 Junior Park. This project is funded by a City of Santa Rosa Community Advisory Board Neighborhood Improvement Grant, and this requires Art and Public Places Committee approval of the artwork designs. The park's department has approved temporary art to be placed as panels onto the restroom building with no obligation to replace once the building is removed. It looks like we have Annette on our, she has been elevated to a presenter, thank you for joining our meeting today. Thank you very much. Can you hear me? We sure can. So my name is Annette Arnold and I am the Project Lead for the South Park Community Building Initiative. We're a team of local residents working together to make South Park a better neighborhood. We would like your approval to paint three murals in Martin Luther King Junior Park located in South Park, a neighborhood blighted by illegal dumping, encampments, and abundance of gang graffiti. And our hope is that these murals will not only bring a little bit of needed color and beauty to the neighborhood, but also instill a little bit of neighborhood pride for those who live here and hopefully reduce some future tagging in the park. This has been a community effort. We posted a call for resident artists to create a mural design for our community. Design ideas were presented and voted upon on the South Park website page. Three designs were selected as the top choices, and all three will include an element of community participation. Once the basic mural has been painted, we will invite all South Park residents to come to the park, paint their hand, and add their unique hand print to a mural of their choice. Our first design will be painted on two of the external walls. The Aztec Serpent will be painted on two of the external walls on the park's bathroom. Aztec Serpent by local artist Kate Burkamer is based on the 15th century two-headed serpent design from an Aztec temple. It represents the Aztec Mesoamerican god of civilization and the forces of good and light. The serpent's heads will be blue with red and white details, and the body will be striped in the seven rainbow colors. The design will be outlined in dark blue set against a bright aqua green background for protection against negativity. The mural will be eight feet high and 16 feet wide. The artist believes this mural created by an all-volunteer crew will add much needed joy and beauty to this neighborhood. The design you see here is a basic rendering, and the final version will be much improved and more refined. Our second design by local resident Magali Larkae will be painted on a wall of the Head Start building in the park. The heart of South Park represents the little heart of the neighborhood. The animated style reflects the colorful nature of those who live here. Magali notes that within the design you will find images that represent Sonoma County, the rose, mountains in the distance, and pine trees that you see in our park. Outside the heart, the monarch butterflies represent the evolution of South Park community members who will or have embarked on new chapters of their lives. The clouds will have South Park street names included to symbolize that the sky is the limit for our residents, and regardless of where one goes, our heart will always be in South Park. The third design will go on a park fence facing the soccer field. The design of the angel wings was chosen as a way to incorporate neighbors' contributions to the artwork. Using a preset color palette, each wing will be made up of individual feathers, each painted by a different person from South Park neighborhood. The space between the two wings will allow a person to stand, giving them angel wings when their photo is taken. This idea has been used in the murals throughout the country. It acts as a beacon to bring people to the park and have their picture taken. Along with the angel wings, we will invite all neighbors to participate by painting their hand and adding their hand prints to the mural on either side of the wings. Thank you. We applied for and received a community improvement grant that will cover most of our expenses. We have some local businesses donating materials that will fill in the gaps. We have assembled a team of volunteers who are ready to start on these murals the moment we have your approval. We plan to complete the mural, the basic murals, in time for a community event and barbecue in the park on July 17th. On that day, we will invite all residents to come to the celebration of the new artwork and to add their own unique hand print to a mural of their choice. When completed, we hope to have as many hand prints as we have residents in the neighborhood. The goal with all these murals is to brighten the community, lacking in resources and public art. We hope these murals will bring neighbors together, provide a sense of pride about living here in South Park, and create a lasting memory to connect them with this neighborhood. I hope you will give us your permission to proceed. Thank you. Great. Thank you Annette for your presentation. Do any of the committee members have any questions or comments regarding Annette's presentation and our action today? I might to be following our rules, I just questions first and then a motion needs to be put on the table for discussion. Thank you. Let me take that back. Questions first. Thank you. Melanie. I'm sorry, I missed it. What was the target completion date? We would like to be done by July 17th. That's the day that we hope to have an event in the park where we invite the entire community out. Okay. Another question. Sorry. Go ahead Melanie. So one was going to be directly on the building and not on the panels. Is that what you decided? We don't know yet. We're doing panels on the bathroom. We've already bought the panels for that. What we don't know is the head start building, because it has several meters on one side of the building. So either we want permission to either paint over the meters, leaving the windows exposed that need to be, or we will just start a little bit to the right of the meters and put those on panels. Okay. Member Puentes, did you have a comment? I do. Yes, I do. I have a question. I realize the bathroom is going to be torn down. When I was reading your proposal, that's what I saw. You weren't sure when it was being done. We heard from the parks department that in the future they do plan to demolish that bathroom and put in some other feature for a bathroom. That's why we put it on murals there, so we can take it down and move it when the time comes. Oh, okay. Perfect. Perfect, because I do. I do really like that. And then my one other question was, so when you're doing the wings and you said you're going to get participants, how are you going to select the participants? And I know after the 15th, we're supposed to fully open. How are you getting the community together? I apologize. For the basic mural where we're going to start and do the outline of the wings and the outline of the feathers, we have a team of volunteers who's ready to do that. We will have a post on the South Park website and next door and put flyers through the neighborhood, inviting people to come by in small groups. We can't have more than six people there at a time. And we will follow all the COVID guidelines. And they can add whatever they want to add in their feather using the palette that we've come up with. And are you requiring them to be a South Park residence? We're asking them to be yes. We wouldn't deny anybody who wants to come, but we're hoping it will be South Park residents. Okay. Thank you. And had you provided the website information to Tara, would she be able to pass that around? Or if you hadn't provided that, could you send that to the school? Absolutely. Thank you. Do any other committee members have questions to clarify this scope? And the three murals that are proposed here? Wonderful. And I understand that there is a short timeline with one of the artists that you are working with for their availability. The artist painting the Aztec Serpent. So wanted to be mindful of that as well. Thank you. Great. If we have no further questions as a committee, would someone be willing to make a motion to entertain this? Tara, we'll be back up. Ask for public comments first. Absolutely. Uh, recording secretary, do we have any public comments regarding this item? We do not have any public comments at this time. Okay. Then now I would like to move forward and ask if we have any members who would like to make a motion for us to discuss and then vote upon. So moved. Do I have a second? Just to clarify, the motion is to do what? To approve the artwork designs? Just need to have that in the record that the motion is to approve the artwork designs, if that's what you meant. Oh, yes. I move to approve the design. Thank you for clarifying. No problem. Would someone like to second the motion? I'll second that motion. Great. Eileen, will you please take a roll call? Now it's time to discuss. Any comments and discussion? Thank you. Are there any discussion points to be made at this time regarding the design, now that we have a motion on the table to approve the design? I think it's a wonderful project. That's not a discussion point, but just a comment. Thank you. I want to add that I like that you, there has been some peer review of the, you know, of the community. They've seen it and approved it and are going to go forward with it. So it seems like there's a partnership there. Great. Thank you. Lisa. Yes. Annette, I read your proposal. I appreciate, it's obviously you put a lot of time and a lot of work into this and I just want to say I really appreciate everything you've done and you took an account of everybody's time and commitment and you put all the puzzle pieces together. It looks like, it really looks like you've made it work and I want to appreciate, I do appreciate all of that. I really like the artwork. I really like how you're getting the community together to do it. My only comment addition to that would be the wings. They are cliche, but even though they may be, they're interactive, people love them. They'll be on Instagram, they'll be everywhere and it will definitely put a spotlight, a positive spotlight to South Park. So I, you know, I can't, you know, I can't say anything else towards that, but you know, everything else is great. It's all great. And thank you. Thank you very much. I just thought of something, not that I, you don't have to do this at all, but I was just thinking when, when Lisa was talking about it would be on Instagram, it would be cool to have South Park somewhere there so that there's an instant recognition of when these photos are being made or whatever. So we can definitely do that on the wings. I don't know that it would fit on the other two murals as much. Not a, not a something that you have to do just a thought. It's already been mentioned and I forgot to show that in the comments. Okay. Thank you. Dov Taylor-Goff of Melanie's comment. I think it's very neat that there are street names in the clouds on the heart of South Park mural. I think that will provide a nice reorientation or ability to provide some context of where this mural is. I was, I was glad for that inclusion in there. Great. Thank you. And I, I appreciate that there are three different types of murals being proposed here. They are, again, the, the angel wings is a bit more participatory. The other pieces do give a great celebration of heritage and outward looking of where the community sits in this little neighborhood of Santa Rosa. So I'm very happy to see three different pieces as part of this design for how to make the park a little bit more exciting. Thank you. Well, great. If we, I think we can move to our voting now. If we are, if we have covered our discussion point. So Eileen, and if you can go through our roll and take votes that way, that would be the easiest way. Great. Thank you. Chair Kiefer. Aye. Vice Chair Jones-Carter. Aye. Member Gaungartner. Aye. Chair Fuentes. Aye. Member Ed Sirian. Aye. Thank you. The motion passes. Yay. Thank you all very, very much. Appreciate it. Oh, welcome. We'll invite you to our celebrations. Ah, please do. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Annette. Okay. At this point, I would like to move us on to the next agenda item, item 5.2, Santa Rosa Forward General Plan Project. The Santa Rosa Forward project team will present and collect input on the opportunities and challenges facing the city in the next 25 to 30 years. No action by the committee is requested at this time. Member Comments will be collected as input for the draft Santa Rosa Forward vision statement. At this time, I'd like to hand it over to Andy Gustafson, Santa Rosa City Planner, who will be making our presentation today. Thank you very much, Chair Kiefer. Really, I really welcome the opportunity to present to this committee. We are going about a, I call it the roadshow. We're meeting all the city boards and commissions, as well as community organizations and the public, to collect what people think are the challenges and issues facing the city, what their, what their visions are of the future. I have a presentation, which I will go through. It's the presentation we've given already a number of times. And I will invite you to ask questions about the first couple parts that go into, and let's go to the next slide. I will go through the first couple parts of this presentation efficiently. But I do invite questions, because a lot of what I'll be talking about in the first two parts is really the need for the general plan and why we're doing this. So really, the general plan update is an opportunity for us to think through what it is we want our community to become. And we at the city shape the city through planning policies and programs. And we want to, before we, as we build this plan, we want to get input from the community. Next slide. It is a three-year program. We are at the start. This is the vision phase. We think it's important to know where we are going before we get into technical details and start working through specific issues. It's important we know the destination. We have that in mind. There will be multiple opportunities throughout the three-year program to have public participation for this committee and you as individuals to engage in the process to come to our meetings and give your input on a variety of things, including the alternatives, the environmental impacts associated with the plan, or specific issues that come up during the course of the study. This plan will ultimately be adopted by the council, but it will, before it gets to that point, go through a number of public meetings and hearings. Next slide. To help us go through this process, we formed a couple of key committees. One is the community advisory committee. And it is formed of members of the city, residents, business owners. People have an interest, but people who really represent the diverse character of the neighborhoods in the city and the interests in the city are 25 members. And I'll here make a shameless plug. If you or anyone else you know might be interested in participating, we still have some open seats on our 25-member committee. So please feel free to contact me and I'll leave my email if I can talk and type at the same time in the chat. And you can reach out to me and let me know you might be a good candidate. Next slide. Yeah, I can't do this at the same time. Okay, we have a project website with a ton of information. You should go there if you have interest. We have a background study. I'll show you examples of each, but it's an important place to be to keep track of where we are. And it's called SantaRosaForward.com. Super easy to remember. Bookmark it. Go there frequently. Thank you. Next slide. We conducted a survey in February where we were asking people, what do they think their center of their neighborhood is? How would they draw boundaries around their neighborhood? What are the things that are important to them? And we've got some interesting findings. We had 1,300 participants, which is really excellent. Next slide. So these maps, these two figures exhibit sort of widespread participation in the city. Each one of those yellow dots is a neighborhood center. And you can see that they're all mashed up. And then also the next, the one picture on the right shows us how people drew their boundaries around their neighborhood centers. We're going to go in and look at these to kind of see where natural clusters of city of neighborhood centers are and how those boundaries might coincide. Maybe we'll learn there are certain unclaimed neighbor areas in the city that no one thinks falls in their neighborhood. It might be a planning opportunity for enhancing the city. Next slide. People told us that a lot of the times they kind of thought of their neighborhood as being the geographic, their geographic center. Others thought about would there be a, that their center is where they shop or where they gather. So this kind of begins to tell us how neighborhoods function. Next slide. We also asked them, what's important for the city to respond to? What kind of changes need to happen in the city to get to a place that we all want to live? Well, now, but also in the future 2050. And a lot of us are concerned about natural hazards, which is pretty natural with the fires. Housing is a big issue. Likewise, amenities and services in the city. You can see all those different issues trailing off. Next slide. And then we asked, what do people want to get engaged in or what do they think have the greatest opportunities to improve the city? And the biggest, well, they were quite even quite frankly between five, between affordable housing for all income levels, making sure our city is clean, clean air, clean water, clean environment, that we have access to services and that we have jobs and that there's connectivity in neighborhoods. I mean, these are all really important issues that we can talk about and reconcile in the general plan. Next slide. In order for us to move forward, we really need to understand where we are. So we write an existing conditions report. It's really a snapshot in time. It's an encyclopedia of all the topics that we really need to think about. So here are the list of subject matter topics that are addressed in this existing conditions report. That website at Santa Rosa Forward.com contains the full report. It's a great read. If you have a specific topic that you're interested in and you want to learn more about it, dive into it. You will get our best assessment of our current condition. And we would love your feedback if you think we missed something or we need to correct something. Tell us. Next slide. The briefing book is just that. It's a briefing book that tells you the high level issues that came out of the existing conditions report. So if you really want to get a quick overview and access to what are the big things or big issues in each of those topic areas, take a look at the briefing book. And it's a really great way in 20 or 30 pages to see, get a good overview. Next slide. So these next series of slides, I'm not going to go in particularly into the details, but these are exhibits or pictures that exemplify the kind of information that are discussed in each. This first one is about land use and community character. And it, you know, the high level summary here is that the city is pretty much built out, right? You know, we have a lot of well-established neighborhoods. We have a lot of single-family residential neighborhoods. The majority of the city is in residential neighborhoods. Next slide. So the vision statements, do we jump a bunch or did I do a high-level edit? No, that's right. So that was it. That one slide about land use was just an example of all those different topic areas that you can get into. So we last March met with the Citizen Advisory Committee, which was formed to help us as we go through the project to hear from this diverse group of people, their initial input. They are our sounding board, our initial response to public opinion or giving us public opinion. And they helped us formulate what are the topics or principles that should be part of a vision statement. Those vision statements are really aspirational. They're things that help us understand what kind of policies or programs in the general plan covering all those different topics we should be paying attention to. So they were the starting point. Next slide. They came up with a series of, I call them principles or kind of these pedals around the center flower that exemplify these ideas that are all a part of the vision of the general plan. And we'll go through each of these briefly and discuss them. But what I would like to do at the end of this presentation is kind of come back to this slide and for us, for you as a committee to give input about which of these really strike you or resonate as being important in what your vision for the city is. So we'll return to this slide, but let's go through to the next slide and begin kind of reviewing each of these in turn. And I'll say you see here inclusive and just these are definitions, descriptions that came from this community advisory committee. And they're really starting points in many of our previous workshops. People asked about these definitions and you're invited to do the same. So inclusive is that we want a city that's a place that's welcoming to all that we don't put barriers up to participation. It's citywide and neighborhood wide. We want it to be a place that's just where there's social justice and environmental justice for everyone. Next slide. We want a healthy city. We want a place where we can grow up and grow old. Our kids can thrive. A place that's free of hazards, whether it's environmental or traffic. I want to make a plug here about this general plan with regard to this particular idea, healthy city. The city has received a grant from Kaiser Permanente to help us to do a truly extraordinary thing. We are required by state law is a new provision of the general plan that we look at environmental justice. Environmental justice is really a broad term that talks about making sure that everyone in the city, all the neighborhoods are not burdened by environmental hazards or deficient services that everybody shares equally. And we know within our city that there isn't equal distribution in all this and that there's often