 Council Member Tibbets can we do a quick mic check to make sure your audio is working? Is it working? Thank you How about Council Member Sawyer? Council Member Sawyer, can we get a quick mic check? Council Member Fleming, can we get a mic check? Hello Here we go Thank You Council Member Sawyer All right, let's go ahead and call today's City Council meeting into session Madam City clerk Could you please call the roll? Yes, thank you Council Member Tibbets Here Council Member Schwedhelm here Council Member Sawyer here Council Member Fleming here Council Member Alvarez Vice Mayor Rogers Mayor Rogers here let the record show that all council members are present Great, thank you so much Madam City clerk our first item today is our closed session agenda Let's go ahead and see if we have any public comment on our closed session items For those of you wishing to make a public comment via zoom, please raise your hand or dial star 9 and zoom There I'm not seeing any raised hands nor am I seeing any participants at the podiums for public comment and council chamber Okay, then we'll go ahead and recess into closed session. We'll be back for our study session in just a little bit testing testing For those of you just joining the meeting via zoom live translation in Spanish is available in Members of public wishing to listen in Spanish can join the Spanish Channel to do so click on the interpretation icon in your zoom toolbar It looks like a globe once you join the Spanish Channel. We recommend you shut off the main audio so you only hear the Spanish translation Interpreter Charles, can you please repeat that in Spanish? Again for those of you just joining the meeting live translation is available in Spanish and members of the public wishing to listen in Spanish Can join the Spanish Channel via zoom to do so click on the interpretation icon in the zoom toolbar It looks like a globe once you join the Spanish Channel. We recommend you shut off the main audio so you only hear the Spanish translation Interpreter Charles, can you please repeat that in Spanish? para los recién llegados a la reunión la interpretación está Disponible en español y las personas quienes desean escuchar en español pueden pasar al canal de español Para cambiar de canal haga clic en el icono de interpretación ubicado en la barra de herramientas de zoom Parece un globo de raqueo ya que según al canal de español Recomendamos que apagan el audio principal para poder escuchar la interpretación claramente. Thank you Charles Sound check Council Member Sawyer came in loud and clear. Thank you Thanks to you Again for those of you just joining the meeting live translation in Spanish is available Members of the public wishing to listen in Spanish can join the Spanish Channel via zoom to do so Click on the Spanish interpretation icon on your zoom toolbar. It looks like a globe Once you've joined the Spanish Channel, we recommend you shut off the main audio so you only hear the Spanish translation For the interpreter on the Spanish line, can you please commence translation? Additionally for the interpreter on the main channel. Can you please repeat this in Spanish? For those who have just arrived at the meeting, the interpretation is available in Spanish and the people who wish to listen in Spanish can go to the Spanish Channel To change the channel, click on the interpretation icon located on the zoom toolbar. It looks like a globo of raqueo Since according to the Spanish Channel, we recommend that you turn off the main audio so you can hear the interpretation clearly Thank you Charles All right, madam city clerk. Let's go ahead and resume the council meeting. Would you please call the roll? Yes, thank you mayor councilmember Tibbetts Councilmember Schwedhelm here councilmember Sawyer here councilmember Fleming here Councilmember Alvarez vice mayor Rogers President mayor Rogers here let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of councilmember Tibbetts Great, thank you so much madam clerk a little bit of housekeeping before we get begin I want to welcome folks into our chambers for the first time and closing in on a year and a half We will be doing a hybrid meeting today where folks are asked to maintain their Distancing and wearing masks when they are not speaking Councilmembers will be doing the same thing from the dais when we're not speaking will be wearing them as well You'll also notice that we have a number of our council members who are joining via zoom Just as the public will be able to so you'll have an opportunity to speak either here in person on each item or via public comment Madam zoom host Can you please explain how folks will be able to participate in today's meeting either in person or on zoom? I can do that mayor After each agenda item is presented the mayor will ask for councilments comments and then open it up for public comment The mayor will first take public comment from those participating via zoom Then move on to members of the public participating in person The host and zoom will be lowering all hands until public comment is open for the agenda item Once the mayor has called for public comment He will announce for the public to raise their hand if they wish to speak on the specific agenda item If you are calling in to listen to the meeting audibly you can dial star nine to raise your hand If you wish to provide a public comment and are attending the meeting in person Please sign up to speak on an item with the administrator at the top of the room This process is in lieu of speaker cards in order to reduce touch points due to COVID-19 Julie will ask your name What you would item you wish to speak on and for one a one sentence summary of your statement for the record The mayor will then call on those in person who have signed up to speak on the item Once all live public comments zoom and in person have been heard the meeting host will play voicemail public comments If you provide a live public comment on an agenda item But also submitted an email e comment or recorded a voice message public comment Your email e comment or voice message public comment will not be duplicated read or played during the meeting Additionally, there are two public comment periods on today's agenda to speak on non agenda matters items 13 and 17 This is a time when any person may address the council on matters not listed on this agenda But which are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the council Throughout today's agenda when the mayor calls for public comment an interpreter will be prepared to assist anyone needing Interpretation those using interpreter support will be afforded additional time for your public comment as required by the Brown Act We ask those listening in on Spanish Channel But wishing to make a public comment to turn off the interpretation channel entirely at the time you hear your name called So you can join the main channel to make your public comment heard and Translated into English this icon may now look like a circle with an e s in the middle and the word Spanish underneath You can then rejoin the Spanish Channel at the conclusion of your comment to continue listening in Spanish. Thank you Thanks much madam clerk and for folks if we have spillover we will be usual utilizing the court Courtyard here at City Hall with amplified sound We may have to do some shuffling to make sure that folks can get in to give their public comment on items So I hope folks will work with our staff to do that in an orderly manner But that let's go ahead and get a report out from our city attorney on our closed session items Yes, good afternoon. Mr. Mayor council met in closed session on two items item two point one Was concerned meeting with labor negotiators and the council did give direction to the labor negotiators item two point two concerned a matter of existing litigation regarding the matter of the appeal of Santa Rosa Police Department of Certain findings by Cal OSHA and in that matter as well the council Discussed and gave direction to legal counsel. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much. Mr. City manager Let's go on to item three point one Mayor members of council item three point one is a study session item the topic for discussion today is the shared space Parklet update and permanent program options Risa de la Rosa our division director of economic development and Gabe Osborne our division director of development services will be presenting the staff presentation Hey, good afternoon. Mayor Rogers and members of the council I gave and I are here with parking manager Kim, you know Chief building official Jesse Oswald fire chiefs fire division chief Scott moon and Rob Sprinkel the deputy director of traffic engineering All of whom are available to help answer questions. Should she happen throughout the presentation or after And before we start I just want to mention two things the first is on our proposed timeline as The pandemic related restrictions that that spurred the temporary program are winding down Our goal is to bring a policy back to you for action in either late August Well by September ish With check-ins with the economic development subcommittee between now and then we're on a relatively aggressive timeline Because we want to accommodate Or try to accommodate a smoother transition From what was or has been allowed under the COVID program to what will be eventually permissible under a permanent program and The second thing is to communicate our approach. Our quest is to Sorry our quest is to carry Out carry forward the streamline permit process we developed at last April with the acknowledgement that we need to balance commercial activities with public space and the Transportation demands of the recovery economy especially in consideration of the diversity of our neighborhoods and streetscapes and so with that next slide, please Firstly, I feel compelled to acknowledge that we've been trying and fits and starts for years To create a parklet program, but it really did take the pandemic to force the issue to help us understand What those issues are and to find the pathway and what's possible as well as the implications in doing so and so while we originally emphasize the idea of parklets or the use of curbside parking spaces for social non-parking uses we've actually expanded that idea as a As a critical part of our crisis response this past year. So in part we've modeled it Other cities it's been happening worldwide, but San Francisco has been our our primary model Moving forward. I think it's good to remember that while food and drink establishments are most commonly The ones to pursue parklets and other right-of-way uses What we're talking about today is actually not limited to eateries, but can be inclusive of other public uses so With a with a year behind this We recognize not just the opportunities and the differences between shared spaces as an all-encompassing concept And parklets as a specific component of that but also the nuances that you see on this slide between those categories or as we've categorized them and Well, I'll get to parklets in a second. I want to start and just talk just for a moment on shared spaces For the purpose or what we're calling your spaces for the purpose of the study session and it's really as the site says sidewalks roadways and what should read not just private but public and private courtyards lots and other open spaces For some of these uses sidewalks in particular. We already have a limited enabling pathway Though the pandemic showed us success with broader options next slide, please What I mean by this is the use of sidewalks for outdoor dining is already allowed Mostly just through zoning clearance But in some cases requiring a minor conditional use permit the difference is between Normal times and normal quotes, of course is that a student for outdoor dining Must be situated adjacent to and abutting the indoor restaurant And what we've successfully Experimented with during the pandemic was expanding sidewalk dining into other areas of the sidewalk such as Bulb outs like the the middle picture is Mary's They went beyond their traditional seating in there now into the area the Bulb out area for Street Or also into the street such as what you if anybody's been to brew what you might see and brew and where they expanded into An underutilized area of the street with I should say the will and consent of their neighbors. And so that's the picture on the right I'm for even to a bigger degree What we with what we did with the open mouth program Where using a special event permit we close most of four Street entirely for activation and the result was placemaking and activation of space that They're really unleashed a broad community support in a way that we just haven't previously seen expressed There were a number of surveys that we've done throughout the process so from a Business owner perspective speaking specifically about the downtown area where we've seen the bulk of the new uses in the right-of-way and Where Street parking is at a premium? Well, some merchants as you know are angst ridden over the loss of parking The temporary program this last year is actually what stabilized the many restaurants that have thus far made it through and While we did lose some ground floor businesses We also gained some restaurants including in spaces that were vacant long before the pandemic and of those new restaurants Some of those owners explicitly called out Santa Rosa's willingness to pursue programs like open and out and to extend out of seating As the the things that encourage them to invest here despite the pandemic Um Before I move on from this flight I also want to give you an example of other public and private spaces beyond sidewalks and roadways That could be activated Through this program and those would be for example Comstock Mall or JG way and then a good example of private property activation If you've eaten at Lagar and what Lagar did in River Square with their alleyway is a good example of Private property activation, which we will not oversee that is an example of that next slide, please Okay, moving on to Parklets, there are essentially three types. There's public parklets Which are fixed structures that provide full-time publicly accessible space with no commercial activity and that's what we're sort of representing in that the Bottom photo on this slide and the second is the movable commercial parklet These have movable fixtures. They're set up during limited business hours for commercial activity But they're taken down and removed once business is done for the day And so the space can refer it back to parking in the temporary program You might think about max they're open until like three or something like that and then if it was movable It could go away and then lastly the fixed structure commercial parklets Accommodates commercial activity during business hours, but is otherwise still open to the public during non-business hours So it just doesn't go away and From here, I'm going to hand it over to Gabe to give you an overview of our existing program Which is actually the foundation for some of the technical elements we're proposing as part of the permanent program So next slide, please Thank you, Raisa and good afternoon. Mayor Rogers and members of the council as racer touched on in the previous slides Parklets and other shared space areas can really play a critical role in activating and reprogramming public space And they definitely have the ability to change the existing view of the streetscape in a positive way But of course anytime we place a private improvement within the public right of way It can present a series of challenges with the installation and the ongoing maintenance of that improvement Fortunately, what we've been able to do over the last year is provide quite a few test cases on how that would work and function in the right Of way And we really gained some very helpful useful information as part of that process that we can help to place on a permanent program And this specifically gets into the area that is eligible for parklets or use areas And then the specific requirements that go into those And what we can see on the detail on the left that is really the first stab We took it identifying usable areas through our covet program Forceding areas in the right of way and this typically highlights a wider sidewalk So this would be example of four street where you you definitely have a wider sidewalk there And the first zone that you see is the frontage zone And that's typically the area directly adjacent to the building and that is the area that can often house Permanent outdoor seating and many of the restaurants in the four street area do have activated that area for permanent seating Then there's typically a through zone, which is a minimum of five feet It can go down to four feet around obstructions And then you have a furnishing zone that is directly behind the curb and that area is usually occupied with street lights With tree wells with other functions of the roadway that can take up space But it can also provide adequate space and in rice's example of bulb outs There are certain areas on certain streets where there's usable area and that and that would be traditional sidewalk seating And then of course we have the curb zone and that is typically the area on the street side of the curb That is is currently occupied with street parking and then you have the street itself So when we look at parklet programs, the parklet program has always identified that curb zone as the appropriate location When we look at examples such as brew and things that we've tried through this temporary covet program It's opened up different areas that we normally would have not found to be eligible And there is some uniqueness to that and I think as we go through this study session Some of the areas where it would be helpful on our end to Experience or receive excuse me impact input from council is on some of these areas That might be a little more challenging that might create a bit of a deviation from aditional parklet If we do want to activate some of those areas It would be helpful to analyze that as part of the review of our permit program And be able to determine whether or not our standard requirements are applied or whether additional requirements will apply And some of those requirements that are fairly universal to either a temporary or permanent program are highlighted on the right And some of these do actually control siting or locations. So they will make an area either eligible or ineligible The first which is a critical one is accessibility and that doesn't really affect location All business owners that are operating a parklet are creating a unique situation and a unique experience in the right of way And that experience needs to provide accessible seating and typically when we talk about accessible seating It's wheelchair accessible. There are slope requirements and there are seating requirements associated with that Obviously, we're also putting parklets in the public right of way and those go over public utilities And in some situations they can create a conflict public utilities are underground But they do have boxes and structures that are accessible from the street surface So they have to maintain access to those at all time We also have concerns with fire protection in that area and this is specifically related to Accessibility to fire hydrants or fire department connections at the building. So there's clearance requirements to maintain certain distances And traffic has been a big one And under our temporary program, we have limited parklets to streets that are 25 miles per hour or less And streets that have a certain trip generation So lower impact roadways where there's less interaction between the parklet and in the oncoming traffic Also drainage parklets are placed in an area that is designed to drain water. That's the curve So there's specific elements that come into that Maintenance and operation is critical Mainly because of it is not maintained properly What role does the city have in cleaning it up if it's not in a safe state or a clean state? And then also we have construction and design and in the next slide We'll we'll dive a little bit into design. So I'll focus mainly on the construction And that's simply a permitting process and that's fairly universal on anything. It doesn't really control siting It really just controls process and fees and we have some future slides that will talk about that And I think an important point is anytime you have specific siting requirements You have to understand the cumulative effect of those siting requirements. So when they all apply They can take out certain areas that we would normally say should be eligible for those parklets So typically when we develop a policy, we often build in a relief valve Which is commonly referred to as a variance to make sure that we can encourage these in certain areas Or all areas that are eligible just based on this requirement And that's another important point I think to provide feedback through the study session is once again What sort of areas should we target other than the very traditional area of paid or non paid parking where parklets Traditionally go next slide, please So obviously with parklets, there's a big concern about design and What we have seen is the design of parklets has evolved well before COVID There were many agencies that have adopted parklet policies And it starts turning into a fairly regional Basic design is what we see here and this was taken out of the National Association of City Transportation Officials It's their urban street design guide and it lays out the general functionality and components of a parklet And what we can see from this detail is they are typically placed in parking areas where you have really parking in both sides So what we see on item one is there's wheel stops or protected measures for people navigating in and out of the parking slot So they don't bump the parklet Two we also have vertical elements that are placed at the corners of the parklet And the purpose of this is to ensure that it's visible not only in the day but at night So there's usually reflective material that goes along that or it can be located on the parklet itself To be able to make sure that they're visible for oncoming traffic They're also onto these regional standards is more of a desire to really maintain and also maximize the width of the parking area And that can vary from feet six feet to greater. It also can be a larger area when you're dealing with diagonal parking and not perpendicular Under our temporary program We created an additional buffer there to reduce it down a little bit to maximize the space between the vehicular traffic and the parklet But regionally they typically will occupy the full parking space Item number four on this list is really ADA Related and it also is related to six and this has to do with once again This is a unique experience and it has to maintain compliance with ADA and that typically is accessibility and slope So streets are designed to run water from the street to the curb So they are sloped at a slope that is greater than what ADA allows So parklets almost always involve some level of a platform to flatten it out And as part of that platform it deals with the transition from the curb So you have a flush surface from the sidewalk to the parklet to avoid any trip hazards or obstructions from an accessibility standpoint The other component that they have is either integrated seating or movable items So there is always a barrier around the parklet and that barrier can include benching or seating More commonly they are movable tables They can also include other amenities such as heaters if they go through the appropriate process portable heaters And umbrellas they typically do not involve tents And that was one of the things that we saw with the evolution of our temporary program Is parklets are often secondary to a primary use in the building So they're seasonal in nature in many ways What we saw through our temporary program is we were maximizing the space in the right of way because the interior use was shut down So there were more allowances in there to allow that to function in the winter than what we traditionally see under parklet programs So that's an important point to note that typically under a permanent policy you wouldn't see tenning associated with that Another critical piece is the guardrails or that define the safe area and we typically refer to these as delineators So what is separating people from the travel area? And there's a balance act here between safety and aesthetics and many of these policies have tried to figure out that appropriate balance Most of them will include some wooden structure to keep people from entering the street There are higher protective measures such as water barricades that have been utilized in some of the temporary programs But more regionally and universally they are wooden structures that have some aesthetic value to them They can be bolstered up a bit to add another safety element But they typically aren't your traditional water barricades or k-rails that you would see as normal delineators from temporary traffic needs What they don't include which we we have had specific requests for this is they typically do not include vertical structures above 36 inches And they do not include roofs And the reason for that is because these are typically built to be temporary installations They could be relocated in the event that utility work underneath it is needed They can be relocated if the operator no longer wants it So they're very temporary in nature And also when you build a structure over the top There are other concerns that are structural in nature. It changes the complexity of the building permit It can change fire requirements sprinklers can come into the mix There are also concerns about wind instability and what sort of safety elements does it potentially have to incorporate to protect people in the right way So typically they are what you're seeing here, which is not a roof So as we go into the design as far as what would be helpful from a feedback standpoint is As we move forward with a permanent parklet program if we use the universal standards that have been applied Do we want to go greater or lesser than any of what you're seeing here? And you know as far as safety measures as far as other amenities or the things that we should incorporate And we will restate this towards the back end of the presentation as we step through the areas that we're looking for input on But that would be helpful when we get into the design arena Next slide, please So in addition to design and in some of the physical separation requirements associated with parklets There are typically fees that are either on the permitting side or in this particular situation the parking side So when a parklet occupies a paid parking area, how does that work from a cost reimbursement standpoint? And at this point I will hand the presentation back to Issa and she will dive into the impacts and the potential impacts in paid parking areas Alrighty, so by all accounts the building of parklets and shared spaces as shared space uses is not cheap so samples from Some of the studies that I I read laid out Initial cost versus annual cost and so for initial cost Installation including relevant permit fees permits. I should say permits and fees Can run around 10 to 20 thousand dollars for a standard structure with the bulk of the cost Spent on the structure not the fees to be clear and then annual costs pretty much come down to maintenance Which for one study I read ran about $500 a year to keep the space clean clear graffiti and otherwise up to city code And then also on an annual cost would be the annual permit renewals With this I I do want to touch on Some samples of the return on investment before I get into the cost of the fees because I talked that Recognizing that it can be expensive. So I reviewed a couple of case studies one from 2017 that said I think it was done by San Francisco Company, but it said that a parklet sponsor in San Francisco spent about $16,000 to construct their parklet And had about $4,000 in initial permit related fees for total cost of $20,000 But according to the restaurant owner The parklet brought in about 15 to 20 percent more customers over the course of the one year period And so that offset the cost of the of the parklet within that year And then a similar study from Australia found the same thing looking at sales receipts from two weeks prior to installation and two weeks after And they found That sales jumped on average by about 20 percent So they were looking only at the immediate time period of before and after the parklets went in And then lastly a more in-depth study on parklets. I should say it was the parklet influence on pedestrian traffic behavior and perception that was commissioned in 2011 by the San Francisco Boards Streets Project They indicated that Although the benefit to businesses was most clearly felt by the by the sponsoring business There was no there were no negative impacts on nearby businesses that were identified in that study Okay, so back to fees and costs Uh, I should say Kim. They know can speak up to this More as needed But by way of a general overview in areas where paid parking where there is paid parking Staff feels strongly that there should be an offset for that lost revenue So to understand the impact to the parking district of our temporary program We currently have 25 approved temporary parklets using 57 meters spaces The estimated revenue reduction to the parking funds over the course of the nine months shown here July through April Ran to about 175 thousand dollars For the permanent program We're proposing a cost per meter space be the be based on the Revenue baseline Of either the most recent 12 months of paid parking revenue per space at the time of the application Or a set calendar year or fiscal year period in which parking revenue is collected Given the technology available You know, we do have the I believe we do have the ability to assess the cost In a fairly specific way. I think down to the space that Kim can talk on that That said There are other options that council can consider And those are for example to create a set fee Regardless of the location Within the area where there is paid parking. So within that downtown district And then another fee in non-meter parking areas or Council could simply take those parking spaces out of inventory and not charge for them at all So the parklets are most popular in our downtown needed areas because Staff is proposing the program to be available city-wide parking related fees become the Sort of location-based considerations Should we have different fees for use of spaces within the parking district versus Where there are in areas where there are no meters Also thinking back to the different types of parklets We have should the cost to use parking spaces be different for fixed versus movable structures And then lastly should those spaces be considered public spaces where anyone can have access to and use the spaces even if they're not a patron of the sponsoring business or or should the sponsoring business Be allowed to privatize that that piece of public right of way and what is the cost of that? Or is there a hybrid model where perhaps? Public parklets and the movable commercial parklets are considered differently than Then the commercial parklets next slide So gave this is you Thank you, raisa. So in addition to the parking element, there are a few different other fees that are more or less associated with the permitting Two of these are one time and one is ongoing So typically anything built in the public right of way does have to go through an encouragement permit process And the encroachment permit for parklet is anticipated to be something in the realm of $700. It may very well be less Some of the fees vary based on the amount of public improvements that the parklet is proposing And usually those are typically minor when you're mainly constructing private improvements So that would be one time likely applied to all new applications And under the encroachment permit and under the current city code when an encroachment permit extends beyond 12 months It actually requires an agreement for the ongoing nature of that encroachment permit And we typically refer to those as revocable license agreements and typically when an improvement goes beyond 12 months It is because it is a private improvement that is being operated in the right way An example I can provide is Very similar to like a retaining wall that if it encroaches into the city's right-of-way the retaining wall is privately maintained It's supporting private property. It can't go anywhere It is going to be there long term So the revocable license agreement recognizes that it places the responsibility of that impacting encroachment on the owner of that private item and it requires insurance and there's identification language It also recovers for the really the benefit of a private improvement going the public right-of-way And that is actually a fairly small fee It was set by council resolution many years ago And it does escalate by four percent And it currently has a fee of approximately four hundred and thirteen dollars for the annual license And then there's a processing fee of approximately 