz branch rail line. And I'd like the city to continue to support both rail and rail. I think having a rail connection to Monterey County to Gilroy and the future high speed rail, California high speed rail is really critical for the future transportation infrastructure of our region. And I'm worried that adverse abandonment will make it more challenging to complete the repairs that we need in order to have rail will increase the environmental regulations or CEQA that would be exempted if there is still tracks in the ground. So I'd encourage the city to support our rail and rail and oppose the adverse abandonment. Thank you. Thank you for Ian. Next caller. Greetings Mayor Burner, Vice Mayor Watkins, council members and RTC staff. I'm Kyle Kelly. I serve on the city of Santa Cruz's Transportation Public Works Commission, but I speak to you now as an individual advocate for inclusive communities. It was only three years ago on March 8th, 2019 that the Santa Cruz RTC wrote a letter to the California Transportation Commission stating their obligation for state law requiring Proposition 116 bond to be used for inner city passenger rail projects connecting the city of Santa Cruz with the Watsonville Junction or other rail projects within Santa Cruz County which facilitate recreational commuter inner city and inner county travel. In the letter of the executive director, I pressed and unequivocally stated, began quote, the RTC is committed to meeting the requirements that the Proposition 116 and CTC resolution. The RTC and short line operators have made significant repairs and upgrades to railroad infrastructure. Santa Cruz County voters approved measure D in 2016 which includes funds for rail line maintenance and repairs. Since that time, the RTC has evaluated service options for public transit service in the corridor, including potential station locations, costs, ridership, projections and schedules. While there have been proposals by some community members and groups to rail bank or remove the railroad tracks, in January, 2019, after extensive analysis and public input conducted through the unified corridor study, the RTC board unanimously affirmed its commitment to leave the railroad infrastructure in place, maintain freight rail service and institute high capacity public transit service end quote. So we really need to meet the commitment that we made years ago and live up to the standards we set in house gas reduction targets and the absolute boost to our community's health while being that comes with investing in public transit. Here in Santa Cruz, especially, we are about to grow by about 3,700 new homes. Oh, that's all. I would like traffic come by train, not by car. Thank you. Thank you so much for your public comment. Our next caller is Lonnie Faulkner. Lonnie? Hi there. Lonnie? Hi there. Hi, thank you, Mayor Brunner and Santa Cruz Council members. Equity Transit opposes adverse abandoning of both the Rory Camp ramp and Santa Cruz branch line. Rory Camp has been owned by the same family since 1963, that's 59 years. Rory Camp relinquished their first ride of refusal in purchasing the tracks so that the RTC could bring passenger rail to our community and I paraphrase Lonnie Faulkner of Rory Camp. My family was assured the rail line was an extremely important asset to the county and that the RTC worked hard to line up funding for the state and that the sale to the RTC was for the benefit of the entire community. The RTC assured Rory Camp the line would be used for rail, thanks to funding from Proposition 116 which specifically calls for a commitment to rail service. In response to Rory Camp, in response, Rory Camp cleared the way for the RTC to purchase the new line. Now the RTC is targeting Rory Camp's Svelton branch line as the first step towards forced abandonment, the full Santa Cruz branch line, which is a betrayal of a commitment made by the RTC of Rory Camp. The people of Santa Cruz County, the state of California promising to bring rail to Santa Cruz County, end quote. How can Rory Camp trust any long-term leases made by the current or future RTC when obviously all intentions made by the RTC of Rory Camp are being aggressively challenged. So during the February 3rd RTC meeting recently, Rory Camp lawyers and numerous rail experts, some with connections with the SBB made clear statements in direct opposition to the statements made by Mr. Preston. The theme was consistent. Abandonment and rail banking will risk the future of our tracks and the future of passenger rail will be put at risk for our community. Not to mention this, thank you. Thank you. Our next caller has a phone number ending in 7496. Hello, this is Matt Ferrell and I'm calling to encourage the council to support posing adverse abandonment on both the Felton and the Santa Cruz branch line. I think that the previous speakers have made very compelling arguments about how I take that action and I won't take more of your time repeating their state. Please support fellow council members in the front board. Thanks, dear. Thank you, Matt Ferrell. Our next caller is Sally for rail and rail. Thank you. So I'm Sally Arnold and I wanna really thank the council for considering writing a letter opposing the adverse abandonment rail banking of either the Felton line or the Santa Cruz branch line. And I really, I wanna thank council member Cummings who pointed out that the, I think it was Cummings anyway that put it out the 6,000 emails that were received by the RTC. A lot of times people say, oh, 6,000 emails, it's so controversial. Not if they are all saying the same thing which is don't do the adverse abandonment. But by last count, it was about 6,000 opposed to adverse abandonment and two in favor. That's not controversial. Also, I wanna say that council member Brown mentioned that there's a whole political dimension to this at the RTC. And I think she's absolutely correct here. And that's why your influence is really appropriate at this time. Yes, transit's expensive. There's no doubt about it. That's why we need to provide the political will to show the community supports the rail and rail project. That kind of community will help us get grant money. I appreciate that Director Preston is in a tough spot with this commission being split as it is right now. But the community is not split 55th. The community is like 6,000 to two. And so, you know, this false equivalency just because not every single human on the planet agrees that makes it controversial, it's not correct. And so I think that it's time for the community to show the commissioners where we're going here that we want rail and trail. We want it all. Know it's hard to support our commissioners and RTC staff doing that hard work. I think that your letter opposing adverse abandonment to help with that. Thank you. Thank you, Sally Arnold. Our next caller is Sean. We were told in last week's RTC meeting that the discussion about banking on that line was supposed to be, it was, the public was never supposed to know. All the local fire chiefs objected this because it will restrict their ability to fight wildfires. Jack Brown sent me a simple map showing the fire line and it runs parallel with the rail. That's not unusual for a rail line number from fighting fires. Let me ask you something. Are you aware that the newest and best fire suppressant in use today is made possible by local Santa Cruz office, right down by Safeway? Yeah, Jeff Denhold, local service, 100% biodegradable, non-toxic, safer for firefighters to use, safer for well water. Santa Cruz in this way can help the rest of the world, but it's not able to save itself from the corruption of the RTC because you're at a guy pressing his mouth today. Everybody's talking about the postal rail line. This is just a tactic that they want to use there. And that guy, your question, what's it worth? What