 Questions come up. Hi Marina, thank you for joining us today to provide Spanish interpretation. Charles is going to be joining us as well once I see him I'll move him over. I'm going to make the brief statement on how to participate from the Spanish channel if you can then restate it in Spanish for me and then I'll move you over and activate the Spanish channel. Charles is Spanish interpreter as well. Yes, so it's going to be simultaneous. You guys will be handing off as you so feel the need to. It's a two about a two hour meeting the chairs trying to honor the two hour timeline. We might run over slightly. Hope fingers crossed. Thank you. Thank you. For those just joining the meeting live translation in Spanish is available and members of the public wishing to listen from the Spanish channel can join by clicking on the interpretation icon in your zoom toolbar it looks like a globe. Once you have joined the Spanish channel we recommend you shut off the main audio. So you only hear the Spanish translation. Marina, can you please restate that in Spanish. Buenas noches para las personas que necesitan interpretación al español van a poder ver dentro de un momentito un globito en la parte inferior derecha de su pantalla. I'm going to click on that. Ese globito que dice interpretación y ahí es cojan español para poder escuchar la reunión español y pongan de mudo audio original gracias. Okay. Thank you Marina I'm going to move you over to the Spanish channel with Charles and you and Charles can swap switch roles as you feel needed after a certain amount of time. Okay Charles can first you on how best to switch roles as you feel the need. Okay and so sorry how do I communicate with Charles. I will do you have email available I can email that information to you. Yes. Okay I'll shoot you an email offline. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay Marina are we waiting for a forum. I believe we have a quorum. I don't see chair Cisco on though. Okay. There is a member on the attendee side with their hand raised with a phone number ending in 7134 if you are a member of the chair or of the committee, if you can please rename yourself accordingly. I'm going to go to the panelist side of the meeting. We cannot promote you based solely on a phone number for security purposes. Yeah, for some reason, Dina the link that you sent out in outlook takes you as a participant. That was the first link I clicked on so I had to go and look at the email from today. Stephanie and Dina I just got a text from Patty saying that someone needs to let her in. She's saying, I'm not showing it as started. Should I send her another link. Well, we were looking. I'm wondering if that's her with her hand raised. That's not her cell number because I checked. Oh, that's just mean is. Yeah. Yeah, we need to promote her. So should I tell her to go to the city website and log in that way? One moment. I'm forwarding Patty the zoom link. Okay, thanks. Stephanie, did you get that that the 707 318 phone number is. Yes, she's calling in and we can't. I just tried to promote her to a panelist, but I don't think we can do it with just a phone number. Okay. Can I participate with raising the hand or how does that work? Yes, she can. I had the chair Cisco can see who's raising her hand. I'm asking just mean, just mean if you can hear me, can you change your name so that we know that it's you. You should be able to let me see maybe I can read. So I just recently zoom link to chair Cisco and I am enabling just means permissions to speak. She will not be viewed as she's participating via dial in. Right. And she won't be shown as a panelist should be shown as an attendee. Hey, Stephanie, I'm in. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Okay. Are we ready to start. We are just so you know, I'm Patty just mean is participating via phone. Okay, you can see her on the attendee side right now she has her hand raised. We've enabled her speaking permission so that she can participate in the meeting but because she's calling it with the phone we cannot promote her as a panelist. So just mean if there's a comments you want to say you can raise your hand and chair Cisco will keep an eye on that to make sure she calls you for any comments. So, thank you so much. I'm sorry. I was going to say thank you so much and I apologize there's something wrong with the network here where I am I assume it's because of the weather so I'm only able to call in but I appreciate you all facilitating my participation today. And just go whenever you're ready to call the meeting to order and do roll call we do have a quorum. Okay, great sorry about I'm having technical difficulties with my other iPad having updated and I don't know how to get it to work right so anyway, okay. Yeah, so let's go ahead and start. Do the call to order and roll call. Member out is on. Remember Barbara. Here. Member Bartley. Scott, are you with us. Come back to him. Member burn. Present. Thank you member country. Here. Member cutting him. Here. Member Diaz. Here. Member good you know, here. Here. Member close. Member lean. Here. Thank you. Member Martinez. Here. Member Miller. Member minor. Here. Member Oliveris. Member pits. Yes. Member bad for. Here. Member Walsh. Here. Member Villalobos. Here. Member weeks. Here. Member Bartley have you joined us. Yes, I'm here. Thank you. Member close have you joined us. Member Miller have you joined us. Member Oliveris have you joined us. And chair Cisco. Here. Here. Thank you. Let the record show that all committee members are present with the exception of committee members. Close. Miller. And Oliveris. She's doing closest here. She's on the attendee side. Here. So the record. The record has been amended to show that member close. Is in the meeting. And members. Miller and Oliveris are absent. Correction. Arizona is here. She's in the attendee. I appreciate that. Okay. So now the record has been amended that. Member Miller and Oliveris are the only committee members absent at the meeting. And I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for joining us on that. And just a reminder to the committee members. If you know for sure that you're going to miss a meeting. It's always helpful to. Email. Or text me and or even email. Stephanie. So that we can keep track of the comings and goings. With that, let's go ahead and move to. The agenda. I think that public. Can make comment on items not listed on the agenda, but that are of concern to this particular committee. So I'll go ahead and open public comments. And. If our host wouldn't mind seeing if we have anyone that's wanting to speak you. If you're calling in by zoom, you use the raise hand feature. I'm not seeing any hands be raised to be a zoom. Okay. Great. Then I'll go ahead and close the public comment time. And. With that, we will move on to item. Three, which is the approval of our minutes. Of our. November 17th. 2021 regular meeting. Any comments or corrections to those minutes. And if not, then those will stand as printed. Next, let's look at our December 1st. Regular meeting minutes, any comments or corrections. To those minutes. And not seeing anybody raised their hand. I will have them stand as printed. And we'll go ahead and move on to our schedule items. And our first item is a 4.1. Another presentation on our equity principles. And I believe Sue is going to be taking that. Thank you, chair. Actually we have. Is Sapporo shields on. She will be taking this on. Okay. Great. Hi, everyone. And good evening. Thank you for the time tonight. So I just, before I get into the presentation, I want to bring your attention to the attachments. The attachment one is a draft version for you to be looking at draft only of what could be the charter review equity principles. It is basically just a small swap from the. I'm going to go through district committee principles and we'll go through what those swaps are. I wanted to also share with you attachment to. This is a presentation that was made to the city council about equity priority. Areas in our city. And I just kind of wanted to bring that to everyone's attention so you could see the one, the ways in which council is thinking about it. And I just wanted to share with you that there are a number of districts that it isn't a concentration in one. And there are larger concentrations in areas, but it is something that really all parts of the city need to be considering. And then attachment three is just a one pager. Of the definitions that the city is using with the work with seed around diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. And so that's what I wanted to share. Now for the presentation. Next slide, please. So we're going to go over again. I was asked to kind of help walk through what is, what were the equity principles in the arc and show them to you. So you understand that. And then in a separate part, it won't be part of this presentation, but as a separate item, I was also asked to address my question. So we'll get to that under that item as well. Next slide, please. So one of this presentation are the definitions of the, of these slides and on that one pager. But I think as we go along, really thinking about how these are all related, but how they are actually different concepts that need to be, so the strategies to achieve them while they may be similar, they will be different diversity, meaning having a broad group, including meaning that people feel invited and welcome there. Belonging specifically, we're going to talk about this a little bit more like a shared sense of ownership and power. And then equity doing what's necessary to change conditions to ensure that we get to fair and just outcomes. Next slide, please. So, and you'll see this on the one pager as well, really conceptually think of belonging, especially for this group as you, you represent many different experiences, lived, lived experiences, experiences in government, experiences in, in everything. How do you both make people feel included, but also a sense of belonging. And one of the things you'll see is that belonging is like inclusion plus it's a little bit more in inclusion. In inclusion, everybody's there, but perhaps doesn't have the same power in the conversations, doesn't have the ability to mold and shape things as they're changing. And belonging really is about changing issues of hierarchy, whether real or perceived, making sure that it's flatter rather than vertical in terms of how people feel and share and allowing different people, no matter what their position is to change the way things are happening and allowing for those outcomes. Questions so far. No, I think we'll go through and then we'll have questions. I think. Yeah, thank you. Next slide. So the principles document itself. Remember that it has an equity definition. This, your draft has the equity definition that the city of Santa Rosa uses. It has values that were deemed to be shared by that group. So those were transferred over, but they may look different for you. You may agree with them, may want to change them. The key starting principles again, they were all just transferred over with some small vocabulary changes to make it more appropriate to the charter review process. You may agree or not in continuing them. And then norms, which you've identified earlier, probably have a pretty straightforward carryover about how the group will operate amongst one another. Next slide, please. So again, the norms that were identified and that I believe you'll be accepting as your own are about comments and questions about transparency, about being humble, knowing that everybody's learning throughout this process and about the community and the community. And about the community and the community. And about treating each other with kind and the community with kindness and respect. Next slide, please. So again, just to be very clear how your version of these principles is different. There are changes. They're highlighted. So you know, specifically what was changed every time there was commissioners on the old. It now says committee members. It says committee members. And it says committee priority communities versus communities of interest, which is a specific term for redistricting, but it's kind of the same spirit about how do you keep areas of need together? How do you identify them and what does that mean? And while this isn't something that's in this document. Remember that the equity principles that are being kind of used as equity as both the process and the outcome. So really thinking about