disparity. And so in our city, we have these challenges that really impact the health outcomes of people who live in these places. Kaiser Permanente, they're partnering with us. They provided us with a grant that we have on staff for the first time, a public health planner who is helping us meet the disadvantaged community, the people with whom the English is a second language and who may not be as civically engaged to help us reach them to make sure that when we go through this exercise, this planning process, that we are addressing their needs, that we are identifying disadvantaged communities and that we are creating social and environmental justice throughout the city. So this is a really important concept that I would just want to spend a little more time on and it's really unique about this general plan that makes it very exciting. The next term, resilient, is a really open term, but really for me, means something different for you. But for me, it really means we have systems that aren't brittle, meaning they can adapt the change that they can accommodate unexpected events. And we've seen our city have to deal with this with the fires and the recent economic impacts of the COVID pandemic. Next slide. We want to be prepared. We want to be sheltered. These are two traditional things cities do and the city of Santa Rosa does. We have emergency service people. We want to make sure that they're prepared to help us when we are in need, but that they do so in a way that sensitive and socially or culturally adapted. And we want to make sure that people are sheltered, that everyone has safe housing, that there's a wide variety of housing available for the different needs within the community. Next. And an overarching principle is that we're equitable. That people have, everyone has access to services, access to food, that we provide infrastructure that is, you know, equally available throughout the city so that everyone can have a healthy and fulfilling life. Next. And we want a successful city, bottom line. We want people, we want a place where people can work, where businesses can thrive. Without that, our economy would suffer and really the city, the social fabric and just sort of the daily business of cities would just fall apart. So that's a really important principle, not to lose sight of. And that as a city to function, the parts have to be connected. And by that, I mean, not only streets, but we need transit, we need good pedestrian and bicycle connectivity so that we have choices in how we move about the city. And we have choices that might help to enhance our environment, including help reduce emissions and reduce climate change. Next slide. Safety, you know, this is again one of those core principles of any city general plan is we want to make sure kids, people are safe, not just through policing, but just the environment, how we build our environment, that that environment is a place where we feel safe. And it's a place that we thrive. And part of life is being educated, you know, learning. And it's not just for kids and through college, but places where throughout our life cycle, we have opportunity to learn as we are professionally employed, or afterwards we're retired. It really helps us grow as a community. Next slide. And what has always been sort of a powerful theme of all these meat of all of our workshops is that we're very diversity and it's very cultural. So we have a lot of opportunity to enhance support and enjoy those differences. And it should be part of the fabric of the city. We should not diminish that. We shouldn't enhance it. And that's sustainable. That's another word that's kind of near that resilient word, sustainable. You know, we sustainable, we want we want to do things that we can carry on efficiently. And this probably more than natural resources side, we want to make sure that our creeks and vegetation are part of the city where they're designed into the fabric of the city. And in many ways, make our city healthier, not just for the environment, but for us in the environment. Next slide. So those are the those are the key principles that came out of the Community Advisory Committee and that we discussed in a series of workshops that you may have heard of that we held that in each of the council member districts. What we're doing now is reaching out to groups such as art in public places to have a more of a focused conversation. And if we can go back to slide number 15, I think it is, Tara. I would like to ask you and we're such a small group, we can have kind of a free and open discussion. Just generally, let's talk about what are the things that are the greatest challenges? What are the things that are the greatest opportunities for the city? And and maybe use these words, these concepts as a way to name them and talk about them a little bit. You can be specific about places that exemplify what you mean that's that's often helpful and I'll take notes. But before we do that, does anybody have any question? I kind of raced through all that stuff about the general plan and in our process. Any questions about that before we launch into the words? And Andy that that dovetails quite nicely into the next phase of our next step for our meeting. And I would like to invite any questions now at this point about the presentation that Andy just gave us about the general plan process and any questions that we might have about how this vision statement informs the larger creation of the general plan. Thanks for that presentation that was really helpful for me. But I just I wonder if you could sort of speak briefly to the kind of concrete steps that you might take towards making tangible improvements to environmental justice concerns. Just out of curiosity. So first we're assessing the disparities that exist within our community. And there are a number of metrics that we're looking at household income levels of educational attainment. And we're also looking at the built environment within the city. Certain neighborhoods lack complete sidewalk system or certain neighborhoods are underserved by food sources. Those are the types of things we'll be looking at to assess the disparity and strive to equalize neighborhoods to achieve equitable or environmental justice. So with that assessment we'll be able to go into and that's being conducted now. With that assessment we'll then be able to look at land use, transportation, housing, parks and recreation policy in the general plan and strive to fill those unmet needs and build in from policy which actually identify actionable statements. Things that should be done as development occurs over time or as city funds projects. So this plan really is a framework and it sets forth guidelines that as individual development activities take place over time will shape those projects. Whether it's a city sponsored project when it builds a roadway we'll make sure you know there's good sidewalks and crosswalks or when it spends money on parks we'll make sure that it's allocated towards places that need it and for the purposes that is most specific communities desires. So that's kind of an example of how the general plan would address environmental justice issues. Yes. I also find this really intriguing. I'm curious about how it ties into accountability with people who are in these neighborhoods. How is the communication process role from when you decide you have identified disparity and you're going to put some resources there but that the people that are actually affected understand and come alongside and receive and you know what I'm saying? I mean I don't even know city planning principles I assume that's part of it but it just seems that sometimes it feels like it gets kind of brought up into the stratosphere of public works and the people not really sure it ever happened to them. Right and that is that is the challenge. A general plan I can tell you is a pretty abstract idea but when an apartment building goes next door it's very concrete. You are very related right? Yes. So our challenge and what we're striving to set the groundwork now when we're meeting with communities neighborhoods groups like this is to make the connection that when we talk about policy it really can shake the physical world in their immediate area and within a very short time frame and that to affect change to be a part of that change you have to engage. So a lot of what we're doing is education, encouragement that people engage in civic activity and part of that is to build trust right to be able to say we're bringing this out, we want your participation, we're listening and our challenge will be in these conversations we're having now about vision is that we can demonstrate that what people have told us really mattered and it did help shape the vision that got finally adopted it's only in that manner can we get the trust for people to engage civic activity and know that it's meaningful that it's consequential. So I can't tell you how many times in my career I've been in that meeting where people have been totally surprised by that apartment building next door when you know it's been on the plan forever and that's not a that's not an appropriate answer to given a public meeting but it really makes us well I think fall feel like we've fallen short on our responsibility of planning which is in large part I think to inform and show people how to engage and shape decision making that's good yeah if I could follow up on that too um I so my name's Amy Lyle and I work with Andy on the general plan update and I couldn't help but jump in because I love this part of the general plan process and Andy did a great job explaining some of the environmental justice pieces and how the general plan will function in that way but I also just wanted to mention that um there are some on the ground things that are happening now because we do have a grant and have hired an equity and public health planner but we're also working with our public works department to start um creating more feedback loops with the community specifically our vulnerable populations in districts one and seven so around rosalind and southwest anorosa and so for those areas we are creating some focus groups related just to infrastructure to help inform our public works team on where the gaps are and what's needed but as Andy noted we're at the very beginning of the general plan process so we're really just laying out the framework and getting the data so we've got our existing conditions report as part of our housing element work we're also doing a report on affirmatively furthering fair housing which is a new piece of legislation that's asking all the communities to look at um how our communities have evolved and where's the red lining occurred why do we have certain populations in certain areas and so the more information we have on that the more policy work we can you know focus on those specific areas so we are collaborating with the county and the other jurisdictions on that work um because as you know people don't know where the city ends and the county starts and all of that so um so we're really at the very beginning and we would love input on how to go about that work um as it unfolds so um we're happy to come