are the live health of all the people in the county that are gonna use an electric train, get out of here during an emergency evacuation? You never hear the RTC talk about it. And when someone wants to know why Santa Cruz fire fighting efforts were limited, they're gonna come back to this council meeting. Thank you for your public comment. Are there any other attendees that would like to call in for public comment on item number 20, opposition to potential adverse abandonment actions for every freight rail service on the Fulton branch line and Santa Cruz branch rail line? And specifically to direct the mayor to notify the Santa Cruz Regional Transportation Commission that the Santa Cruz City Council opposes potential adverse abandonment actions for freight rail service on the Fulton branch line and Santa Cruz branch line. Whereas the one caller commented for freight rail, heavy is not necessary. Okay, I will bring it. Oh, we have one more caller. Caller ending in 4487. Hello, this is Joanne Harris-Ozzi with. Hello, Joanne. The current camp is currently contracted by freight rail on the Santa Cruz branch line. The agreement reached with the current freight operators includes South County, we're a pristine growth service council. Just like you to know that stress is not going out. They are very happy with our front line. However, due to the fashion by the RTC, Eric Bridges currently freight is prevented from any schools, and wasn't held and beyond. Funds ability for the lack of access for freight services was lost once and for all. Rest with RTC is a great opportunity. Targeting foreign camps belt, yep, was done in branch line. RTC well-attentioned claims that growing camps frame belt and not in jeopardy, and that they would engage with gauges in the long term. Well, that be lies the fact that change in tenure as evidenced by what is now. They made a commitment to growing camp 10 years ago and see where we are now. And of course abandonment of the belt and branch by the current growing camp federal, regulars work with them. Dependies are easy to operate, carry. It also makes vulnerable, vulnerable. That's the right thing. Ascent, abandonment and rail banking is not a threat. Press the chief of rail in Santa Cruz. Thank you for your quick comment. Are there any other attendees on this item? Being none, I will bring it back to uncle for deliberation and action on council member Myers. Yeah, I want to, I know my colleagues have brought this first call motion, honor their work. I won't make a motion. I do just want to make a couple of comments. You know, I think that the city has expressed, I know multiple times resolution. Obviously building segment, segment, rail in the last year and programming multiple segments. Our residents, I've been Abrams, he, you know, I'm obviously supportive of the request to prepare the letter, not subpoena, abandonment. And I really want to recognize council member Brown's comment in that tail may, you know, that's currently affecting progress at the RGC. You know, it's troubling in that it really is not only really affecting the ability to support on items, but very difficult situation. Probably one of the most important, current council members, but as the council members moving into the comments that you need to think about the rail line, about making this this day, such that 30 years or 40 years or maybe 50 years from now, and by that rail line, that rail line. I'll be supportive of the day. And I, you know, I just, I'm not clear why the bridges are not able to fund it. Today's a world of infrastructure financing that a lot of money, but doesn't seem like money or a security amount of money that would, you know, financing federal or state funds in New York. So I think it's very important that the rail, I think it's, you know, could not be giving up. So I'm supportive of the item, I appreciate it. Thank you council member Myers, council member Cumming, and then council member Calentari-John. I'm gonna move the council's recommendation for this item so we can have a motion before us. And then I have comments. One of the things back in 2019, when I first came on the council, I remember when at the time Mayor Watkins was cutting the ribbon at the newly built vessel that came in was a really great project came in sooner than expected and under budget. And from a number of the talks that the speeches that have been given at that event, you know, one thing that was pointed out is this effort to bring rail and trails to our community going on to the 80s. And so it's not something that, although it might not be something that can happen really quickly, it's been the dedication of our local representative for that for such a long time. It's getting us to the point where we're actually seeing a lot of these projects from a reality and over the past three years, we've seen, you know, vessel get built, we've seen the segment on the west side get built, you know, funding to move forward with another segment that will be off base street. So consistently, we're seeing that the efforts over time are leading to us actually making rail and trail reality. And so I'm really, you know, I think we as a board need to do what we can to keep this reality alive. And my hope is that by sending this message to the RTC that maybe some of our colleagues in the region will understand that Santa Cruz is really committed to making sure that not only are we supporting rail and trail, but we're also supporting local businesses that help support our local economy and really make Santa Cruz somewhere that everyone, and I think it was also really important for us to take into consideration the fact that, you know, use rail lines, use by fire, fire isn't, and in many new ways move forward as we get better equipment, and as we innovate our ways of fighting fire. So I think that trying to preserve this whenever we possible is the best we can do. And in addition to the motion, I think I'd just say, I'm just gonna express this, but, you know, there's an opportunity for the mayor you to speak with some of our state and federal representatives to let them know about the situation and our commitment to rail and the need for them to advocate for funding so we can fix some of our critical infrastructure. I think that that would also go along with the communities so that they know that we as representatives and that our mayor is backing rail and that, you know, we're gonna do everything and to try to make sure that we get the funding we need to make sure that rails reality in our community. So with that, I will end my comments there and thank you for that. Thank you. Thanks, council member, Jerry Johnson. I'd like to give my colleague, council member Brown an opportunity to second as she comes forward and then I can speak. Thank council member, Collin Jerry Johnson. I was happy to give that opportunity to others that I get to vote on motions at the RTC, but I will second that and I have some comments but I'll wait until council member Collin Jerry Johnson had the opportunity. And thank you. Okay, so we have a motion on the floor. We have a first by council member Cummings and a second by council member Ray Johnson. Thank you. Yes, I wanted to thank director Guy Preston for the very technical report that you provided and my colleagues for bringing this forward. I appreciate the opportunity for our council to hear about this important issue and for our community members to learn a little more. I will point that there are a lot of questions or a lot of technical questions. I think those are better reserved for an RTC meeting and I would encourage and invite all everyone, council colleagues and staff at city and community members to attend RTC meetings as time allows. I will be supporting this motion as well. I mean, they were, the reasons were articulated very well by my colleagues as well