for this group, what is your next north star? How will you know that there is equity in the outcomes when you get there? Next slide, please. Oh, that's it. Don't look at that slide. Go back. That's for the next item. So that is in a nutshell, your attachments and kind of a walkthrough of the principles now for your discussion. Great. Thank you. Sakura. Any questions. Of miss Sakura. We'll go on to discuss it after I take some public comment, but anything anybody wants to ask about right now. And I am not seeing anybody do that. So okay. public comment on each item so I want to go ahead and call for the public this item 4.1 again if you are on zoom and a member of the public please use the raise hand feature if you are calling in by phone please use star nine and I will ask our host to let me know if there are anyone out there choosing to speak thank you chair Cisco at this time I do not see any hands being raised via zoom for item 4.1 equity principles okay great thank you okay I'm going to bring it back to the committee now any any points of discussion on what we're working with so far yeah Jasmine thank you and thank you for that great presentation Michelle I do have a few comments on the principles themselves and hopefully we can collaborate kind of to add more updates or maybe Michelle Taz some suggestions so as far as the section on principles I think the very first one speaks about just the community having access to the redistricting process and so you know obviously we need to change that to be charter review process however I think the priorities for the redistricting committee were very clear by looking at these principles which is you know in the process which includes engagement and then at the very end right the their recommendations of their committee and now our committee you know it names ensuring that communities of interest are identified right so I think we need to as a group identify how the outcome of equity looks for us in our work and I think it you know for me as I look at it is in access right access to government access to participation for communities historically excluded but I want to also hear what other committee members think and maybe we can think about you know what the outcome looks for us and in terms of how equity is reflected in our final recommendations okay thanks just mean anybody have other thoughts on what just mean is speaking to or anything else I would just I this is Jen I did add kind of plus one to just means comments I think it's really important that we decide what outcome looks like for us specifically on for the resident level as well as the leadership level so what does that look like in terms of who we're choosing as leaders and appointing as leaders and election leaders and then also access for everyone okay just to add a question sorry it looks like we have Scott first everybody okay Scott you want to go yeah I just means comments I think were the things I caught that there was like in the first item redistricting process you know it's got to be changed a minor one item seven there's a missing period at the end of the sentence I hate to be picky but and then under at the bottom the equity comments you know equity and process equity and engagement equity and charter recommendations the charter recommendations okay the first ensuring the communities of interest and I thought that wasn't the term where you would sing or the city uses so are identified I understand that the second one I don't know what that ensuring the communities of interest and I just answer well I I actually didn't replace those thank you for bringing that because I wanted you to chew on them I just they need to be they need to be judged to be whatever you want it to be but I don't know what that is okay and thank you for the corrections and one in seven okay Logan thanks Patty um Sakura I know that I know this isn't necessarily our specific scope so I appreciate you doing this for us just kind of general questions women women's this gonna be a document that's used for other committees or introduced to them when's that gonna happen so what do you mean by that let me ask a little probing question uh well I was told last time we were the first city committee to see this so I'm just just curious when is your timeline for making this something that's every committee sees as part of a training or whatever the process is I think we're having those discussions now I mean there's Sakura's world and then there's you know what everybody else thinks so I mean ideally every every committee would have these conversations and start with like now your version of what this is and and tailor them to their work because they'll be similar but different in terms of their mission and what they're brought together to do but it would be you know a goal that this would become a rolling document where it's starting to be refined by each group specifically to them okay um and you probably thought this so I just I just want to give sort of a comment that I think the redistricting commission was a good place to start from but I think that's kind of a unique process and we are similar to that and that we're only every 10 years but I think for other committees fashion it to be something that's used more often could be more useful so I don't know if that means it needs to be more flexible or more detailed so again and I'm not saying any specific critique so I'm not not asking you to rewrite it it looks it looks good just keep that in mind that's all just a suggestion um I'm on another committee and we deal with the public every month on on a lot of different issues so keeping that in mind but otherwise thank you for putting it together what you have so far certainly and it could be like one through five I'm just making up numbers I'm not but those might be consistent and then maybe there are a couple that every committee like really choose one for themselves and comes to a shared understanding but I think I think you're very right some things will will travel and some things will not uh Karen uh thank you body um I'm not sure who this is a question for but how will the community engagement division or cab play a part in reaching out to the community to help us in this process or will they sue you might have an answer I'm sorry can you repeat that question how will uh either the community engagement division or cab help us in reaching out to the community to engage the community in this process we're really working that out I had a brief conversation with Magali Teyes director of the community engagement just yesterday and so we're we're working out what how community engagement can get involved and provide for opportunities for the public same same with cab cab can help us get word out um uh but their role in the process is going to is is is still a little uh undefined certainly welcome uh suggestions or proposals um but we will need to sit down with um with Magali and her team in terms of how can they best serve the community in getting engagement into this process it's going to be difficult and I have to admit you know to have additional community frequent additional community meetings out uh you know out in different areas we're meeting every other week we are going to be moving pretty quickly we do want to get word out and we're uh uh Chair Cisco and I um brainstormed a little bit and and uh and Rob Jackson of our office also brainstormed a little bit the other day about how to get word out about these meetings so that uh folks that are in the community can participate here when everyone's present everyone has this already on their calendar when all of the information is being funneled through through through these meetings um uh you know whether we want to try to have any community meetings outside of this I think that's a that's a question that we have to work through and work through with with with the team so does mean thank you um I'd like to propose um a few uh changes based on the conversations that we've had so far um and then you know people can we can either workshop them as in future meetings or now um if people have thoughts on them so one is for number one you know change the for under principles for number one change redistricting process to charter review um process for number three which is the other place where communities of interest appears um change that to the council language of equity priority communities um and hopefully we can if if there's time at some point maybe we can um you know have a definition of that uh as the council sees it but I think you did actually um have a presentation on that and then the last recommendation is for the section under equity charter equity and charter recommendations um I have two proposals one is um increase access to government for historically disenfranchised communities so that that can be a how our equity how equity is reflected in our work and then the second is that our recommendation enables leadership bodies to reflect the communities they serve and that was just um kind of a thought after um member close spoke about you know including leadership in that too okay um Scott you have something more to say yeah I I think I think those comments are are well taken in terms of kind of focusing on our stuff I have a broader um comment on this this the document itself and and trying to apply it specifically to our committee um you know and I look at the the beginning statement the values um to me it seems like we should be putting the norms after the values because that's basically sort of restating how we part how we behave as a body in our decision-making process and then follow with the principles um because those are the things that we will be applying you know to everything we're looking at ideally and then to that point it's like those three boxes at the bottom I'm not quite sure what they do they sort of restate in bullet form the principles um in variations but but they're everything that's mentioned there is already mentioned up in principles and I wonder if those are even really necessary if we were to reorder it and and end with these are our principles that we're applying it so that's just the thought I don't want to any other thoughts on um what we do with this tonight um I appreciate uh Jasmine's proposals as to the changes is that something we want to workshop tonight or does anybody have any objection to we're we're this is going to be a continuing item so that we can keep sort of formulating um this lens as we go um so just kind of wondering what more you want to do with this tonight um and if you uh if the committee members uh have any disagreement with uh staff bringing it back uh with some of the proposed changes that have been made for us to continue our discussion um at our next meeting everybody if you're not okay with that raise your hand okay good looks like we're we're in agreement with doing that wait can I say well there's an after one hundred and I think and I think I'm not sure who that is could could you say who you are so I can tell who's talking this is Jen and I think we set our hand up too but can we add physical ability to number one with respected access and thanks okay and this is Yvette um um I just wanted um I'd like to document and I understand it's a working document but you know for many people that don't like a whole lot of words and things like that is it possible to maybe have maybe some circles and just you know high color a little bit of color because not everybody you know likes reading a whole lot of information and so if there's maybe some pictures or something to make it simple so that when we're if I'm presenting this in the public I can say they can see the picture and then they can identify with that so that was the first thing and I'm sorry I don't know where to put this in in the scope of things um I did have a question about the agenda I didn't get my microphone on fast enough but for the roll call there was a few people there was Mark absent but they was here so I didn't know where to put this I'm just bringing that to your attention at this time I can answer that last question Yvette I did know that those folks who were on as attendee that I had amended the record to show them as in the meeting and not absent oh it doesn't have to be changed in the absent portion it's just because you know Tati within I was able to change it in the absent I was able to mark them present and they are not marked absent so this is for December 1st minutes oh okay yeah for December 1st minute I didn't know where