back and we cannot ask Beatrice who's our equity and public health planner to talk a little more about her work specifically because it is like uh you know long range big picture general plan very incremental but through our general plan process we are going to create this framework to have more discussions that are more real time and as Andy noted kind of create the social infrastructure so we have a feedback loop and we do a better job communicating out what we heard and then how how the city can respond. Melanie please go ahead. We mute it. Oh Melanie please unmute yourself. Okay thank you um so I just have a question because um with most city plans I mean you you have some idea of where where the issues are already I mean you know if you go over to Roseland you don't have to be too surprised about what's happening there and um so is there anything different than in this new city plan than your last one that you expect to find? Could you your general plan you do one every how many years? I don't know here and 10-ish so next years so in 10 years when you did your last general plan has anything changed in like the Roseland area and I'm I'm new here I've only been here for seven years so um you know I I can imagine that 10 years ago it looked about the same. Welcome welcome to the city. Yeah then can I add on to Melanie's um which her question and everything else is because my questions and stuff kind of are related to what she had to say to that's okay. Sure please go ahead. Okay thank you. So I know that Andy was talking about he wanted us to pick out a word and describe it and stuff there or just elaborate on it and stuff and the word that came to me most was um equitable and that was just being equitable balance of the city resources that we have and I know you know Melanie is new and stuff um I have you know I've lived in South Park and Roseland and West 9th and um I always knew there was some disparity among the city resources and I realized that um Roseland didn't become incorporated in the city until just recently and stuff but it wasn't until I moved to Bennett Valley that I saw how horrible how just huge and just the disparity among the two and just how big it was and so I my question is too is is in regards to the built environment that the city provides and there's so many years decades and decades of neglect in these certain areas how is this really going to be um just how because this is going to take so much resources and so much time and so much energy and I just because it's been so many years and I don't know if there's just a little by little or if there's going to be a big bang or what is the big plans because there is then just to start with like sidewalks and crosswalks and road you know just so much out there so yeah that's my question and so and that it's a powerful one and it's one that we're grappling with it's the general plan um it's an important guidance document not just for you know the vision and and the plan but it's also a funding document every year the city goes through a capital budget planning program where public works decides where and how it's spending money and roads sewers all that and they are guided by those projects before they're funded are guided by the general plan they need to be consistent with general plan policy and if out of this general plan it becomes a priority to do accelerated community investment in these neighborhoods that could be a powerful tool to bring sidewalks road improvements sewer to those areas so it's always going to be incremental um a lot of it's public financing when it's public resources and it's tax dollars that are limited but then there's also the part of the equation is created incentives for development of land uses that we want and desire and as land use is developed the developer provides those kinds of improvements as well sidewalks of one of their projects and improvements to intersections and that kind of thing helps towards building parks so it's it's really um it is incremental policy can help and I anticipate will be a large part of helping to balance and equities and and it will take time to evolve or bring together the the equitable distribution of resources that may not have been developed equally over decades in the city of Santa Rosa I wanted to go back and address Melanie's question very quickly uh Andy or Amy if either of you could please speak to how the general plan fits in with the other planning documents that we have on file with the city how does this relate to the sabastopol road specific plan and the recently approved station area specific plan I'm curious and how for this committee's knowledge how how do those plans fit together sure um Amy can talk more detail about the downtown plan but in general what you describe are what are called specific plans they are nested within the general plan the general plan is a general document it's looking at the city at 30 000 feet it's looking city wide and it's providing guidelines that apply to the entire city specific plans carve out smaller areas and go into greater detail the the roseland area plan the sabastopol avenue specific plan really took a deep dive look at those specific places and crafted a very sharp focused vision of how that streetscape should work it for instance designed or or defined in high detail the roseland village project that the city approved and that is you know underway the downtown plan is the same thing it was an opportunity to use that as a tool to revision downtown and help deal with housing elsewhere you know that that we have as a city wide issue so they those are specific plans that are nested within the general plan they have to be consistent with one another and when we write the general plan we'll be reflecting on those specific plans if necessary we we may have to alter those specific plans to make them fit well that's how they work it's coordinated great thank you uh member ed and he's just sort of thinking in cultural terms in in my experience sprawl represents a significant obstacle to the development of you know culture uh and i wonder if there are if there's any kind of concerted effort to incentivize high density housing and maybe de-incentivize single family home developments can i can i jump in on that andy just because i have something that's kind of unrelated to the general plan um one we don't have solutions in the general plan update yet so it's good right now to provide feedback on what you would like to see because we are at that visioning stage but aside from the general plan we are also working on a missing middle housing initiative and so what we're doing is we're taking a dive into our low and medium density residential areas and trying to identify ways where we can increase densities but in a way that through form and mass they're not impacting the aesthetics and the neighborhood character that already exists so um we're working with a firm out of berkeley who's done this with a lot of other jurisdictions and has had great success but um that is something that will be a lot of effort through our housing element but we are on the side working on this other effort to really look at that um the single family issue and there's actually some bills on the legislature right now kind of looking at um single family zoning and and what to do as well so we're kind of waiting to see where that's going to land but um i think a lot of jurisdictions are grappling but i i will say what we have heard from the community in most of our planning efforts is that um there is a lot of support for city-centered growth and higher density where it's appropriate and mostly downtown although we're waiting to see what we hear to see if there's other areas of the city where high higher density could be considered um so that will be part of our work with the housing element but um we'd appreciate your comments on that as far as what vision you have in 2050 everybody sorry i uh joined the meeting a bit late i had a conference i was in but it's good to see everybody and andy and a nice to see you both uh following up on nathan's question and thinking about a meeting um we had which was really more looking at the downtown stationery specific plan and the museum i mean i find myself wondering about the prioritization within the plan certainly for this committee looking at public art and culture in general is a really important consideration but what i recall in a previous meeting and been reading through some of the documents that are available and andy i thought your presentation today was great but i i find myself really wondering about where culture in the arts fits in uh in terms of prioritization and also as a strategy to help with economic development and um looking at the i guess i wasn't really actually thinking about it until today about the specific plans for these different areas of the city and how you can't do all things all at once so i'm just wondering how the plan really lays out priorities and timeline and how we can understand that from the perspective of art and public places um to some extent the plan will in in in the in reconciling all the different issues that come up in public discussion balance and and establish priorities and i think um if i were to anticipate this issue of neighborhood vitality is going to be at the core of that much of that discussion and uh some of the early conversations i had with tara and with you i think it's not just me but this project team is excited about the role of art not only in getting people interested and aware about how to get engaged in in civic activity but how that in turn how art and artful activities i'll put it that way can help to define neighborhoods and reinforce neighborhoods the city's general plan currently has a public arts element so it is a component within the general plan now and i anticipate that probably will stay with the general plan in some form whether it's a discrete element or whether they are groups of policies that talk about this topic i can't say um but i think it's important for this group and your constituents for your supporters to be engaged in this discussion to make sure it stays present and relevant relevant in the general plan i don't want it to drop off but we really need the support of the voices and i think one way of showing that it's relevant is if we have opportunity to collaborate on how we use art and artful activities to engage people to know that the general plan and their neighborhoods matter that would be a good way to reinforce that link yeah thanks for bringing that oh sorry um christin i was going to jump in okay thanks the question sorry i was just going to ask if there isn't a separate chapter for arts and culture where do you see those goals and policies uh fitting into the general plan um well i i i feel that um uh there are certain topics that really cut across many issues um you know for instance uh climate change is a topic that cuts across transportation land use parks i can see art being that same kind of uh topic where it it's hugely influencing bourbon design parks um so i i so so i can't say yet what the final form or construction of the general plan will be you know how many chapters there will be but i