as the callers. One caller mentioned over 6,000 with almost all in support and I won't go into all of the reasons, but the concern that if we shut the door, we shut the door to opportunities in the future and we shut the door to prevention of really negative impacts of climate change and fire and everything that was listed in the future. So for all those reasons, I will be also supporting this recommendation. Thank you. Council Member Golder and then Council Member Brown. I too will support the motion and I have a question and I don't know if somebody can answer. I'm wondering how the makeup of the RTC is determined in regards to the percentage of the people on RTC versus the population of the area that they represent. Director Preston. So the commission has both members, all five board of supervisors, representative from each of the cities and then three appointees, is there any consideration given to the fact that like Watsonville and Santa Cruz have the majority of the population of the county that they should have a higher representation in the group and I think that that is taken into consideration by Santa Cruz Metro when they make their own. So the appointees that come to Santa Cruz Metro, one has historically been a city rep and has historically been a Watsonville rep and it's historically. Wouldn't that just make it balanced? Or I mean, it's not really, I don't know, I'm just a little confused just since the majority of the county population lives in those two cities seems they should have a stronger voice. Is there a way to change it and move forward to the rest of the stalemate? It's actually, there's state legislation that is associated with the makeup of the RTC that we would have to think about the legislation. All right, thank you. Thank you, Council Member Golder. Council Member Brown. Yeah, so I, well, I'll just say Council Member Golder brought this up. Yeah, I mean, that is a dynamic that can be somewhat frustrating and it's not lost on those of us who participate in those meetings that it's consistently been the Watsonville and Santa Cruz representatives who have remained committed to the maintenance of the rail line of, and so, but that's the, again, state legislation and it's related to kind of all the interagency boards and things that we all participate in. So that's what it is, it is what it is for now. But I raised my hand because I wanted to say that even before we take the vote, it sounds like we will have unanimous support for this. And I just want to thank you all. For me, it's really important. You know, I represent the city council on this body and I have been doing my best to represent what I believe based on past actions and what I hear in the community is the interest of the council and the majority of people in Santa Cruz. And so this really is, they support me knowing that I'm taking the right position in the work that I'm doing to represent you all, represent it. So I appreciate it. I'm looking forward to voting yes. And I also wanted to say Mayor Bruner, if you do, or if you're interested in following up on council member coming suggestion about communicating with our legislative representatives, I'd be happy to talk with you about that. I do as the chair participate in legislative advocacy days and we get to talk with our elected there, both state and federal, but also have a different position and I'm happy to work that. Wonderful. Thanks. Thank you council member. Council member Myers and then council member. Yes. The maker of the motion council member, I mean, I'm really thinking about these bridge repairs. And I was wondering if the maker of the motion would be amenable as they are crossed the letter that that infrastructure needs to be invested in and these need to somehow find the money and now it seems opportune time over the next decade to try to reach some of these versus funding that's down. So my question for the maker of the motion is if you'd be amenable to also directing the mayor to express cities urging of the RTC prioritize the repair of the bridges as part of their work, especially as available federal and state funds. I also understand having to measure the fee. So if maker of the motion somehow would be willing that I think that's better as well. Great. Thank you. Thank you council member Myers. Council member. I didn't want to follow up because there were, there was a speaker, a member of the public who spoke and they also expressed wanting the city of Santa Cruz to send a letter to the city of Foxville asking them they could put a similar item on their agenda. And also they mentioned bringing forward a resolution committing the protection of rail infrastructure and rail chance pending in the city of Santa Cruz. And I was going to see if we could add that as a firmly. I want to take a stab here at your amended motion. Yeah. So it would be send a letter city of Watsonville asking their council to send a also rather join us. We phrase that. Directly mayor to send a letter to Watsonville city council asking them to consider agendizing item. Have them send a letter opposing adverse commitment of the Santa Cruz on the second one would be bring forward future meeting, resolution fitting to protection of rail infrastructure and rail transit planning the city of Santa Cruz. I should say rail and trail. And is there any prioritization for fair bridges included in the letter? Is the second error of motion. Here I might, I could maybe ask one more in your in that last recording prioritizing the. Could we get a, could we get an, I don't know if there's been an analysis of bridge repairs or if that information exists but great to receive that nation as a council. So we toss our, I don't know if you can trust that in the letters. And that was clarified at the director Preston, the seascape and the Capitola bridge vehicles. Those are the two trestles that are out of stress. We have repairs that are needed on numerous bridges in addition to that. The unknowingly pond vessel is also out of service. That's not needed there. Outline that also has additional sense of repairs. And then there's more minor repairs on many of our bridges. Yeah, we have been analysis on the costs of these pairs but they're the minimum cost to have these bridges, bridges serve as. Potentially using them for a commuter rail. Great. So thank you for clarifying that. So it sounds like a prioritization repair of the bridges that are out of service would be the language along that lines being included in the letter. Motion maker, thank you. I think that will, this item, I'm really glad we had the opportunity to learn more. I certainly did over this past week and a half. And this is such a vital part of our city and county. And keeping rail transportation open as a viable transportation option for our county is really important. And I'm happy to be able to support our representative on this mission in this way. So I look forward to moving forward. And so I will ask for the clerk to do a roll call vote. Council member, Councilor Johnson. Aye. Holder. Aye. I swear watching. Aye. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Director Preston for your time and your information. Appreciate it. You're very welcome. Thank you for your input. Okay, our next item. This is item number 21 on the agenda. It's the mid-year update for members of the public for streaming this meeting. We will be taking public comment for items 21.1 and 21.2. If these are items you want to comment on, now it's time to call in using the instructions on your screen. The order will be a presentation of the item by staff followed by questions from council. You will then take public comment and then return to the council for deliberation and action. I would like to invite Bobby McGee and Lupita Alamos from our finance department for the first presentation. Thank you, Mayor Brunner and good evening and good evening to members of the council. Please share my screen here. Went through this once before. All right, are you able to see that? Now, wonderful. Okay, on tonight's agenda, we want to do an overall outlook of where the city is and the budget issues that we're faced with. Talk a little bit about the revenue trends that we're currently observing and some of the risk factors that we continue to monitor. Go over some of the highlights of budget adjustments that you have inside of your agenda packet and then talk a little bit about next year's budget outlook as we have just started the process of holding fiscal year 2023 budget. And then finally to inform the council of what we're looking at for the budget account. And so with respect to the overall outlook at this time, I'd like to invite the city manager to provide any overall commentary and thoughts on the macroeconomic perspective. Thanks, Bobby. Good evening, Mayor and council and committee members. Before our finance step into tonight's mid-year update, I wanted to provide a broad overview of current trends based on the most recent data that we have. Some good news and bright spots, we are seeing some incremental recovery and improvements over the last few quarters as well as when we compared year over year for all of our major revenues. I do just want to say that this has been modest growth. Just for the last quarter, third quarter of 2021, which is the life of September, we finally saw a return of pre-pandemic levels for sales tax and TOT. But that's been tempered a bit by the significant increase and ongoing impacts from inflation as well as those numbers not being reflected in some of the disruption that we expect to see when we get the fourth quarter results as well as moving into this year from the impacts that Comic-Con variant had impacts on our local economy. So I would describe that the first bullet is being cautiously optimistic that our economy is beginning to show signs of life. Now we balance that with some ongoing long-term uncertainty and not knowing how the pandemic is going to affect our local economy, our small businesses, tourism travel as we look out over the long term. And so as we move in to the 2022-2020 budget process, as well as the council's strategic plan work, it's really an opportunity for us to build up a long-term financial model that allows us to plan for some of that uncertainty ahead as we balance resources for operational needs. And although we've seen some improvement over the last quarters, I want to also just emphasize that we also continue to have some significant capital and operational, unplundered needs. I spoke a little bit about that earlier today as we talked about our homeless response, our fashion plan, as well as some of the other priorities forward with as part of our re-inclusion and cruise effort and downtown revitalization work. We know that despite these recent gains, revenues, that our needs are outpacing our resources. That's also true of our capital and infrastructure needs as well. So you'll hear a little bit more of that as Bobby and the crew today's presentation. And we'll be having, of course, many more conversations about this next budget cycle. But thanks for being able to give just a general overview as we dive into this. Thanks. Thank you, sir. I appreciate the comments. Okay, and so current revenue trends, what we're looking at is that the mid-year revenue trends continue to show signs of recovery, particularly in the sales tax area. However, we do want to caution that by saying that overall the fiscal year 22 general fund revenues are projected to increase about 9% over what we saw in 2019, which was obviously pre-pandemic levels. However, that is not keeping up with inflation. So while the recovery has been strong, we understand that expenses have gone up significantly more than we had initially anticipated. And so when we're looking at these revenue trends and projecting out into the future the rest of this year and portion of next year, we are still monitoring a number of unknowns at this time, such as the economic impact of Omicron. We don't know if this is going to continue to fade or if we may see a double dip in COVID cases. Hopefully that is not the case, but it's something for us to monitor. The projected revenue obviously is dependent upon spring break tourism outcome. As of right now, we remain optimistic that we'll have a strong head tourism season during spring break, but I just can't be certain at this time. We are expecting interest rates to continue to rise over the next several quarters and that's going to have an unknown effect, as well as the impacts of not only overall inflation, but oil prices. As I'm sure you all have seen as you've filled up your cars recently, the price of fuel has shot through the roof the last few months and that may continue. Historically, we've noticed that prices start to go up around February, not peak in February. So we're a little concerned about how that would affect overall revenue. However, the general fund revenue trends just wanted to highlight a few of the key items within the general fund. You all have seen this graph before. The fiscal year 22 projected is the gray line up on top and you can see we continue to expect strong sales tax receipts through the end of this fiscal year, as well as the increases in property tax, transient occupancy tax, and there's a slight reduction in fees and charges. Although we are seeing, again, increased development activity, increased demands for services and parks and recreation and the associated fees. Overall, again, we're not sure that we're going to make pre-pandemic levels throughout the entire general fund by the end of the year, but the recovery has been going. Okay, and so I'm going to move into the fiscal year 22 mid-year budget adjustments. I know you have a very comprehensive list within your agenda packets, but we did want to provide just a few highlights of some of the things that we are looking at. On the revenue side, parks and recreation, as I mentioned, is seeing a pretty significant demand for services and so the revenue is increasing proportionally along with increased demands. The fire strike team reimbursements are higher than had been previously budgeted to the effect of about $100,000. And then on the expense side, we do have a number of key items that we wanted to highlight, such as the recreation programming along with increased demand for services. We need the increased appropriations and general fund adjustments which allow for those services to be provided. The Pogonib lower metal remediation can certainly allow other departments to talk to some of those points if they get additional questions. Some personal protective equipment for fire personnel, we did have a number of items that discussed with us that are in need of replacement at this time. The special election costs from the previous election, the incremental amount of what was originally anticipated and what was ultimately billed is about $70,000. The SE Memorial cleanup, $86,000. Additional COVID medical supplies, the amount of about $40,000. And then the reserve fire engine bumper needs some additional maintenance just to keep it operational. And that's about going to cost $60,000. So some other fund adjustment highlights have a matching part for the surface, some water meters. And then we wanted to draw your attention to the carbon fund projects. So there's a number of items that are listed that are specific to the carbon sale. And then the budget outlook for the next fiscal year. So I know that the council has seen this model a number of times. We've continued with some very similar assumptions to what you've seen in the past. This model includes updated actual revenues as of December 31st, as well as our projections that I just talked about moving