to put it so okay let me just and so there's a few there's about four members that came in late meet myself included and you have a marked absent but we was here okay so that will be a correction in the minutes so if you were here um what you can do in the future is you can always email me um before the meeting so I can correct the minutes and then at the meeting I'll send out revised minutes to the committee so that you are approving the revised attendance minutes at the meeting or at the time that Yvette just for process at the time that you're approving the minutes and you see something at that time you can let me know that there's a change that needs to be made and then I will note that in my minutes for the current meeting and go back and correct the minutes from the previous meeting great thanks for that so just for clarification and for confirmation I will go back make these changes pretty it up in terms of graphics and make it look a little um sharper you know I think those are solid points that we want people to understand it from wherever they're coming from and whatever's going to make it stick that's what we want to do so certainly we'll do that and make those corrections um throughout noting the language changes and then also the formatting changes per um committee member Bartley's recommendations about the flow of the document okay that sounds great thank you um so with that let's go ahead and I think this is also yours uh Sakura to move on to uh 4.2 the diversity equity inclusion and belonging to microaggressions this discussion yes if we could bring back at the PowerPoint please there was a recommendation to kind of just go over what microaggressions are and so there are two definitions for you today that source on NPR also has um something to listen to if people would like to refer back to one of the things to know just two things I want to be clear so microaggression is kind of um um it's it's one of those um it's a dig right it's it's it's an unkind word to someone and it frequently happens over ism so they can be related to to racism they can be related to sexism homophobic um microaggression so it's not limited to race we we have been brought to our attention most recently in our community issues of race racial microaggressions but they are those kind of comments that um underneath them is the sense that there is a deficit or there is something wrong with someone and so you know there the I believe one of the questions was uh about kind of how do we know and it's one of those things where you do have to be working because even if it's not intended to be a microaggression it can be heard as a microaggression so it is about working on one's own understanding of all of these and how we all travel differently through the world and being responsible for that next slide please the harvard business review address this because it is something that can happen in the workplace it is something that can happen out in community right so it is something that you as an individual who and that's you applies to all of us must be working on in terms of understanding this work and how we interact with people in addition to these definitions to help us understand I was able to find and is in as an attachment some specific examples again this is not exhaustive it is just some examples that are out there in the world but they can be as subtle as um do you need help writing that email which you can be think um is offering assistance but it's also implying like someone else doesn't know how to write an email and needs your I mean right so it's kind of understanding both sides of that communication and what they can lead to starting things with like well maybe you don't and these are all personal examples so I'm saying that these have like maybe you don't understand rather than maybe we disagree maybe you don't understand where someone kind of suggests that it's something wrong with a person they're talking to or you seem very emotional you seem very passionate about this that's on there too again that kind of having feelings about some of these issues is inappropriate I'd refer people back to the chart and think about things that way and again because communication is two way it is also about checking in with the people that you're in communication with and having open channels so if someone does feel that something was um something landed with some concern that there is space to talk about it and resolve the issue questions okay thank you um questions uh committee members on this item not seeing any right now so again um we allow the public to to speak on each item so I'm going to go ahead and call for public comment if you're uh joining us by zoom use the raised hand feature if you're calling in by phone please use star nine and I'm going to ask the host to let me know if there are any speakers waiting thank you chair Cisco at this time I'm seeing no hands be raised via zoom great thank you so with that I'll bring it back to the committee any discussion on this item yeah Karen um I just want to thanks to coro for the um the chart the example from I think it's the University of Minnesota it was it was very helpful um and uh I hope that if um um that you will catch me if I say something that I should thank you okay anything else okay yeah thank you very much to coro um definitely appreciate appreciate what you're doing here um okay so with that um we're going to move on to uh 4.3 uh which is the nature of charter amendments and review of past charter review ballot measures which is something that the committee had asked for and I believe Sue will be doing that presentation maybe Rob um I'll be doing it uh today and you'll be hearing from Rob in future meetings so okay yeah um so yes the committee asked for a little bit of discussion of the difference between the charter um let me see if this is the right may I see the next slide hoping that we have the right version we'll start in and we'll see um the uh okay so let me let me go back to the title page sorry that got me distracted because it was not the same as the version that I have so um anyway the as um as chairs go mentioned um there was some interest in hearing a little bit more about the difference between charter amendments um and charter ordinances and uh resolutions so next page so there are really three levels of action uh within the city regulatory framework um and these are of lowering levels of formality and lowering levels of permanence um city charter that's city's constitution next level down ordinances are the city's laws so that's like the state of california statutes and the next line down is resolutions and those are generally project specific specific policies specific procedures we'll walk through each of those next slide so we've we've talked about this quite a bit before um the charter uh is in effect the city's constitution um it is the it's in general it's the big picture it's the big picture document it's how do we govern ourselves it establishes the general framework for city governance it outlines the general organization and operation of the city we've walked through some of those provisions before identifying key personnel identifying how the council operates identifying how ordinances are adopted and and so forth um the charter is the most permanent of the three types of actions it is enacted by a vote of the people and it requires a vote of the people to change so what we put into the charter is not easily revised it needs to be a ballot measure and then approved by the voters so again the most permanent of the three levels next slide and what's the process for amending the charter this does give a sense of what's all involved the charter as you know provides for the 10-year review done by the committee appointed by the council that's this committee as you know the committee is going to research draft and recommend the ballot measures and then if the council will review those recommendations and determine which if any of the measures to place on the ballot for the voters if the voters approve that's when the charter is revised I also note here and it's important that charter amendments can also be proposed by voter voter initiatives so this committee process is not the only avenue for amending the charter but the voter initiative also requires voter approval before it'll go into the charter itself so next slide the next level down is our city ordinances again it's our local lots essentially like a state statute but just governing within the city and it ordinances city ordinances really cover a wide variety of subjects it can establish details of the city governance for example our open government ordinance that the council adopted last year and that goes into effect on January 1st and that ordinance really is related to efforts at equity and inclusion large parts of that ordinance are an ordinance could also in terms of city governance could also establish the police citizen oversight commission that could provide for a police auditor among the list of essential city officials ordinances can also establish regulation of persons or property again a couple of examples I'll tie this a little bit to some of the things that are on the list for this committee to consider climate change we have a number of city ordinances that are addressed towards climate change we have an all the all-electric reach ordinance is probably a prime example the ordinance can also establish land use regulations regulations of public behaviors that would be things like our smoking ordinance our noise ordinance ordinance also can be used to establish city taxes ordinances are generally applicable they are not directed at one project or one person they apply throughout the city and they'll apply evenly of course each ordinance may contain exceptions perhaps different regulations for different types of projects or and and and these ordinances are often very detailed some of them are very short a paragraph long others are pages long so next side a violation of a city ordinance is enforceable by by code enforcement they act in the civil realm so there are fines and enforcement orders many of the many but not all of the city ordinances can also be enforced through criminal proceedings many of our ordinances provide that a violation is deemed misdemeanor so what's the process again charter requires voter approval city ordinances are enacted by a vote of the city council and they can be changed by a vote of the city council no need to go to the public procedures for the adoption are established by state law and by local ordinance it's normally a two-step process at one meeting the council introduces the ordinance at least a week later you have to wait at least a week the council can then adopt the ordinance and then the ordinance has become effective there's a 30-day delay before they become effective 30 days after the final council approval they'll become effective our ordinances our ordinance i'm sorry our charter and also state law do allow for urgency ordinances that's where an ordinance is essential to protect public health safety or welfare and that requires five affirmative votes to adopt an urgency ordinance and urgency ordinances go into effect immediately ordinances i will mention before we move on to council resolutions city ordinances can be challenged by the voters by referendum and we have had that happen in the past but absent to referendum the city ordinances require just action by the city council next slide so the third level down is council or council resolutions and it's an action in general on a specific project or a specific policy and it also has a variety of subjects it can provide a ruling on a specific project just as the council last night considered the conditional use permit for a cannabis facility on its festival road it can approve a particular contract there were a number of contracts that were approved by resolution last night or a decision on an application also we adopted shared mobility one of the contracts that was before the council last night was a provision for shared mobility's shared scooters again part of climate change initiatives so climate change can be addressed at a number of different levels resolution can also establish new programs we have a number of resolutions on homeless services including the community homeless assistance program known as chap and the safe social distancing site resolution can also simply express council policy declaration the recent decoration of racism as a public health crisis we had