275 So in in the event that we're not dealing with a paid parking area This is another solution that we can look at that this would be in an area where it's outside of Really an area that the city protects from a parking standpoint that the revocable license agreement still would kick in and apply We can also remove this so if it turns out that there's a more suitable fee that's covered through the parking Especially downtown that we can look at actions where it would take this away for parklets So we're not necessarily overlapping that but that is another avenue To make sure that the private parklet pays for that use of public space Now I believe this is one of the fees that if it's a public parklet And the public has the use of that that it likely doesn't apply the same way So this is likely specific to the private parklet that's controlled by the business entity The third fee list on here are the water and sewer demand fees and those are one-time connection fees And this is another one that likely only applies if it is a private use What would happen in a parklet situation is that is actually an expansion of a seating area So it is increasing the operational area of that business and they can control it And that does increase the sewer and water use of a business and typically when a business expands They're susceptible to paying these one-time fees It's hard to say what those are. They're based on the individual business type And they're based on the square footage of that They could end up being a few thousand dollars in a one-time fee They don't always apply to every situation though So I think it's it's important to note that that necessarily isn't across the board and it only applies to the private So those are a few other fees in addition to what rice that was mentioning on the parking side that could apply in this particular case Next slide, please So this actually brings us to the conclusion of our presentation So mayor if you would like we can pause for the council to ask any questions that rice and I On material that rice and I have presented We can take public comment And we have highlighted the specific areas that we're looking for input and we'd be more than happy to provide a Refresher on these areas as we dive into those after the comment period All right. Thank you so much gaban rise. Uh, we will go ahead and do questions from council members Take public comment and then come back and put that slide back up for For your consideration from council members Council, are there any questions to start? All right, I just had a quick one Gabe, I wanted to make sure I kind of understood one of the policy considerations that you were asking about Is there a scenario where This policy construct would allow somebody to have a parklet in front of a business that they didn't own Without approval from that business So for example, could a restaurant have a competing restaurant? potentially set up shop right in front of Their their place with a parklet That's an excellent question and we address this issue actually under the temporary program That when we define the frontage of a business It's typically from one edge of that business to the next and it has to stay within the frontage If you extend beyond that in any matter then it usually triggers a public process where you have to get approval from the adjacent property owner Now number one it can be a competing business number two You're taking available space that that non competing business would would potentially want to use So our hope is there's you stay within the footprint and the footprint is a direct projection out from the edges of those buildings And then if you go outside of that, that's when the permission from the adjacent property owners comes into the mix Okay That said if I may mayor You know, if you've seen examples, there's also a question of are they public or private? So there are competing restaurants in jurisdictions where they'll have a parklet But any of them they either go in together with it But anybody can use it. So it's a question of privatizing the space or keeping it public one And two it is the require it would remain the requirement of the program to get the buy-in of the neighboring businesses Okay, thank you. And then what would the flow of traffic on say fourth street start to look like And I know in particular we've we've had areas that have been blocked off closer to the mall And then opened back up more further down the street. Would you envision that you would still have the complete? ability to drive through there or would we be talking about closing down specific sections based on which parklets were in effect or not Let rice chime in on the back end The way we are envisioning is the street remains open that all streets remain open So the the design of the parklet has to account for the fact that there is Parallel traffic moving past it Okay, thank you council. Are there any other questions? All right, we'll go and go to public comment on this item I'll start with eris Thanks, it's eris weaver from the sonoma county bicycle coalition One of the things that I have just totally loved during the whole covid thing has been this transformation Of coming up with alternate uses for public spaces that had previously been Used just for storing private property in the form of vehicles. And so anything that allows This kind of creative alternate use of spaces We are definitely for One of the things that I would love to see is some something worked into this for being able to transform especially some of the formerly vehicle parking spaces into Bicycle parking spaces You can fit 10 or more bikes in one bike in one vehicle parking space and right now I keep hearing from cyclists the barrier for doing everyday errands that there's not Enough decent bicycle parking in a lot of parts of this city And we end up having to compete with pedestrians, right? We always put bike racks on the sidewalk Rather than converting vehicle parking into bike parking. We convert pedestrian space into bike parking So I would love to see some way for that to be worked in in all of this as well as to Mayor roger's comment about things Parklets or alternate uses being directly in front of business spaces If that could somehow be expanded and for example as a nonprofit the bicycle coalition would love to partner with the city to help make What i'm talking about happen in different parts of the city that would be a public use of already existing public space um Still for parking but for a different sort of the vehicle But that would not be Tied to a specific business use. Thank you All right. Thank you so much eris. We'll go with thomas thank you and Get used to the mask here so What I saw with the utilization of of these parklets is was really fantastic uh, when you think of Of I think it's called m s development or whatever the spot Montgomery village And the people when they commented about the purchase of Montgomery village was they wanted it to be the same as it was which was I mean, you know the difference between Montgomery village and and caught in town, right in caught in town you drive up and There's there's no community around it. There's there's nothing going on This doesn't there's you have to go inside and and everything is very sterile Whereas you go to Montgomery village and it's active and there are people there They're walking around and and that's the difference So the difference here and and forgive me if I mentioned I've I've done over four million square feet of Of commercial retail development like this and that's equivalent of like 20 Bullocks will sure you know adding 20. So we we didn't just add them or make them We we added them to an existing million square foot uh commercial space and the whole idea was like a at um at uh Newport beach in inside of the uh The fashion island was to takes uh jc pennies And convert that and so if you go down there, that's a that's a community market What was jc pennies? And you know you went downstairs and it was all seemed like a basement and everything That whole thing was opened up and became a community market where where there are many vendors and it's all Vegetables and fruits and and it's just very colorful and beautiful compared to like jc pennies right The point is is that's what this does This is really fabulous And it's really active, but you do have to have the considerations of like the bicycles and the pedestrians and I would Just thinking Is that having the spaces be permanent? Time-wise is is problematic from the standpoint of the parking But the having the flexibility of them moving them In and out depending on the demand for parking versus the demand for for um The beverages or food so for instance like russian river would have a different time frame Of demand and when they would use those spaces than everybody else But but having that flexibility would be great And we've been beneficial for the parking and beneficial for the restaurants and everybody. It's really fantastic. Thank you All right. Thank you thomas The last that I see for in-person public comment will go to our zoom We'll go with gale followed by christin Can you hear me? Yes, we can okay I'll be very brief I'm going to be making some comments later about safe parking for people that are without homes in our community and I can't help but notice the contrast with the Delight that we are probably all feeling about this very creative idea of parklets for um for humans to eat to dine But we and and and these will be using public right of ways But we don't allow in our community people to sleep in public right of ways even though eating and sleeping are both Very basic needs. That's all I'm going to say right now. Thank you Thank you so much gale christin followed by chris Hi there. Good afternoon. Thank you mayor and members of council I would like to commend the sanat rosa city staff for moving this item forward I'm very excited to see this uh transition from a temporary program And move forward towards a permanent program that could be implemented citywide First off would like to commend staff for moving very quickly to roll out the temporary program in in response to the kovat 19 pandemic crisis and I'm looking forward to a policy that Actualizes goals that have been set forward in the specific plan and the general plan. I think these Parklets make for great use of public space that Are engaging and exciting and lead to more economic Growth and opportunities within sanat rosa. So thank you for pushing this forward I really encourage The council to direct staff to layer in opportunities for flexibility when it comes to Zones that either are paid or non paid parking so that there can be Bringing in of experience from the temporary parklets who these business owners are What program or what would be? Incentivizing for them to build additional spaces that are exciting to the city. So please I hope that you layer in flexibility with this plan and keep it going. Thank you very much All right. Thank you so much next we'll go to chris followed by anita Thank you. I'll be very brief. I'm chris wilson. I'm the executive director for the historic railroad square association and You know, I applaud the creativity and it's been so wonderful to be outside and have offer alternatives for businesses And I totally agree with the the idea of the flexibility Of being able to move these around depending on demand is is a very All for that. I think a lot of our merchants would be happy to hear that too One concern looking at the diagram that We've provided is that it shows the parking spots as parallel not angled the way they are especially in railroad square And that would that would present a real problem with space issues taking up a lot more parking Than what we're losing now. So just wanted to bring that up and hope that you will consider Consider looking at that. I'm not sure if the if your Plan and diagram is set in stone that would hope you would consider that So, thank you Thank you so much chris. We'll go to anita Anita, are you able to unmute? Mayor, I'm showing Anita as unmuted There's an Anita via zoom All right. Anita we show you as unmuted, but it appears that you're unable to speak So I'll go ahead and bring it back to the council for additional questions Gabe, I'll go ahead. I'm going to start with the question that we heard from the railroad square association about the angled parking Yes, absolutely. And that that is a great question And it was one of the issues that we struggled with under the temporary program In most situations, you'll see the parklet designs do focus on parallel parking So there's less of an impact on the parking stalls. They may take three When you get in a diagonal you have to be more creative about the installation to avoid impacts So typically diagonal parking is coming in at an angle. The parklets have a right angle So they have a tendency to take more parking stalls than even perpendicular parking in some situations So what that would boil down to is that I think still under a permanent policy Is they would stay within the confines of the fringe of the building So they would still have to maintain that footprint And then depending on the discussion and how that goes along the lines of paying for parking Then likely those if they are recovering some costs for that parking are more costly installations because of that And and that is something that is fairly unique to the downtown and railroad square area Because they do have that diagonal parking at those main areas where parklets likely will be desired Okay, great. Thank you Can you go ahead and put back up your slide on what direction you're looking for from council? Perfect, so I'll start off and then rise to feel free to jump in And mayor we can go one by one and get a comment and input or we can go through all of them Please let me know your preference. Yeah, go ahead walk through all of them And then I'll have council members go through it like a checklist Thank you So basically our public-private Combination is mainly what rice is focused on is that the parklets can be installed for general public use They are typically owned and operated in that situation by a separate private entity, but they are not restricted So they're general public space similar to what the right-of-way normally is in general the other pieces that they can be just a private extension of the restaurant and that has a tendency to have different requirements And or rice and I have had some discussions with this a combination of the two and if there is really a hybrid approach So it would be helpful to understand if council has a desire to go one way or the other with the public or private Or a desire to do the combination The cost considerations associated with those were the last few slides So so clearly there is a discussion about parking offset So a lot of these will go and pay parking stalls And what is the council's desire to see that recovery element or thoughts on how that would work? There are also the other ongoing fees that we have talked about with revocable license agreements So it really is getting into some input on the overall fee package that a parklet would have have that burden of And then when we get into location considerations and design considerations, they really blend together I think you know, we we always use brew as an example And I really think it does challenge what we traditionally think of a parklet But I have been out there It's a great space the community enjoys it and it's it's a different way to look at a parklet But it also requires us to sharpen our pencils a little bit and figure out different design elements That is in the middle of the street. It's going to bring forward other traffic concerns So if there is a desire in the council to be flexible with those locations That will help us because we can then expand it out and take a look at those and analyze those as part of the process And then when you get into the specific design is we showed slides of what parklets traditionally look like We can move forward with that general model and build our design around that once we create a You know a foundation for parklets we can always amend in the future and become more or less restrictive But we're really looking for a starting point with that design And we're leaning towards industry standards and if that is a good direction It would be nice to have that confirmation as part of this process And the only thing I would add is that um linking the fees to that public private combination Discussion uh because again paid parking is downtown. There's no paid parking in other areas um, you know outside of the district Is there a cost of the value of that of taking up the parking space? I think him would say probably yes And then also depending on the on the type of the other nuances you want us to consider or Directors to consider and come back to you on on the cost of Either privatization or combination versus free All right, thank you so much race. We'll start with councilmember Sawyer Thank you mayor. Well, I know I'm paraphrasing here, but this is such a perfect example of Not letting the not letting opportunities That are brought on by a disaster go by the wayside and it's kind of If you'd asked me five years ago, whether or not we would be having parklets On four street or in downtown center rails are all I'd say No, probably not. Um, there would be a lot A lot of dissatisfied people both potentially merchants and and customers and clearly That has not been the case entirely and I'm so I'm I'm curious Some of these questions, I mean I can answer them for myself But um, can you give me a sense of the and I think flexibility is going to be really important because I think flexibility gives and Gives the opportunity for the merchants to make decisions that will best fit their business So, um, what is the downtown action organization? What what what is their general feeling? Um, because it's I think there have been Ups and downs with some of their concerns Um, I think that's probably the case with some of the merchants as well And that's why I think that flexibility is so important. Um, what has been the general overall attitude Uh of the merchants Uh when brought when this came before them um, well, you know, uh in speaking with with kate and tinkle who's the um Who's the executive director there? I'm sorry kate and allison. Um, she hasn't really heard any, um Of the business owners complain about the parklets. It was more really specifically about the road closures. Um, but uh You know, they there is general anxiety in the downtown at all times about um access the parking But we did find that through the pandemic which had lower traffic, of course, um that they're um That uh That adequate parking is available, you know behind off off the four street So, uh, she has also just to close this out. Um, uh done Numerous surveys, but again those surveys are really specifically more about Anxiety around closing the street versus the parklets themselves Okay, thank you. So, um, I A great deal of this for me comes down to the profitability of the merchants and uh, have you found that that there has been a A concern about merchants and their profitability because they're they will be the ones charged with Kind of getting getting the energy around this extension to their business and that that new and and that that great experience of being outside Where we couldn't before and in many in many of the sites. Um, we have we have weather considerations we're not palm springs and Um, that that isn't a consideration But I know that as far as the profitability the businesses have have you heard Good things about their their reaction to the yes, this makes up for um, not only Not only does it make up for some of the help get us through a difficult time, but they see it as an investment in their future Yeah, so, um, I'll have Gabe speak on his communication with the number of the temporary parklet business owners that Want to go into permanent because I think that speaks to it So, um, but then otherwise in answer to your question two things one um it Really was at one during the um the surveys and the uh block by block on four street discussions of the value of this It was very specifically What allowed for the survival of these businesses during the pandemic? But beyond that then they have seen a residual increase in Just sort of the joy of being outside and that option to have that. I'm moving forward. We don't know how long or people's risk tolerance For going inside or outside Always get to have that option But in general is that place making element of it from that business perspective? I think that's been positive from the community perspective as I mentioned We received just a lot just so much positive attention on Them wanting this outdoor experience and this place making experience That's been available in other locations for so many years. And so from both sides in terms of the user Who's spending the money and the businesses? it's been thus far a very positive experience and then lastly just to remind you that the um The studies that I looked at um in other places including internationally there's Sort of generally there's been like 15 to 20 percent increase in In business after the parklets and that's been shown somewhat consistently within the bay area I didn't look too in depth. There's not a ton of studies But I did see that in um in at least two to three studies that I looked at Great. Thank you Yeah Yeah, and just to add on to that I've I've had the opportunity to work Directly with a lot of the business owners through the temporary program And what I've seen I think in the transition is there are some concerns about the desire of people wanting to eat inside And that could be covet related. It also could very well be that a lot of people like the outdoor seating Has a tendency to be seasonal, but it's a desirable Way to eat and I think that they're recognizing that We haven't necessarily seen at this point a high desire to transfer from a temporary program to a permanent I think there's other logistical challenges with serving alcohol that have to be vetted out by the abc Just simply the fact that you have a seating area that that's Separated out from your core service area inside the building sometimes that offers operational challenges That some of the business operators don't necessarily want to take on But even prior to covet and we were getting requests in our department about permanent parklets So there has been a desire out there And I think many of the individuals that have expressed those desires over the years Are the same individuals that are expressing the desire to push forward with a permanent parklet program now It's activation of the space. It's bringing more people in it creates a different community vibe All those have really been cited as the desire to do it It's a little difficult to say at this point how many run take advantage of that But based on my conversations, that is some of the feedback that I received Great. Thank you So you'll go ahead As you said too quickly we do not anticipate all of the temporary parklet users to move forward It is costly and we do not anticipate this to be as widespread as it is now Thank you You know, I see it as part of the positive evolution of the downtown And that again that flexibility is important because once we've placed once the fees get fully Implemented and it's a bit of an unknown. It's hard for me to know It will be hard for me to make a decision on fees when I'm not sure about the The Impact the final impact of the merchants. I mean those that may be really excited about Moving forward Once that once they see some kind of annual fee or no other fees that that they weren't necessarily Anticipating or accounting for which could adversely affect their their bottom line So it's it would be a little, you know, a little hard for me to make a judgment on which ones we want to Embrace and which ones we might want to let go of The same consideration I have is with the parking district that I know that they are they've taken that They've a great deal of of their Income has been Compromised by by coveted and and and parking in downtown is so it's it's hard to As as important as I I think moving forward is with this program and is and with that flexibility in mind I'm also sensitive to the To the profitability of our parking district With all the deferred maintenance that we know sits out there waiting to be done. So it's kind of hard to I I guess it's I'm kind of going to wait see mode and Trying to to make it as possible as as as much as possible to accommodate the merchant's desires while still Understanding that there are unanswered questions that we may not know until the program has been in place for a while. So it's it's a I in every one of these these the questions I'm looking for flexibility Um And and and and just kind of again that that wait see situation where we really find out what does it does not work But thank you you guys have done a great job in coming up with a program But I never thought was going to be ever happening downtown Santa Rosa So you're you have accomplished what I thought was almost impossible and not that I'm surprised. So good work Councilmember Fleming Thank you. And and I largely agree with what councilmember Sawyer said I'm in terms of public or private. I'm inclined to go toward public I think that this is an excellent opportunity for us to turn spaces that have been used for What's been noted by collars is a public space for private storage and if we can incentivize our Um business owners to improve these public spaces and have them available for their Private uses during their business hours and public uses during non-business hours. I'm inclined to Wave Some are all fees as as much as we can So that we can all have greater enjoyment of of these public right of ways and then um You know, but also to that end I'm in favor of an element that I don't see here, which is um a design element so most of these Structures are are lovely and a lot of care has been put into them. However, some of them are Quite disappointing to look at and our downtown is something that I know we all take great pride in As it is but also have great hopes for its future And so, you know, I think that if we are able to waive these and Encourage businesses to do this that we ought to say, you know, and also We'll have some basic design standards, you know, not make anything crazy or prohibitive But just I mean some of the nicest ones. I've seen are really very simple But you know those awful plastic white tents, you know, I think we can we can do better I I know our businesses can do better without spending a ton of money on on them Especially if they're going to be permanent and then in regards to the parking offset I do have concerns about our deferred maintenance on our garages And but I also believe that parking needs to pay for itself and and not And so therefore I'm just in favor of charging People who choose to drive their private vehicles to our downtown the cost of parking and maintaining the parking that is down there um and then An interesting thought came up for me on the parallel parking consideration or the The non parallel parking that the angled parking if we can use the overages that That come out of that. So, you know, where you'll have partial lots available left over that won't be part of one establishments Parklet if that could be used for motorcycle or or bike parking along the side of of those parklets in those spaces and then There was another thought I had that Is alluding me right now Can you clarify for me what the location consideration feedback you're looking for is? Yes, absolutely. So the location considerations are Really getting into more of that brew concept Which did occupy a space not in the parking in the street or the bold out concept other areas of the sidewalk And I think it does get into the flexibility is that parklets traditionally talk about that parking area But should we expand that program to look at these other areas that we think are eligible for for basically a similar use Yeah, 100 percent. I think that the more flexibility and creativity that can be converted upon our business owners and our staff to Use these spaces in ways that are surprising and enjoyable. It's has my full support And i'll wrap up my comments there. I know it's something else and if it pops into my mind I'll raise my hand and again. Thank you so much for all the work that you guys have done on this amazing program Thank you councilmember councilmember tibbetz Thanks mayor. Um, I have no preference between public or private. I think it's good to offer both In terms of the parking considerations and You know, I guess We should leave the fees in place for now to make the parking district whole although I do hope that the Downtown subcommittee can actually take a look pretty comprehensively our parking department I feel like we're talking a lot about it these days and making quick adjustments, especially in response to covet and other things But at least speaking for myself not fully grasping what the impacts are But for now, I'm good with charging for it to make sure the district's whole in terms of fees I'm okay with fees. I wasn't at first but then gave you clarified for me that the annual licensing fee Is only pertaining to private entities not the public ones and I like that. We make that differentiation Uh, location flexibility definitely Uh, and in terms of design, I also hope that we can be flexible, you know, one thing that you use the example of bruce I love bruce because it's such an awesome expression of of identity and just the place and I you know would hate for us to say Oh, well, this design doesn't fall within our guidelines And I think it's the opportunity for different businesses and community groups to get really creative and we should support that through flexibility Thanks guys councilmember alvarez Thank you mayor For myself, I I love the idea that we're actually Injecting some life into downtown and actually the rest of san rosa I do have a question and it was brought up by the bicycle coalition Have we looked at ways where we can actually implement parking for the bicycles and amongst these These spaces So it would be at the design consideration of the sponsoring business You know first and foremost because it's not the city putting them in we can Look at ways to incentivize design considerations and other uses like bicycle parking or something like that I think we can because what i'm hearing is you'd like to see uh flexibility in terms of Fees location design considerations and we can see if we can come up with something like that I would in fact almost a form of a prorated Structure depending on the spaces that they could provide or or the area that they could provide for the bicycles I would I would love to see something like that in regards to the other questions that you had I likely the the industry standards in regards to the design Especially of the guardrails or those that define the spaces of of the seating arrangements Uh In regards to fees, I will leave that to the to the downtown Folk to determine what fees and what percentage of fees I would love to see some type of discount for the first year as it is a pilot program especially when we take into consideration the possibility of of The water increase fees, uh, I heard up to a thousand dollars if I wasn't mistaken And in regards to The combination uh, both private and and and the public Uh, for the uses, uh, depending on the participation I would leave it open to all individuals to participate in such a program And I believe uh, that was it for the questions that was that were required or asked of us All right. Thank you councilmember councilmember schwedel. Thank you, mr. Mayor and thank you for bringing this before us because it is exciting and I frequent downtown And it's lovely to see this this change of our downtown So for me the overall concept is flexibility Because again, I don't think I want to put anything in concrete So I'm more in favor of a public-private combination of it Whatever seems to make sense as we continue to have these discussions And we talk about fees, you know, I thought let's have reasonable fees to incentivize this type of use What that is I would ask the subject matter experts, especially staff if there's certain costs there But let's make it reasonable and how do we incentivize it? Um, that also goes along with what we heard about bike parking I would think there would be some common partnerships that If the business owners believe let's cater to those on two wheels That will incentivize them to come and use those frequent those businesses So I love for that to be an incentive to actually bring more people downtown I am in favor of the industry standards with designs and same thing with locations, you know flexibility, flexibility, flexibility And I'm making the assumption since I'm not on the subcommittee that the downtown subcommittee has been discussing this and will continue to discuss this Because I really want something that's going to track people downtown And really people are going to love coming down to both downtown Santa Rosa and railroad square because it's a beautiful place to You know enjoy each other's companies. Thank you Mr. Mayor if I may um, this is actually because it's a citywide program We're we're taking