forward here. This over the course of the next 10 years includes very modest personnel growth. The ARPA funds are reflected in fiscal year 21 and 23. That's why you see the actual amounts a little bit higher in fiscal years 21 and 23. We have not received fiscal year 23 ARPA funds yet. I have had a couple of people suggest to me that we are expecting to see those this spring. I have not seen any guidance to that. I want to be clear that at this point that's a rumor and I've not seen any guidance as to when exactly we are expecting to receive that. It continues to, the word we've gotten is used to be sometime in fiscal year. The homelessness phase one programs that were approved by the council in December are $4.2 million for the first year. We are expecting that figure to grow in the future. The demands on those programs are expected to get more expensive over time. And we currently have this built into the model at a modest 4.2 with an inflationary factor attached to that. This model actually includes $5 million in unfunded currently unfunded capital project needs starting in fiscal year 23. As you all know that barely puts a dent into the city's overall unfunded capital needs. This model includes absolutely no new revenue sources at all, no new programs or services, no expansion of any existing programs or services and no new personnel added to the overall budget. And then as you all know, the rate of inflation has been significantly high over the last year. However, for the purposes of modeling, from the data we've seen, expect that that will level off and that will continue to grow at a rate of about two and a half percent over the course of the next 10 years. And so again, drawing your attention to the graph on the left, as you can see on the red line there, the overall general fund budget meets its bottom line target without reserves at about fiscal year 28 and at that point the city starts to run into a different system out of it. And that's just with our existing program. So we definitely have a structural deficit. And so knowing that we have a structural deficit within the general fund, the guidance that we've provided to departments is that we're going to try to tackle that over the course of a couple of years. And so in this first year, the fiscal year 2023 budget strategy is to have a target reduction about $2.5 million in overall general fund expenditures, which are spread out among all of the supported departments. These cuts need to be structural in nature. And they should be focused on non-court programs and services. We've shared with departments that if there are one-time cuts that they are proposing, that we're happy to look at those. But overall, we need to find structural cuts in order to balance them. We will continue to pursue greater cost recovery on any fees, for example, that need to be looked at. We're going to continue to identify any areas where we can find federal or state grants, federal aid, any other opportunities to bring in additional revenue. Continue to work with our legislative representatives on our legislative platform to advocate for additional resources. The finance department in conjunction with the city manager's office will continue to work with the council, which is now an ad hoc budget and revenue on identifying potential new revenue sources and how do we tap into these? As the city manager indicated, we are going to start working on a long-range financial plan, which will tackle some of these issues as well as some other issues, including capital needs. And as part of that, we'll develop a strategy to address some of these capital investments. Okay, and that brings us to the overall budget calendar. So we've started the budget process, had a kickoff meeting just a couple of weeks ago. And so we will continue to have meetings with departments and work with departments on their proposed budget solutions for fiscal year 23 between now and the end of May. And then in May, we are expecting in April, I'm sorry, we are expecting that the capital improvement program will be reviewed by the various commissions that you take a look at that. And then we're currently planning on holding the budget hearings on May 24th and 25th, and asking the council to adopt next year's budget on June. So that is the end of my presentation. And I am here to answer any questions from council members. Are there any questions from council members? We have council member Cummings. Thank you for that presentation. In the form of the 2.5 million in structural cuts, definitely not gonna be an easy task for us given that we've had to make some serious structural cuts over the past few years of COVID and now, and then they're just through the recovery. Definitely gonna be cool. We did receive and hear from some city staff and I know that there's certain departments where there's some of the work that people have been doing, they've actually been tipping in more of their fair share to kind of meet the demands and needs of the city. And so wondering how we're gonna balance the workload and demands with having to make some of these cuts and maybe Matt, that took me a question for you, but I know in particular that when events weren't occurring, we shifted around our staff, Parks and Rec, who were managing the Civic Center and now that the event's coming back, it sounds like for those folks, workloads have been meet the demands of all these events that are going on plus there are other obligations. So I was wondering if you have any thoughts around how we're gonna set these needs and also not burn out our staff? I'll jump in here, Bonnie. The question comes from our comments. I would just start by saying that our operations are stretched and I think the volume and pace of work right now is not sustainable for our organization as a whole and our staff have been incredibly resilient and creative in the way we've redeployed services throughout the pandemic, we direct services to programs, services that we're able to deliver as we kind of temporarily phase out other things like some events mentioning health cover comings. But another $2.5 million deduction not insignificant on the heels of having had to make other deductions. And I think in times of the discussion we had earlier today about the need that we're requiring other revenue opportunities. Of course, we wanna continue to be a more efficient, more effective in the work we're doing. We need to continue reprioritizing and sharing and we're spending our time on the right things. And at the same time, we have a need for additional resources. I think we'll continue to provide this kind of service that the council may be expecting to serve. And that's what that discussion around exploring this additional sales tax measure. As one example, along with the other areas, Bobby and outline are gonna be important. Thanks, and then Bobby, you mentioned that kind of long-term financial planning. I'm wondering if you can speak to that a little bit and provide community and board opportunity to get a sense of what that looks like. Sure, and thank you, Mayor Brunner and Council Member Cummings. The overall budget, it sits current as a structural deficit. And so I wanna be very clear that the 2.5 million in cuts this year is year one of two years of budget solutions absent other types of solutions such as a revenue measure or other income that is able to support the general fund. So while we have a cut this year, right now the way things stand, if the changes were anticipated, there would be an additional cut next year. And that's part of what the work that we will be doing as the overall long-range financial plan is we've gotta figure out ways to deal with this budget or not only the operational budget but the capital budget as well because the city has a very large amount of unfunded capital needs. And these projects