a couple of years ago a declaration regarding protection of of immigrants often there are proclamations in support of particular community groups that are doing critical and valued work decorations of emergency are also done by resolution so resolutions really are very broad next slide resolutions are less formal they are not placed into the city code they're not codified into the city code they may or may not have an enforcement mechanism and the council resolutions are adopted by city council by a majority vote for votes and they can be amended or rescinded or superseded by the city council at any time resolutions go into effect immediately upon approval so those are the three primary levels of city action of course there are other things that happen at departmental levels but this is at the council level and above so any question about any of that layering the charter foundational document the ordinances that are the city's laws and the resolutions with your policy and projects specifically any questions about those items right now yes hi hi sue yes is that um it's chris uh chris okay good thanks i see yes um thanks sorry um very helpful very informative um what i'm wondering is as as we go forward what are the issues we should be sensitive to it's not clear to me what sort of challenges a charter might be subject to and what level of detail in terms of the language we should be thinking of uh for the charter as we go forward thank you very much for that question i i um that has been for forefront in my mind and i really should have included that in a slide what um what we should be sensitive what the committee should be sensitive to is that the charter is a more permanent provision it's difficult to adjust quickly council ordinances ordinances um are give the city more flexibility to address changing circumstances council resolutions even more so very flexible they can you know they go into effect immediately they can be adopted very quickly um but again you'll want to think about is this something that um is kind of foundational to the city government is this how much detail do you want to put into the charter which can only then be changed by a vote by you know the expense and time and effort of placing something on the ballot uh to get voter approval is it something that's that that we recognize circumstances will change just that there may be new information that comes in you know some of the some of the specific climate change provisions boy we are learning and evolving so much right now and we will be so we want to be careful not to put detailed climate change provisions into the charter because it will be very difficult to make any modifications that might become necessary on the other hand we may want to put the committee may want to propose some general language that goes into the charter that kind of sets a general framework for how we are going to address climate change as we talk about each of the topics as we get into that we'll talk a little bit more about what kind of language go into the foundational document of the city what things might be better left um to an ordinance that can be that can evolve more easily over time um and what might even be done readily by resolution and and and lead that to uh to council uh to do um so yes the differences of these levels will become very important as you move forward in draft language follow up that's helpful so because it might help as we go forward with some of the discussions like compensation of the council uh that I still like say for example San Francisco seems to have an incredibly detailed charter just unbelievable um and we don't want to set up some sort of legal minefield there's some that's going to be subject to challenge so I think you'll be able to help us as we talk to guide us to say where do we want detail where do you want kind of concepts or goals yes yes we'll we'll we'll talk about those issues as we get into each topic exactly um and I do recognize that there are provisions currently in the in the charter that provide pretty pretty significant level of detail for example the um the arbitration provisions binding arbitration provisions which have now been adopted once and 10 years later amended and uh you know that's a difficult that's a difficult and process and can't happen very often so but you are exactly right those will be interest those will be important considerations and discussions as we head into the specific topics any other questions before Sue continues I had a few questions Patty okay go ahead Logan thanks um can so the voter initiative charter amendment so can that be done at any time by voters or is that only also on a 10 year cycle no that can be done anytime okay has that ever occurred in the city's history not that I'm aware of um I don't know if any of the folks that have been around longer than I are aware of any but I'm not aware of any time that a charter amendment was done by by initiative yeah and I've been with the city for a while and in my tenure here that hasn't happened so not in living memory we'll say that yeah and not in the last 29 years I've been with the city 29 years so thank you for your service to the city Stephanie um and is the process for doing that dictated by the state law yes okay um all right and for resolutions can those also be placed onto the ballot for voters to approve is there any restriction on us doing that is there any history of that happening what are your thoughts there yeah I'm not that's an interesting question I'm not aware of any way to do a referendum on a resolution but I I don't know a reason why it couldn't be done I know there have been um the referendums on approval of major development projects not here in Santa Rosa but elsewhere so um you know I can look into that I just don't I haven't experienced that I have experienced referendums on ordinances not a referendum maybe that is the right term but it's actually passed by the voters so the first time it becomes law is the vote of the people a resolution is that possible it it it it is possible it would be an initiative filed by voters the initiatives that I've seen have been in form of ordinance again I you know maybe it's just my experience but I have not seen a an initiative that would just create a resolution so I I don't think so okay thank you but I'll I'll confirm in a next week in our or next in two weeks three weeks when we come back I'll I'll report back on that I would I'd appreciate some research on that just so I guess it would be the council putting it on the ballot of course because that's our process um if we approved it then the council would have to approve it right in terms of a charter amendment yeah so I guess my basic question can a resolute can a charter amendment be just a resolution no charter amendment will be incorporated into the charter okay so this yeah so I see okay thank you that's helpful um and I I'll also note not to confuse the issue um our our charter currently provides for the 10-year review of charter um uh the charter could be amended so that it could be amended more frequently um we could go through this process more frequently but currently it provides for the 10 years let's do it again next year okay I think you're good to continue so okay great thank you um go go go try to keep um sensitive to the time so I'm gonna try to keep this um next slide I'm gonna try to keep this pretty quick um the committee did ask for a quick review of the past ballot measures um the ballot measures that came out of prior charter review committees we've done a quick outline before but I'll go into a little bit more detail we'll walk through and on these um I'm not going to talk more about the um what I've called the omnibus bills so measure l in 2002 which is combined charter charter amendments that's charter cleanup and measure t in 2012 again the charter reorganization update and clarification I'm not going to go into those so just the other more uh single subject matters uh next slide council compensation um this was uh there were three measures proposed in 2002 again when omnibus and then two single subjects uh one of the significant subjects passed one failed this is the one that failed it was measure m for council compensation what's on the screen is the actual language that appeared on the ballot it's not the ballot the measure language but what language was on the ballot next slide it would have increased council member salary to monthly salary to 1500 and the mayor salary to 2250 uh it provided for an annual cost of living adjustment in accordance with um the colas that are given to exec city executive staff um although the cost of living adjustment was capped at cpi and it would have provided for additional benefits including retirement health eye and dental care long-term disability and employee assistance program and it failed it failed almost 40 percent uh yes and uh a little under 40 percent yes and a little over 60 percent for no next slide also in 2002 um this was the measure that did pass it was measure o and a concerned campaign finance reform again the language it's on this slide is the actual ballot language what next slide um this this measure required the council to and i quote it here consider and by ordinance enact new election campaign finance reform measures so this is an example where the charter review committee um drafted and recommended that yes there be something in the charter that provided for this campaign finance reform but then referred it back to council for the details uh to be enacted by ordinance it provided that the measures um were to include new limits on campaign contributions lower than a thousand dollars to limit independent expenditures to that same cap uh it provided for a new schedule for reporting of campaign contributions for all council candidates and then it provided provisions uh for public financing of council election campaigns and that i'm sorry my no why am i my computer's acting up sorry there um that passed um with uh a little over uh 60 percent uh voting yes and a little under 40 percent voting no so that one did pass next slide uh three uh four measures in 2012 three of which passed um this was uh the one uh that did not pass this is a measure q um that would have provided uh for district council elections again this is the actual ballot language it's on the screen uh next slide slide uh this would have moved the city from at-large council members um all council members elected by citywide vote to district-based council members with all council members elected by district it would have provided for the creation of seven council districts with district boundaries to be established by ordinance again that reference of we're putting the framework in the charter but the details in the ordinance and then it would have set forth some criteria for establishment of district boundaries and it failed um yes votes a little over 40 percent and no votes a little over a little under 60 percent um when we talk about um the at-large mayor proposal um we will talk also about how we got from the failure of measure q in 2012 to the fact that we do have district elections now and again that was the result of some litigation that we that we faced next slide measure r 2012 also um this concerned binding arbitration as i mentioned this was not the original adoption for binding arbitration for public safety employees but this modified modified those provisions next slide uh the uh charter the earlier charter revision um uh was added to the charter by voters in 1995 the 2012 amendment added mandatory guidelines to be followed by the arbitrator in resolving disputes over wages hours in terms of working conditions and among other elements it does require the arbit arbitrator to consider the city's financial ability to pay a proposed contract again this is for police and fire uh and to determine the impacts on the interest and welfare of the public and that passed by a wide margin uh yes a little over 72 percent and no a little under 30 percent next slide finally also in 2012 measure s which was to allow for design build procurement and again the ballot language next slide um previously the charter had required that all public works contracts be awarded to the lowest bidder certain exceptions built into that but generally required all public works contracts go to the lowest bidder um and this added a new charter section that would authorize but not require but authorize the use of the design build method of project delivery that enables the city to