economic developments of committee so that we can have broader consideration beyond downtown Great as long as there are some public input opportunity to have robust discussions whether it's that whichever committee Let's just make sure that the public and we're getting that feedback for what works and what doesn't thank you We'll go to the vice mayor. Thank you guys very much for the presentation um, I'm thinking a combination of the both public and private I do think right now we probably should do some parking Offset, but it is a pilot program. So I don't want the fees to be too much to where it deters businesses from trying it design With some guidelines, but I would like the businesses to have the flexibility of designing something that works for the space in which they're They're using So that would be my input All right. Thank you vice mayor I'm going to agree with my colleagues this program I've heard nothing but good things about from folks in the community I've heard from business owners that it saved their business during kovid and that it created a sense of community when there wasn't one When we were all coming out of shelter in place or finding other precautions Around kovid I am in favor of us continuing to move this project forward And I think that what you've laid out is a reasonable approach for us to do that I do like the combination of the public and the private I do think that there should start with the parking offset As well as with the different fees that were laid out Although I think that this is the sort of thing where whether it's downtown or economic development Keeping an eye on how the program is actually being utilized And if we need to come back and have a policy conversation about reducing those fees In order to drive some of that activity if we're not seeing an uptick in the program Or if we're seeing people who were previously very supportive of the program not utilizing it I think that we need to be able to make those adjustments as well Outside of that. I agree with a level of flexibility I think particularly when you talk about brew. That's a great example is that's a non-traditional space Where our staff used their discretion to be able to create something that's really has been incredible for the community And I want to continue to empower staff to be able to make those decisions and not be completely hampered by council member Comments as well as design standards Because we we might not be able to picture what they're trying to picture It might end up being something that's amazing anyway And so I think the the sooner we can continue to move this forward The more reassurance will give to our business community As well as for the public who are looking forward to enjoying their summer out and about a little bit more Right you said and gabe did you guys get the direction that you needed or do you have any lingering questions? That was perfect. Thank you so much gabe. Did you have anything? I I agree perfect as always very helpful And I think it's going to make our life quite a bit easier when we actually get a formal policy together and bring that forward for adoption potential adoption All right. Well, thank you both so much. We really appreciate seeing it and we're looking forward to it coming back to council Mr. City manager item 3.2 Dear rogers and members of the city council item 3.2 is a presentation on our safe parking pilot program Kelly Kaikendall our homeless services manager will present this item Good afternoon, mayor rogers and members of the council I'll be speaking with you this afternoon about a safe parking pilot program next slide, please So this slide covers the purpose of the study session. Basically, we're seeking direction from council If you want to implement a safe parking pilot program that would include issuance of a request for proposals for A program operator and we're also seeking direction from council on the preferred stay allocation for the program Next slide, please So this slide provides an outline of the study session I'll cover background Sort of leading us up to today's study session I have a couple slides that covers the scale of the issue that includes homelessness in sinoma county and in or more specifically individuals living in vehicles and RVs And then we'll cover some safe parking program models And then lastly, we'll be seeking direction from council On implementation of the pilot program and discussing next steps Next slide, please In terms of background staff, we've been in front of you a number of times over the past five years Looking back at my notes. I think this is the fourth Presentation to council that involves a safe parking So in January of 2020 We received direction from council on a scaled safe parking program I'll be discussing those program models in the next Slides or the upcoming slides as well as direction to council to identify Potential locations to site safe parking in each of the seven council districts Most recently staff was in front of you in July of 2020 and February 2021 Providing a study session and an overview on our homeless services programs and safe parking was part of those two study sessions Next slide, please So the purpose of the next two slides is to provide council with some perspective on The scale of homelessness in our county and I'll drill down a bit into those living in vehicles and RVs So this slide the data here is from the most recent homeless count that was conducted in 2020 Many of you are familiar with this information. This is a refresher Based on that most recent homeless count. We have approximately 745 individuals experiencing homelessness in Sonoma county at the bottom of the slide You'll see an infographic from the homeless count and that provides a breakdown of that total between sheltered and unsheltered In Santa Rosa, we're home to approximately 56 percent of the county's population And if you break it down further between the sheltered and unsheltered 77 percent of the population in Santa Rosa is is sheltered So that's based on that 77 percent is based on the sheltered number below in the slides So the 1043 and then 43 percent Unsheltered and that percentage is based on That the percentage in infographic there the purple number of the unsheltered count Next slide, please The infographic at the top that is from the homeless count as well And that found about approximately 28 percent of the total populations of both sheltered and unsheltered living in vehicles or RVs Um, if you drill down further into that and look just at the unsheltered data It's closer to 47 percent of individuals living in vehicles and RVs What that equates to countywide? Um is approximately 800 individuals living in vehicles and RVs In Santa Rosa now this data is not available in the count I did reach out to the county and their consultant to drill down on this data by um By a jurisdiction and so specifically Santa Rosa um the 2020 count found approximately 500 individuals living in vehicles and RVs And then our homeless encampment assistance program. That's our encampment team did a survey It's been about two weeks ago. So a very recent survey um an officer and a sergeant that works with our encampment team went out and Canvassed areas of the city where we know people are living in RVs and vehicles and counted approximately 300 RVs and vehicles. This is a conservative estimate, right? We can't Possibly cover, you know, the entire city or capture all of them very similar to to the homeless count It's a snapshot And similar to the homeless count. It's probably an undercount But we did try to capture all those that where it was evident that somebody was living in the vehicle Whether they were in it at the time or there was evidence of someone Residing in the vehicle Next slide, please So in January of 2020 stop was in front of council to discuss the community homeless assistance program Safe parking was part of that agenda item and that is where we first received the direction Regarding a scale program Which I'll go into more detail in some upcoming slides And then again the direction to have a safe parking program that included a site in each of the seven council districts so This was you know, the first the january 2020 Just want to point out again that this was the first time that we We we heard from council about the council districts and the scaled program We didn't receive any specific direction at that time That it be an overnight program However, this is what we knew at the time based on a county program that was operated by catheterities And then also a very well known safe parking model out of santa barbara that's operated by an agency down there called new beginnings. So From this meeting the january 2020 and what we knew at the time This is where we built out the the program models that i'll be discussing today So our assumptions in developing the program models where that would be overnight And scattered site across the seven council districts and up to a hundred spots So not a hundred spots at one site rather a hundred spots scattered across the seven council districts The size of each site is uh for subject to that that parking lot You know small parking lots can accommodate maybe five to ten Larger parking lots maybe 10 to 20 The other assumption we had is that if council wanted to move forward with safe parking program We'd go out for a request for proposals for a program operator Next slide please In july of 2020 staff presented a study session We provided a comprehensive overview of our homeless services programs As part of that study session we covered the safe parking program models and the proposed locations Next slide please Here's a summary slide from the most recent study session that was february 9th 2021 and just going to Cover this briefly so during that study session we provided an overview of our existing programs Our coveted response programs and then we sought direction from council on tier two Work grant or plan priorities So this afternoon i'll be bringing forward one of the four items listed in the slide and that safe parking Just to sort of summarize some of the direction we received from council back in february Council supported three of the four items here At that time council was not open to implementing an rv parking ordinance without Additional options for individuals living in rvs in vehicles such as safe parking We also wanted to take a look at the impacts on other communities or cities surrounding Santa rosa should we implement such an ordinance in terms of Feedback that evening overarching themes included, you know, we need to identify Funding sources to implement these tier two work plan priorities That needs to be part of a broader discussion about goal setting and the budget And I know later tonight you'll be talking about the city's budget for the upcoming fiscal year and that Another theme that came up many times during the february study session was the need for regional collaboration on any You know homeless related efforts that the city is implementing Next slide please So these are the program models that were developed based on the january 2020 feedback They were shared with council during the study sessions in july 2020 and again in february of 2021 So the basic i'll run through these briefly because i know i've shared them with council before The basic program model is essentially opening up City light city parking lots for overnight safe parking There would not be a program operator. There'd be some level of oversight provided during the evening hours through private security And there would be sanitary facilities provided Again, no program operator with this model or the benefit of liability insurance that A program operator carries that could be extended to the city The next model or yeah, the next model is a program operator That's sort of the mid rain option and so instead of private security you would have a program operator We have some basic services such as sanitary facilities. The program operator could handle the intake and the placement Monitor each site and provide a hotline for any after-hour ish after hours issues that may arise Of course with the operator comes the linkage to services and the possibility for liability insurance covering the city of san rosa And the estimated cost is $315,000. Now these are just estimates based on what we know from the prior Safe parking program operated by catholic charities and funded by the county And then the last option the housing focus program Includes all of the components of program operator, but it has the intensive wrap around services the case management To help individuals move from an uncheltered situation or living in their vehicles and RVs to to housing Next slide please So I have three slides that cover the properties that we evaluated. I'm not going to go into great detail about The evaluation that's conducted tonight. I did that pretty thoroughly during the February study session However, I'm prepared to answer any questions. Um, also want to point out there's a full list of the 100 um or so properties that we evaluated that were included as an attachment to the agenda So I mentioned we looked at over 100 properties. Um, we looked at parks facilities the parking district and there were a number of criteria that we used Outlined here in the the slide. So we looked at, you know, number of spaces hours of operation proximity to neighborhoods school child care Some safety components like lighting invisibility Ability to accommodate large vehicles any environmental concerns Um community benefits. So, you know, many of the properties are parks. So what are the impacts to to those programs by by placing a safe parking program there a fire risk proximity to services and geographic distribution given councils direction to try and cite A program in each of the seven council districts. We also looked at former and existing safe parking sites Next slide please So these were the potential locations that were shared with council in july 2020 The direction that we received that time was to Basically go back to the drawing board and further evaluate all city properties and to come back to council with At least one low one site in each of the seven council districts. Um, you'll see in the slide there were um A few of the council districts where we we didn't identify a city owner property Rather, we recommended that we seek a private private partner But the direction we see we see was to come back at a later date with uh one site identified in each of the seven council districts Next slide So these were the potential locations shared with council during the february um study session. You can see We identified at least one location in each of the seven council districts You know, I want to emphasize that i'm not going to run through all the pros and cons or let them this this evening Again, happy to take any questions that you might have. I want to note too that Staff, you know It was a tough It was a tough exercise And we really we tried to pick the best from what we had to work with in each district And the the challenge that we faced is as you see in the slide a lot of them are parks And some of the other facilities none of them were intended for safe parking. So There's been some pretty strong feedback from the community so far that you know, these these locations are not You know meant for safe parking and I just want to Acknowledge that we know that none of these are ideal for safe parking But we did our best to select the best option for what we had to choose from each of the seven council districts Next slide so this slide Basically just provides a visual of the potential locations that were shared with council during the february 2021 The study session I want to point out a couple things when I scaled this slide the number one fell off No slight there to the council member that represents this jurisdiction Or this is a section of the city, but the red one is actually a district one I know this is not easiest to to to see But I'll provide a little explanation here. So the orange dots are Proposed safe parking sites. The green are existing. So We do have three faith-based partners through our community homeless assistance program CHAP that provide safe parking In santa rosa. It's very limited. So prior to the pandemic. We had a total of 20 about 20 parking spaces spread across these three sites currently. It's at about 12 And then I just want to emphasize again This is what was proposed as potential locations in february not necessarily what we're recommending today Also, the purpose of this map is to to show the geographic distribution of the proposed sites Next slide Okay, so this slide brings us up today and is the subject of today's study session I think I ran you through about 14 slides just a background But I felt like it was really important to provide the city council the context of You know full context and members of the public, you know What's occurred over the past few years to get us to today's study session So also want to connect this back to last month's budget study session If you recall 315,000 was identified in the budget for the mid-range of the three options that I just covered And so what we're suggesting this afternoon is that we do a single site Safe parking pilot program on city property that it be an overnight program That it have a program operator. So that's the mid-range option that I just covered That it be a one-year pilot And after that one year we evaluate scaling it up for other options The thinking behind this approach and I realize this isn't necessarily aligned with the direction that we see from council Is that let's start with one location? That's more manageable and then we can expand Expand or amend that based on any, you know, learnings that we gather from the one-year pilot and available resources Next slide, please So this slide I'm going to run through some of the pros and cons of a overnight safe parking pilot program And again, that's what we're proposing this afternoon. So let's start with the pros. I want to keep it positive This is a more affordable option versus a 24 seven safe parking I'll go a little more into detail on that on the next slide This will provide a safe place for people living in their vehicles and RVs to be overnight with a linkage to services with with a program operator And this will be managed versus unmanaged. Some of the concerns I hear from the public About safe parking and even before we implemented the safe social distancing program at the finley center is Oh my gosh, is it going to look like the tent encampments? Or is it going to look like the vehicle encampments and that is not what we're proposing here This will be managed. There'll be a program operator who will also have sanitary facilities on site So trash receptacles and portable toilets and hand washing stations to mitigate many of the concerns that we see in the unmanaged tent and vehicle encampments throughout the community In terms of cons It doesn't meet certain criteria in the preliminary injunction the the lawsuit that the city is party to Specifically adequate shelter The preliminary injunction requires the shelter to be open both day day and night time So individuals could voluntarily come into this program But we couldn't necessarily use it to meet Some of our requirements under the preliminary injunction To give you an example, sam jones hall does meet that criteria because it's open day and night As well as the finley program That one was open day and night and and and the That day and night criteria is one of many that we've not many thresholds that we must meet to For adequate shelter under the preliminary injunction, but did want to point that out for the council and then in terms of a potential barrier The daytime exit, you know, might be a hardship for individuals Living in their vehicles to pack up in the morning and move on I know I've also heard concerns from staff and members of the public about, you know, where will they go during the daytime? Next slide so For this afternoon, we've refined the three program models that were shared with council in february We've eliminated the first the sort of basic Basic safe parking program Feel strongly that we do need a program operator to oversee it You'll see an increase in estimated cost. We had that mid-range option in february at three hundred fifteen thousand That's also what's included in the budget So anything above that would require an additional allocation of resources The biggest increase in costs would be related to Including private security in both of these program models. The reason being We did receive pretty strong Feedback from the community prior to implementing the program at the finley center That they wanted staff or security, you know, while the program was was open So in the case of the finley center, that was 24 seven staff or security In the case of safe parking that's being proposed this afternoon. That's overnight staffed or with security And so we have um, I want, you know, they're very similar in terms of services Of the the models that he just covered a couple slides back. So I won't go into detail there But did just want to point out the the price increase You know if three hundred fifteen thousand dollars is what we have to work with and council wants to support safe parking We can put that, you know in the request for proposals And you know, you know build the the scope and budget accordingly And again, just want to emphasize that these are estimates If you support this this afternoon, we'd be going out for rfp And we can further refine the services the scope and the budget Next slide, please So this slide covers the pilot for relocation I know you see municipal services center south in the side But I want to back up just a little bit and let you know that we did look at After the february study session, we sat down again and we looked at, you know, all the sites that we had evaluated and recommended as potential sites for safe parking From that list of the seven or more We selected the utility field office, which is on stony point at college just sort of north of the site here in the slide This was initially selected The ufo could be used for both overnight on the 24 seven program However, we selected the municipal services center south as an alternate location for Um for the program given that it's underutilized during the time frame versus the ufo With with where the parking lot and operations there are nearly 24 hours It's also the site for our emergency operation center In terms of, you know, what we're proposing to do at this site It'll be 7 p.m. To 7 a.m. So 12 hour overnight program Up to 25 spaces That's mostly vehicles, but there will be we can make some room for maybe two to three larger RVs or trailers Services will depend on, you know, which program model council wants to go with and how we'll scope that program And then site improvements. We are looking at installing some security cameras at the site checking in with it and public works on that looks like four cameras At about $4,000 a piece. So that's $16,000 for security cameras. And that's not part of You know, what we've budgeted for the program itself Now I'll run through some pros and cons for the site again. I'm going to start with pros keeping it positive This is a commercial slash industrial site versus residential Want to highlight This is not in a park. You'll see from the the slide that I shared a couple back that a number of the sites that we selected were in a park In terms of daytime use of the parking lot, this is recognized as a best practice for overnight parking that you need to have An associated daytime use if you're going to do an overnight parking program And then the visibility we're looking at the back of the lot. There's good visibility back there We have reached out that would require working with salvation army That uses that back lot have reached out to them. They've expressed sort of initial support In collaborating with the county. I'm sorry the city We don't have a firm commitment yet, but at least initial support for the program And then generals pros for safe parking Again, this can provide individuals with a safe place to be overnight with linkage to services and depending on how we scope the program A potential pathway to housing For cons, this is overnight only So, you know, there might be some challenges with the daytime exits, which I mentioned on the prior slide And we're also going to have to think through how to manage vehicles that breakdown Next slide please Okay, just a few more here other considerations Before I jump into this other considerations might translate to more money. So There's 315,000 In the budget That that you'll be approving this evening So sort any we either have to scope the program to fit that or if council wants, you know, additional components Identify additional resources In terms of public private partnership I mentioned we have three base partners that offer safe parking under our community homelessness assistance program Part of the RFP council might want to consider, you know, extending this to, you know, private partnership The county program That concluded about four was four years ago. That was operated by Catholic Charities The county had a site and then they had a number of satellite sites at church property So that's something that we could consider Doing also wanted to make you aware that the $20,000 that council Committed a few years back for this program has been fully committed And the churches that have utilized this have expressed interest in applying In the future if funds were available and those funds were made available to the churches to help them with things like Sanitary facilities supportable toilets and hand washing stations and trash trash service In terms of 24 7 safe parking Why am I even bringing it up this afternoon? Because we now have the experience of doing the family program under our belts And it was also something that was covered during the February 2021 Study session. So want to touch briefly on that This would be similar to the safe social distancing program at finley Rather than tent based it could be vehicle based The daytime exit Likely will be a barrier because if with 24 7 operations people won't have to leave during the daytime unless they want to Um, this is however Need to highlight a costly option. This is essentially opening an outdoor shelter. And so Based on our budget for finley and then looking at other models in cinema county in the bay area We're looking at at least a million dollars a year for operations plus any site or capital improvements that are needed One more point that I wanted to make here About 24 7 safe parking is for the finley program You know, we set that up in response to covet and how that for six months And I think we learned through that that we were able to use it as a tool for encampments And we serve those that that had previously refused services I think that was the biggest lesson we learned is that individuals that we had Approached encampments over a number of years who had refused, uh, you know typical Or more traditional shelter like sam jones hall came into the family program At one point in time About 50 of individuals at the finley program were people that had previously refused other shelter options Next slide So next steps for safe parking Staff we want to know just council want to do safe parking and if so what program models and what location are locations And then, you know, the rfp subject to your direction this afternoon. We go out for an rfp Um, also evaluating a joint program with the county. I know that there have been some Initial conversations between the city and county about A potential joint program I look to the city manager or mayor rogers to provide an update on that and then next steps for staff We need to identify funding sources. So there's a 315,000 in the budget I know I've said that many times, but if we're going to go above that we will have to identify additional sources Um subject to your direction this afternoon. We'll issue a request for proposals and then return to council with recommendation for a program operator and design The estimated timeline to implement the safe parking program Is six months Next and last slide So there are a couple items here. I want to update the council on just related to home of services in general So we will be um Discussing with the housing and homeless ad ad hoc A number of items and then bringing them to the full council One are the additional work plan priorities That were discussed with council during the study session and I reviewed with you This evening So there are additional capital improvements needed out at sam jones hall Related to the construction of the sprung structure, which we're now calling the sam jones hall annex that was constructed to restore shelter capacity to our pre-covid capacity And that facility needs a bathroom. We currently have portable restrooms outside of the annex and then Shelter clients can use the existing bathroom facilities, but there's a real need for a bathroom And then alternative shelter. That was one of the other items that was raised during the february Study session and that would be a thinly like program, but rather than tents we could do alternative Or temporary dwelling similar to what the county and st Vincent de paul is doing out at los kilicos. Um, it could also include 24 sevens a parking And then strategy i'm aware that strategic planning efforts are underway through our continuum of care But as a city as an organization, we do need to look at our homeless strategy In our work plan priorities So what are our priorities and what are the strategies that we need to implement? To achieve those priorities and those goals and of course taken into consideration You know the efforts that are underway through our continuum of care I know as part of the budget study session It was shared with you that we'd be bringing forward a homeless services request for proposals Not for the upcoming fiscal year, but the next fiscal year. So 2022-23 But prior to doing that We need some input from the ad hoc and the full council about what our priorities are and what our strategies So that can help inform staff or while we're drafting the rfp Lastly We have a drafting camp and policy that we'll be sharing with the the housing and homeless ad hoc and then bringing into the full council I don't have a timeline for bringing these additional items to the council But we will be working with ad hoc and the city manager so This concludes my presentation I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have and I'd ask to go back to the previous slide So we can keep it focused on safe parking and then the the top sections are the those first few bullets Since just a reminder of the direction that we're seeking from council this afternoon. Thanks so much All right. Thank you so much kelly I'll jump in and just without going too far into it Talk a little bit about the joint program potentially with the county The county of sonoma did identify two million dollars in their budget just last week To be able to do something similar to what we're discussing today, which is either safe parking programs Or potentially we have engaged with them in conversations of a joint collaboration between the city and the county I can look to the city manager to see if he has anything else to add It is very preliminary But we are encouraged that the county and the city are working together And i'm hopeful that we'll get something that we'll be able to bring back to council sometime sooner, hopefully The only thing I would add mayor is that the time frame mentioned was Returning to the board of supervisors On august 24th with a more defined plan Great. Thank you so much. We can talk about that as we move forward as well I'll go ahead and start with questions from council and i'll start with councilmember tidbits Thanks mayor and thanks kelly for this presentation One of the questions I had was about uh, if being had the housing focused option I think it was the most expensive expensive option um How how do you envision that working when it's going to be from 7 p.m. To 7 a.m And more specifically is it going to be having housing navigators who are going to work with the city's housing authority or Can you elaborate on how you envision it working? Yes, so I get your point about um the potential for limited engagement with the program operator Which is an overnight program the The idea that we have um For the program and again, you know, we have to go out for rfp and then see what um operators would propose Would be that the the program operator would be on site to check people in and then again in the morning Um to check them out. So there's engagement opportunities in the morning um, I'm sorry in the evening in the morning and then you know potential opportunities to meet with people throughout the day to work with them on you know, their their housing plan their housing strategy um And you know, it could be challenging with with the limited hours of program But I do see an opportunity during during the daytime for that And the the housing um the housing focus program does have the the staffing does have the case management staff To assist people, you know with that transition plan to their temporary situation to a more permanent um, and I think we're going to have to further explore