know that would be potentially one technique that um we might employ with arts thank you yeah i found it very interesting that the specific plan also included elements of public art in the design guidelines sections so it very much there is a lot of opportunity for public art goals to be dispersed around a number of chapters and um i think that that was great for you to say that to this committee as we move forward in our and and hopefully engage uh other our our colleagues and community members to participate in the upcoming workshops meetings and online surveys sorry to go back to you tara we wanted to pipe in thanks um i just wanted to share um that as as you know the committee has a task force now with christin and nathan um that is tackling well it's for the topic of project development but it when we met a couple weeks ago i think we identified the main priority um to be figuring out how an artist could be a part of the general plan planning process and we have a meeting set up um i think later this week um thursday perhaps for for that topic to be discussed so just for the gen you know the rest of the committee to to know that that's being pursued as a way for a collaboration to take place during the planning process itself um and i think that there is a lot of opportunity there i don't want to steal the thunder from that task force in terms of the additional work that they want to report out on later on the agenda but um but i just wanted to bring that up that that's something that has already started that conversation and then also um you know my my thoughts so far on uh how arts and culture or public art could be incorporated into a new plan i think is is similar to what andy's kind of saying might be a possibility in terms of incorporating um some thoughts or policy suggestions on whatever topic is being discussed from an arts and culture perspective rather than saving it all and putting it in its separate doc part of the document i just think that's a uh an interesting integrated approach that might serve um serve us well when we're looking at it from that point of view but i think that um initially i i'm really excited about the potential of bringing an artist in in to be a part of this process specifically for what andy was saying that engagement piece inviting community to participate in in maybe a different way um to get feedback and have a hand in this process so that there's a piece of that ownership there and that there's um something they can take away saying okay well you know if this policy that you know i'm helping to shape a policy that can enable this to happen in my neighborhood and it means that my kids will be able to do x y and z i mean i think making it that personal for people uh and experiencing something through an art form is a really powerful tool to make sure we can use in this process great questions um any other i'll say foundational questions like we've been discussing or or you want to jump into just briefly even um discussion about these different keywords and before we do that i'll even say please know we have a survey for that so if if um after this meeting you wish to kind of expand upon your thoughts you know thinking about this a little bit you want to elaborate i'm going to post a little survey here that we have available and you can use that as a tool to communicate in greater detail to the team and this is a survey we've been using throughout the um throughout the um workshops and we'll continue to run gosh i i don't know if we have an end date yet but it's going to be on at least for the remainder of june i would say i can share that screen again if that would be helpful for people to look at that diagram um yes uh page 15 so again these are these are words or titles that came out of the meetings there could be new words that that come out of this meeting or subsequent meetings so um if it's helpful i would love if we can go around the room and somebody could share as i said at the beginning um what what are the biggest challenges and what are the biggest opportunities that the cities face in in and then pick a word or two here and i'll take notes um and this is an exercise you can do as i said on the survey as well later and you can and you can speak through the lens of of being somebody interested in the arts or just as a resident it doesn't have to stay within the bounds of this committee okay go ahead go ahead lisa yeah i think i spoke before on mine was um an equitable balance of resources so and it was yeah equitable that's the one that stuck out to me the most is there a particular example or place that you think that represents the imbalance absolutely that's um like you can just say roseland and i know they're doing stuff to sabbatical road but um it would be wonderful to see city resources including art and everything um where what was it alpha beta tgny i'm dating myself right now used to be and i guess there's a dollar store there too that's no longer there and you know you just have boarded up buildings you don't have the bowling alley or anything else that was once there and um that whole area it just looks so neglected yeah and that's the area where we have the um roseland village project coming in yes with um housing and a plaza and the mercado and i think i heard funding for a library which is yes yes i've heard a lot of that um you know i probably should look to see what the plans and when's it going to be and it's just you know i constantly hear stuff but it still looks the same and what what do you think are the greatest opportunities something that's easy to do well for me it's the built environment and the built environment really shapes your perspective and your ideas on the area and what's possible when it's not and lots of people cannot see past you know what is there already and um so i don't think you're giving a community an opportunity by keeping the environment the built environment and what the city is responsible for when it's you know when it's that neglected yep okay thank you can we get circled back after yeah sure one of the other ones that stands out to me is and i i think sheltered is about housing i'm guessing um is the high number of individuals that are not sheltered in this area and um what we can do to help in that process um yeah shelter is both housing building housing stock as we think about it but also shelter goes further there some people who are in a life circumstance where they need something additional transitional housing or care you know care outside the home so but they definitely are complementary and what you said in this area do you mean were you referring to rosin or i mean santa rosa as a whole santa rosa as a whole i mean i think you know no matter where you go there's well not everywhere but you know there's just um a huge population of and i know as it was explained to me that because santa rosa is a hub for services a lot of people come here seeking those services and just stay and but don't have housing or you know have issues that they choose not to be housed but what can we do to help that group of people so that they don't have to camp under the freeway or on the side of the road or i mean like the little what is it called gaegos village out by uh those gilikos yeah thank you thank you somebody um you know that was a great little project but you know it's it's just like a drop in the bucket and it's so far out um but some kind of something needs to be done so those are the big challenges what what opportunities does the city possess that it should amplify or exploit i'll use that word i'm sorry was that a question i'm sorry yeah you know what what what do you see as as an attribute or an opportunity the city has to do something that's unique to the city um does how many how many lots does our city own that are not developed right we have yeah good vacant land city-owned public owned vacant land yeah yeah i was kind of involved in some uh negotiations around those things when the bike path when the camp was on the bike path and um there was a process where the city looked into um available lots and the only one that they determined to be acceptable which i think mostly has revolves around issues with egress and paving was next to a kindergarten um and that was how they arrived at the los gilikos site they were going to put people they were going to set up a camp on mendicino avenue in front of the county services uh and that the adjacency to that you know kindergarten shut that down but there i don't know they seem to have these strange rubrics for what can and cannot be used for camps uh that creates a lot of issues in the fact that nobody sits in their neighborhood i also yes yeah well i think the thing that comes to mind along the question you're asking and is you know i think what the assets that the city has in addition to perhaps our our vacant lots or underutilized city-owned properties are what incentives can we provide builders to build you know more shelter facilities or tiny homes or or other types of living arrangements for currently unsheltered people um and make that a priority for poor development yeah i like i wanted to pipe in uh and looking at the slide that we have in front of us with the different draft vision statements uh something that comes to my mind as both someone who is interested in the arts and a or someone who is a pedestrian and lives and works uh in the downtown area um i am very concerned about our connectivity around town and perceptions of safety as a pedestrian and i think there are a lot of opportunities to um greatly enhance some intersections uh to be more pedestrian friendly and friendly towards just feelings of safety and that would actualize a few goals in terms of safety and connectedness and successful because um you have a feeling that you are you are successfully navigating and i live very close to the intersection at stony point and third and i'm very glad that the city is stepping or has been moving along with community engagement to make that intersection safer but i think there is a lot of opportunity to do that kind of triage and assessment on more intersections uh in and not just in the station area specific plan boundary but that is an area that i see as an opportunity for artwork uh to think about a previous project that we approved as this board was the traffic triangle in front of the brew coffee on b street the the painting of the rainbow flag there really made it so vehicles slowed down and um that that greatly improved my experience in that intersection and so i want to encourage that kind of thought um with other spaces in in our community as well so i'm really glad you you mentioned that because as i'm hearing all of this i keep thinking creative problem solving um there's so many things that need solutions and one of the things i think we have as an attribute in our city are creative thinkers artists planners designers um i i really loved what happened at los galicos when christin through was writing as an artist to help create um identification for these different residences because they all looked alike and um so i i think that we have the capacity for successful problem solving if we really tap the creative talent