contract a single entity to design the project and then construct the project uh and that also passed by a strong margin um 67 percent yes and uh almost 33 percent no and that's next slide that is the the list of the last two charter review um uh resulting that ballot measures again absent the omnibus measures so any question on on those any questions for sue on these question this is karen i i have a question okay and i should know this um is the are the charter revisions simple majority yes okay thank you and i heard somebody else uh chris question chris yeah um this might be for later in our discussions but why did the um compensation measure fail so significantly um i don't know we'll we've been trying to get um the all the arguments for and kind of more of the um campaign materials and we've had a hard time um many of the sites only go back to 2004 we couldn't quite get back that far but we are going to track that down we will be continuing the discussion on compensation uh onto our next meeting as well so we're hoping to have a little more of that information um uh at that meeting another question i assume i think you talked to us earlier we're we're probably gonna pass cleanup uh resolution so that the city provides for district elections by charter i would assume yes but if that gets rejected then by ordinance the ordinance then contradicts the charter but i guess we'll just deal with that later yes we're we're we're well aware of that risk um and i you know one of the options that we considered in 2018 and i think we would consider again uh were it to fail at the ballot box would be to um take a uh declaratory uh actually seek to declaratory relief from the court um and and go that way it'll also be interesting if we end up also putting on the ballot the direct elect mayor provision uh we will then have to make provisions for you know whichever one gets more votes uh ends up becoming effective so it could be a very interesting scenario and and because of because the district elections failed um previously um my my recommendation is that we will keep that as a separate item still aware of the risk of voter fatigue with too many items but if we don't want to incorporate it into the omnibus bill or omnibus measure if you know and have other elements that are non-controversial cleanup matters fail uh if the voters want to try to move back to out-large elections thanks i have one question patty yeah go ahead logan thanks um sue can you just kind of briefly explain what i what the omnibus ones were uh and i just i'm just asking just me why couldn't we combine things so why couldn't council compensation be combined with directly elected mayor for example in the one item right the the idea of and i and i borrow the term omnibus from uh state from legislative world um up in sacrament and in washington where cleanup items will all be grouped together um the reason we don't want to combine significant single you know significant uh issues is that you then have to have voters want both of them voters might be very comfortable with council compensation but not be favorable to an out-large mayor and you and the and the the measure could fail because they're you know there's their differences and in opinion on on both of them so i think in general for anything that's could be controversial better to keep it separate so that it it stands or falls on its own accord but there's no legal prohibition on combining uh well i'll have to look at it there are single subject um restrictions um on ballot measures um so you know are there ways to craft around that obviously we you know omnibus um measures do that um i'll look more or will look more at what some of those limits are um thank you of combining so yeah thank you any other questions of sue yeah i have a question um i'm curious of other like cleanup matters is i think the term that you're using have already been identified um that would be in addition to the district selection by charter um there have been some identified by staff um for um for some contracting uh matters um those are what i've heard thus far i don't have them right in front of me right now but um i i'll certainly bring those bring those to the group so okay okay that that the other the other cleanup items that come to mind right now are that the charter includes some provisions that really are not um not relevant um so we have provisions about city schools city does not have control over the city schools um that is the school district so we may want to include that in the omnibus bill to delete that provision there's a couple others that um are just outdated that we no longer have jurisdiction over that subject so one comment if we're doing omnibus maybe you can have gender neutral language yes it says he and she thrown yeah that would be great yeah okay not seeing any other questions on this one so go ahead and um open it to uh public comment again if you're a member of the public participating by zoom and you want to comment um on this item you can use the raised hand feature if you're calling in you can use star nine and i'll ask our host to see if there are anyone waiting to make a public comment thank you chair at this time i see no hands being raised via zoom for public comment on item 4.3 great thank you okay so um with that then we're going to go ahead and move on to um our presentation on the 4.4 the council compensation and as sue indicated um i don't think that this is something that we're we're not going to get through this tonight with our complete discussion you know my goal would be that we uh get get the information um start our questions our thought process um we might begin the discussion but i think that this is these are these are meaty items and i think um that what may happen is as we uh we get the presentation and we we have our break between uh meetings other questions may come up and and then we can have a final discussion when we've we've kind of had some time to think through these things so certainly we can start an initial discussion but we will probably not be finishing it up until our next meeting and just a reminder on these items if you have questions that come up for you after this item or any item um please email your questions to both rob and sue um in advance of the meeting that way they they can begin to prepare um answers for us and you know i mean they're taking our questions away and saying which ones they need to come back with anyway but that can just be an efficient thing is to to get those questions out to them and they can begin to do the research to bring it back to us um at the time of the meeting so with that um let's do item 4.4 beginning on council compensation great thank you and and i appreciate um your your comments um this is this will be the beginning of this conversation um we don't expect to to get through it all this evening but but we can at least start so um next slide i'm going to just jump right into it so where are we now um so currently the charter provides uh the council compensation will be determined in accordance with state law uh the state law is government code uh 36516 for those that are interested um and the charter does provide that the mayor will receive 150 percent of the council member sorry so the the mayor gets what the council member gets plus half again as much um state law um again the government code 36516 sets forth a schedule of compensation based on city population and for city of san aroza a population of about 180,000 now we do fall into the category uh listed there the 150 to 250 uh 250,000 state law provides for council member salary of 800 uh dollars per month that means under our charter council members are getting 800 per month and uh uh the the mayor is getting 1200 a month uh the state law does allow that the salary can be increased up to five percent per calendar year but that increase has to be adopted by the city by the council by ordinance um next slide the five percent increase is not compounded it's a simple flat rate of uh 40 per month raise um next the 40 dollar accumulates if it's not immediately applied um and so uh it accumulates from whenever the last adjustment of the salary to whenever the new adjustment uh is the san aroza council compensation has not been adjusted for many years at least 10 years or more uh since 2010 when the city's population passed that threshold of 150,000 um next slide so under current law under our charter which references state law the council could adjust its salary by 40 dollars for monthly salary by 40 dollars for each of the last 10 years or so um that would be an an increase of 480 dollars in annual salary uh this would result in a one a total one time increase in monthly salary of 400 dollars uh resulting in a new monthly salary of 1200 dollars uh an annual salary of 14,400 uh under state law the ordinances uh the adjustments can be made only when at least one council member begins a new term uh so since we do elections every other year the adjustment could be made every other year but again council has not made any adjustments for about 10 years so uh it could be a large increase uh immediately and then at the next council at next november and then it could be adjusted every two years thereafter again by 80 dollars a month under state law though the council cannot provide for automatic salary increases so they couldn't say we're gonna we're gonna do this uh large increase and we're gonna let it uh increase by five percent each year thereafter has to be by affirmative ordinance next slide all of that being said the Charter's provision that links the council's compensation to state law is not mandatory this is an an area of municipal affair and it is fully within the discretion of the city's voters so the voters can set whatever council compensation they deem appropriate next slide um excuse me so it was tried as we just talked about was tried 20 years ago in measure m in 2002 um this is the language of the actual um measure itself so that little paragraph in the middle of it is the entirety of the measure of the substantive language of the measure next slide as we also talked about it was rejected by the voters in 2002 and as we talked about before it would have increased the council salary to 1500 per month and the mayor would have received 2250 per month and it failed as I mentioned earlier about 60 60 percent opposed and 40 in favor so very pretty strong rejection next slide so where do we want to go where where where do we want to end up um so we'll look at a first at some comparisons so other california cities um these are are ordered in order of population um isn't it less where the where the mayor receives a salary above that by the council members excuse me um and if you look it's a little hard to see on this chart but if you can zoom in on your own computer or you have it printed out um it really varies um you know for example then fresno the mayor gets five thousand dollars more than a council member um you know whereas in oakland the council the mayor you know gets more than twice as much as a council member um high high variation um although if you look at where we are compared with i'm going to i'm not going to look at oakland but if you look at the two above us stocked in a modesto and you look at the three that are below us hayward belayo and berkeley there's a huge variety and we are considerably under uh the other salaries both of council members and very dramatically of the mayor as well once you get down to cities that are um less under a hundred thousand so almost half our size that's where you start to see salaries more in line with ours but still we are among among the some of the lower lower levels and again annual nine thousand six hundred for the council members and fourteen thousand four hundred for the mayor next slide and how about nationally there was a national survey done last november 55 different cities and the average city the average salary among those 55 cities was 36,477 so considerably lower than our nine thousand nine thousand uh six hundred um the survey doesn't though include other benefits such as health insurance um our council members do receive health insurance um and when we come back next time we'll also be bringing some samples of ballot of um charter provisions in cities that have moved off of the uh off of the state law provisions so we'll bring some samples of that next slide so why are we concerned uh about uh council compensation uh and what do we want to address um if the council compensation is too low it