um partnership with the county in terms of you know any case management available through the county Um, also with our through our housing authority. I know we have these emergency housing vouchers coming in So, you know in addition to sort of a wraparound case management support We're going to also have to make sure that we can connect people with Um with with the housing um that they need so more more to come on that We have to think through it and I think also leave it up to the operators to define How how they would plan on implementing that I I appreciate that because yeah that you alluded to my concern, which is Okay, so, you know operator a hires up housing navigators, but but really truly delving into what's the efficacy of of That housing navigation when you're really trying to design a program where people just have a place to pull up their car late at night Be safe probably not going to fraternize for too long They're going to go to sleep and then wake up at 7 a.m. And leave and I'll tell you My experience running the armory winter shelter, which was I we were 5 30 to 6 30 a.m There's there was no real time for meaningful case management and and I just don't I just don't think it's reasonable for us to assume that that's going to happen um with those hours So that was that was kind of a concern there and that's why I was leaning towards the middle option Obviously not the basic. I think you absolutely need to have a site operator for safety For being there to provide some level of service to to a high higher needs folks who might be in the cohort utilizing the program But I was a little bit reluctant or a little bit leery of housing focused I would be supportive of housing focused if we do the 24 7 option And I will just say now that I'm very supportive of that. I've looked at the success of recent Villages, whether it was Los Guilicos or Finlay and I think that that more What you're proposing more directly emulates those successes and that's where we should be focusing our dollars But out of the first set of the slides you gave me I'd be in favor of site operator In security and then on the security point. I wanted to ask you how much are you factoring in the cost for security? I have to and again, these are all estimates right based on you know from Running the finley program and so, you know, once you go out for an rfp We have to you know further refine that but that it's so that we have the staff like I said staff in the evening And then again in the morning and then security on site overnight. Does that answer your question? Well, it's it doesn't really I was asking for more of a specific figure, but that's okay I recognize that you are probably not in a position to provide it just yet But what I want to say about security is drawing from my own experience at Los Guilicos Is that we put security there because For really for two reasons. I'm going to be really blunt about it probably to my own My own demise a little bit The security was was kind of a concession with the greater community It was something that they wanted that they felt was necessary You touched on it similarly when you were speaking about the importance of security and site operators to the neighborhoods I'm here to tell the council in reality security Serves two functions one is right incident reports for the police department And for referring crimes that happen through the police and for calling the police Beyond that there's really no role for it. You just spend a lot of money And I think it's you know, I would be I'd like to see a program that actually just utilize the site operators save the city money And because the site operators can fulfill those two same functions Now there is something good from the liability side of having an independent third party in this case The security officer providing an incident report particularly if that report pertains to you know An altercation between the site operator and a client But now that's some food for thought there As far as vehicles go, you know, I think this probably goes without saying but I do want to say it because Your picture on slide seven kind of made the hair on my neck stand up it was a lot like What I've experienced previously when people saw pictures of the juridota trail And you even said this yourself kelly. This is not what it's going to look like but I think it's important that we reiterate that That's that picture is not what's going to be in people's neighborhoods It's going to be a very organized very clean very sanitary very supervised environment almost to the point where it probably is going to look sterile too sterile but You know part parcel to to what what the site should look like Is making sure that these vehicles are operating so that they can move to and from the site every day So they don't just sit if we choose to go with just an overnight program But whoever the operator is also I really strongly encourage the council to make sure that the operator offers a vehicle registration and insurance program So that those vehicles once they leave our site go onto the streets are legal to do so Um On your on your numbers, uh, you have 35 that are 25 to 50 for 410 thousand dollars is an estimate If 410 is the the amount you're estimating. I really hope we go to 50 spaces Um 25 just overnight for 410 thousand dollars seems to be a little light to me Um, I did want to encourage you to extend this to private partners I think the more we can work with private partners like the church is the better Especially if chap dollars were utilized and there's an ongoing interest there Um, and then the last comment I had for you and I recognize I'm getting ahead of public comment So I may have more after I listen, but 24 7 safe parking. I'm absolutely in favor of that You know, I got to watch the city from afar with fiddling and I think it was such a success for the city My my question is is why not do it again Especially if you're able to help more people and and provide those housing navigation services during the daytime Last thing I'll say is um, whatever we do. I hope it's low barrier and um, thank you, kelly If I may council member tibbet, um, I did look up, uh, the the budget I have them handy I just had to pull them out of my sack of stuff for this afternoon. So for the the, um models that were shared with council on slide 17 um security comprises about 200 000 of The the budgets that were shared with council. So there's a range of 395 000 all the way up to 660 So security is a significant You know portion of the budget and we saw the same for You know the the program at the finley community center as well as the non-congregation shelter program at the sandman hotel Yeah, I appreciate that. So I guess what my feedback would be is um, if we're if we're just going with The the overnight option, you know, maybe try to steer away from secure. I mean, sorry if cost is a consideration here And if we can serve more people with less money, I think we should do that and try to circumvent the need for security But if cost is not so much a consideration, then, you know, there are benefits to having security All right. Thank you council member council. Are there any other questions? councilmember schwedem Thank you, mr. Mayor. Thank you for the presentation kelly. Um, a couple things on the I think it's item Our public hearing the funding source for this, uh, correct me if i'm wrong. Is the american rescue plan councilmember Schwedemann's are you are you referring to the $315 000? However, we're going to fund that I think later on in this agenda it shows It indicates that it's the american rescue plan that will be funding this operation, whatever we choose Um, that that's a good question. I understood it to be general fund. Um, they might be clarifying that During the budget hearing later, and I know that council will be having a budget hearing on These one time funding sources that are coming into the city on june on excuse me july 13th, so Um, the city manager can correct me if i'm wrong there. I knew it to be general fund, but that may have changed Mr. Coleman, do you have any updated info because I know the checkbox is towards the end of The appendix of item 15.1 does check american rescue plan So right now in the budget it showed as a general fund transfer out of $315 000 and Let me check with the budget staff to see whether they correct that Okay, my point being that because I I believe that is a significant amount of dollars and if it's appropriate use for that because um Anyway When we come back for comments, but if we could get clarification on that And then kelly you talked about for the housing first program A cost for 25 spaces or a cost for 50 spaces Given the location which i'm very supportive of how would we accommodate 50 spaces? Would that still be on city property or would we have to potentially work with some of the neighbors? You specifically mentioned salvation army Um, I gave a range here for you know 25 to 50 parking spots to give council some options But for the municipal services site the back of the parking lot I I I think we need to start it with 25 spaces I understand the Economy of scaling wanted to get more bang for a buck with 50 spots But having been at the out at that site And discussed it internally. I think that the maximum that we could do is 25 And have we approached any of those other businesses you mentioned salvation army? I think pg and he's back there given these hours if we go to seven to seven Have we entertained any opportunity to maybe expand it onto their lots and again just for Scale of operation one operator You have a stony circle as a street cross, but is that a possibility for getting up to those 50 parking spaces? I have reached out to the salvation army And they expressed initial support So we need to you know pursue that further So I've reached council direction this afternoon Uh, you know, I know pg and he is right there as well that we You know aside from just the initial heads up the city will be considering this on june 22nd We haven't reached out to them to see if they want to partner and offer their parking spaces for this program Okay, thanks. So there's no any questions I have at this point Council member Sawyer Thank you mayor, um, thank you kelly for the presentation You know this has been a long time coming and it's a very comprehensive report I have what I believe is a softball actually The the timing seven to seven during certain times of the year it's going to be dark And is darkness an issue? Uh, is there would there be a need to be flexible on the timing of the operation of the program? Is the lighting adequate at that site to mitigate the darkness that It gets when it gets dark at five o'clock people will be arriving in the dark And you know less less of an issue probably in the morning, but is that an issue? Is that something that needs to be considered is flexibility in timing? It's a good question. Um, I know we're looking out security cameras for the site and so I think we'll also Um, I haven't done it personally. It might be an evaluation that's underway by public works to look at the lighting for that site. So I'll I'll make that note and I'll check in with public works to make sure that our Evaluation of the site for this program includes the lighting or I think the challenge with an potential adjustment to the hours is that But we have staff coming in, you know at about 7 a.m In the morning and they're till about 6 in the evening. So we've set that up Because of the daytime use of the parking lot, but I think we can certainly look into the question about lighting Okay, thank you Mr. City Manager I just wanted to get back to the question that councilmember schwadhelm asked We have identified ARPA as an eligible funding source for that program And the council would discuss that At your july 13th meeting and take a final action then Thank you Councilmember Fleming Yes, um, thank you for the presentation Kelly and um, all the great work that's gone into Trying to make this council um goal of reality I'm curious to know because things are so preliminary with the the county and the site there What I do know about it is that it would be um an overnight not a 24-hour site And I do recognize that different folks have different needs and so to that end if we cite Have we looked at a place that would accommodate a city property that would be appropriate a good appropriate use for 24-hour parking at this point So I guess where I'm going with it is like well We have the flexibility like if we go into partnership with the county and use some of our funds To do something that meets one type of need Would we then have boxed ourselves out of providing another type of need? So the the site that's um shared this afternoon the municipal services center south. That's a mouthful That's overnight only um due to the daytime use of the parking lot now the ufo Utility field office are just north of that and starting point that site could be used for 24-7 or overnight I mean we can't use the whole parking lot right because there are needs for staff to park there and we also have our emergency operations center at You know working out of that That location, but the the ufo would be one of the sites that we evaluated that would work for 24-7 And would it be possible or not possible? Would it be Practically speaking like or easily operationally executed to switch that over if we do end up Starting one thing. I mean, I I don't imagine that the timelines are so swift that we would cite You know plan with the county and then this would already be up and running and we need to change Of course that quickly, but if we did want to be flexible, would it would it be very difficult? Or would it just be you know another process that your team would have to execute Are you asking if we can be nimble? Well, I know you can be nimble. I guess I was asking if you were would be willing to tell me how difficult it is to be nimble Well, I think um It's a it's a hypothetical situation and you know probably many things we have to consider to to make it work but I if an opportunity came up for a potential partnership with the county or If we wanted to shift gears to 24-7. I think it's something that you know We could work through internally to to address and make happen, of course You know consulting with the city manager on it and the full council, but Totally understand. Yeah, thank you Welcome Vice mayor Thank you. So, um I I'm in favor of having an operator, but I'm also in favor and I've said it before definitely Of having a peer peer run sites. So is that something that Um, we've looked into or is it something that we would be able to ask an operator how they would be able to incorporate that? um In running operations essentially, uh having peer run sites So it's not something that we've incorporated. Um in the presentation or the proposal before you this afternoon You know, what we put before you today is really based on what we know And so that's the former safe parking program that the county funded and have the charities operated It's based on our experience With the family program and then, you know, also obviously running the sam john's hall shelters So none of those models have peer run if that's something that the council wants we can incorporate that into the request for proposals um, I know council member tibbet's um Had expressing concerns of our, you know, really just the cost of security and maybe we could have that in place with With the operator staff. That's an option. Um, I would want to check in with the city attorney and the risk manager about Any potential liabilities of having, you know, a peer run or peer led Uh program, you know, I'm not aware of any. That's just something that um, you know comes up for me Um in hearing that All right, kelly. I have a couple of questions about the the ufo utility field office. What would the capacity given uh Given how much we utilize in parking for our staff day in and day out What would our capacity be if the council decided to do some form of 24 seven? site there So, um, we did we did look at that site. Um, and I think, you know, it's a much larger parking lot than, um, the msc site However, you know that parking lot is used during the daytime in the evening. And so Um, what we recommended was to start there with 25 There might be room to go a little bit bigger than that, but um, you know, we're wanting to, uh So to sort of start small and make sure we have a manageable program before we get we get, you know, too big Okay, I'd be interested in exploring that a little bit further just because the scalability for the cost that we're talking about Uh, seems to make a lot more sense there. Also, I understand the concern of Needing to figure out what to do in the event of an emergency since it is our emergency operation center as well Uh, but quite frankly we could be flexible on anything during an emergency And we do in fact have a homeless emergency That we declare every single month or every other month The other question that I had was about the rfp What would the metrics or deliverables? That we would be that we would want to see from an operator to show that having to council member tippets his points Having the more intensive approach was worth the bang for the buck of having them there on site So excellent question. I think you know depends on how we we scope the program if we want You know to provide people with a safe place to be overnight Then I think success is making sure they have that they have that temporary shelter if we're wanting people You know a more robust program wraparound services housing folks focused I think the goal there is how many people are exiting the program to permanent housing And of those that are going to permanent housing destinations, how many of them are staying there So it's going to depend on what program the council, you know, what we can afford to to fund What program you want, whether it's just going to be a safe place to be overnight There's definitely value in that and there's a need for that in the community But if you want a more robust program the housing focus wraparound services then the the the goal there The success is how many people went to housing and how many stayed in housing All right, thank you. And then just as a quick comment before I go to public comment The other consideration for security and I I hear councilmember tippets is concerns with that But the other consideration that I want to make sure we're talking about as well as the safety of the folks Who are living in Whatever services we establish obviously it's a safe parking site I do want to just acknowledge that I've heard stories from folks Trying to find a place where they are safe from one another or safe safe from individuals Who would seek to take advantage of their homeless status to rob them Or do harm to them? So I did want to acknowledge that that is also one of the benefits of of potentially having security on site as well And with that we will go to public comment and I'll start with Our folks who are joining us via zoom Start with vicki followed by gale Vicki you're unmuted Vicki can you talk? All right, we'll go ahead and come back to vicki. We'll go to gale Followed by charlie and bob Can you hear me now? Go ahead gale Okay, my name is gale simons. Um, I helped homeless action um run a safe parking lot with mostly 15 to 20 um people parking overnight only on you know in a um A small business park parking lot The hours were always 7 p.m. To 7 a.m There was no trouble with the dark um We did not have security We did not feel we needed it. So I'm really um pressed by jack's remarks. I think The security is just pushing the price way further than it needs to be I know that right now there are probably three church programs in town Perhaps using the chap program The three church programs could not have more than 25 people among them Chap program 20 000 a year For 25 people is a whole lot different from what we're talking about And it's getting people off the street People who need a place to be where they're not harassed Um when the great depression happened my mother told me she lived in rural northern california that there were great Tent cities that went up in the countryside for people fleeing the cities um in poverty Those tent cities don't exist anymore. We got through that depression We had a recession in 2008. We're having another terrible economic time now I think it is our duty The government's duty to care for the impoverished and the disenfranchised And not do a middle ages or dark ages approach to poverty So I I think we should do a blended approach with some 24 hour parking and some 12 hour parking we have two I'm sorry. We have two different lots that sound good. We could split that have one at the UFO and one at the municipal south site And um, I think it might work. Okay. I think that's basically it for me. Thank you Thank you so much. We'll go to shirley and bob followed followed by cadence Hello Go ahead Hey, hello, um first of all, I would like to thank Kelly and of course the city council for continuing this conversation. I'm a surely chill and I'm part of a team that operates a safe parking program And has done for about four or five years. We were greatly pleased to be part of the chat program and So we we've had some experience with this and I have to agree with a lot of what the council motivates said um About things like security and in fact even the last speaker, of course, we operate under a much Less costly program I am concerned about if it is an overnight program about how Any kind of services will happen? I'm concerned about the idea of what does it mean about linkage to services? Um our folks that have been in our safe parking overnight I guess linkage to services they could call somebody about services So I'm really in favor of the wraparound services And if that happens with your site, I would really like it to include some of our folks in that as we've had Guests that are safe parking have been sitting there for a couple of years And uh, it's it's tragic. It really is tragic. Um, you have to realize that we do have a hotline We do We do have a team of volunteers that supervise it. We've had almost zero trouble or problems We actually went to 24 seven during co vid and it was successful. I guess that was our pilot program we had less people but We're going to continue that and um, I think that For you guys, I just encourage you so much to try and do the wraparound services, but but make them matter Um, and that was the housing first strategy was to get people out of these temporary sort of situations And get them into some sort of permanent housing so my My thoughts for you are to do 24 seven and And to get as much services for those people because if they move out you can move more people in And I think it is that moving people along That's so important. So I really thank you on this. I know it's a difficult situation and I know Many many neighbors are concerned, but they're comparing Safe parking to what they see on the streets right now and it is so different. You wouldn't even know our people are there Thank you Thank you so much charlie. We'll go to cadence followed by kelsey Good afternoon mayor rogers and members of council. It's nice to see you all cadence hinkle allison with the downtown district I want to start just by saying thank you to kelly and her staff who've been working on this project dao is incredibly appreciative of the partnership We have with the city to tackle homeless issues downtown We know how challenging it is to manage all the issues that arise While trying to find long-term solutions. So we really gratefully acknowledge all of your hard work As you know, the downtown core currently has an over concentration of homeless services and The potential of adding a safe parking facility to the area would be really detrimental to our small businesses there It would hinder economic recovery and make it harder for us to host Successful community activities as well as limited the beautification efforts that we could undertake And many community members already cite homelessness as a reason they don't come downtown and that's a perception We're working really hard to change The dao devotes a significant portion of our time and budget to supporting the homeless population in the downtown area And our street plus team works daily to get them housed and into services with Catholic charities As well as manages the ongoing negative impacts to both public and private spaces So we really appreciate the difficult position the city is in and look forward to continuing to partner with all of you to address the ongoing issues But as you're finalizing the location We strongly urge you urge you not to locate any additional services in the downtown area including safe parking Thank you Thank you cadence kelsey followed by resident zero three zero four Hi, can you hear me? Yep. Go ahead Hi, okay. Um, yeah, I was happy to hear some of this discussion that the discussion is happening at all and Mayor rogers your description of it as a crisis. I know that was officially You know put in the books recently and I absolutely agree. Um, I just want to point out that um, the actions of The city and the county and law enforcement and all of the ways that Our government have participated in this have contributed to Harm and that part of funding the solutions is about accountability for that harm We know that the ways that we have dealt with encampments and and people who are chronically unhoused or experiencing mental health issues Is inhumane and we have watched from a distance in horror as these things have played out and I really think that you know We all want a solution But there is no amount of business interests or or bureaucracy that can make up for What is inhumane treatment of people? Um, and so, you know in terms of I see the request for proposal Um, I like that idea. I love I loved hearing the county talk about in the budget hearings Just putting money out there into funding what's happening now and then You know coming up with the plans as we as we go. We just want it to be data driven. I know housing first Is is a essential tenant of How we can solve homelessness for people? And that we have to take a multi pronged approach I just wanted to point out in terms of the request for proposal that the people missing from this conversation Is people who are experiencing homelessness and people who have worked with them already and so that there are lots of community organizations that are filling in the gaps where government has failed And that we could fund them. We could fund their work. We could support their work we could decriminalize their work in a lot of ways and essentially take compassion Uh as the the the central Most important thing as we work together towards the solution Um, he yielded the rest of my time. Thanks Thank you. Kelsey resident zero three zero four followed by steven Hello, this is uh, stevens dank of age. I'm uh with santa rosa plaza mall as the mall manager Um, as well as just a citizen of santa rosa We just wanted to reiterate, um the importance of how that safe parking may have with the city In stating that there has been a large number of homeless services currently in the downtown core and Adding more homeless services downtown could be detrimental to both businesses Large and small as well as any potential redevelopment opportunities in the future What we would strongly encourage when looking at a site that the city council Takes that into consideration and also One other comment. I wanted to make Is in terms of the police budget making sure that we are not cutting any police budget or anything like that in favor of these types of programs we need to make sure that we're both Regarding the homeless situation as well as making sure public safety is up most important to both our city and our downtown Thank you very much and have a good day All right. Thank you. We'll go to steven followed by annette Hello Steven Yes, hi. I'm sorry. I'm on my husband's computer. My name is Anita. I wasn't able to get the Zoom on my computer Anyway, I just wanted to make the mayor and all the community members and councilmen Aware of a crisis situation that right now the second Is happening in the south park area of santa rosa Um, it's dangerous that the community has become dangerous um, there are several streets that have until One or two days ago like 20 or 30 different um RVs on it and tents and There are needles. There were new people in the street I was harassed when I was driving around Children can't walk there anymore This is a very small community. It's it's Bounded on three sides. It's not an open community and not only is it happening in the one area that Eddie alvarez knows about because he kindly attended a meeting as well as kelly several days ago But now it's spread to the perimeter avenues and I really Encourage you nair to come to our community and see what's happening It's become a slum It's become an absolute slum. There are rats everywhere People have defecated in the streets. We've had new people walking around. There are needles everywhere There's no time To keep this up every block is taking over You need to do something about this. Please come to our neighborhood and see for yourself. What's happening? My husband and I moved in and proved our house. We have a beautiful painted lady Victorian we have flowers everywhere and now it's a slum That's what's happened and it's horrible and it's happened really really fast and I called the police Two months ago when this started happening when there were one or two or three vans there And then they became five and then they became 10 and then they became 20 And there's garbage everywhere and people are camped in the streets now on some of the surrounding areas Please come to our area. You need to see what's going on. Thank you All right. Thank you Anita Annette followed by Michael Hi, this is Annette. I live in south park Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you I would like to say I do very much appreciate that kelly kukendall Eddie alvarez and some of the san rosa police department came out to south park to meet with us And we understand that they are under a lot of financial burden in trying to deal with this issue But I do want to say that what's happened in our neighborhood in south park is that there's a lot of mental and emotional Crimes going on the people who live here are afraid to walk down the streets They're taking their animals and driving to other other neighborhoods to walk their dogs because they're afraid to walk down the streets Here in south park now and the businesses that are lined up around Petalum Hill Boulevard. They're thinking of leaving because they're getting graffitied on And we need some more services here. We need more police presence here so that we can stop some of the The crimes that are happening and we're very sympathetic to the people that don't have a home But we don't feel that they have a right to come into our home and trash it and we're not talking about a few bags of garbage We are talking about hundreds and hundreds of pounds of garbage and human waste and needles And I'm sure you're all familiar with all of this stuff that goes on all the time but if you cannot Get out of get cannot move these people out of our area You need to provide some kind of garbage removal and some kind of porta-potties for them Because it's turning our neighborhood into a health hazard and it is not fair for those of us who live here who have to deal with that the other thing is that Down at the the place that we have down there now the people that are moving in there are very aggressive and they're very mean And in fact other homeless people have moved out of the area because they're scared of them And I think something needs to be done to protect the citizens here So that we can walk down our own streets without being afraid that we don't have to worry about getting some disease from the garbage and the Stuff that's on the street that people leave. It really isn't fair for those of us who live here I understand this is going on elsewhere But if you're going to pay a million dollars to house 25 people You need to take half that money and do garbage service for the camps that exist because our neighborhood is turning into a trash heap And it's going to turn it into a ghetto and it's going to be a lot less expensive to try to fix this situation now Then it is to try to change a neighborhood from a ghetto back into a decent neighborhood We are all trying to do the best we can here to make this a better neighborhood And we have not gotten any help from the city in dealing with the problem that we have called about And the other issue is we don't know who to call. It's so confusing You don't know whether you call catholic charities or the city or the garbage department Wherever we call they say it somebody else's problem We need help in our neighborhood and we need the funds provided to make this a decent living area like other neighborhoods in santa rosa I appreciate all the work you guys are doing and hope you can help us out. Thank you Thank you in it michael followed by alexis Hi, this is michael I just want to jump in here Um, you know, I'm I'm hearing a lot of the frustration of residents You know, basically having to live In the proximity of homeless people and you know part of me, you know, I really