are very, very important. And how are we going to address these things moving forward is in question. So part of the work that we'll be doing is creating a plan. How do we deal with capital? How do we deal with the operating? And then coming back to the council with what staff feels is most important critical core services versus what it's nice to have but we may not be able to do it absent. Those are all the questions I have for right now. Thank you. Any other members? Council Member Brown. Mayor. So I have a question about specifically the city manager budget adjustment and it didn't come up in the presentation but it was in our gender report. And I just wanted to phrase it here and hear a little bit more about the increase in order to identify a contract supporting assistance with grant proposals with fundraising through the competitive grants that many are out there. And Council Member Myers raised that, that there's a lot of opportunity right now. And so taking advantage of that and having more capacity sounds like a important thing, a good idea. And I'm just wondering with that kind of the decision to do this through contract versus building internal capacity. We have some folks on our staff who are really good at this and understand the funding world within the sectors in which they operate. And they are part of that over extended burnout towards working not enough hours in the day. And so I understand and wanna support the interest in providing some support for that. But I also think that we really benefit from those members on our staff who have developed that capacity and do develop that understanding. I see it in the other agents that I'm a representative of the city. When you have long staff that really gets to know the funding environment, what makes grants competitive that that's really important asset for the city. So I guess I'm just wondering if there is an intention to, as part of that, think about this, is this a short-term idea or is this kind of intended to be a permanent fixture for support to staff? Or do we wanna think about building out the staff capacity or fully and how would that? Thanks, Council Member Brown. I'm gonna call on Lori here in a sec, but I wanna thank you for the question and we do have some very talented in-house team members that have had a great track record of securing grants. And you're right that the earth's stretched in. I know that we have some experienced grant writers on the council as well. That's an interest in wanting to support that work. And we have some tremendous opportunities in front of us that really require, we all know how much they really affect about the situation together. Staff have been putting a lot of thought into that and I'll hand over to Lori to... Thank you. We pretty much summarize everything up. Our existing staff, we have people throughout the city that work as a part of their day-to-day job on grant, but our capacity is stretched to its limit and there's also an uptick at the state and federal level of grants that are available out there that we go after. So this was our best and for this quickest path to get supplemental FTE hours to be able to say, hey, this is what we wanna go after, hire grant writing resources and experts to be able to supplement our staff be under the direction of our subject matter experts in these grant areas and then go after them, they win them in the ministry of the state. So it's a pilot program, see how it goes and we'll be able to take that information, that data, figure out what our next steps will be. Thank you. I have a question for finance director Bobby McGee. Have you also, as our team started projections on possible revenue measures and what that might look like with budget as specifically if there's a June or November ballot item? Yeah, thank you. We have created some projections that we've shared with the ad hoc revenue committee, which will now be the ad hoc budget in revenue. But yes, we are starting to look at that at what the potential revenue sources are and how much that would be. So we've done a little bit of modeling so far, but I will caution it's just modeling at this point. And so we have some ideas on what that would generate and certainly a revenue measure will go a long way in solving the structural budget deficits as the budget process. Great. Any other questions from members? Okay, I will bring it out to the public comment. And I will come back for the second part of the item. So for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if you want to comment on item 21.1, now is the time to call in and raise your hand by pressing star nine. And it is your time to speak. We will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted and the timer will then be set in a minute. See if there are any attendees with their hands raised. This is on item 21.1, fiscal year 2022, budget adjustment and information on city's financial status. We don't see any hands raised. Okay, I will bring it back to home school and for deliberation and emotion, there is currently a recommendation to adopt a resolution amending fiscal year 2022 budget appropriations. And there is a second part and a third part authorizes the manager to allow the budgetary changes and receive an update on the city of Santa Cruz right now. And so we'll member Calantari Johnson and then member Myers. I'll move the staff recommendation as is in the agenda packet. Would you like me to read it? Please. Okay, motion to adopt a resolution amending school year 2022 budget appropriations, all funds as listed in exhibit A in the amount of 5,911,511, including 1,450,813 to general fund, the total appropriation estimated revenues as listed in exhibit A in the amount of 5,273,232, all funds including a net reduction of 5,078,501 to the general fund. Catch all those numbers. Yes. And then part two authorize the city manager to allocate budgetary changes within the applicable funds and departments. And part three receive an update on the city of Santa Cruz financials. Very much. And council member Myers, did you have? No, I'll just second the motion. Okay. So I have first from Dennis member Myers and now any further discussion council member Cummings. And just revisiting the plan I brought earlier with in particular with events coming back online and because we cut some of those positions of our parks and rec staff from working those events and had them move them on to doing other work now with events coming back on. And that's just one example, right? But I'm just wondering, you know, how but what we can do or what the city can do to ensure that if this isn't just an ongoing like, you know we're not gonna overburden our staff right now and there's funds that have been moved around to address some concern wondering what can we do, you know with various departments where they might be feeling like there's just there's work that they've been signed as a COVID and now that COVID is using and some of these new these other functions are coming back online that now they're having to do both their COVID and pre COVID and first demand probably can help address that and events is in particular because that's something that brings in a new city. So I'm just wondering maybe that and how we can try to address the position. Thanks for the question, Council Member Cummings. I do think we're entering into a new season of the pandemic as we're able to start offering services and programs or traditional ways again, good news. It also means we're gonna have to be really intentional about how we rebuild as an organization as programs without bringing out staff or overstretching resources. We wanna do provide our services at a high standard. We wanna do it well and be intentional as we're rebuilding those programs. That'll be part of our discussions bring budget discussions to the council while we're working with