does lead uh to elected office being open only to those wealthy enough to afford it for many years most of our council members were retired or had other sources of incomes um and low compensation can also discourage potential candidates particularly in lower income or disadvantaged communities just not able to afford to take the time uh for uh for for very little money um and then it can reduce candidate diversity hourly workers single parents lower income individuals and that means um that we risk a less representative a less accountable less transparent government and it can also create a higher risk of conflicts of interest um uh you know the temptation of of um both conflicts of interest in that people have to be working in addition to serving on council and so you can have conflicts of interest that way and then also the potential for temptations for uh for financial uh conflicts next slide but then what's the upper limit um why do we have a cap um certainly there's an increase on taxpayers um there's there can be a concern that an elected official will be motivated more by the money than by civic duty um and uh and and maybe the the higher salary might not fully account for non-monetary benefits of an elected position um overcompensation could also affect budget um monies that are given you know that are directed to council salaries are not directed to other city programs um it can also affect community perceptions um so you know where do we end up what level is appropriate and this will be for for for this committee um to discuss and and decide um that's a balancing act we also will have to be considering what what will be palatable uh to the voters um you know I I do think they're very very strong arguments particularly for for diversity particularly for opening up opportunities for a broader range of um of city residents so that'll be important um also want to consider and be realistic about what the workload is for council members and once I'm done with this presentation I'll show you the mayor sent over um his calendar uh with specifics redacted but gives you a sense of what it is involved in being the mayor of of city of Santa Rosa and indeed for council members it's not just a Tuesday meeting it's reading all of the materials in preparation for the Tuesday meeting but it's also that every council member serves on I think at least two subcommittees so there will be subcommittee meetings um there will be materials that need to be read for those uh council members have obligations to attend community events and community meetings it it's uh it's a very impressive um the the work and effort and time that council members put in uh as members of the council so next slide um we've had a suggestion from a committee member to a question about providing staff for council um and this would be another means to assist council members um in in their service um particularly would be beneficial for those who work other jobs or have young children um account staff could help with some of the more routine matters that council uh council members need to address council members get you know hundreds of emails uh every day so um things like that addressing particular constituent concerns uh council you know staff could be very helpful in that um indeed the county supervisors uh each each uh supervisor I think has at least two maybe three three two two and a half three uh staff um that help them in their work um but one thing to think about is maybe council provisions for council staff um may be more appropriate for action by an ordinance or resolution rather than a charter amendment um it does have additional staff has significant could have significant budgetary um impacts and do we want to put into the charter that you know that there have to be seven staff members for council members versus you know are there needs in other areas of the city where staffing may be more appropriate so we're more needed and next slide that's uh that's it and I'm happy to answer questions and then would invite discussions to begin um questions Patti this is Karen um again okay that's Karen Chris has his hand up also but okay I'll go first since I bet it in um so I have two questions of Sue um and the first one is why hasn't the salary been raised by that percentage that it could be raised um that's question number one so I'll let you answer that if you know uh yes um it's really I think for two reasons um salary has been a concern to council members um but there hasn't been a high kind of awareness and you know it's not like right in the front of the mind that you could do this five percent it also seems like such a small amount uh for any one year and politically it's very difficult to come forward and say um we're gonna now give ourselves a raise we're gonna give ourselves a five percent raise um it it's just a difficult position to be in as an elected official um so I think that's that's that's really the combination there has been suggestions over the last couple of years to start that process there's been suggestions by some council members that they would be happy to introduce that as they are on their way out so that it makes it clear to voters that they are not voting for this for their own benefit but are voting for this for the benefit of the of the system of the community thank you and then my second question is on the list of cities that you had um with the salary for the mayor and the council members which of those or do you know or maybe this could come back later have a strong mayor system um and then also which of those maybe have a directly elected mayor so that would be something for later on uh yes unless unless Rob knows off the top of his head we'll bring that back that certainly struck me as well uh Oakland has won um a direct elect mayor and very strong mayor um so you know I was not surprised that that salary was as high as it is my mom I was a little surprised maybe but um that that that makes some sense but we'll get back uh and identify on this list which if any have direct elect mayors and which have a strong mayor structure rather than a strong city manager structure chris thanks yeah so very helpful I have a few questions so just blurt them out all at once first the information about the other charter provisions would be helpful and informative it seems because I would imagine all those compensation packages passed by vote and what did they do that we didn't would be good to know um and I'd also wonder what is what what's the number tethered to uh generally do they have a fixed compensation adjusted by cola or something or it's a general language and they leave it up to the council so that might be helpful um and also I'm kind of wondering what the experiences of these other cities you know because your slide on the pros and the cons uh raises very good points and I'm just kind of wondering we have a wealth of experience with other cities and you know what are they finding you know in terms of the candidates and public service and all of that sort of stuff and I think with Karen's question raised a great point that this other city slide is a great tool and maybe to add these other things to it as you go forward then it gives us one graphic uh to see some information be very helpful thanks very very helpful thanks to and that's a very helpful suggestion we will do that so christine yeah I just want to say um super informative really appreciate the presentation and I have a couple questions the first question is on the the slide that was about like the um the challenges if this amendment were to be passed it said additional burden to taxpayers and so that made me think is this if we were to pass this if this amendment were to pass where exactly would this money come from that is is increasing the salary of the council members uh and thank you for that question um it would come from general fund uh monies um and it is a little interesting to me these these were the three bullets um that are on this slide came out of a Stanford law review article um I personally might question it's doesn't it doesn't result in a tax increase itself um so it's although it may trigger um an additional tax measure what it really does is it takes money that's in the general fund and directs it to council members rather than to other programs or staff or initiatives um so it would only increase the actual burden on uh taxpayers uh if uh if it was coupled with an additional a new tax measure thanks for explaining that um and then I guess my second question is in reference to 2002 when um this amendment did not pass you uh referred to like trying to find the campaign materials from that year and I you said you hadn't been able to find those campaign materials yet but I'm curious what does a campaign look like in order to support and make sure that these amendments do get passed right there'll be a whole um effort at crafting a campaign um and again I think what what needs to happen would be that there is a real effort to educate the public in terms of what do council members do and I've almost forgotten to to pull up the mayor's calendar so we'll do that after this um but what do council members do um what is their time and resource commitment in in and undertaking this the importance of the work that they do um and then a real education about we want to open this up we want to make this available not just to folks that have the financial means to in effect volunteer on a very substantial basis um you know the mayor you'll see when we pull up the mayor's schedule being a mayor is is virtually full time um you know very close to full time and this is uh and and it goes for a couple of pages you'll see these are you know I'm sorry it's a little hard to to see it's very small but these are you know council meetings subcommittee meetings meetings of the of the various public other public entities meetings with constituents responsibilities with the league league of cities the mayor is on the smart board the mayor is on a number of subcommittees all council members are on subcommittees um and if you and and they'll be meeting with staff on different issues and the next you know you can scroll down this is you know that's a very common week for him this is an addition to working at a a separate job um it's uh it it doesn't count you know what's not on his calendar is the time of preparing for council meetings preparing for the subcommittee meetings preparing for the smart board reading all the materials for those it doesn't necessarily include all of the community events that they're going to there's a you know it's a it's it's it's a very significant commitment that people make to be on council and and I will say just from a personal perspective I very much admire our our council members and and their willingness to to do that totally it can be um on the campaign materials we can pass on the mayor's calendar um but I guess I was just curious so is it is there a uh like department within the city who is in charge of the campaign or I know we're not there at all yet it's yeah but that's what yeah that's no that's a good question um actually because um under uh state law provisions um the city cannot um prepare cannot use any city resources to advocate for or against any of these measures once it gets onto the ballot there there needs to be there'll be a committee that that that forms to pursue those those efforts um what the city can do is provide uh informational item informational materials um they've have to be neutral they can't be advocacy pieces um that's the only thing um we can do all the research we can do all the drafting and we can provide information but once the council decides to put on the ballot we cannot use any city resources for advocacy um but in preparing the materials um you know the educational materials that's where we can we can um set out why why we're even uh you know trying this why are we even exploring this these are the reasons and so I think as we start drafting we want to you know the I would encourage the committee to really think about what's the problem that we're trying to address what why is this a good for the community so thank you for explaining that so it's Jen and we that that we can pay for polling can't we just to interject okay yes we can pay for polling yeah okay that's what I just want to make sure that's right okay yeah Annie um yeah thank you I I've dealt with a lot a couple of the city council members so I know how tough this is how much can they use to to um do their campaign I mean