that we have within within our city yes i could see that be a part of way finding and and gateways to different parts of our neighborhoods or city um and i especially like how that activity implicitly begins to claim the public right away for not just vehicles but for people and that's a that's a very powerful opportunity that's my personal expression and i hope happens here in the city um thank you nate thank you um any other comments yeah i i think like most american cities this i don't know i've always experienced this as a city that's um has deep inherited divisions along lines of race and class um i mean you know in the sense that it's segregated in those terms uh historically and um i guess my key would would be inclusive um to the extent that the general plan offers an opportunity to address those issues and then i have another thought that's kind of vague that i've always been interested in the late modern buildings downtown and uh how uh increasing density or development in santa rosa seems to coincide with a kind of regressive aesthetic program where you know like the new super eight motel gets dressed up like a barn or something uh as a way to harken to the agrarian past even as it gets paved over and uh i don't know i uh it's just something that i think about as i watch this town grow i think there's a there's a kind of attempt at um so what i'm looking for uh to um compensate for uh something that's perceived to be lost by uh making some kind of morphological gesture towards that missing thing in the new buildings that are stood up and i experienced that as a problem well um the city has designed review guidelines where a lot of these issues are discussed and they're they're they're uh if not neighborhood such as the downtown specific they are building form and use specific and i it's always a challenge to to use terminology to describe design but i think i understand that um you're saying a lot of the new design that's coming forward doesn't have integrity in the sense of it's not about the place it's actually in but rather trying to evoke some element that's alien or not a part of that place but let's say outside the city um not being honest yeah yeah that's so there are opportunities there not only downtown but our historic districts where we have a challenge where we need to grow we talked about infill development missing middle housing how do you do that in historic districts and you keep the character of those places that's very much cherished i think that's a huge challenge all of you have spoken if anyone has not i mean i'm this is this is a big topic it's a big project yeah um i would just i i agree i a lot of these things that have been brought up i would have brought up so um i was thinking about the connection and i i'm a new resident i've been here just really i was only here seven months before covid started so um i've not experienced santa rosa at its height of freedom but um it just seems to me there's just a lot of really vibrant neighborhoods and um a lot of interesting things going on and i'm i'm always about that sort of creating you know whether it's i've lived in a lot of cities so um that that that nationwide program like national night out you know just things where there's movements to get people together once we can start doing that kind of thing um community or community gathering as for purely relational aspects not necessarily to solve a problem or deal with something everyone's upset about um so i just want to bring that part up i i sense this is inherent in all the things you're bringing up i'm not saying it's a new side but it's something that i was thinking about one concept that i really picked up on this is i this idea of bump you know we we go to places in our community where we bump into people and it's in that process we reinforce that community we we become social we become invested in it we become a part of it and and um what can we do to create those well maybe you schedule an event such as you suggest and and and you you you fabricate those opportunities yeah uh in time or you begin to develop in a way where you compel or almost force people to bump into one another um so i i think getting together doesn't have to have a purpose it can just happen and that's probably the most powerful way for people to develop relationships in the community i think we do sometimes have to harness the power of leaders and more outgoing people whereas others would not take that initiative but might respond and i'm just talking about in you know neighborhoods in community areas to identify people that actually could lead out on stuff like that kind of utilize their gifts all right um so it looks like we're wrapping up our little discussion here i i wanted to ask andy and amy what what ways can the art and public places committee show up and um provide you know comment and public um how can we provide our voices in this planning phase going forward that's thank you for that question tell your friends this is going on share the link i just uh sent to you i'll give you another one for the city website um encourage people to call me they can reach me at the number i provided uh or my email or email srforward dot at excuse me srcity.org um we will answer questions and get engaged so that that's one level you i mean i hope that we can continue the conversation about how we might collaborate on the community engagement aspect of our work that we're diving into right now and will continue throughout the throughout this program so i think there are plenty of opportunities for us to create artful activities i'll call it that as well because yeah to to to hook people in in a way that surprises them that would be awesome great and before you sign off andy i just wanted to ask eileen do we have any public comments for this item we cannot great thank you andy for leading a very thoughtful discussion with this group today and i look forward to our group participating further and providing some um food for thought for how we can make our community a little bit more uh vibrant and actualizing some of these goals and issues that we discussed today thank you andy opportunity thank you bye bye thank you thank you all right thanks everyone for engaging in conversation i wanted to next move us along to item 5.3 project updates i will hand it over to tara as she will present updates on current projects thank you um i have a few updates today the imagine art in courthouse square project the community engagement process to collect the text for a blessing handcock's piece is currently being designed i think i've mentioned that we have formed a community advisory committee and we've met with that group and have been working on generating ideas for questions or prompts to ask the community to to solicit words and phrases and hoping to launch the actual engagement where we are going out to the community this summer we wanted to be very thoughtful as i've said before in how we phrase that engagement to make sure we are setting ourselves up to receive words and phrases that really capture the santa rosa community as as was intended by the piece so so david ward is the project manager for that and hopefully by our next regular meeting we will have more on that obviously we hope to launch that sooner than our next regular meeting so we will be sending you information that you can share with your friends and communities once we once we do launch that essentially we want to be asking all santa rosa residents to respond in some way and we're tailoring outreach for individuals for organizations or groups organized groups and for youth so that there's various kind of points of entry and invitations made to various in various ways to get the best response so so that's currently going on and for the fifth street parking garage project i think since our last meeting we have announced that the three finalists that were selected and invited to submit the designs are l street art the artist team of mj lindo lawyer and joshua lawyer and matthew floriani those were the three highest scoring and the three artists were artist teams selected by the selection panel to submit proposals so they were selected from the 35 submissions that we received and they are being paid an honorarium to provide these proposals to us they are due june 17th and then there will be an opportunity for the public to view and provide feedback on the designs for about a month's time period and then the selection panel will make a final decision and recommend one artist to the art and public places committee in at the august meeting that's our proposed timeline and our goal for maintenance and conservation the asawa panels as we spoke of last time during project updates there was not a um all the materials have not been quite finalized in order for me to present that item to you today plus the agenda was quite full but um but i will be bringing an item to this committee soon uh with the recommendation to pursue the bronze option we have received to support from the family of ruthasawa to pursue the bronze option so i'm still gathering cost estimates and we'll be bringing that forward to this committee as soon as i can um that those are all of my updates for today but if there's any questions about something on that list or something else i'm happy to answer do any committee members have any questions for tara about projects that are ongoing can you just remind us what the bronze option is yeah i don't think you were at the last meeting i i filled the beans at the last meeting about that um there was also some nice coverage by gay laberan and the press democrat about the history of uh that that the panels for the original fountain and the fact that they actually were intended to be bronze originally but back in the 80s when the piece was done there wasn't enough funding for the bronze option at time so um the bronze option it sounds like a mystery novel or something is essentially to make it make use the original panels which are made of made of gfrc glass fiber reinforced cement um and very fragile and have deteriorated very very much over um the last many years especially with the outdoor elements and the one panel that was on the water side of the fountain got additionally damaged from being underwater um so the idea is to use those as masters and to cast bronze cast and and install those onto the new fountain that will be constructed in the square got you thanks any other question yeah i have a question when you said to use those as the masters to cast in the bronze is there going to be repairs on them first to make sense there's so much deterioration on it on them and is there original mold from those or how is how are those repairs just if you could yeah all of that is being worked out right now and a full plan being developed by our conservator and a bronze foundry who's working with with saw us family to make a proposal for this um i believe the idea would be to um do minimal amounts of repairs to the actual original panels before the molds are made and then during the mold making process they can actually fill in a lot of mist missing detail and correct some of the deterioration through the mold making process and then when the