think that we just need to come together as a community and realize that um People can become homeless. This is a reality of where we live Um, I would love to see more services existing in my community in the sonoma avenue area because I know that that's what's required, you know, we have to come together We have to create safe Areas for people to go we can't just keep kicking people around because it just pushes the problem Around it doesn't deal with actually providing a place for people to go or trying to address homelessness it just uh Basically just pushes the problem around. Um, and so I really recognize the need for safe parking Uh, I I think that you know spending a lot of money That's only going to help 25 people I understand, you know, the The the need to actually try to get people out of homelessness and that's important um But this, you know, unfortunately it barely scratches the surface if we're just talking about a couple sites It'd be great to have You know more sites, um more safe parking areas. I know a lot of different sites were proposed So I'd like to know if it's possible to expand that Um and include maybe some parking garages in downtown santa rosa or other areas where we can You know spread this spread the responsibility around I think we all need to come together We all need to Contribute yes, you know, many of us don't feel safe being in the vicinity of homeless people, but It is many people on the street also don't feel safe because Instead of addressing their safety concerns about who they're surrounded by and that was mentioned by Um by chris in one of his comments Uh, the police just come down and forced everybody to leave so You know, we we need to create real Community driven responses and I'd like to see you know in any ways that we can engage the community and Make this a process that we can all be a part of and something that we can all contribute to Yes to garbage services That is a very low ball. Um, we should be doing that it Unless the goal is to make to to keep justifying Sweeping communities on the basis that there's garbage that we could easily be removed. Um, we absolutely need to focus on those those are more affordable solutions And I'd love to see more safe parking All right, thank you so much michael we'll go to alexis followed by saves Um, hi, uh, this is alexis. Can you hear me clearly? Yep? Wonderful. Okay um, I just wanted to piggyback off of what michael just said is that we have watched we're we're hearing people from the community Um, say oh all these people are moving into our streets and we're creating a quote-unquote ghetto Which by the way, I need a pretty offensive term especially given the fact that it sounds like you're a very white woman um So I want to talk about the fact we have virtually Programs that are easily accessible to most unhoused people You guys want to talk about covering parking spaces for 25 That doesn't even cover our v's I mean, it's it's not only completely Preposterous that we're talking about 25 parking spaces to help with a An unhoused crisis right now, but the fact that you're talking about a million dollars I know that's great. We've heard them on the floor right now I know good job The fact that you are the fact that there are no Sorry got a little distracted there. Um, we're talking about spaces. We're not talking about our these we're talking about I mean, we don't have we really have virtually no Low-income housing for people who need to get back on their feet We have people who are still unhoused due to the fires. Well, like what three years ago I mean, it's preposterous. We're talking about security. I mean come on tidbit seriously We're proposing a million dollars for this Uh, it's just It's kind of beyond me that that where that you guys are really this is kind of the bare minimum. It's disappointing. Um We're really not been at a point where we can provide what 50 parking spaces It's it's just really truly disappointing and to the people that are talking about what's happening in their neighborhoods You can directly thank the city council for that You can directly thank the police department for that They're continually moving people out of safe places and pushing them into neighborhoods And that's where we see a lot of this issue these issues happening If you guys want to talk about real like really talk about helping the unhoused Then we would love to see more than you proposing a million dollar 25 parking spot deal This it really kind of makes it it sounds like a joke truly And i'm not trying to be rude to the folks on city council. I'm being genuinely I'm being genuinely truthful and I say this this kind of sounds like a joke 25 parking spaces for the hundreds of unhoused folks and i'm speaking from someone who regularly goes out and provides Out of my own pocket through I work with a lot of friends and other people we regularly provided food water clothes Uh deodorant fabric to to our unhoused friends and I I can honestly say that this is kind of a slap in the face And I really hope that you guys re-examine the true issues that are behind this like like the fact that we have no affordable income Housing, I mean come on let's let's get to the root of this before we start calling the police on people who have nothing And taking little they have away from them all over again. I yield the reference one Thank you, alexis saves followed by gregory Sorry, I was muted. Can you hear me? Yep? We can hear you. Yo, hi. Sorry about that. Yeah, this is patrick Go lock when I'm with saves and we will be bidding on operating the safe parking program So this is a very important meeting to me and I love what I'm hearing and the first thing I say is write on To a council member jack tidbits. He knows what he's talking about listen to him 24 seven is a much better solution less security makes much more logical sense Um and lowering the cost overall is really what needs to be done a million dollars for 25 people is not what you're proposing But still 300 000 for 25 people to only be there for 12 hours Really can be lowered So overall, I want to say yes the safe parking your data shows 28 percent of the homeless population lives in vehicles and RVs Super targeted program makes a lot of sense. We're not building expensive houses And I think there's two things I really want you to hear and you and it's been said already But not 20 we want 24 seven not overnight And even if the rp comes out and says overnight only you're going to see your proposal from us From what we think we can do for overnight because we're really it's where the service to start It's where people graduate from living on the streets to Living in a home permanently That's the first one and the second one which we haven't talked about much today But wasn't all the comments is no departs and libraries. I think it's just going to Upset people in the in the community. It's not going to work Well, the area behind the utility field office is a great area stony point is a gray area Maybe parking garages on fifth and seventh possibly but there are other options and also as part of our rfp I'm sure we'll we'll come up with some other options. Also Buying or renting a commercial lot is another option. It doesn't have to be owned by the city It can be rented by the city So the last point I think I'd make is let's get the rfp going Uh, we will turn it around quickly. I'm sure other organizations are hungry to see this program implemented And let's get it up and running as as quick as we can So that that's all I have to say. It's a great program a couple of major tweaks And we're excited to be seeing it happen. We hope for the vendor that gets it, but if not, we're glad to see the city's doing it Thank you. Patrick Gregory followed by Allegra Good evening members of the city council. Um, I've said a lot of things in the past and I don't want to go on too long but I do want to comment on the uh, the kind of connectedness to the prior study session where you were Really, you know telling everybody how well your pilot program For parklets worked. I hope we're here a year from now talking about how well this pilot program worked Because I have high hopes for it But when we were talking about safe eating, uh, it was natural for me to think about well, this is sort of like safe sleeping Branding is important. Um, but if you're going to look at the overnight versus 24 seven You really have safe sleeping and safe living But more importantly, you have safe Uh survival, which is what I think of as the overnight versus safe empowerment, which is what the um 24 seven overnight, I mean 24 seven with uh services We know all of us who've been in this business that You've got to try to help people get from where they are to where they will go And if you have those services if you have that route if you have that ladder out Then you're going to be able to help people improve their lives and you're going to Make a dent in this crisis I I give people a lot of hope sometimes when I point to Usually years before but in this case only months or or you know within the next year A lot more money coming down the pike. You all know that Gavin Newsom and joe biden are putting in their budgets money for housing vouchers for new, um Facilities and program money So I want to give you some hope that if if as this city you start taking some real pilot projects Under your wing, you won't be left behind by the funding sources They're going to reward you we will as a community reward you by upping our own volunteerism So please take this opportunity Figure out a way to put together a good rfp that is broad enough to allow for all of the options It's clear that 25 50 whatever spaces is not going to solve the problem But it will send a signal and it will allow a lot of us to have the hope That we can turn more of the money that comes from the state or the federal government or out of our pockets into Things that Will make a difference Thank you Thank you Gregory Allegra followed by zara And um, I just wanted to really echo the need for more sites Um, I think that one site 25 spaces is like that doesn't even scratch the surface of the problem It almost feels like being set up to fail Um, I also agree that addressing the root causes our housing crisis here Our lack of support for low-income people in general. Um, and and our our attitudes I mean, I think that you can hear on on from some of these other comments the attitudes towards people without housing are pretty Pretty offensive pretty pretty upsetting. Um, these are human beings And it's just it's really sad to me to hear um our fellow community members spoken about in that way I think that the bare minimum Again is like yeah trash service. Yes bathrooms for humans. Um, I I think we all know That that's like A bearing necessity a bare minimum necessity. So please consider expanding this. Um, don't set it up to fail Don't don't make it just 25 Several sites several locations so that people can get from here to there and have services where they need them um and just like please Please care about other people. Okay, that's all I have to say. Thank you Thank you. Vera followed by heather Can you hear me? Yes, we can Okay, thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you mayor city council and staff for all the work you are doing Safe parking is an important step toward addressing the urgent need of providing safe and legal shelter for the unhoused We would like I I'm a member of homeless action. I forgot to mention Volunteer there We would like at least four sites to be selected at the conclusion of these discussions by the city council With at least two of those being designated as 24 seven sites With the ability to serve people in rvs and trailers Due to the dire need for safe shelter We also request an expedited rfp for the management of all sites so they can be up and running in the next 60 days We would like the city manager to contact the administration of school districts and the junior college for possible sites in their control And for possible collaboration for homeless students and their families There are three sites we support One of which has been mentioned the area behind the utility field office on stony point road And two florets In two parking garages on fifth street in seventh and mendicino Additionally We feel the city council should consider 655 first street where the west america building is And 952 Sonoma avenue We do not support putting safe parking in parks or city lots used by city staff on a daily basis or the public In the case of parks This would only potentially serve to put the unhoused and uncomfortable circumstances from the moment they arrive If the city council should choose not to use their own city property for sites in every district We recommend leasing unused lots. We have several good options if the council decides to go in this direction Offering safe parking is less expensive than current costs of sweeps policing and public works It is time to take quick action to implement safe parking a critical component Towards solving the issue of homelessness. Thank you. I yield my time Thank you vera heather followed by lee Did we lose heather? All right, heather if you get a chance go ahead jump back on and we'll come back to you. Let's go to lee Hi, can you hear me? Yep. Yep. I don't oh there it is. Okay First first of all, I have so many things to say One of them is I I'm I'm really saddened to hear people worried more about paint and flowers than human beings. It's I think this is a this is a direct direct It speaks to how badly we need community Involvement and care so that we can all work together to solve this problem now I will also say that this problem is in existence because you have defunded Everything that could have possibly prevented This situation to becoming to this crisis point Um, I am in support of 24 7 care. I'm in support of peer run sites I'm in support of multiple sites including the stony point and garage point places I also want to say that You know, I'm very concerned about faith based Be being involved, especially now that we know how how much harm the catholic church has done To our native american community and knowing that native americans are among the highest group of Unhoused people we have the they're the lowest percentage of of people oppressed or people in this country But yet they're they are unsheltered the most so faith based Programs are very concerning for for for many reasons and that's that's obviously one of them. Um I think that we have the opportunity to Care for people in a way that we did during the fires during the fires. We had mobile Uh laundry. We had mobile showers. We had mobile toilets and we and we could easily afford cleanup so for for I I don't know why the city doesn't offer that it's just it's inhumane it Over and over and it again. I see the choice to Care for those Who have so much And those who have so much power and their voices are so much more important and they are the few The many are the people who are struggling to find housing at all The many are the people who are struggling to have two or three jobs to live in the cheapest apartment, which might is nearly $2,000 This is a problem because this is what City planners and city council you have done this this you have defunded humanity and funded militarization of a police force um I I this is a crisis. It's inhumane. Um, you could buy a hotel honestly I'll Thank you. Lee. We'll try heather one more time Okay, there we go. Can you hear me? Yep. Go ahead Are you can you hear me? Yes, we can Oh, hi this is heather from Sonoma county acts of kindness and um, I heard surely talk earlier about how they've been quite successful at doing a 24 7 parking at the church So i'm curious if anybody had talked to to that particular church and asked how well that program is working and how much that cost um, I'm also where I Generally am in the evening times and weekends out with the unsheltered community that this call is about Um, so i'm gonna actually turn it over to one of our unsheltered folks that does live in an RV out here So he can take a moment to talk Good evening ladies and gentlemen, thank you guys for taking out your time and really addressing this issue because you know, it really affects a lot of people and It's sad to see how many different groups of people have been um Have been affected by this you know, um, I myself am a college graduate and a ex-business owner who now Live in a trailer and have to worry about Whether or not the police are gonna come in the morning and tell me I can't be here Just because i'm trying to stay in a safe area and it's really it's really hindering on you know, uh the amount of Places where we can go because there aren't any places we can go and every time we get a little community set up and things are going really well And we all look out for each other and we clean up and we you know, we we do these things that Any normal person would do where they live we get harassed by The county and the and the city and told that we can't be here and you know I heard it brought up that during the fires They were going around and yes, they did have toilet services and animal services and laundry services you know, um I think that if we had uh A 24 hour safe parking program that would be Such a weight lifted off of everybody's shoulders in this homeless community and it would really Give us something to Look forward to and it would help us It would help us get into house. Thank you so much for your comments. We need you to please wrap up Okay, we'll go on to alice Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes, we can Great. Thank you. So um, thank you city council all of you for your service your interest in providing safe parking and for providing much more funding than there's been for the chap program This is a great step forward This funding should provide close to as many parking spaces per dollar as chap provides For night parking based on what surely was telling us Plus the addition of day parking and wraparound services 726 on sheltered residents in santa rosa With 300 to 500 people and vehicles represents large-scale inhumane conditions and suffering For which we need to quickly ramp up sites for all of those vehicles and individuals The un declares it a human right for all to have a legal place to safely exist with sanitary facilities supported by our Sonoma County Human Rights Commission Thank you to councilmember tidbits For pointing out that security services can largely be provided by onsite staff In addition, given that neighbors to the finley tent camp had few or no security problems from the camp suggests Security spending needn't be as high for this and future camps Even if starting with security, it should be stepped down as it proves to likely be unnecessary So please include that as part of the rfb For those concerned about safe parking in their neighborhood or district safe parking, especially 24 seven Safe parking are designed to alleviate the very concerns that you are expressing and those concerns visited my neighborhood I would greatly appreciate a safe parking site across the street from me where I could volunteer most easily Finally in selecting a site Please prioritize number one shade Number two tied for shade is access to clean drinking water And number three a short walking distance To a supermarket for daily food given residents Don't have refrigeration And bus routes which tend to converge at supermarkets. Thank you Thank you, Alice. We'll go to vicki Vicki are you able to unmute Okay, we'll go on to resident nine six one six Are you with us? Can you hear me? There you go. Yeah, I'm here Hi Thanks, Kelly. I had a couple questions on your presentation I was wondering if the vehicles that would be parking would be registered and operational And would they be able to come and go between the seven and seven? hours or once they're checked in they're there for the evening and then if There is going to be a plan set up for what happens during the day when they have to leave Because I feel like that's probably where we see most of the issues I am a property manager for The stony point lakes, which is right next to finley park in 131 stony circle. So we're going to be neighbors to This location And the other thing is I know that there's been a lot of comments about how successful The family location Was but I don't think anybody had checked in with us as the neighbor to see If it was successful on our end because we actually had a lot of incidents and had to end up hiring full-time guards and We had vehicle damage break-ins tires slash graffiti vandalism, so it definitely Is impactful because I think a lot of times when they just kind of are Don't have a place to go. They just kind of wander around and and it just kind of creates an environment that Isn't can always be safe. So I was just trying to see if there's some sort of plan for the day use And um, I think that's about it All right, thank you. We'll go ahead and ask kelly those questions when we're done with public comment, but I took a note down We'll go on to kori kori, are you able to unmute? Hello, there you are Hi um I just wanted to say that I do I do stay in a trailer out here and To be able to have 24 hour seven days a week safe parking but with services provided for us to help us get into housing and also to have you know, like porta potties and garbage possibly showers that come Every like when I'm on a schedule would be very helpful. Um And then if the sweeps could stop because we don't have any place to go and just We just need to all I mean just if we had a safe place to go We'd all be in a place together And we wouldn't have to worry about moving every morning or whenever we wake up sometimes randomly. It's it's it's really not that fun but that's I mean So yeah 24 seven safe parking with Like wraparound services to help us get off of the streets and into Housing would be greatly appreciated All right, thank you kori. So that's the last hand I see on zoom So I'll close public comment on our zoom and I'll bring it to our in-person public comment. We'll go to katie first Followed by victoria My name is katie stagnaro And I also and with a new nonprofit in Sonoma county called impact foundation I just want to I was going to say so many different things and then I heard all these people talking and I once lived under the sixth street bridge and Was vacated constantly from my tent and then I lived behind the dollar tree And I know what it's like to be Ripped out of a place where you're thinking. Okay. I can get a good night's sleep I also know what it's like to be on the streets and And not know what's going to happen to me in the middle of the night I think that the 12 hour safe parking for 25 spaces I mean, thank you, but I honestly think it's a joke Like these people they need so much help. They need they need hope they need love And listening to somebody in the south park community Refer to these people as if they're animals if it wasn't for somebody going and hitting those streets with love and with Compassion I wouldn't be standing here today. I probably would still be out there if it wasn't for other services I probably wouldn't be standing here. So today. I just want to use my voice For the homeless community because I'm I'm planning with the impact foundation. We will be hitting the streets We will be out there with love. We will be passing out Tomorrow we will hit the south park neighborhood and we will be spreading hope We will be passing out sharps containers for that community. We will bring them water We'll bring garbage bags. We'll bring them food and we will love on that community It is just in my eyes It's so important to have someplace that's 24 7 especially for women And and I have a soft place for that because you don't know what it's like out there I do I know what it's like out there on those streets here in santa rosa Where They're really there's no safe place here when you are homeless and it doesn't matter if you're addicted It doesn't matter if you're mentally ill and right now my fear is now we have these covet the covet restrictions that are going to be ending So what's going to happen with some of these families that are going to face Eviction these families are going to hit these streets and they're not going to know what the heck to do And what are we as a community? We're not doing anything We're just going to give you 25 spaces I'll tell you what the homeless community they will provide their own security. You give them the space You give them the ability they will take care of each other and I can guarantee you they will keep that place clean You just need to be loving and compassionate. They deserve everything that we have and if it wasn't for love and compassion I probably wouldn't be standing here. Thank you for all those who loved and had compassion for me Thank you victoria followed by adrian Hello again My name is victoria yanez And I am an attorney who volunteers with homeless action I'm happy that we no longer are going around Criminalizing the homeless as much as we used to But we're still in the stone age in terms of development of our homeless programs I have lived experience and I want to first of all I'm speaking with the spirit of kelly jones behind me kelly jones was killed From standing on the sidewalk on robert She's a homeless woman So Her spirit is here with us I also want to call on the spirits of our murdered And missing indigenous women Because indigenous women are a big part of the homeless jaren sonoma county Now I'm not going to give up a second of my time. I don't care if I have to torture you with my silence I Want to thank I am no longer homeless And for this I have to thank the activists in sonoma county And the volunteers churches, etc Because even though welfare and institutions code 17 000 States that the county shall provide minimum subsistence needs This um depression era Surviving welfare program the general assistance program basically doesn't work here in sonoma county. They give no housing Virtually no housing um But you know, it's commendable for the county and the city to do a program together now um It's deplorable That we all we have 25 spaces. I'm embarrassed And for a million dollars. Are you kidding? Let's just go buy places for people for 25 people. We can buy them places I don't understand. Um why we're not getting more creative And I support The 24 hour I think we should have one of each kind of the parking. Thank you Thank you victoria Adrienne followed by anita Thank you council members and thank you to all the members of the public who are here and It just shows this outpouring of concern that we have in our community for homeless people It is our duty as a government Which is part of our society as a society to take care of people who are impoverished It's just our duty And the human rights commission has just passed a resolution very recently saying that homelessness in itself is a health crisis in sonoma county We have to do something We have 300 to 500 people by your own statistics by your own police Check checking who are living in vehicles around sonoma santa rosa Where are they going to go? Where can they go? We should be looking at this. Let's just take the the conservative figure 300 Where can 300 people park safely tonight? And where can they be tomorrow so case workers and other people can find them to help them? Jack Tibbetts is entirely right No one is going to come at 7 o'clock after a hard day They're only going to do their survival stuff and try to get to sleep And they're definitely not going to do stuff in the morning at 7 a.m To try to get into a house We need a 24 7 to so people can find each other So people can be together and say where did you look for work? Where have you applied for for house? So they can sit down in the middle of the day and have a group to say What are we going to do about addiction here? How am I going to handle my addiction? How am I going to get into recovery? How are you doing? Those kinds of things can happen in a 24 7 site They can't happen in an overnight site and 25 slots It doesn't work for 300 500 people. It's not even close to enough So we need multiple sites. I suggest that you look behind the utilities field office There is a large tract of land there. It maybe needs a little gravel or something to work But that's a place where we can have a large Safe parking program look at the two Two unused parking garages. We can definitely use one of those floors and just You get the neighbors, you know, we're hearing them here today That frustration is real. They're not fools They know when their neighborhoods are crummy The garbage people the trash people said they would come and pick up the garbage in the camps Then they refuse to do it So it's not good for anybody We need to get a place where people could park and if we don't have places for RVs That is the most visible and most obvious problem for neighbors So we've got to at least do at least one of these sites has to hold The RVs that we have in our city So, thank you very much. I'm adrian lobby. I'm the co-founder of homeless action Thank you, adrian amita followed by thomas Good evening. I um, I wanted to welcome the newcomers gave Natalie Um Eddie and raisin I'm saying that right. Um, I'm so thrilled to be back. I Just want to jump on a couple of bandwagons here. First of all I want to say that The way that you handled the merchant's needs and getting them the correct Things so that they can set up their restaurant As opposed to the way that you are Handling the needs of the homeless people. I've been coming to this room for three years And I see nothing So congratulations for at least Considering something actually it's really called Discrimination isn't it because the merchants are much more important huh And you know it and I know it but I want to put that out there because it's not just That you're ignoring people who are desperate for a place to live But you're providing to those who are Want to want to have a restaurant downtown. Do you see the disparity there? Well, I wanted to point that out because it does look like Discrimination to me and also I want to let you know that We don't really need a lot of services because like that the I did what I am what? Closer I have to be closer Did you hear You missed everything I said Okay, so just like the lady said who is homeless. We don't need a lot of services What about housing first housing first is about not having services so cut the services out because that only Leads to a problem with codependency Right victoria like Nobody can take care of themselves if they've got somebody leading them around by a leash So I want to really go for Cutting down the services but providing the space Three years we've been asking you for space. We had an encampment It worked very good over behind the dollar tree remember because They managed themselves So thanks for considering this. I hope you get on board quickly with providing something because I see nothing But people walking around with huge bundles Thank you so much. Anita that they need next we have thomas followed by pat I thought I was going to be the anchor leg, but maybe pat's going to be after me. So Uh, I'm very encouraged and yet disappointed I want to thank kelly. Kelly is kelly is holding down the fort. This is great. Uh, I don't know where we would be without that. Okay, but at the same time I think it's it's Unfortunate just it's disingenuous that they did not come back with what the council directed And to come back with one space for 25 people. So it's just unresponsive Do forgive me You have the fairground the vet in the benton valley senior centers You can use those the county has already agreed To negotiate with you. I know you saw that they were going to offer two million dollars So we know and they've already agreed to negotiate over the use of the space and they're going to be two million dollars Let's use those please There are the spaces. There's a space behind the The utility building. There's a space in front of the ufo, which is the parking There's at least 200 spaces there. There's at least 100 spaces that are not used On a daily basis. I want to go into the statistics for a second 25 over 2,500 homeless 38% are Sheltered that's a thousand seven hundred eighty or seven hundred ninety Are in santa rosa sheltered that leaves 200 in the rest of the county The rest of the county is unsheltered that means they have 800 unsheltered because they have a 1500 here in a thousand elsewhere 2,500 800 unsheltered and what that means is They feel really impacted for unsheltered and you're talking about santa rosa saying they have unsheltered problems It's nothing compared to the rest of the county and unsheltered Right, so it's tremendous, but you have there's 500 supposedly in cars and 300 in santa rosa gotta deal with that You're barely dealing with 10 percent not even 10 percent if you deal with 25 people 25 cars. You have 300 cars and rvs I want to tell you that dade burdo told me that there's no insurance There was no insurance premium to his use of his place ever He never paid it additional for that other than what he paid generally for his insurance This is not a five-year problem people are missing out. We lost about a year and a half You got to add some years back. I've been nine years coming here regarding this Um Georgia berlin was proposing it and surely zane adopted it over eight