are they paying more to actually win the council seat than they are in in what they make a year that can happen yes and do people decline being the mayor because it doesn't work in their schedule I can't imagine that there are a lot of jobs that allow that yes there are I mean I don't know anyone who has turned down the mayorship if nominated but um uh folks will uh ask not to be um what will not pursue the opportunity to be mayor based on just the the amount of time that that undertakes um I also know that we had and and um city clerk can also verify this we we have had candidates withdraw um because of the time commitment that's involved I don't think we've had anyone withdraw specifically because of compensation levels um but I think compensation levels people may just not even enter into the campaign but even at last go around we had someone who once they found out you know once they learned more about what was entailed determined that that was beyond what they could do and I do um during the nomination period anybody who is interested in running who wants to come in even prior to coming in and pulling papers but when they do come in and to pull the papers to run for council um it's about an hour appointment because I go over a lot of stuff with them and I'm also very um candid about the time commitment um a lot of people don't understand that it goes well beyond the Tuesday meeting and the that the Tuesday meeting isn't from four to nine p.m. um when I explain to them they can start as early as noon and like for last night's meeting we went till 12 30 a.m and we started at 1 30 and sometimes there's a special meeting before that so I'm very candid about the time commitment that's involved in letting them know that they do as a council member not only are they a council member but they are representatives on ad hoc committees on subcommittees that the council forms and on regional committees like SCTA and climate protection and you know league meetings so um some of them will still take the papers but then after um the last um election cycle we did have a couple of people contact me and said they decided not to run after considering the commitment that would be required of them to be a good candidate council member. Well it makes sense because they have to totally give up a huge portion of their life for very little compensation they can't cut back on there yeah I think this is huge for for for getting more diversity into city council. Logan? Yeah totally agree with Annie's last point there this is a big part of our DEI work I think is getting people a more diverse city council and I think that this will get us closer to that um so some questions so uh thank you to others for mentioning the strong versus weak mayor so I had that same thought if you could get that information I think it'd be helpful too um and then another thing I'm hoping you can get if it's not too hard is some of the uh employee starting salaries at the city and the reason I'm bringing that up is a resident had a suggestion to me uh their suggestion was pay the council members basically the lowest paid administrative job at the city so whatever I don't know if that's an analyst or what the title is um and their point was really more political kind of what Christine's talking about is what's the amount going to be um you know because we have this tension between politics and aspiration what's realistic and what's aspirational so what are voters going to approve how much money are voters going to give city council members right and uh I think that we don't want to be too cynical but we do need to think about that we don't want to make it a large amount that's going to you know offend people or shock them right so I think that's hard and it's hard to find that balance so that's why I was kind of curious on those employee numbers um I think that can be more politically salient to sort of have it be be the same as some you know lower city staff um just a thought and I'd love to hear other people's thoughts I know we're running out of time so maybe another meeting but we just want another point I want to make the calendar is really important I talked to the mayor about that I did see a bike ride on there so he's having some fun but um we should really emphasize that people this is a 24 seven job and you know he could be buying milk at the store and someone wants to talk to him about a crosswalk for 20 minutes so um I think that we need to make that part of the the message too is it's really a 24 seven job so what do you pay someone that works that never gets off work basically um so just a comment and that was helpful so thank you mark how about you thank you very much uh chair cisco so um a couple of questions do any cities compensate um council members based on a percentage of another agency's compensation for instance I thought in the past in the 90s that the board of supervisors tied their compensation to uh municipal court judges now you know state judges and that helped a little bit um if the council members for instance if the proposal was to compensate the city council 60% or 50% of what the board of supervisors now get um that may may help anchor in the mind of public and said the council does at least the city of our size at least um half as much work if not more than the board of supervisors and looking at the salary schedule we can get in this later but the the budget for the board of suites total of staff salaries employee benefits in the county's class to top the budget was 4.7 million dollars and that's you know that they have three staffs and five each and five uh board of suites and you're looking at you know quite quite a good number of people and that's the benefits but if there was an anchor that that would work that's just one possibility is it is it legal for cities to do that soon do you know and do other cities other cities do anything like that uh yes um I was reading some materials from the city of um San Diego and they tie it I believe that they tie their council's compensation also to two judges not the full judge salary but some percentage I don't remember exactly what it was but so yes that that that may be a possibility it'll be interesting as we look um at the specific provisions what other jurisdictions that you know are there others other than city of San Diego that that that do that so great thank you event okay um so I am in total agreeance of the city council members definitely gonna pay increase and so um one of the issues we talked a little bit about is the DEI in order to bring some diversity to council you have to provide salaries where normal people can be a part of the council and when this when it's not a considerable compensation compensation living here in Sonoma County it is difficult to be on this council have a full-time job and so they work really hard so that's the first point um second uh in relation to some of the other cities that have tied the incomes to judges and so forth is there any way possible to look at how are they paying for that because here in our um city we have had a lot of budget issues in the past years and so if we put this implementation um forward what would that look like for the citizens what would that look like for um the city council members and the I don't want to have something go forward and then and then the next year it's like we don't have the money something would have to be cut and it won't it probably won't be their salaries it would be something else in the city that's probably important for the city as a whole and then lastly you talked about um people um helping with the ballot measures so is it possible to start if you can find any of those people that have participated in that and bring them into this meeting so that we can hear what does that look like what does that entail so that we can ask questions and you know about that process and I think it's important for us to be educated in that portion I was not around when they did that the first time and so I would definitely like to hear more about that and pick their brain about what that would look like so as we're making our decisions we know that oh this is going to be entailed in this process and then uh my last oh my last thing was for um the mayor um position has anyone ever been mayor more than once and then can they do back to back or they have to you know be spread out through the whole process of their term um being on city council on that on that last question um and mayors cannot serve consecutive terms but mayors can serve non-consecutive terms so we have had a number of mayors that have served more than one term but just not consecutive and I see there uh Bartley nodding his head Scott you're up okay um well I've been there done that um I think uh all the comments are valid um I'm going to give my my little steal of history I I'm a businessman and I ran for council and fortunately I ran during recessions so I didn't have a lot of work to keep me busy but the economy rebounded and I had to decide whether I was going to continue on city council or earn a living um and I decided to earn a living and it's easy to say I don't think everybody here is talking about it it's great yeah you know we all know our council member and they deserve it the problem is when people the voters are out there you're at you're telling the voters all politicians just want more money when we can't keep the potholes filled and that's why I went down so drastically failed so bad is you know people's concern were potholes and so it's a delicate dance and I don't have an answer to it I know it better work our way to something because if we do if we can't make this a little more equitable in some manner or form in terms of compensation nothing is going to change and I don't know what that number is I mean even when you look at that list of other cities um I mean you know it's got nap up you know 17 to 18 thousand dollars that's it's still not enough if you've got a full-time job you've got to want a motivation to really do it um and and I you know we're never going to be an Oakland or even a Berkeley in terms of compensation so I don't know it's a discussion that I don't I don't have the answer to yet um and in terms of reaching out Chris Mazzia we need to talk Dan Drummond because I'm going to make a strong bet with the taxpayers association came out in opposition to that um in 2002 okay um I've got a couple more committee members with their hands up and so just again in the interests of us trying to keep to our timetable let's keep to questions um so we can get all the questions on the table uh and and get ready to do our discussion next time um I also have to do the public comment time so um um so with that looks like Jen you're up sorry oh there you are I have a I have a puppy here who's like a hundred miles an hour right now and it's a little distracting I'm doing my best um I don't know if I'm is it do can we as a group take like take a vote to to authorize some polling like I feel like I don't want to take some shot in the dark about a number um but would rather see what the voter tolerance is exactly because Scott is exactly right you know we could raise it a little bit to where should people get some more money but it doesn't it's not enough to actually influence their decision or their ability to to serve this this committee doesn't have budget that would be sufficient enough for uh for polling um but we can we but I know that the council is interested in conducting polling so so just as a follow up to that suit because I had that same question um at what point it would polling occur and it sounds like it's going to maybe occur after we've made a recommendation and then the council will decide uh you understand what I'm saying it's like what at what point will we have the information about what the polling might be depending you know in either inform our decision or to override it so yeah and I um I that's a very um critical question and I don't think that we wait for polling until we have everything drafted and over to council at that point it's late um in terms of um the council would have to go out at that point do polling and then decide which of the recommendations they put onto the ballot um I think we will want once we have a better formulation of what what we're thinking of um and on a couple of different measures I think that's the point at which we would we would ask the council to consider some polling so okay um Lisa oh thank you chair says go I'll keep it quick I'll have maybe some comments