casts are made the bronzes would have would not have the same defects they would be essentially repaired through the bronze casting process but i'm not a i'm not a i don't work at a foundry so i'm leaving that up to them to make the recommendation on on how best to do that but they have they have said that that is probably the best way to address it um thank you exciting yes and and i don't want to um spill beans or speak too much out of turn but tara and i met to talk about preserving the original panels and um there are a lot of questions about how we make that happen but um i think it's important to note that there is an effort underway to after their casts after the molds are made um to preserve them some way or somehow yes the original panels are still the original artwork so there's kind of a duty to preserve them and hopefully allow them to be seen by the public shared with the public but um yeah there's a lot of details to work out because they're large and they need a lot of care so great tara thank you for the update on projects do we have any other quick comments questions all right i'll move us on to uh number six committee member reports and item 6.1 on our agenda is the ad hoc task force uh reports and discussions i understand that all of our task forces have now met if there's anyone who wants to give an update about what their task force is working on currently or or next steps uh this is a great time for us to have an informal discussion about how these task force uh are are coming along great nathan please start us off i just um i spoke with a couple people um ben kinmont who's a conceptual artist based in sabastopol but he was part of a number of very influential groups in new york in the late 80s and his practice focuses on um how cultural production can happen outside of conventional institutional structures and you know really revolves around um questions of like ethics and engaging the public and he offered to give a talk that would you know where he could kind of give us a hit and he also taught it uh cca for a long time um he offered to give a talk on the history of you know kind of publicly engaged or public facing art practices for the group um but i'm sure he would be interested in doing that as a public event so i thought i don't know i spoke with you briefly about it tara but i thought that might be an interesting opportunity and i reached out to greg nemeyer who's a um a data artist who runs the graduate program at uc berkeley and i thought i'd i've been talking to other people who are involved in graduate programs about setting up or sort of setting up a channel for postgraduate um artists to you know come in and perhaps engage in some of these residency possibilities specifically people whose practices revolve around research and the archives and urban planning and i don't know if you want to see about what we've been up to i don't know just a couple things i did great thank you um yeah so to remind everyone nathan and i are on the project development task force uh we are going to be taking a look at the general plan process uh so it was great that andy and amy spoke to us today um we are looking at the general plan and then looking at also the uh santa rosa avenue specific corridor plan for those improvements that are scheduled there and how we can make sure that what's stated in those plans you know it gets carried through to goals and priorities um that that are not just encapsulated in that document but stay relevant and fresh not just sitting on a shelf um so we're very excited about you know connecting with artists and potentially how we can increase visibility between an artist and the planning process so thank you nathan for reaching out and kick starting that conversation um i am very interested in hearing more about kind of the the history of artistic endeavors in these planning processes i've heard a couple of different perspectives on it and i think that is very timely for our our our task force so i i am very interested in that conversation um and yeah i can i join in i really like the idea of also having um a lecture series or some kind of workshop or lecture series with artists to talk about artist involvement in these different arenas that maybe people aren't as familiar with um and not limit ourselves to just having like one artist be brought on board as part of the planning process i think we can look at that as a multi-pronged approach multi-level layered thing so i really appreciate that suggestion from nathan in terms of how to get um act you know get get the community access to just different perspectives different information about how artists can work with a with a community with planning processes so i think that's great great jeff please fill us in about your team so um our team is community engagement melana melanie and i um very soon after the last meeting had a phone conversation and then um there is a very direct correlation to the community engagement efforts of our museum so i invited melanie to join a committee meeting that we had set up for the museum uh which also included uh mcgaldi aus uh who is the community engagement director for the city of santa rosa so um we have a lot of work to do a lot more more uh information to cover in subsequent meetings but we now all know that our public places the office of community engagement and the museum of sinoma county all have community engagement missions that we're addressing and we just have to be looking for ways that we can engage community i'm also on the community advisory committee for the um project so i'm looking at that as having a correlation and actually um nathan what you were just describing in terms of uh maybe um artists lectures or things of that age it also relates and so i think a lot of our job is going to be connecting the dots you know what are the opportunities and how do we how do we um look at things that are already uh happening or have been proposed maybe through another committee or a task force or agency um we don't want to reinvent the wheel but we definitely want to um figure out where the opportunities are so we can engage a greater number of people in a very diverse and inclusive process for um our residents i bit just been doing am i muted let's see oh you're good you're good i do that so much so i've just been doing a running list of every time i talk to somebody i said who should we meet who should we talk to so i have this running tablet going so that's that's my my one thing that i'm working on right now but um we do have more work to do great thank you guys okay and and lisa here we are we got together with tara um and have this an amazing document with lots of resources of a variety of diverse groups in the city and we're having a meeting this wednesday isn't it wednesday tonight with uh sakoral from the city um equity and diversity what is her title let's see she's our um diversity equity inclusion and equal equal opportunity employment officer all right it's a hefty title her focus is on kind of the internal facing diversity equity and inclusion um kind of uh i guess goals or um work plan um but she uh has indicated there's a lot of crossover with what magali tayas does with community engagement in terms of that being the outward facing component so uh it's interesting um i think there is a lot of um there's a lot of crossover amongst like you just said amongst these task forces and connecting the dots so um but yes we have a meeting with her on wednesday yes so i'm in the info space how about you please what do you think oh you just muted yourself yeah you were unmuted very good i try to always mute myself and then unmute but anyways um yes we're just still gathering i want to see what um what we have presented to us and what kind of collaboration we can do and get ideas and stuff on this meeting wednesday before i start you know want to even throw out and make a plan you know i have a whole bunch of notes and what to do and where to go but um and thank you tar forgive me that list um i've added to it but actually not on the one that you but i probably should do that so we can do that together um yeah and then um ann and i have just been talking because um we both have some other things going on but we're just trying to see you know and both of us are available and then we can meet up and we can start doing this but um i look forward till this wednesday to see how that meeting goes and then definitely just start putting our plans in place i just thought of something when we were all sort of talking that um is there a way that we could kind of post something or something that's you know we can all see it or um like you know i'm saying i'm doing a running list but my list might have something some names on it that you know other groups might be interested in or i don't want to talk to them if you've already talked to them um although the message might be different but anyway no but i think that's a good idea melanie because when you were talking and how you're reaching i was just like huh i don't want to be reached out to the same people and that's a good i'm really excited to i think that that's great we're it's a i think we can achieve it it's a great way to keep um things really kind of cohesive i mean i do think it's fine if different people are contacting different groups with slightly different conversations but i think we should all know right i mean yes we should know um the trick is we can't all share things unless it's presented at a public meeting in a public forum so so so we can make this work it can go through through me so essentially um if you're adding to the list or if you've got your own running list send it to me i'll put it with the the running list that i already have or that um others are using and we'll get something cohesive and then um we'll figure out the best way to share it so that we're not violating the brown act that that's the that's just the constraint we have um but yes we we can figure this out we just can't have something we're like it's a google doc and you're all adding things um it has to we i think we can find a workaround so we have to hire a consultant and then they can right exactly yeah pay them the big bucks they'll figure it out it would be interesting to think about if there is some sort of forum that you know it is publicly available if that is something that is okay with the brown act if that doesn't conflict um yeah i'll do a little research on that i mean i think that essentially what i think we can do is once we have a compiled list it'll it'll just have to be shared during a meeting so that it's public information and we can just put the organization's name so that we're not sharing like personal or like contact information um perhaps i mean i i don't want to violate anyone's privacy if there are like neighborhood groups on there that maybe don't want their information broadcast so um but but i think that that's the way that we can do it and if there's other more creative ways i'll i'll find out from other folks in the city something else i wanted to know i'm i'm kind of just dovetailing off of my comment about the general plan and thinking about certain opportunities for uh art to provide for