years ago They had that safe parking at the county fairgrounds for over a year and on their site for over three years That's four years and it ended over four years ago. So you know how long we've been doing that You need to be 24 seven please and you get a HUD funding for that by having electricity And having sanitary service. That's all you need and you can have that funding. Thank you so much thomas We'll go to pat followed by synthia Okay, so i'm asking you folks to fix the problem Of these some of these unsheltered folks And how is it that you know that the problem is fixed? There are no more sweeps Because the sweeps are they have they worked ever How much have you spent on them and have they provided a solution to the problem? I know Okay, so if the need is 300 Meet the need And it's the need of the homeless. It's not your needs It's their needs You need to come up with solutions that fix that help to provide solutions for their needs And that's how you fix the problem 25 spaces is a band-aid on a bleeding head wound Okay, this is an emergency situation Band-aids don't work You need to provide the assistance to meet the need Okay, so because the homeless are out there doing their thing That they they they draw this criminal element to them and i've seen this And this is why kelly got killed on the street because of that criminal element Why are cars getting broken into and all this because there are criminals Gangsters gangsters in santa rosa. Why yes, I don't know about your neighborhoods, but my neighborhood people are doing, you know Donuts all the time and they keep doing them. So don't tell me that they're not pressing because I know they are Um, you don't need to invent reinvent the wheel here when it comes to providing Spaces for these folks This is not a new situation Other places have met this problem and solved it look to those solutions The people here have seen that there are solutions and they know what those solutions are Pay attention to them because they can help you fix the problem And the other thing that matters is that when you get a section 8 voucher It does not Allow you to rent a market rate apartment right now the apartments are available for $2,000 a month That's a one bedroom one bath vouchers don't cover that And the housing authority in the city doesn't answer their phone Don't return emails And that's not just for clients, but for landlords as well So if you want to fix the problem address this And figure out how if you are lucky enough to get a voucher that you can afford to rent an apartment Thank you pat. We'll go to synthia Cynthia left. I believe she left Okay Madam city clerk. Do we have any voicemail public comments? Hi, my name is mark Kirby and this statement is regarding agenda item 3.2 concerning the safe parking pilot program From beginning the study of this program You use specific criteria when selecting proposed sites to be considered for this program These criteria included proximity to services proximity to neighborhoods schools or childcare And fire risk the rincon valley library site within district 3 was not identified as a potential site during the initial july 2020 assessment And the city elected to seek a private partner instead then On the february 2021 assessment rincon valley library suddenly appeared as a potential location With no reason given for its addition This site is a poor choice for consideration as the library is directly adjacent to maria creo high school There are students on campus at all hours of the day arriving around 6 30 a.m. For the first classes at 7 Continuing through until sometimes 10 p.m. At night for athletic events Musical and choral events and other club activities This library is also located in a residential area with little or no homeless services nearby Additionally as a fire risk This site makes a poor choice As fires actually burns several of the classrooms at maria creo in 2020 and closely threatened the school in 2017 The council seems overly focused on some kind of equitable geographic distribution of this program Versus choosing a correct option that might actually benefit these people in need Instead of trying to pervert to put a proverbial square peg in a round hole Why not use existing structures or lots that are actually designed for parking garages After hours at the downtown garage areas Would also put these people in geographic proximity to the services that would help them if they truly want help I further feel that the cost associated with this program would amount to a gross misuse of taxpayer funds Your single site pilot program cost estimates spending Up to six hundred and sixty thousand dollars a year for just 50 parking spots When you expand that out to the three to five hundred vehicle Number estimates that comes between three point nine six and six point six million dollars a year There also seems to be no mention of policies Or procedures to ensure that only safe registered vehicles Would be allowed to participate in this program I feel that no sites in proximity to any schools or child care facilities within Santa Rosa should be considered for this program. Thank you Hello, my name is Bridget. I am a citizen in the community in the tax center and I do not know the agenda item, but I am Very shocked and um and pleading begging do not put a homeless Whatever in the parking lot of the public library where my children walk from school Every afternoon and go to check out books and wait there I've seen plenty of home homeless places. Unfortunately, they're not well kept and there's garbage outside and we don't need Kids going in and out of there. There's not very much room and it's Sleeves do not do it. There is plenty of space to the right of olivers that big empty area It's safer Because people don't go in and out and kids don't walk by It is it is not a good place. I beg you to say no and vote against doing that I don't know what i'm gonna do for child care Afterwards and that's where I pick them up and that's where they go to get books and educate themselves I cannot have this. Please and thank you This is lisa clausen And I am calling in regards to the city council trying to use The rink and valley library for homeless parking or homeless encampment I will have a daughter entering the high school right there in ninth grade this year I am completely against it. I think that's one of the worst decisions our city council could ever do With having a lot of young children in that area We all know that that they are not cleaned and that they do drugs and it's just not a safe place for them to Do so i'm voting no if anyone cares I would appreciate that we do not have a homeless encampment next to a high school and a middle school Where our children are trying to learn and be happy. They do not need to be stressed out about drugged out people Thank you so much I'm calling in regards to a tax that I just received About the homeless parking at the rv the rink and valley library parking lot I am completely livid right now to hear this information Our children's schools are over there It is known that the homeless encampments are people that are do drugs and Solicit prostitution and they're mentally ill a lot of them I understand they need a location, but we Do not put them next to Where children attend a library attend school Do not put them near there. That is a horrible horrible idea Horrible, I think you guys can do a lot better than that And if you need A special committee put together with parents in the community We would be more than happy to sit down and brainstorm because your brainstorming obviously is not good enough If this is what you're coming up with I am absolutely appalled And disgusted in this even being an option My name is Regina Rowland. My address is 123 shot avenue in Kenwood. I'm a business owner and in Kenwood and my children attend rvms and the high school maria korea and Please Consider these comments Thank you so um Just leaving a comment about the object the topic Open for discussion about the homeless parking in the rinke valley library park a lot adjacent to maria korea high school I would object to that location And I'll share why period while I am sympathetic to the plate of the homeless. Absolutely I don't feel that a location right next to the school is a wise decision period We had a event on june 5th at the park There at rinke valley park and there were two homeless men who sat in near our party And I brought them a plate of food for lunch And they seemed to appreciate that and everything was fine And then one of the men started making sexual gestures towards two of my young nieces And so we actually had to call senator rosa police department to address that since he was becoming a little bit Sexually assertive not necessarily aggressive, but some inappropriate sexual gestures and actions were being made and he was Being a little bit aggressive towards my husband when we asked him if he could please leave once he became Once he started doing the obscene gestures So we started out giving them lunch and trying to be kind and respectful and that's the result in that instance so Not saying that that's a situation an all homeless Encounters, but I don't feel that location next to the school that would be wise or in the best interest of the student Okay, so I would object to that location Um, thank you so much. Bye. Bye. Hello. My name is allison mulligan and I reside in the rinke valley area I calling to address the proposal to have a homeless parking available at the rinke valley library and I strongly disagree with the The parking lot that is in question is incredibly small and is really only Enough for the people that are using the public service that our taxpayer dollars pay for Additionally, the park is surrounded by a beautiful area that I personally coach at. I'm a high school coach for Maria creo track team and I could say that there's been times where Our facilities have been broken into Particularly over the poval area where there are some masks where we found that it looks like people might have been sleeping Under there and they ruined these things those masks cost $20,000 replace which we do not have the funds for And I also have a child to participate in sports at the park a soccer player And I don't feel comfortable with her being in that area knowing that there's transients Around using the facilities in the bathrooms on a park that again be paid for to beautify On behalf of residents that pay their taxes. There are other locations that supply more parking Particularly, there was a mobile home. I believe it was off of mendicito ab across from where the round barn Hotel was and that was a mobile park that is quite large, which would be suitable It's also near public transportation And it's also near a lot of places where there would be jobs for people should they want to find them So I think there are a lot better places than the one in question And I also think it's really irresponsible to put this Near places where children play and our kids deserve to have beautiful scenery for themselves to thrive around Not a decrepit park that's not cared for by people who really don't care about themselves Sorry, I'm getting angry as the more I talk about this because I just feel like the city's really let so many things slide and Let our beautiful community that hosts tourists from all around the world look like a third world country So please use your brains and your will and do not allow this And and find some better locations that will be better for everyone. Thanks. Bye Hi, my name is natalie hogan and i'm calling regarding agenda item 3.2 the safe parking pilot program As a city resident and community health nurse, I am calling in support of starting a safe parking program here in santa rosa I believe this is an excellent step towards achieving functional zero homelessness in our community And provides basic human rights to some of our unhoused community members However, providing overnight safe parking for registered only vehicles is not enough As a nurse, I struggle to find my clients as they get continually displaced and have to watch as they forego important medical appointments because they cannot leave their vehicles in fear of being towed Please expand the safe parking program to provide 24 hour access to safe secure parking with appropriate bathroom and garbage facilities Having 24 hour parking will allow folks to follow up with medical and social services during the day And if you are unable to approve unregistered vehicles access to these programs due to liability Then please create funding and an easy accessible way for folks to get their vehicles registered Please make the humane decision in supporting our community by per by approving 24 hour safe parking programs immediately. Thank you Hi, this is arlie haig. I'm with saves I would like to Impress upon the city council to please consider 24 seven safe parking as the just overnight is not going to encompass the type of Vehicles they're out there that really need to be off the street um, and we also need a village where it's monitored and maintained and Is a transitional Housing option for the homeless. Okay. Thanks Mayor that concludes voice message public comment on item 3.2 Great. Thank you so much. We'll go ahead and bring it back to council Kelly there were a couple of questions there that i'll start with for you The first was whether or not vehicles who participated in this program would have to be registered and operational Yes, mayor. I think you know at a minimum We would need for vehicles to be operational, right? I mean, especially with an overnight program The idea is that people need to leave in the morning Maybe a little bit more flexibility there with the 24 seven program, but Some of the vehicles and RVs that i've seen out to the community that are not operational are In pretty bad shape and I would have some safety concerns Um, allowing non operational vehicles To come in that said, I know I think councilmember tubits raised it in the interest of staff and Certainly welcome the feedback from the full council. I think we want to make this as low barrier as possible So that we're serving the individuals Out of the community that really need it So for registration, I know with caltech charities Program that was funded by the county. That was not a requirement In my suggestion for that would be that we connect these individuals with resources in the community that would assist them in getting their vehicles registered I know that the county has a flexible fund set aside for individuals living in RVs and vehicles and encampments that they identify for Closuring cleanup similar to our encampment program where they can assist individuals with with you know Certain certain things. So I need to look into that work that program or fully and see You know how the county is using it, but I think that we could possibly assist those that need help with registration Great, thank you. And will people be able to come and go Between the 7 p.m. And 7 a.m timeline So, you know We can have it as a requirement You know that they they sign when they enroll in the program That you know We ask them not to leave during the evening But I don't know that that's something that we can actually enforce You know, and I'm thinking about, you know, sam jones hall. That's 24 7 operations You know people can come and go from the shelter It was the same thing at the family program, you know, there are program rules and a good neighbor policy that we ask participants to follow But we can't make them, you know, stay In the program overnight if if they wish to leave and so I made a note of that and I think that's something we're going to have to think through You know more fully as we look at the program design scope and some of the program requirements All right. Thank you. And then we heard quite a bit from people saying this is only 25 people That we're talking about First I want to push back a little bit on that notion. We're talking about 25 people at a time For a year and it's not just for the parking spot. Can you walk through for us? Why the cost is what it is? Breaking it down on what some of our estimates are and we already heard the 200 000 estimate for security for 12 hours a day Seven days a week for an entire year. Can you walk us through some of the other elements as well? Yeah, and I just I do quickly want to say that um, I don't think that what we're proposing tonight At least not what I'm proposing tonight Is going to solve um the issue of vehicle encampments in santa rosa. This is a pilot program This is a first step Um and 25 I know I mean there was a slide in there tonight that we just recently estimated about 300 vehicles and RVs in santa rosa. So want to acknowledge that 25 is not going to fix that But it's a step in the right direction and in term in terms of cost Would it be helpful to pull up this the slide? I think it was slide 17 yes that Has the program models And I can run through these and want to emphasize these are estimates, right? Based on what what you know information that we have to date And this would be different once we go out for rfp depending on the program proposals that were received from the different agencies but for The um the program operators sort of the more basic of the models You know for for 25 up to 50 spots You know Are you wanting to meet me to go like you know, I realize this information is not available to the public the actual budget Just an estimated number. So are you wanting me to go? Sort of through the budget I think it'd be helpful for people to hear some of the assumptions Like for example, obviously many of the people we heard from Would care that the people who are administering the program make a livable wage to live here So that they themselves wouldn't end up homeless. And so that's around $120,000 a year for For some some of the staffing just looking Just back to the napkin as we were talking about this Can you walk through some of the assumptions in your model For staffing for liability insurance? We already heard security just so that people start to understand a little bit more why this costs more than a couple dollars per spot so for the um overnight program the 395 thousand dollars You know, there's There's uh staff. There's operational staff about 1.2 Um fte so full-time employees. Um, there's a oversight supervision staff The combined there for staffing is about Just over 60,000. Oh, well, then you factor in benefits that brings it closer to probably about 85,000 a year And my math isn't going to add up exactly here because I'm providing Estimates so staffing right around 80 to 85,000 a year You know, you have your portable toilet Rental and cleanings that's estimated at about 19,000 a year There's a vehicle potential need for A vehicle rental, um, you know for if if there's going to be staffing overnight and not just the security That comes in about 25,000 the security again, that's a big bigger ticket item. Um, that's 200,000 and these are all um yearly costs and then there's things like supplies Contingency and administrative support that make up the balance of the budget. Does that answer your question? Yeah, it does and The one that I was curious about too is liability insurance and then obviously the the housing focus program That's more than I would assume the 1.2 in terms of uh, estimated needed staff for it Yes, that's an excellent question So with your program operator model that doesn't it includes staff but not the specialized staff and so For the 25 parking spots that $520,000 budget, you know, certain things don't change You have your core staff that I already mentioned, but then you add 1.5 Uh, fte for the housing uh navigator and housing um stabilizer Things like security don't change. Um, you're you know, your supplies And some of those other miscellaneous miscellaneous items, you know, don't go up But you're looking at increased costs for benefits adding those additional positions Um, some of them are fixed costs, but once you start adding in staff That's where the cost comes in for the um the housing focus program And that's the specialized um case management staff Okay. Thank you so much councilmember tibbetz. Do you have a question? No, I don't have a question mayor. I just have uh comments uh when you're ready We'll see if there are any other questions first and then I'll come back to you All right. I'm not seeing any so go ahead kick us off Okay, thanks mayor. Um, so I I you know after hearing the presentation I am very much in favor of the 24 seven Model and we I really think we need to strive for the 50 spaces Um, I think that is what's going to allow us to be more housing focused And I know that the council over many years since I've been around we've really strive to Only do or really focus on housing focus services And I just from a practical standpoint a lived experience standpoint I think it's going to be very difficult to do meaningful housing focus shelter if we're just talking about 7 p.m. To 7 a.m If if the council disagrees with with my My preference or my recommendation then I'd like to see That you know we we go with I think it was the the overnight 7 p.m. To 7 a.m. With a single site operator And not do a housing focus Model just because again, I don't I don't I'm uncomfortable paying for something that I don't believe is going to really yield The greatest results in the way we intend them to On the item of security, I think we should do no security or reduce security one thing that Actually was just mentioned to me not long ago was that security may be beneficial at night when The single site operator might have more difficulty hiring employees at lesser rates to pull graveyard shifts So I think you know, you can actually have security at night and single site operators during the day But keep keep that security cost down because it is huge and I think at the end of the day We have to balance public safety also with you know judicious oversight of taxpayer money and You know when it when it comes to the item of Security there's there's a clear balance there, you know when we're talking about 200 000 you just showed us a slide That said we could set up another one of these sites for 165 000 So that's uh, that's a big I think a big impact Um Again, I mentioned it before but I'll say it again. I hope we will extend this to our private partners in the faith-based community or whether they're You know not faith-based but groups they're interested in providing support and and they may already have Relationships with some of these folks. I'm actually thinking of Sonoma county acts of kindness as being an example who may be interested. I don't know Um, and then this this part I think is going to be really important and that is Making sure that this is low barrier in all aspects And and I also want to add to that this should be a harm reduction model And I think that the council needs to start having a public conversation about the efficacy of harm reduction Um, I know that we haven't been harm reduction entirely in the past and again When I think about all the money we spend from the taxpayer on this It does absolutely no good for the resident of Santa Rosa who's paying taxes For us to spend money on shelter services or housing Somebody goes into the shelter and then is ejected because they're carrying drugs or drug paraphernalia I know that's not entirely the case With all aspects of our services, but only has recently has government really Started to shift away from that model and we need to get away from that model because if we do that We haven't connected with the person we haven't offered them meaningful service And those drug needles are just going to end up in the creeks and in the the front of the downtown business anyways So, um, I hope that if not today as we go forward we start addressing this issue head on Um, and then the last thing I'll say is if we do decide to go on the 24 seven model with 50 spaces, uh, because this is a pilot I hope that we can look at setting and maybe not now maybe later in the budget portion of this meeting but, um setting aside more money to to actually grow this program because what I don't want to see is Frankly what we did with finley, which was where it was so great, but we used one time money And then it went away And so I hope that we can look at setting aside I was going to throw out if this program costs one million Let's look at setting aside three million so that if it is successful We have funds on hand to create more of these or continue this one for two or three more years as more low-income housing and You know homeless dedicated housing comes online Um, so those are those are my thoughts mayor and thanks kelly for this presentation All right. Thank you councilmember. Let's go to councilmember fleming I I agree with uh councilmember tibet's comments, um and in support Um, I was hoping to wait to hear what more more of my council members think I don't feel particularly strongly about anything Except moving forward in an expeditious manner. So that's where I'm out with this Okay, thank you councilmember soyer Thank you mayor I think councilmember fleming just wrapped that up for me Um, I'm well, let's get started jack. I agree with everything you said I mean I I one of the things that really resonates with me is if we do end up Uh, which I hope we don't a 12 hour Program, which which I I can really question the efficacy of I think it is it feels like a band-aid and I know that staff Is trying to do the best they can with the dollars that they have Um, but I think that if we do a 24 hour 24 seven that we will actually be able to do more of the housing first model and If if those that if we do if we did 12 hours and people were not, you know What's the point of offering services if no one is really going to take advantage of them? So if it does feel like a band-aid I would really would prefer to go back to the drawing board if necessary and look at 24 seven as an actual and then 50 spaces As as an alternative to the smaller program um, we've thrown so much time and energy and money at this at this challenge and I'm looking for the as much efficacy as we can get for the smallest amount of money that we can pay I'm putting a million dollar price tag. I just I I shudder at that and I I believe that we can do I believe that we can provide more um a reasonable amount of services for less money and I'd like to in in in the spirit of boldness um, take a really strong look at the security question and And and wait and see how much security is actually necessary if it is at all It sounds like a slam dunk that we are going to need it But I'm hearing that I I'm hearing that that it's not necessarily the case It may not be intuitive to think that we don't need security But I would like to give it a shot without and try to take that money and use it for programming And for other services for our unhoused as opposed to a security company. So I'll I'll leave it at that Thank you Councilmember Alvarez Thank you mayor What could I add to that nothing really? My colleagues have said it well No security. We shouldn't be fearing each other I believe people have a solution so if we weren't able to employ the The the residents of the camp whether it be for trash cleanup It's something that I would love to see happen And and if we aren't going to go for the overnight Or if we're only going to go for the overnight I don't think we're going to get the results that we're looking for We will still have the RVs thrown throughout the city of san rosa There will not be a move in the right direction And I believe we will not lessen the gap That we're seeing in our community's work, which is vilifying those that find themselves in a financial situation or a mental health situation So with that being said I I I would like to see the 24 7 model And I would like to see it run without the security and really As stated before those resources dedicated to the to the services for the those individuals who who are residents. Thank you Councilmember schweidel Thank you, mr. Mayor I wanted to go back to uh, you don't have to put it up at slide 11 That kelly talked about the criteria that the council initially had I think it was in july 2020 I'm very supportive of that which then translates in I wasn't supportive of what we heard in February of 2021 and some of the park and school sites even specifically in uh district 6 You know at a park next to new housing subdivision across from high school I don't think that's the appropriate location I get we we want to spread the opportunities throughout the city, but again, I'm uh more in favor of the criteria We need to do this in an intelligent way And I think the criteria that was on slide 11 should hold fast and I believe this location is presented today And thank you kelly for bringing it before us meets that criteria so for me our whole system of care Is actually in this evolutionary change. We've just reestablished a new continuum of care We've now started a couple strategic plans that hopefully will be implemented countywide And one of the key drivers of that for me is the relentless pursuit of housing. It's got to be there So for me, I want the investment that's going to be housing focused And I think a lot of folks even though I've never actually managed the program, but my assumption would be We have the case managers and the key thing too is not everyone can be a case case manager But you have to be highly trained skilled outreach workers and case managers It's a connection tool when you when someone I would envision first gets there they check him in We're not going to be working through the midnight hours as to How we're going to find housing for that person? What's their housing plan? What's their support system that they need? But it's a contact with that outreach person and or case manager says, okay Where can I how can I get a hold of you during the daytime on the weekends building that relationship with that outreach worker? I agree with what some of my colleagues have said it would make no sense to talk about how we're going to find housing when you've just Been it's at the end of the day. You just want to go to sleep To me this program should be a safe place to spend the night But it's a pathway to housing. It's not a destination and without those wraparound services And without the case managers the housing locators to being part of the system I think we're kind of setting up our own isolated Just safe parking and I want it to be part of the system One of the things that we're doing on the continuum of care at tomorrow's meeting the state just Appropriated approximately 278 emergency housing vouchers for the county's sonoma 128 of them Going to the san rosa housing authority In order to get those and we've identified what target groups and hopefully the clc will be voting on that tomorrow It's got to go through coordinated entry. We need those trained outreach workers and case managers to let the folks that would be using this facility Here's how you get into coordinated entry. So you might be eligible for the housing vouchers And again, once they get into housing, it doesn't end there. We need those wraparound services once we get them housed So the continuum of care is also looking at some of the emergency solutions grant and other funding sources to get those wraparound services We need to be in my opinion incorporated and be part of this the system working together as a whole There's a recent community in canada that we just learned of with the unique name of medicine hat But they just Achieved functional zero and one of the interesting things as i'm doing some research on that they said about 99% Of their placement success is not about new housing. It's about system changes and working with what you have I believe we have those resources here We just all need to get on the same page and i'm committed the continuum of care is starting to get on that same page We're just about to get a new interim executive director of the community development commission And it's all about collaboration collaboration collaboration So I know one of the other things kelly you asked about evaluate joint program with the county I know myself and others on this board this body have talked with supervisors try to do that We're much closer to doing that than ever before and I think the 24 seven because I think there are Some county-owned properties within the jurisdiction limits of the city of santa rosa That would I be ideal for that And I believe with what the county is doing now with the continuum of care is doing and trying to get this all together With what we're doing here. I think the safe parking can fit within that system And I think that would be it But again, I'm very supportive of going forward with the housing focus program the 25 spots to start this pilot program I want one of the thing about the security I get that where some people are saying, you know, what's the need of it? It depends on what population you're hoping to serve So if we wanted to take the more functioning folks who are experiencing homelessness using a vi speed at scale of zero You know zero through four pretty much high function can probably in homelessness on their own You're right. I don't think there'd be need for housing But I want this to be a low barrier shelter So more vulnerable individuals and at least to start the program We need to have the security there absolutely a