for the next meeting but questions for today I certainly agree with committee member Bartley that there's absolutely a political aspect that we will need to reckon with and have some strategy around but there's also kind of a practical question about you know if a salary um then how do you think about that salary and how do you how do you decide that what are the ingredients what's the role of a council member what's really our goal what expertise and skills do we hope that they bring what do they do all of these ingredients I think as I've been thinking about this it's so for me it's a lot about what do we think the role of a council member is and what is required so if there is to be a practical tie and maybe this body doesn't particularly care to go down that road and instead I can see a scenario where it's you know tied to a portion of the board of supervisors etc as Mr. Walsh mentioned but if there's to be a practical tie um uh for one thing I know that there's about 40 hours a week missing off that mayor's calendar for sure constituent time stakeholder engagement time prep time learning time all kinds of things are missing there um do we have a list of the actual regional boards and commissions the city committees ad hocs are a little bit difficult to get a handle on but if it would help me if I could if we could see just what are the base activities whether it's appointments to abag to scta etc etc so I don't I don't know if a list a baseless would help um and then do we consider something like an estimate of constituent time and stakeholder time and prep time so just kind of thinking about the practical aspects of what is the role um what condition what practical conditions are we trying to solve for right we're trying to open up the field to candidates of all income backgrounds and all income levels and all all types of jobs um and so I really hope that we can think about the theory behind what are we trying to end up with what's the role of a council member what does that really look like and how do we actually reach that goal of enabling people to run thanks um Anna hi so quick question um based off what mark mentioned earlier um do you have the ability um to know the different pay or salaries for the county and the city employees or not I'm sorry council members just because I think that's um important to know yes we can we can we can we can we can get that so it's not a problem and I'll also mention in response on the subcommittees the list of subcommittees and regional entities uh different board memberships we'll certainly get that information for next uh moving as well okay thank you um event do you have another question okay great I'll be really quick um so I was just thinking about the whole process you know we're talking about diversity inclusion and how do we get the community involved with the community engagement I know we're putting a lot of work on our cab now community engagement office but one of the things that I have done with other um situations here in our town is educating the public and not so much with polling and all that but just educating the public about what it takes to be a mayor what it takes to be a city council and then you know maybe I don't know like like how we have the conversations on race from cab maybe doing something in regards to either city council members and having that that candid conversation of what it takes to be a city council member and then show the calendar but then you do it as a presentation format and then you present that to the public so that they can get an idea that is just not oh they're just sitting up there you know you know saying yes and no but really diving into the background of what it looks like to be a city council member and then as we're working on this you can have your community engagement office out in the public and then doing presentations to community groups and things of that nature so that's just a way to get the information out there without actually polling people but educating people about this process okay mark did you have another question i'm sorry i failed to lower the hand i'll email the the uh the uh paycheck to us through the okay great thanks okay um okay so um we've gotten our initial questions out i do need to take public comment um and then i'll come back to the committee and give some more suggestions here so um with that i need to call for a public comment on this item if you're coming in by zoom use your raise hand feature if you're dialing in by phone dial star nine and i'll ask our host to see if we have anyone wishing to speak thank you chair we do the first public comment will be from world affairs county of sonoma county okay please go ahead and unmute your microphone and proceed with your comment okay what i had to say that was so important you just missed it but i'll try and repeat it okay um anyway i am a big fan of voting initiatives and one of the things i would suggest is that you maybe reach out right now to these taxpayer advocate people to allow them a chance to give you their feedback on what you're thinking so it's it's kind of early on in the process find out what are their issues what are their concerns versus coming up with the plan then giving it to them that's my two cents and there you go thank you thank you all right chair i don't see any additional hands via zoom for public comment on item 4.4 okay great then i will close the public comment on item 4.4 bring it back to the committee um and question for you su do you feel like you have clarity on the questions that you're going to need to bring back to us anything you need clarification on no i i think we have a good list of some additional materials to come to come back with for our next meeting um and we'll also give some additional thought and uh incurred and i know that the committee will be thinking about it coming up with some some ideas we'll try to provide again what some other jurisdictions will do have done so that maybe at the next meeting we can start uh having more discussion we've started today but you know how do we decide where the compensation will land how do we craft that how do we as is it tethered just to another jurisdiction is it tethered to city um employee salaries how is it determined so um yes i think we have the direction that that we need okay great so um again we've got a couple of weeks to let all of this percolate with the information that we have and you know certainly the the thoughts are already um formulating so uh you know enjoy that time to consider all this and um with that let's go ahead and move on to um committee chairs city attorneys reports anything you have to report sue um i was just going to mention a couple of quick things um one is that we did receive and i think the committee members all received um a letter regarding the potential for revisions to the referendum process um we are looking into that and we will be able to report back or we'll try to report back at our next meeting we're we're able to um and then wanted to mention last at our last meeting i suggested that we would be posting the agendas on wednesdays city clerk was gracious enough to not call me out at that meeting um but words that indeed we had published that one agenda on wednesday due to the thanksgiving holiday um but the clerk's office has taken up obviously a council meeting on tuesdays wednesdays is publication of the council's final agenda thursdays the publication of the council's preliminary agenda so we're going to be looking at publication uh for this committee um most likely on fridays if we have the possibility to get that out on thursdays um we will um but it's kind of the the reality of where we are and because of our meetings are so close in time it would be difficult for us to move that up a week that would mean we would be meeting on wednesday and we would have to have the agenda materials available two days later so i apologize for that but um that just the realities of workloads um we will generally be publishing on fridays thursday afternoons or fridays um and then i thought i'd just let people know um for now i think the chair mentioned we'll be looking at having at least two meetings per subject area um we are starting obviously with council compensation we'll be coming back next week um with for further discussion on council compensation uh not next week next meeting we may also try to begin the rank choice voting um discussion or at least introduction to that at that same meeting um we'll have to get a feel for how much time we have that will be our next topic and diva provo from the county registrar of voters will be coming to speak to that and then after that we will focus um next efforts on the direct elect mayor and then from there we'll we'll we'll go on from there i know there's still quite a few topics to address after that and then just a quick question su i i know these are being uh recorded as as we um do our work what's the turnaround time for these recorded meetings to be posted to the website or or wherever so that anyone who's missed a meeting or wants to check something out can get to it what can they expect and thank you for that reminder and i'm going to hand it over to um our city court um we try and get the video uh the recording of the meeting up the next day the next day yes so once the um recording has been captured the following tomorrow morning i'll go and get the media file and attach it to the um the legislature record and then it renders and it should be up by mid afternoon at the latest so we we try very hard by the next day to get everything up and running and that'll be posted to our website or will it be captured on the legislative section of um it's as posted it's published on the legislative section but the committee's website is the link for to the legislative um um calendar so if anybody goes to the charter review committee at the top there is a message here's the link to view the meeting okay great um and a quick question uh Stephanie do i need to be taking public comment on on this item and on our or not on on your committee report out yes you should be taking we do okay okay just to be sure um okay so with that i will open the public comment um time for anyone who wishes to speak on uh our city attorney's reports again if you're calling in um by phone it's star nine if you're uh on our zoom you use the raise hand feature and i will check with the host to see if anyone chooses to speak thank you chair sisto at this time there are no hands raised to be a zoom okay great um next item we don't have any subcommittee reports uh we don't have any written or electronic communications so we'll move on to future agenda items uh part of which sue has already told us but do we need to go over that again our next our next um meeting will definitely be taking up this this discussion and potentially um getting a presentation on the rank choice voting is that is that what you think we'll be able to start with or not i'm um i'm a little concerned on on timing um and maybe kind of get a sense from the committee of we have a two hour block it's we ends up not being quite two hours that we have for discussion but uh is there a sense that uh council compensation we will have some additional materials to provide you um and the discussion um is it the sense of the committee that that would take the bulk of that meeting yeah so we would use that whole meeting for this discussion i'm sensing from what we've got so far that that's very true yeah and we've got a thumbs up on that idea okay so that's our agenda item as well as the continued um looking at our equity principles great great okay um and again uh this does allow for a public comment on this if you remember the public wishing to speak on our future agenda items matter and you're calling in by zoom use the raised hand feature if you're calling in by phone use star nine and i'll ask the host if anyone is waiting there are no hands currently raised via zoom on item eight future agenda items great thank you um so with that i think we can bring our meeting to a close and uh so i'll go ahead and adjourn our meeting our next meeting is january fifth is that correct yes okay okay and so happy holidays everybody and uh appreciate your hard work here and see you in the new year okay and uh stephanie uh oh somebody was gonna say something just thanks happy new year okay great um Stephanie before i leave the meeting can i talk to you about um a problem with some email for one of our committee members or should i just call you or