the departments and of course, as we do revenue opportunities that will be a key piece of what rebuilding looks like. And then we can start restarting those programs. So those are already conversations that are underway and more conversations as we move in the strategic planning work we're all gonna be a part of in a couple of months while we're at the budget. I'll just chime in quickly. The council member means concern and I think I believe we all receive some correspondence with concerns regarding a special event coming back, staffing not coming back with it. And so it gets important to consider either less special events or bringing back special event positions to accommodate the support that's needed for special event and the support that's needed for staff that are overwork. Thanks for that, Mayor Burner. I think we need to be realistic about what's possible within our resources as we are making budget decisions including around positions we need to be restored. Special events is one example but there's many others across all of our departments while that I've had to tighten belts for the last couple of years. So we need to just have a full conversation with the council and the organization around what those needs and opportunities are. And as you might imagine, there's gonna be a lot of interest. So there will be some hard decisions. Council member Cummings. Yeah, to that point. And so I guess the next time, the next opportunity for us to have that conversation likely gonna be budget. When we move into the budget period, that's correct. Sorry, I missed the first part of your question. I was gonna say, in terms of staffing levels, next time we'll have this conversation is likely gonna be budget activists. It will be part of the budget process. And it will also be tied to the strategic planning work we're gonna be doing with the council. Ultimately, staffing decisions should be reflective of what the council's telling us are your areas of priority. It's important to me that our operations are quite quick. You all are listening to what's telling us important. So the two go hand in hand. I expect that we'll be working on that in parallel over time. Yeah, I know, and I guess I just say this because I know that parts generally one of the departments that gets cut first and in the report for showing that expected revenues are gonna be higher than expenditures, than any department where we're trying to, if we can help that department meet their staffing needs, especially if it's gonna mean that we're gonna be able to generate more revenue through that, I think that might be a way like a first step of where these can be made or if we need to reinstate certain positions because by reinstating those positions that actually help us generate revenue. Yeah, all of those are important considerations and we'll absolutely be looking at areas, departments that were hardest hit just because of the unexpected ways that the pandemic has affected our operations. And as we have opportunities for building back to the national about taking that into account, as well as where we go, what the new normal looks like for our community is important and what those priorities might be. You have to say that we might build back in different ways and continue to be creative as we do so to make sure we're competing. Thank you, yeah, it's definitely a fine balance with community needs and staffing needs. Council Member or Vice Mayor Martin Watkins. Thanks, I just appreciate the complexity of the issue and where we're at and I just appreciate what you just said also Matt with my thoughts of how are we being nimble and how are we thinking about things differently in terms of innovation and opportunity and how are we also surveying our workforce to see what their needs are. I mean, working alongside of a number of colleagues friends, I think some of their desires have remained given the pandemic and their priorities and as a result, maybe there's opportunity for more flex schedules or other types of innovations or shared contracts or whatnot. So I guess that all that to say is, I think moving forward as we revisit sort of our strategic plan priorities and sort of opportunity here with innovation. I just want to kind of, you know, exclamation point as wanting to see support around that. Okay. We have a motion. A staff recommended motion was made by Council Member Collin D'Arton Johnson, seconded by Council Member Myers. And I'd like to ask the city clerk for a roll call vote. Do members, Collin D'Arton Johnson? Aye. Boulder? Aye. Mayor Watkins? Aye. Mayor Britt. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Interim finance director of Bobby McGee and Lupita was here. Thank you Lupita for all of your work as well. Moving on to item number 21.2 on the agenda. Resolution amending the city of Santa Cruz personnel compliment and classification and compensation plans for the park and recreation finance fire and water department budget adjustment. And we have with us our human resources director, Lisa Murphy for a presentation. Go ahead, Lisa. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and members. This item is basically a procedural item implementing the actions that you just previously took on the year budget. These items here with personnel changes, we like to pull them out separately so that you can see the individual changes. There is no general fund impact making these adjustments. However, there is an impact to the enterprise funds in the water with an addition of a principal management analyst. And what I'd like to do is get the will of the council, would you like me to go through each of these changes or would you like to forego a presentation and go to consideration or just ask questions? For a presentation to the items. I know I spoke to you earlier and it wasn't very long. So I think the information would be helpful to set the context. Thank you. So with I can put the item, let me share my, I'll just run through. I think that you can all see my screen. This is the resolution that's before you. Several of these changes are administrative because you had already approved them in a previous budget. We are simply effectuating the change and that would be the building maintenance worker one. With regards to the job title change supervisor, we found that that the classification is very outdated in the title and it doesn't reflect the job duties appropriately. So we worked with the incumbents and the union to update that title to more reflective of a more professional series as administrative services supervisor. There is no change to the job duties and there is no change to the compensation. In finance, an opportunity to take a look and see how things were implemented under a previous administration. Bobby has taken a look and made some recommended changes to the finance department. What he'd like to do is add back in a purchasing manager and to offset those costs, delete a purchasing assistant and delete a owning technician to fund the purchasing manager position. Bobby and his staff has reviewed this and feel that this is the best operational to function for that particular department. And then with regards to fire, currently are asking for two unfunded firefighter positions and what this does for the fire department is allow the flexibility, particularly because they have academies they run and they're on a time cycle. And when we have an individual who may retire and then we have a gap, we'd like to try to fill that spot as somebody by putting them in the academy. These are not funded. They are typically funded through vacancy savings. But again, it allows us to keep a full complement of staff when their vacancies from a retirement or even from a workers' comp issue, if somebody might be going out but then we want to run, like I said, an academy and we can slot two people in without