hundred percent If nothing else because there is the feeling of safety versus statistically, it's very safe But it's that feeling of safety and to be able to model that saying yes, we can do it And if we go a couple of months and there's been no issues Then let's talk with the service provider about okay, we can pare it down or just having drive-bys You know where secure you'll come through there But absolutely I think it's huge to get there because it's that feeling of security feeling of safety In the area around where this proposal is I think is very important And I don't want to have one incident ruin it for all of us. So let's start out with the security Those are my comments Thank you councilmember. We'll go to the vice mayor Thank you, mayor So just really quick to touch on the security aspect I I don't feel like we need security I have spoken to People that were previously security Guards at facilities that we've had With both the county And the city And they pretty much say that they don't do very much all day, but right reports Can go to the next shift. So for $200,000. I think that that money could be spent Somewhere else I would be in favor of us connecting people with the vehicle registration Program and resources that are out there to help them because I would like this to be a no to low barrier program cooperation with private entities it sounds like They're doing it and they're doing it a lot cheaper And they can do it with minimal resources So I would be in favor Of that. I would love to see the 24 7 parking site. I think if we're going Um To provide additional services, I think that those will be hard to provide at night Um, so I think the 24 7 parking site is needed still on my Maybe not pure run. Maybe that's not what I'm trying to say, but Definitely empowering our unhoused community To help them build a community and that's not by in the site that we propose and that's not by putting security guards or having You know people that are Over them. We still have police if anything occurs, which people normally call police if they need Assistance and we still would have the operator there. So I'm not in favor of Security again, and I think that that allows Pride in the community And allowing them to build rapport if we have someone like a village operator or something someone that's over that particular village and Yes, housing focused. So I think that sums it up. I hope kelly. I had a lot of notes I hope that I was able to answer some of or all of your questions All right. Thank you vice mayor, and I'll be brief as well I also am in favor of the 24 hour 50 spots I think we have Money that's slated from the american rescue plan act that is specifically to try to address the impacts of kovid And this is obviously one that we've seen throughout the last 14 months or so I also wanted to punctuate the point that council members wet helm made Which is that we're working really hard to create a system that works And every single council member here has mentioned at one point or another that santa rosa can't shoulder the load Of the entire homelessness problem for the county alone We need to be good partners and what we do needs to fit within the system And trust in the system in the operations that we're creating So I I do agree that we need absolutely the wraparound services to make this housing focused So that this isn't just a stop or a mitigation But is actually focused on better outcomes for the folks who are living on the streets And we do have to have a conversation about what level, uh, we're actually talking about on the vi spedat because We have been Approaching this problem for the last number of years trying to take the most vulnerable Trying to take the most difficult folks who we know utilize the services the most In getting them into transitional housing and then eventually off the streets to the extent that we can Uh, is that what the council is still talking about? Because when I do hear the questions about security when I do do hear questions about Being run by folks who live there We're not talking about the same population that we've been targeting with our services and resources over the last couple of years And then finally on on the question of security I sat through the entire public Meeting that we did on the finley community center And I listened to the concerns that we had from those same neighbors Many of them that we're talking about now And it was a promise that we made to them That we would provide security services if for no other reason than to alleviate their own fears or their concerns Because there is a level of unpredictability that scares people and in exchange for that they came along with us They were supportive of what we were trying to do and of the process And so while it might seem unnecessary if you look at some of the data or what folks would like to To push out there It is all about building not just capacity within your community But trust and buy-in from your entire community on the things that we're trying to do And so I wouldn't be ready yet to abandon security Yes, we can approach it from a perspective of let's see how it goes And if we have those conversations with the community and in particular with the neighbors that are impacted That'd be open to reducing the security But in the meantime what we've heard from folks is that that makes them feel More supported in their out their their efforts And that makes them more willing long term to help us in addressing this problem But that kelly, did you get what you need? I do have a couple quick clarifying Thank questions So that the site that was selected for overnight what I'm hearing from council is the the preferences a 24 7 program so It won't work at the Municipal services center south the only site that we've identified to date That would work for 24 7 is the utility field office. So Just want to point that out And I'm hearing 50 spaces I'm not sure we can accommodate 50 spaces For 24 7 because that means we lose those parking spaces and not parking lot You know because people aren't leaving During the day and that part of parking lot isn't returning to it sort of daytime use So I will need to check in with the city manager and assistant city manager Jason not on this to see how you know We might make 50 spots work at that site. I'm not sure that we can And then just to point out, you know that the 25 spots parking spots that we put out there were were For vehicles with some ability to accommodate a few RVs and trailers So if the interest from council or the need from the community is that we need to accommodate more RVs and trailers then that will mean fewer parking spots because those take up more real estate Just wanted to point that out for council and then in terms of I know I covered this during the study session And this is you know a policy decision. It does sound like some of the American Rescue Plan Act funding is maybe earmarked for this and you'll be having a fuller conversation about this on July 13th, but The 24 7 model is more costly And the the ARPA funds are one-time funding So we do need to look at you know, how are we going to sustain this? This program in the lowland. I know we're starting with a one-year pilot But how do we sustain it beyond that if we want to you know go beyond the one year? So I think I have what I need. I just want Mayor, you know, maybe acknowledging that We're at the UFO rather than the recommended overnight program And we'll look into if we can accommodate 50 spots Yeah, when I said the Overnight or excuse me the 24 7 I was picturing the UFO From our previous conversation and and for me 50 It's what we can accommodate there And I'll open it up for council members to see if that's their understanding or if they would like to give different direction Councilmember Sawyer I'm good with the with the UFO And as to accommodate as many as is reasonable and that what we can accommodate I would I would love to see A number of RVs removed from our streets and our neighborhoods. It seems to be the The the one that the the the vehicle that gets the most attention So I you know, I'd love to be able to see some accommodation there and as far as the security goes I'm willing to allow the the to start with security and allow the reality to dictate its continuation or its reduction Um, and I'll kind of I'll let give it give it free reign to evolve as necessary So I think we're you know, I think we're getting close to a resolution All right. Thank you councilmember councilmember Fleming Yeah, um, I'd like to see us try to aim for 50 and I don't know if it would be possible to offset some of the size of the vehicles with um a few people who are intense or um, they're You know smaller footprint type of things Or if this is only for people who own vehicles I I get that that's the intention of it, but if it makes it pencil out space wise and it works from a security perspective I'm fine with being a little bit flexible and I still feel like you know, let's let's give it a chance without the security and bring it on If it's if it's needed that way we can because we're we're sitting here asking for a much more expensive proposal than we started with and You know councilmember tidbits has You know an incredible amount of experience with this and I tend to Believe that if he says that it's not really a thing. I don't really want to pay people to sit around and write reports Um, if we don't need to I'd rather spend the money investing in services Okay Sounds like you've got your direction Kelly Thank you so much. Thank you really appreciate it So council i'm going to hold us for one quick minute And we're going to do the consent calendar So that that way we could release some of the staff that's standing by tonight We'll then take a dinner break since we've been going since about 10 30 this morning And then we'll come back for item 15.1, which will be our budget discussion So mr. City manager if we can go on to our consent calendar Mayor members of the city council the consent calendar tonight begins with item 12.1 a motion for a contract award for the annual sori seal program for 2021 item 12.2 a motion for a contract award the roseland pavement maintenance for 2021 item 12.3 a resolution for award of a purchase order to info send incorporated for utility bill printing bill inserts and mailing services Utilizing the city of san luis abispo cooperative purchasing agreement item 12.4 a resolution on appropriations limit for fiscal year 2021 22 item 12.5 a resolution for the first amendment to the FOO 1219 financial audit services contract item 12.6 a resolution For submittal of a substantial amendment amendment number three to the fiscal year 2019 2020 action plan item 12.7 a resolution extension of a proclamation of the existence of a local emergency relating to the 2020 glass fire item 12.8 a resolution for extension of a proclamation of existence of a local emergency relating to the threat of community health posed by covid 19 and finally item 12.9 a resolution recommending this extension of the proclamation for local homeless emergency All right councilor are there any questions on the consent calendar Councilmember tibbetz Thank you mayor. I if I missed it earlier, I apologize during the Comments of abstention, but vice mayor rogers. I will have to abstain from item 12.9 if you don't mind Okay, councilmember should I help? Thank you, mister. I just have a question on item 12 1 and 12 2 Same company all for pavement once got a 10% contingency once got a 20 contingency Which are several tens of thousand dollar difference. I'm just wondering why So I think grant bailey is the staff person For both of those agenda items If we could promote him Mr. Bailey's mic is on if you would go ahead and address the question mr. Bailey Yes, good afternoon mayor rogers and vice mayor rogers and council members To address your question councilmember schwaedhelm. So they 12.1 is a construction contract to perform an annual slurry steel contract You hear me now. Yep. Okay. Sorry about that So, uh, thank you Mayor rogers vice mayor rogers and council members some grant bailey supervising engineer and Project manager for both of these projects. So to address your question councilmember schwaedhelm The annual slurry steel project is a routine slurry Our pavement maintenance project that has pretty limited Maintenance work that it's performed where the Roseland pavement maintenance project is a more robust treatment where we're performing um More aggressive treatments with some asphalt replacement as well as a slurry seal on top of that and as you know, we annexed the Roseland area from the county in 2016 and there's A large amount of work that needs to be performed to the streets that were selected And so we increased the contingency for this contract in case there was A need to address additional distresses to the pavement Once the contract began, okay, thank you All right counselor, are there any other questions? All right, we'll go to public comment on this Adam city clerked. We have any There I see no hands raised on We have a hand in the room But we have no hands raised in zoom Okay Go ahead thomas. Yes, uh I don't think that's on so it's on Okay, thank you Thomas tells the assignment registered civil engineer and I can tell you that uh, depending on the pavement quality the condition of the quality of the pavement existing of which Roseland suffers from a lot of deferred maintenance over over decades and uh Depending on the quality if you're gonna you have a slurry seal pavement, which he's saying This is annual contract. It's already been determined that that's quality Unsufficient enough to receive a slurry seal and maintain its Its quality of rideability or drivability the others which are not annual Contracts their quality. We know what their quality is. This is a lot of removing and replace And the exact amount of that is very difficult to determine Even just by looking at it even even by close examination It's very hard to determine exactly particularly in in Little areas and things that you can have to remove and cut out and and how you may end up having You may end up you think you're just going to do payment, but you could be doing Uh curbing gutter as well and that can get very expensive And because because it depends on what happens underneath the pavement once you get under there It's like going into a house and you're gonna you're gonna have a contractor come into your house and And repair something that's that's ruined in it Once they get into the wall, then they're gonna tell you what it's gonna cost. That's why there's 20 percent. Thank you All right. Thank you, thomas. I'll go ahead and bring it back to me. Have any pre-recorded voicemail public comments We had no pre-recorded voice message public comments. Okay Madam vice mayor. Oh, it looks like we need to promote the vice mayor She got dropped down to an attendee sorry um I move items 12.1 through 12.8 and way for the reading of the text I'll second Motion from the vice mayor second by councilmember alvarez. Let's go ahead and call the roll Councilmember tibbetz hi councilmember schwaitham hi councilmember soyer hi councilmember fleming yes councilmember alvarez hi vice mayor rogers hi Mayor rogers hi That motion passes with seven eyes I would also like to move items 12.9 and way for the reading of the text I'll second Motion by the vice mayor second by councilmember alvarez. Let's call the roll councilmember schwaitham hi councilmember soyer hi councilmember fleming yes councilmember alvarez hi vice mayor rogers hi Mayor rogers hi That motion passes with six eyes with councilmember tibbetz I'm recusing All right. Thank you so much. So as I mentioned, we'll now take a dinner break and we'll come back at 755 and we'll start with item 15.1. So we'll do 15.1 at 755 All right, madame city clerk. Let's go ahead and call the roll and resume our meeting Thank you, mayor councilmember tibbetz councilmember schwaitham here councilmember soyer here councilmember fleming here councilmember alvarez resident vice mayor rogers Mayor rogers here councilmember tibbetz have you joined us? Yep, here. Thank you. Let the record show that all councilmembers are present. Great. Thank you, Mr. Sandin manager. Let's do item 15.1 Mayor rogers and members of the council item 15.1 is a public hearing The matter before the council is the public hearing on adoption of the city of santa rosa fiscal year 2021-22 operations and maintenance budget and capital improvement program budget Our chief financial officer, jan mzik, who's going to do the staff presentation Good evening, mayor rogers vice mayor rogers and councilmembers Before we begin the discussion of the content of the budget for the upcoming fiscal year I think it's appropriate for the city to acknowledge the passing year A year filled with uncertainty and challenges A year that would require action immediately after adopting The the fy-21 budget Only to shortly thereafter amend it an acknowledgement Of the potential unknowns that lay ahead during the year No one could have known or possibly predicted the outcomes of such unknowns And while the year was challenging I encouraged the council leadership and staff alike To recognize and appreciate experiencing a year That ended much better than anyone could have predicted Thanks to the collective efforts of the organization This proposed budget begins the next phase of our ability to tackle the difficult challenges We must confront and begin the conversation on how best to deliver services With the allocation of constrained resources Through this next year together we will need to determine how best to navigate Not only for fiscal sustainability in the upcoming year But in the years to follow So as we go through the presentation do recognize that it is with an eye towards delivering best outcomes Possible with the with a budget balance and strategy that we view the 21 22 budget If we can go to the table of contents Please I'm going to pause here for a minute. So this slide provides the outline for today's presentation And as we consider the adoption of the proposed budget before us It may very well be that 20 22 fy-22 is a pivotal year beginning with leadership transitions Labor negotiations are not factored into the budget Practically speaking its cost impact will invariably challenge financial priorities Of the one-time monies that will that remain it will matter how we use them Do we leverage them for longer-term investment or do we spend them to solve a problem of the moment? Committing and adapting to living within our means will mean having a cross structure that can be supported By a reliable recurrent stream of revenues slide three, please Texas for california governments is a complex limiting construct So we need to be strategic and proactive as to our options for generating revenues While managing the one thing within our control and that is expenditures Reauthorization of measure o is consequential for public safety and financial flexibility alike Our approach to the renewal of this measure must be timely And our communication on point and meeting the moment incremental approaches To other revenue growth growth will include bringing the city's master fee schedule In line with something close to full cost recovery where it makes sense Similarly cannabis tax may have some upward revenue potential Our ability to manage liability costs will augment our efforts to bring together and bring better Balance between expenditure control and increased revenue potential to that end We are exploring a financing of the city's existing amortization For its unfunded purrs liability and this time this Item is forthcoming in the study session to the full city council in july next slide, please Um, let's go to slide five Thanks The city wide expenditure budget comprises other funds in addition to the general fund It comprises enterprise funds for which the city charges fees in exchange for water for service delivery water wastewater transit parking golf course special revenue funds house purpose specific funds such as measure o for public safety homelessness Homeless services and parks. This is also a fund where we accounted for the first tranche Of american rescue act dollars and where we will account for all associated expenditures Similarly debt service funds are housed here and are attributable to a variety of purposes The largest single item in this particular budget Reflect expenditures for water related to capital improvements, which will be paid from bond proceeds Correspondingly the cip line also reflects that sizeable increase in the budget next slide, please There have been no changes. There's been one change since the study session Um, it was the gas tax revenues are now estimated less by about $395,000 And tpw altered a corresponding amount within projects next slide, please Next slide. Thanks In forecasting general fund revenues, it seemed prudent to use year-over-year measures Which included both fiscal year 20 and fiscal year 21 Given the current fiscal year and the impacts of the pandemic So you'll see that comparison in the slide in front of you Property tax reflects a moderate increase of 1.9 percent In the year in the upcoming budget year And while we agreed and I know we talked about it a little bit at the last presentation 9.1 percent Does seem robust for sales tax However, avenue insights has continued to express confidence in that number and we've left it the same With recreation and parks resumption of activities We are anticipating near normal performance and thus the forecast there as well overall Revenue assumptions reflect an increase of 3.8 percent For 6.5 million as compared to the current fiscal year Let me point out that there were one-time revenues both in fiscal year 20 and in fiscal year 20 and in the current fiscal year Um, the decision to show revenues as such in the current fiscal year reflects My own preference for the treatment As such so that we don't make a mistake of including them as part of recurring revenues, which can happen typically when they're in much smaller amounts than these and We're we're always reminded that they must be deducted from recurring revenues. Next slide, please Notwithstanding that there are expenditure that there increases and decreases in operating expenditures The general fund remains relatively flat At one and a half percent as compared to fiscal year 21 In attempting to begin the process of reassessing the city's overall cost structure Salaries do reflect reductions of fifth 16 full-time equivalents The other reduction is a change in fire cost recovery expenditures in the bottom line These expenditures Offset increases to CalPERS for the unfunded liability component liability insurance saw a sizable increase of 27.4 Utilities and professional services expenditures show moderate increases of five and seven percent respectively Continuing to the next slide Additive to the operating budget Are additional expenditures that require the transfer of general fund monies to other funds for a variety of purposes consistent with council action homeless services You can see listed here at 3.6 million capital improvements at 3.1 million and a variety of other miscellaneous Funding recipients Together general fund transfers total out total 9.3 million In addition to the operating expenditures that we saw on the prior slide Next slide please This slide represents the summary of the general fund proposed budget for fiscal year 22 Total recurring revenues and transfers in are proposed at 180.7 million Total expenditures and transfers out are proposed at 190.6 million The budget will be balanced using reserves of 9.8 million Next slide please Anticipating that council would want to know the impact of reserves Or to reserves as a result of the proposed expenditure budget The current slide chart provides an estimate of where we are I'd like to emphasize that these are estimates only And we won't know with certainty until the city officially closes its fiscal year And that is with the financial audit having been complete Reserves at the end of FY 20 Were 21.9 million the city planned to use 9 million To balance the current year's fiscal budget With a subsequent decision to repatriate 40 million dollars to the general fund reserve Reserves are estimated to be 52.9 million at the close of the current fiscal year That would include the accumulation of 12.9 million remaining In the current fiscal year As such should our estimates be reasonably correct We expect to close the current fiscal year with reserves With a reserve amount approximating 52.9 million dollars The next slide 13 please Next slide This slide provides the citywide summary of positions by department Citywide we started the year with 1254 positions We're proposing a total of 1238 positions for fiscal year 22 Next slide please This slide shows the proposed reduction of 21 positions This does not take into account the additions which you will see on the next slide Salaries and benefits make up 78 percent of the city's general fund Commitments for other purposes such as debt service council priorities and the like make up the remaining 22 This means that any attempt to control expenditures will likely come from positions In taking cost control steps the city managers and departments agreed to reductions Almost three and a half million as shown at the bottom Next slide please This slide represents other general fund full-time equivalent changes Meaning additions to the general fund and in the next slide Reflected on this slide are non-general fund position changes They're addition additions of four personnel and tpw Reductions to measure old baseline equals three police positions The appendices include a slide showing the history of next slide please Next slide thanks The appendices include a slide showing the history of general fund reserves over the past five years The council and the public have not seen and the city council and the public have not seen this slide And we will publish this corrected presentation tomorrow morning All slides presented in this part of the presentation Are provided as supporting information Related to the foregoing presentation, which you saw Our deputy finance director alan alton is available to speak To the measure old public safety special tax and the associated baseline adjustments required Real estate property transfer tax calculations related to transfers for homeless services And affordable housing is provided here as well Additional requests for funding, which we have provided is also included And the summary of reserves for recent years, which alan can speak to also if needed This does conclude my remarks regarding the fy 22 proposed budget for the city of santa rosa and your questions are welcome and i'm And i would turn it over Back to you All right. Thank you so much council. Do we have questions? All right council members what help Thank you, mr. Mayor. Thank you for the presentation jan Just trying to follow the math and if i could just start with the fire departments So in may and on i forget what the number of the slides was In may we were told five firefighters will be losing the position and now it looks like Fire department will be losing overall three and is that because on slide 16 we're adding a limited fire inspector And then it's even with losing the it person and then building's plan examiner is that how we came up to that net minus three firefighter positions So both Let me say this both the all of all of largely these positions were all vacant positions and so You know the city manager Then and you know department heads, you know spoke to i think conversed about those positions And um, I was in a party those to those decisions, but I assume there was agreement on vacant positions And if I could mayor, yeah, i'm just trying to understand how we got to three and I think I've yes, and so initially um, it was proposed uh for the five um One of those was a transfer of the it person to the it department And then through the additional needs process They identified a backlog with fire inspections and justified the additional position to Meet that demand and so that's why you see it added back in under non-general fund FTE adjustments And then where or I didn't see any Um Information about the impact of losing net three firefighters because it sounds like different positions Where would we get that information because I'll have some of the same questions for the police right now We just have numbers here But what does that mean about the service delivery and the impact of firefighting in san rosa? Yeah chief westrop is available And if we could promote him, I think he can respond to that question Thank you Absolutely. Thank you city manager Mayor Mayor rogers and members of the council scott westrop fire chief of the city of san rosa To backtrack real quick what you're looking at that net three lost position On the position control list is exactly what you were referring to councilmember schwed home where We are we're losing five positions, but we gained Two positions in the limited term fire inspector and the limited term building plans examiner is part of the vegetation management program so So still we're losing the five firefighters as part of the budget reduction costs But we gained those positions in a limited term status and then add on the position that we transferred out to it Is where we come up with the net three fte for the fire department But we are still losing three or we're still using five firefighters as part of the budget production process In my question. So what's the net operational impact of losing three? Well five fire fire positions quite frankly Absolutely So as we discussed in the previous study session, you know, we're a little nuanced in that that are That our budget really is comprised of about 86 percent of salaries and benefits So when we get into the service and supply and where we're going to make cuts We're really limited on what we can actually Do with with the smaller service and supply budget And so The five positions for us is what it equates to if you remember I explained that it's not like an office for us. We have to have seats Filled on a fire engine. So we have to meet that 39 position minimum daily staffing. So these five positions would account for Two people over per shift and what that does it gives us the ability to reduce the overtime line So if somebody calls in sick and we have to fill that that seat on a fire engine We can then move one of these extra personnel up into that position and not fill with an overtime position So we figure that it's about Conservatively estimated about a $53,000 savings in having a person hire full-time over Filling with overtime So that that additional two people per shift also gives us the ability to More easily upstaffed during red flag or psps events. Also during floods or any other major disaster What it equates for operationally is Essentially two pieces of firefighting equipment that we could put on a road if we put on the road if we were to hit the all call And recall the entire department Again, as we've done in the tubs fire concave fire and the glass fire. So so it does limit us there Sort of one of the nuanced things though is that Losing those five positions brings us to constant staffing. So there won't be any overt Service impact delivery because of that. So we will still have 10 fire engines and And two fire trucks on the street. There will still be advanced life support We'll still have one on duty battalion chief. So there won't be a major impact Externally to day-to-day service delivery. It's really in those exigent circumstances that we'll see an impact Internally those positions also create a position where we can reduce wear and tear on our employees by not doing so much forced overtime Where since we have to have those positions fill will go into a mandatory overtime thing So that really helps reduce the injury and illness prevention both on physical and and mental health So it kind of gives a little bit of safety valve in there. So our folks aren't working 120 144 plus hours at a clip during the summer And then really it increases our capacity to send strike teams out and then backfill What's one of the balances we have is if a neighboring county's on fire and there's houses burning down and lives are being lost We'll send everything that we can but we still have to get back Personnel back into the stations and get equipment staff back up so we can Continue to provide day-to-day service to the city of Santa Rosa. So it gives us that ability too. So so that's really the the impact is there there won't be a Direct day-to-day impact to service delivery But it's really the exigent circumstances and then also internally it It causes quite a bit of strife on us when we if we lose those positions and we've worked for years and years and years to get to that two over position and Fortunately, those positions are vacant right now So it won't be issuing pink slips, but it certainly would be a hindrance to the fire department to lose those positions And so if I heard you correctly this will not have any impact to emergency response times It won't have any no not on a day-to-day basis. It should not Okay, thank you Jan the next question I have I think would be for you given our last discussion On the safe parking. I know 315 k was allotted. I think we exceeded that How do we work that into what we're