you know improvements to the safety and navigation around certain intersections or parts of town if anyone has thoughts on that please share them with me i um would love to bring that into my conversation with andy uh when i connect with him next about the general plan um but just thinking that that would be kind of a fun uh opportunity with whatever sharing information sharing platform we're able to figure out if we can share you know links to a survey or or a map where it kind of points out opportunity areas um and borrowing that term from our last uh from the art and public places previous goal setting program where there was identified areas for projects but i would like to think about that a little bit more cohesively with the group again so um if it's okay i might just send out a survey through tara and have everyone answer it but um again we'll we'll see what works with our committee and now we communicate with each other and make sure that we're not violating the broad act so i was just curious that since we're having discussions here the um the presentation by the city on the um planning commission or city plan i should say um is it um is that what you had thought it was going to be that discussion i would just i had attended a community workshop previously and i i was interested to see what this presentation how they tailor it towards boards and committees i know that andy and amy like they said they were on the road kind of doing this for all of the city boards and commissions um and i know that they started a very general like he said a 3000 foot kind of look at the plan and um wanting to really focus on the visioning statements behind it and i know that's where you start so i i i tried not to bring any in too many preconceived notions of what they might present but um i knew it would be pretty general okay yeah i think that it's interesting so if you go back to you know the previous general plan or other planning documents they'll often start with goals and priorities and at least when i'm doing an analysis of either a project to be consistent with a plan i always go back to those goals and try to tie it specifically to a goal and then make sure that i can draw a direct correlation to something that is in either the project description of you know providing how many units or what types of community spaces so i always try to tie it back to one of those goals and i um and i think that the vision statement is where they make those goals from so if we've kind of wrapped up our discussion about our ad hoc task force i'm looking forward to our group collaborating more even though we're all on different task forces i think that's great that we want to be involved with the other groups um i would like to move to item number seven which is future agenda items and would like to open up an opportunity for idea generation for us to kind of brainstorm about future items that could be on our agenda um and this is somewhat new hi bud sorry my dog just walked in um but i would like to kind of kick off a more casual conversation about you know what what opportunities there are for us to bring in and Nathan opened up that a little bit of you know artists that could speak to our group or at a larger community event but um if there was anything pressing on anyone's mind that we needed to be aware of Nathan yeah i feel like i harp on this a bit but i um i think it would be really great to find private partners who could make commercial real estate spaces available this is very common in most european cities um as a space for artists Nathan how do you um what what action or what type of discussion would help with furthering that conversation like what could we bring back as an agenda item for a future discussion well um i think it's just a question of making the connection with the right people i don't feel like personally i haven't had much luck with that but um i think the committee could really grease the wheels and it could do a lot for local artists in the uk there's a company called camalot um in hamster dam it's a municipally run thing um usually they do it under the paradigm of anti squat which was it was something that was introduced to prevent squatters from taking over after that heyday in the 70s and 80s um but they you know they give keys to artists to commercial spaces the artists have access to the spaces spaces for very minimal rent and um they only get like a week or two of notice prior to be prior to being kicked out if they find a commercially viable okay so maybe it's something like um maybe we could prepare some examples to bring forward to the committee to show and then maybe the discussion would be to consider some type of programming from the public art committee to start uh to support a program like that here in san rosa i think that would be great and i know you made an effort to do that with municipally owned buildings and got we did it with private private we did it with private too um but we had trouble we ran the phantom gallery program for a few years and in like what 2007 eight nine something like that um and we used only private property commercial space downtown for that didn't the open and out um plan include a fair amount of my dog uh private property placements seems like that part of it yeah but it's i think i think we're talking more about like physical use of the space rather than window front displays that's really all open and out did i think it's slightly slightly different type of you but but yeah similar yeah yeah and i'm familiar with programs like that too i just wanted to make sure i was yeah same same yeah and and actually um working in new jersey and seeing some of what has happened in other cities um a collaboration with the chamber of commerce or another um uh we had a collaboration between the local arts council and the business associate the merchants association in princeton that um resulted in some projects and didn't go as well as i you know but you know um there are other models be sure um and and i'm wondering patara if it's premature to i mean i think this is somewhat related to um the county is now looking at um developing um a public art strategy or at least so researching um the possibility of a public art strategy all right is that something that we should put on an agenda um or is that maybe for a little bit further in the future um just to make sure that we're up to speed on what the county might be doing yeah i think that's a great agenda item for the future i'm not sure that they're ready yet to maybe do outward um conversations about that i mean i know they're just just starting their own planning process but um i would definitely put that on the list to bring back maybe just for informational and feedback input you know i'm not exactly sure what that would look like but um i think it would be nice to share information and this this agenda item will be a standing item on the agenda from now on so i mean there's there's no pressure necessarily to come up with all the best all your greatest ideas today on the spot so the idea is to really take up what risa suggested in terms of idea generation and that will keep her running list of things um so that kind of like a parking lot of ideas and future things to bring back to the committee so um keep keep your minds going about it and you can bring ideas to any any meeting um and and share them under this agenda item okay Nathan you had another comment go ahead was there someone else i was just thinking um it might make sense to have some kind of database or list of um small spaces that might be uh kind of ripe for some kind of activation um yeah because if you know i think probably most artists wouldn't you know think to take over a publicly held space but i would imagine there are spaces that might be interesting and if we were to sort of set up a gate to those spaces so to speak it might be fruitful yeah are you talking uh outdoor public space or or any anything i was thinking outdoor stuff just you know vacant spaces you know marginal spaces tend to be um productive in relation to the arts i think yeah there's often a bit more flexibility with what you can do with the space and you're on mute sorry i'm just going to add just in thinking about these kind of generating spaces and finding and when i was in seattle for 11 years i did some public work and commercial real estate people were super helpful to know what what was going on underneath the surface that we would never know you know the denny's that had sat there forever and was possibly going to be a historic spot and had chain link fences just all of a sudden there were there were ways to get in there's stuff going on below the surface we can't see so they were really helpful it's a great suggestion and i have a couple of connections that i can reach out to in that regard something that i also thought of was you know potential taking over and use of spaces that are defunct or to be demolished or somehow adapted when i was living in tecoma washington uh city had partnered or the city had created opportunity for one of their parking garages to be used as a public art space and there was you know a time cap on it you could really only go in there a certain number hours of a week but it was a really neat open opportunity for artists to go in and do whatever they wanted to do in a safe space but and of course there were some ground rules you know like no no tagging no game related anything no profanity but i got really energized by that kind of thinking so again going off of that list that we got that nathan proposed that we start putting together i think this is a fruitful way to think about those concepts and maybe push something forward so i have one more and then um am i muted no um is you know i've been talking about the fact that i would really like to see a youth component to our committee and how we could make that happen and um add some add a you know rotating position or something um anyway that's my two cents what's what's the age range that you're i don't know somewhat high school yeah thank you i'll definitely put that on the list i think we can bring that forward on a future agenda at least i can do the research um as to how we might be able to have a youth representative sit on the committee there's a mechanism to allow that on city council i know that they've had youth reps before um and i think other boards and commissions are looking at that again too so i can definitely do some information gathering and bring back some some reports um great to the committee thank you guys this has been a fun conversation about how to kind of open our aperture a little bit and again think about future agenda items if anyone has anything else to propose or to bring up that'd be great if not i am going to move towards adjournment does anyone have any final remarks well thank you everyone for your information our next meeting of the art and public places uh sorry the next regular meeting of art and public places committee scheduled for monday june 5th 2021 will be cancelled due to the fourth of july holiday we will stay tuned for any opportunity for special meetings before then but um if not we will all rejoin each other in august great thanks