disruption to the continuity of services. Currently have one, so adding two more, particularly in this upcoming cycle where we are projecting a six retirement. So this is really gonna allow us flexibility to fund that. And then finally, we have our water position and this is not within the general fund. But as you've seen in previous presentations from the water department with the capital projects they're undertaking the amount of workload that's occurring there, they are looking to add additional control management analysis in the management of those projects. And the amount for that position is $189,000 by 50 and that includes all salaries benefit. Again, this position is working on over $80 million of programs that they'll be. So again, as a reminder, this has no impact to the general fund. It's cost neutral, with the exception of the end of press funds. And that concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to entertain any questions. Thank you so much. Director Murphy. Are there any members with questions? I am too. One. At this time then I will take it out for public comment. Thank you so much for that presentation. If you're interested in commenting on item 21.2, part of the mid-year update, press star nine on your phone to raise your hand. When it is your time to speak, we will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted. The timer will then be set to two minutes. We have attendees, whoever knows hands are raised. If you'd like to comment on this item, press star nine, press raise hand on your computer. Two more seconds. We'll bring it back to council. Any attendees? Andres. The vice mayor. And then council member. Vice mayor, yeah. No, I'm happy to move the recommendation as written in our agenda report as well. So the recommendation is to one adopt a resolution amending the classification and compensation plans in the mid-year fiscal year 2022 budget personnel compliment by the approving system changes in our four city departments and to a resolution amending the fiscal year 2022 budget to appropriate funds for the addition of a principal management analyst within the water department. That's my motion. The member Brown, all seconds up first vice mayor. What second with Brown any discussion for their deliberation? Yeah, I'd like to ask the city clerk for a roll call vote. Number. I motion passes unanimously. We are now at the last item of our agenda for following the last item of our agenda, the oral communications. For members of the public for streaming this meeting, if you would like to comment during oral communications, now is the time to call in. Instructions are on your screen. Oral communication is an opportunity for members of the community to comment on items that were not on the agenda. If you are interested in addressing the council press star nine to raise your hand, you will have two minutes. The when it is your time to speak, you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted. We request that you clearly and slowly date your name before making your comment so that we can accurately capture in the meeting minutes, however, it's not required. Please remember, this is a time for council to hear from the public on items that were not on the agenda. We are not able to engage in dialogue with each member of the public, but when we are able, we will address the questions raised after oral communications has been made. Attendees, I have one caller with their hand raised. I am watching you. Is the name? Go ahead and sit. Hi, I've been sitting on a myths of black history speech for a year, but I'll wait on that one. Instead, I once again offer my annual suggestion of a mayoral proclamation of a lack of appreciation day, but hey, just don't make it April 1st, you know, on a different seemingly minor, but not to me issue. It did not go unnoticed that the city decided to eliminate the four extra green service and one extra refuse to pick up or self transport to the dump bags that normally have a mail to customers in the past. Like the shrinking candy bar, we now pay more for less or in this case, nothing. The messaging was unclear if one will now have to call someone for four free extra bag pickups, but for sure the once yearly included truckload of refuse and up to four pickup loads of green waste is no more. Considering the city doesn't have to do almost anything if I transport and dump yard waste, would you turn into compost with some value? The pennies you say you are saving on a half page of paper seems like a dissembling nonsense excuse for less service. Maybe it hasn't occurred to you, but people don't like to go on solar trips with a dump with minor amounts of toxic waste like forest balls, batteries, and other items, even if they're accepted for free. They wanna make one big trip with everything, including maybe some refuse that isn't normally free and the once yearly service bag did that. I see a plenty more free junk on the sidewalks of your future. Unless people can get value for dumping, they may just let refuse or anything else accumulate in those previous few extra service bags kept the city being cleaner and it almost certainly will be now. Municipal utilities are not a cash cow to be milked and again, your cost was minimal when the users did the transport. While it might not be practical since Santa Clara's streets are not laid out or as rich a city as Santa Clara, there once a year dump all you want into the city takes it away works very well there. Davengers look this stuff over and some things are recycled that way and then what absolutely nobody wants is efficiently hauled off. It keeps that city very clean. Thank you. Thank you for your oral communication. Are there any other attendees that would like to call in for oral communication? These are items that were not on today's agenda. I wonder if our public works director is still here or if anyone is here that speak to the four tags or the extra load tags that public work sends out. Are you holding one up council member Golder? Yeah, so it was in, I forget what it came in. The Santa Cruz Refuse and Recycling Newsletter and it says previously known as free service tags and it says to reduce waste revamped the extra service tags will no longer mail bonds. And then there's a clip clip on here, but Mr. Phillips was right in that there used to be four and then there's just the one here. And so there was something else. So I saved it. I love the job. Thank you, council member Golder and I see director Dettel, Mark Dettel of public work. There was oral communications regarding. Right, I did hear that. This them just went off, but just to clear up the misconception that the service is not stopped. What staff is they got rid of the paper waste sending out tag. So you can keep, put the bags out by your bin and we keep track of how many you get up to the floor a year. It's electronically captured. If you have a bulk item, you can call and arrange to have that picked up. So the service is there. We're trying to make it so that we're not sending out more waste, more paper waste for you, but it sounds like the communication could have been better. It was in the newsletter. We are adding that the city's main page of the website. We'll know. And we'll be trying to get that information out further, but we just had that discussion this week because I got an email question or I saw it on Nick or where somebody had thought that he had eliminated that. But thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate the oral communication to give me the opportunity to share that with you so that that service is still there. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Okay. It looks like that's it for oral communication and that concludes our City Council meeting for today. Thank you, everybody. Have a wonderful evening. This meeting is now adjourned. Right. Right.