going to be discussing today? um, so we um The deputy finance director and I Prepared a preliminary ARPA spending plan, which we're going to come back with to the committee and And council and we actually did I think the number I'm doing this from memory and I'm not looking at the number now, but I believe it was a million dollars That we proposed in there for safe parking Okay, so it sounds like more this is just a placeholder of the decision or more conversations on July 13 We proposed in with ARPA funds and yeah, the budget was already prepared and done But we put in a million dollars for safe parking program in in the ARPA proposed Presentation or budget that will be seen on July 13th, right? Yes, okay, and then uh, I have some questions for chief navarro. I guess Is he available? He's being promoted as we speak Good evening Great. Thanks for joining us chief. Um, I would have asked this question on the other item with measure o But um, so I totally get we're losing three positions due to the revenue stream of measure o It says three police officer positions But I know in our long-range financial planning audit subcommittee. We saw if measure o is not extended There's a list of tasks and duties and rules and assignments that they do What rules and assignments will we be losing when these three positions go away from the measure o perspective? It's a very good question, sir. Um, so we've already lost the Some of our abilities with proactive Engagement with the community and also Helping with cost for service on patrol those three positions were part of our school resource officer program and they were They basically were Taken out and In january and frozen up until this year. So We've seen a decrease in the ability to Handle some more community engagement and as we move forward We are looking at continued I guess an impact and cost for service because the other positions were rolled back into patrol and We're looking at You know the potential of measure o Basically losing measure o in a couple years and so we're we're looking we're having a strategy Or we're discussing strategies on what that looks like, but that's 16 additional positions outside of these three Right. So with these three, uh, let me just ask specifically because I know measure o did fund some of the downtown enforcement team Are we losing any downtown enforcement team members by losing these three measure o related positions? Uh, not at this time. No, okay, and then the same question for the other six positions Um, do you know the specifics of that and my next question would be what impact is that having on the police department response time to emergencies? Sure. Uh, so those positions, um Are Have prevented us from being able to backfill some of our special assignments, which assists with clearing calls and clearing investigations It's made an impact on our daily patrols and In our call to service I believe the last time we we spoke we had we had a discussion about our call to service response time and so well what we've seen uh since Since holding back those positions back in last july Since august we've seen an uptick in Not only calls to service as we start lifting or coming out of cove it but also Our response time is starting to lengthen and so our priority one calls which we You know best practices And our desires to have under six minutes. We're creeping up near seven minutes We're at six minutes and 53 seconds Since august and that is directly related to having Less officers on the street and available and so that's one of the impacts that that we're having right now Based on based on that staffing The other thing that we're having issues with right now is again overtime Last year we we spent about four hundred thousand dollars just in backfill And so much like what chief west trope was saying, you know, we address we have to address backfill to address staffing issues with overtime and then That compounds the issue with spending more money and overtime and also wearing some of our our staff out And at I think it was last week or maybe the week before last lieutenant philip during our violence prevention partnership policy team meeting Gave the policy team an update about some of the recent shootings that unfortunately our community has experienced Have these staffing levels impacted the department's ability to respond to and solve some of those recent shootings Yes, we've had uh, I think since january 1st, we've had over 30 shootings We've had three homicides and a vehicular accident Are resolving in a fatality Some of the impacts with reduced staffing Impacts again responding to these calls and the time we manner and then also the investigations The majority of these shootings we believe are gang related and since It's been 18 months. So about 18 months ago. We had to disband our gang unit for because of low staffing levels and so we have not been able to Staff the the gang unit up again and our gang unit in our school resource officer teams were were really the um, you know, they were the at the front with addressing youth violence gang violence both poor activity and also with the engagement of the community and referring Referring individuals and families over to the violence prevention partnership. So all of that has Really taken a backseat. We're we're still putting things together We do have a school liaison sergeant That that works with the violence prevention program, but it's it's we lack that detective and investigator for the frontline investigations to To bring these things to closure And are you still able to do uh, participate or lead in the great program in Sonoma county? No, we are not we are our, uh, main Our main instructors were both gang officers and also sros. We have neither of those programs right now And so we do not participate in the great program All right, thank you no more questions And mayor if I could um, just by way of explanation These cuts came about as A result of discussions with the council back in the last fiscal year where a decision was made to Bring the police department down to a baseline level In order to shift funds to other programs and priorities And so what we're doing this year is coming back With recommendations to eliminate those vacant positions That the funding was reduced for and caused them to be held vacant for the last 18 months as the chief Is explaining this is not something that That the staff came up with we're following the direction and implementation of the council direction All right, thank you councilmember Sawyer Thank you mayor and thank you, um, mr. Colon for that explanation and I um, remember those conversations. Well what concerns me is things have changed and the reality of the Implications of the decisions made then Uh are coming to roost now in our city And it concerns me greatly that our response times Are increasing pushing that seven minute mark um the The the reduction in services that uh, especially when we when we see the impacts on our measure o funding The officers and the the duties that they were performing and the duties that were being performed by the the officers that um The now that we have these positions that have been eliminated although bodies did not go away A continuation of a shortage of staffing in the police department Does give me a high level of concern I think of public safety as a core service Probably at the top of the ranks of core services that our city provides and um I would be interested uh personally in knowing what it would take to relieve some of the pressure Um on our police department when it comes to those positions I I find it um personally unacceptable to see the impact for Based on the calls not the increase in calls for service and the response times Gives me a great deal of concern Chief I don't know if you wanted to respond there I I can go on to the vice mayor Well, let me if you don't mind mayor, let let me let me let me put this into a question as opposed just to comment What would it take? What what positions would need to be changed or eliminated? um To bolster our police department um And if and if if those and given the impact on our fire department as well um What would it take to? Change the direction of the response times in our public safety departments Increase the the increase the speed in which they respond to emergencies So uh council member Sawyer I for us it would uh, I mean we're looking at the We we had six six positions cut. Uh, there were four officers and um a dispatcher and a it Supervisor and so, you know the We're trying to absorb the supervision of our of our it and our it technicians Through another supervisor We've also lost the three natural positions, which are all officers. Uh, so from the general fund standpoint They uh, the the four officers and a dispatcher would alleviate Help alleviate some of the overtime that goes on in patrol and also in our dispatch section. Uh, our dispatch is Is understaffed and uh are we're moving into Additional mandatory overtime for them because of people leaving and um, it would also help us with our reducing our response times and also Reimplementing a You know a gang unit Our gang unit at one time was up to seven detectives and a sergeant The four officers would not allow us to go that far into it But it would allow to allow us to start moving back in a in a direction We can be a little bit more proactive in In our investigations and also our proactivity and and alleviating some of the patrol staff shortages So So four officers and a dispatcher Would would assist with direct frontline services Thank you, and I understand It's it it's not lost on me the pain that would be experienced from Um Different departments and the rest of our city These are some of the very tough decisions that sometimes need to be made But it it does greatly concern me that we are losing individuals in in our public safety divisions Changes can always be made to the organization and we can definitely become more efficient and and change how we deal with With the community and we're and we're looking at that Currently, but I don't believe that they are necessarily tied I don't think it's necessary to reduce members of our police department while we go through changes in how they function And it does give me just gives me a great deal of concern. I'll leave it at that. Thank you Vice mayor Hi, uh chief I had a question about the uh measure o in the gang unit What what positions currently is measure o funding specifically Measure o is funding our downtown enforcement team Our members of our downtown enforcement team members of our traffic bureau so our motor officers it's also funding a I believe a records tech a Dispatch supervisor and In a lieutenant and so there is really it's helping the staff throughout the department But the majority of them are in Are in our field services department including downtown enforcement team traffic bureau and then patrol officers that work patrol right now And um when we talk about response times being at seven minutes Can we talk a little bit about what type of calls? those are Sure. Um are so we break up our calls for service into a number of different priorities We usually We usually talk about the the top four priorities And then there's a bunch of other ones that our dispatch handles our priority one calls are usually are Like an emergency calls for service such as domestic violence or domestic disputes suicides Prowler calls accidents with injuries Our shootings and and major assaults such as stabbings and In flights Those are priority ones We are at Since since august We have That calls for service of the responding to that has gone up to about six minutes and 50 53 seconds So almost seven seven minutes Our priority two calls. Those are Things such as alarm calls verbal disturbance calls thefts calls regarding potential mental mental illness or You know Something that could be they're not sure whether it's a medical or You know a potential injury Such as a person down and then also checking the welfare welfare. So those are some of our priority twos We're over 11 minutes in those particular areas We we also with our priority threes those are Things such as what we call cold reports. So somebody has a burglary the day before and they call us about it traffic hazards noise complaints and city ordinances We are over 21 minutes in responding to those priority three calls And then our priority four calls. Those are things such as parking complaints towing vehicles abandoned vehicles and asking for officers to return phone calls and we're almost about 30 minutes in response time to those Okay, and are we looking uh for any relief from? I know we're going to rename our model and it won't be cahoots But are we looking for any relief from that from that program as far as the demands that are placed currently on our officers? Yes, we hope to see some relief But the what we're being told by the experts in the field is it's about five Percent once it's fully implemented. So that's a 24 seven program We're going to be starting our program in the fall at about 10 hours a day Seven days a week. So it's not going to be fully implemented and so we're not going to see see the full effect of that it's also when you're talking about The the response program you're really talking about those priority two calls and the mental illness and the potential homeless issues and then again when you're talking about You know, we we go to about 143,000 calls for service a year And when you talk about five percent I'm not a math person, but I think that's about 3000 calls. So you're still talking about about 140,000 calls for service that our Patrol staff are going to go to so So it's going to help us, but it's going to help us You know, if we will we may not see that five percent until it's fully Fully implemented in about two to three years and then lastly What would be the price tag for I mean, if someone knows I'm sure I can do some math somewhere, but uh for these four officers and one dispatcher Um, I believe it's about 800 000 dollars And that's pension everything or is that just salary cheap? Uh, I'm sorry. It's about uh, nine hundred and ten thousand dollars. I believe that's uh, I think that's everything I could I could double check, but I'm pretty sure that's it's everything is about nine ten Perfect. Thank you chief We have any other questions from council members I did have a question for both chiefs Uh, so chief west trope if you could come back as well What's the lead time for filling some of these positions within your department? So uh for the police department, we have uh, we currently have six vacancies right now. Um, and then We have seven people who are We've been we we're we're constantly recruiting. So we have seven People who are able to go to the academy in july. So we have six able bodies that have gotten through the process We also have a couple of lateral officers from other agencies And so we have up to nine people that could potentially be hired In the next several months. Uh, now the the academy ones You're not going to see out on the street for several months But the laterals would help us immediately and then the the academy grads will be in the long long term And then with dispatch again, we are um, we're We've we're down to 23 dispatchers and uh, we Are slated to have I think we have uh Check my notes real quick. I think we have uh three We're down three and then we expect two additional ones to read to Leave in july so And we are we are currently in the middle of a recruitment right now I don't have the numbers that are of the viable candidates that are almost at the end, but We do we do get several of those coming through the process And for us, mr. Mayor, we keep a current both lateral and entry-level list I'm ready to go at all times. So we've shortened our reaction time to A conditional job offer to an unconditional job offer to about 60 to 90 days and without cutting any of the background information out So we've just Compressed it to where we can get people on board faster. So we're to turn around time of between two and three months to get somebody on board Okay, thank you Chief navarro for the dispatcher position. We've talked a little bit about the impact from the other positions With the elimination of this additional position. Is there a operational impact? Are calls going unanswered? Or functionally? Why is that position important? So mayor the that goes back to our uh responding to the calls for service of the minute somebody picks up a 911 or calls 911 and it goes from Answering the phone to sending us and us responding it that directly impacts that ability to dispatch We do we are seeing a an increase in the time of actual picking up the phone and We are and so we're also We're we're we're not where we should be we in 2015 We had a staffing study for our dispatch center and it recommended that we should be at 28 28 dispatcher positions and We are currently at Have 23 budgeted So so we are under staff and it does impact us From the phone ringing to the time they pick it up to the time they dispatch the officer and the Time the officer gets out to the call If you could help quantify that for me So the goal so we're hearing this goal for priority one response times at six minutes the goal is x somebody calls The the call is answered within five seconds And now we're seeing it at seven. How do we quantify? that position What methods do we use? We do have uh, we do have a metric. Um, I don't I don't have it with me I can definitely get get this back to you and I'm checking with my staff right now On the amount of time it takes for the phone to ring and the in the time for it to be picked up The other impact, uh, you know the calls for service for cahoots all that although that may reduce Some of our priority two calls for our Line staff in the field Those calls for service are still going to come through our dispatch center and And still going to impact them, but I'm trying to get that Quantifiable number for you right now Okay While you look for that we'll go to the vice mayor Oh, I had another question for the chief um, so It would be great if we Had an infinite amount of money and we can give everyone what they asked for But would it be helpful chief if you received? A letter of resignation and you were able to fill that position Co-currently with the Position already being filled or is that not helpful? In your line. Do you understand what I'm asking? Yes, so I think I do It does take us about a year to get through an entire process for a new Like a new officer a lateral officer. It could take about You know, maybe that's six months But what we are trying to reduce that that timeline The the issue is we don't have as many officers we used to so what what's happening is that it's impacting The calls for service that we usually go to so we're having to change The the types of calls that we're going to that we used to go to And and looking at how do we you know, what what are the expectations for for our community and and trying to figure that out And so, you know when we had a hundred, you know Several years ago. We had about 190 officers We could do a lot more We could deal with some of the things more proactively and we're just not able to do that anymore. So But the fact that we have You know, we still have some budgeted positions It would be great And we're trying to do what we can from their recruitment standpoint to fill those as quickly as possible The fact of the matter is we just don't have as many officers or staff as we used to And that's what that's what's the issue I guess my question would be when are you able to fill the position? Let's say, you know sergeant Such and such is going to retire in six months. When are you able to fill that position? So as soon as I get a letter of intent to resign or retire What we do is we put We we send a memo over to our human resources department and ask to fill that position And so it really it we have to have that We have to have that notification from the employee The employee could do it in you know anywhere from two weeks to Six months and let us know it really depends it depends on the staff member and and what their comfort level is on when they want to tell us Okay, thank you And then jen I just wanted to confirm So it looked like we had three police officer positions that were lumped together For reductions for five hundred and eighty five thousand Those are the measure o positions, I believe And then you had a separate police officer position that was listed for a hundred and ninety five thousand So a hundred and ninety five seems to be the number total comp per officer Police officer position not not the dispatcher but for the police officer positions. It's about a hundred and ninety five thousand per correct Yes, okay Mayor if I could just get back to your question Are what are the goal is to answer a call within three rings? And so The we are we are currently meeting that we're doing that through mandatory overtime With our staff Okay, do we have a number for how much I heard from mandatory overtime? Four hundred thousand or so last year within the police department. Do we have that designated out into which particular position? I don't have that. I I can try to get that for you. Okay. I'd just be curious to know Uh, how much we're spending in mandatory overtime for that position versus how much it would cost us to hire an additional person at that position But we'll go ahead We'll go to public comment and then perhaps when we come back chief if you if you have that number we can talk about it Mayor rogers. Do you want to open the public hearing? Yeah, we'll open the public hearing And it is a public hearing which means that everyone has an opportunity to speak on it There are two different ways that you can give live public comment One is in person here in the chamber And then one is live on zoom We'll go ahead and start with our folks on zoom And I have alexis followed by alegra Hi, um Yeah, I I have a lot of issues with um, what is can you hear me? Yep, we can hear you. Oh, okay Um, I have some issues with the examples that chief navarro is using um number one because what has been shown is that Poverty breeds violence and we are coming out of one of the worst I mean all of us are recovering financially from this pandemic and as we heard about in our last couple of meetings The city has only doled doled out what like 10 percent Of the budget to help people with like rental crises and and uh and things like that so I would say that the the the increase in recent activity would be directly correlated to The poverty that we're facing right now in santa rosa So to say that adding more police officers after the police just cost the city what over a million in payouts for um the the The horrific things that were done during the protests. I mean how how could we then say Oh, we're cutting the fire department's budget, which we need I mean in this county more than anything else. We're cutting the fire department's budget And we're going to increase the police department budget even though they cost the city more than any other Sector that that to me is really tone deaf and bizarre. Um, also chief navarro is saying things um like referring to you know, um recent violence Recent violence or and things like that But if you look at statistically the crime rates have been have been decreasing over the last couple of years So talking about a recent occur recently occurring violence It really doesn't justify $900,000 Additionally to a department that is already over inflated. I mean honestly, we are see we have an unhoused crisis Like unparalleled in the rest of sonoma county and here we are talking about $900,000 towards an additional $900,000 towards the police budget I just it's it's really blowing my mind Um, and if you guys want to directly address violence within our communities address the poverty address the people that are struggling right now because that is how you address Violence that is how you address your community by by investing in them investing in community programs giving back having programs through single parents I mean there are there are countless ways that we could be preventing this violence And instead we're going to give a bigger budget to the badges and guns who keep Causing more violence in those underserved communities. I mean, I just my mind's blown you guys come on We're better than this. We can do better than this. Let's be better than this Chief navarro that it's a it's a real big stretch to say that you mean nine additional officers and furthermore Resource officers quote-unquote in high schools is an additional way to cause violence against underserved communities So I absolutely advocate that that should never return. Thank you. I yield the rest of my time Thank you. Alexis Allegra followed by alan Hi, good evening. Um, I um want to echo a lot of what alexis just said Um, I would say to you that the police are already eating up over a third of the city's budget And if they can't find a way to stop violence with that level of funding, then maybe it's time to find an alternative Um, the sros is a total red herring like they haven't been invited back to santa rosa city schools So calm down. You don't need to fund them. Nobody wants them Um, nobody wants them in the other school districts either because it's the school to prison pipeline and that's a racist um construct so please spare me this um What about funding for cahoots program if the response times are a big problem? What about poverty prevention and housing assistance as a way to prevent gun violence? The city council could consider city level gun control There are so many ways to solve these problems and not just keep doing the same thing the same thing that doesn't work again and again This is the department that was literally assaulting our citizens a year ago And now you're asking residents to accept cuts and services and you're asking us to refund the police at the 11th hour This is disgraceful. Um, why would we why would we give them more money? Do we want them to go buy another lrad? Do they need to come and continue to escalate at first amendment protests? This is not the way forward. The community wants change. We've said it over and over again You've heard it over over again. We want new approaches to public safety. This is more of the same I yield my time Thank you. Allegra allen followed by michael Hi, thank you There have been a lot of shootings in santa rosa lately And the reactionary response to this would be to increase funding for fully increase the number of boots on the ground But according to a washington post investigation last year Increasing the number of boots on the ground police officers by increasing police funding does not directly lower violent crime Sometimes it lowers it. Sometimes violent crime increases. It doesn't have a direct correlation What does have a direct correlation in reducing violent crime or economic assistance programs Individuals commit violent crimes for various reasons, but most of them are tied to economic and social stability It would cost us less as a society to provide for everyone than to deal with the cost and ramifications of increased violent crime Because people's needs aren't being met It's vital that those programs when enacted not be conditional If you only give assistance to people without criminal records or people who are legal residents There's a huge swap of population who won't have their needs met and alternative violent crime So in addition councilmember soyer asked about what the department could do to relieve pressure on the police department So they can respond to issues faster. I'd suggest that stopping the constant harassment and removal of homeless encampments would be a good start and just overall in general Catch police funding not increase it and give that savings to programs that will help our citizens in need. Thank you. I yield my time Thank you allen michael followed by kelsey So Let's see that there's been a couple of things going around in this discussion One of those was the response times 911 another thing we've heard about was the the recent violence that's occurred and To me it seems like We're talking about the recent violence that's occurred the two things that I heard from chief navarro were Because the response times to 911 aren't they're they're not causally connected to that violence it's the lack of a gang task force And the removal of sROs from schools and we're not talking about the sROs from schools because that is the school board's Call so what we're talking about is hiring more officers for the gang task force to fill those positions and I'd like to encourage us to take a step back and Make sure that we're listening to the communities that are truly affected by these issues Do we need is the police gang task force? Is that is that a solution that is going to actually help reduce violence? Or could it possibly you know exacerbate that violence? Are there other alternatives that we could look at these are these are questions that I think that we need to keep in mind and Um, I'm not going to pretend like I have all the answers But I believe that if you look at things like after school programs if you look at child care ways to actually Help the the families of communities That are dealing with the effects of the pandemic right now Those are all things that come into play. Um, the fact that there are police officers, uh, you know Enforcing the laws against people who are who are perceived gang members Um, you know that that can that might curb violence But I don't even believe that it does and it certainly, you know brings in all kinds of issues, you know, we saw that Um, this wasn't particularly santa rosa's Area, but we saw that Uh, how disparate police enforcement in different areas Where there's a perception of of gang activity or more violence led to incidents like Uh, the shooting of andi Lopez and that's not okay So we need to be really really careful about jumping onto a bandwagon that hey There's there's these incidents that are occurring in the news. They're high profile We have more gang violence. We need more police. Um Are there alternatives have we explored have we done the research? Do we know that this is actually going to help problem and not worsen it? Thank you All right. Thank you, michael. We'll go to kelsey followed by lee Hi, my name is kelsey barrow. Um, thank you for hearing me tonight. Um, yeah, firstly I just wanted to say that, uh, I think it's important that the council members consider How uh anything that the police chief says about what the, um Police department needs has an element of self interest Um, you're asking someone whether they would like more money for what they are doing and the answer is going to be yes Um, so I guess I'm asking how Then has the community been involved about what we want to pay for? Um, and what what we don't we know that there are reactionary punitive force based systems in in many aspects of our Society that aren't very effective. They're not supported by data and they don't change things. They support the status quo in that way We know then That as taxpayers we are paying extra to brutalize people and to not help them including things like mass incarceration that guts whole communities And and doesn't make change Because of things like the previous measure o that requires a six out of six City council vote to change or decrease the budget for law enforcement and police You are very much the gatekeepers of the changes that are being called for from the community And I guess the question then is is the status quo how things have been okay with you? Do you think that this is working? Um, and how can you know you be advocates for for change? Rather than then sort of enforcing that we maintain this sort of draconian harmful system that we we know Doesn't really help and I agree with everyone else that Poverty is very much at the root of it and when we're talking about ending poverty We're talking about money what we choose to fund shows our values And and it's always a conversation about how the money isn't there the money isn't there to help people the money isn't there to keep Children from going hungry the money isn't there to get people out of a hundred and five degree heat And put them in some kind of shelter all of that is completely unacceptable We need to go back to the roots of our humanity and and involve the communities that are being affected in what they need To make the changes nobody wants to live with high prime Nobody wants to live with violence. Um, the people being affected Are are the ones who are demanding the change and we must listen to them and especially including Um communities of color are black and indigenous All people of color in our um community. So thank you for your time Thank you. Kelsey we'll go to leet Hi, thank you. Um Although i'm angry. I really do appreciate your work all of you even though I have some strong issues against some of your thinking What what I want to say right now is that the community demanded a decrease in community engagement by law enforcement We demanded that law enforcement, especially in our schools Demanded a decrease in community engagement I echo what others have said and add that gang violence is due to extreme poverty And poverty is due to lack of leadership among elected officials lack of care for those who need it the most Additionally domestic calls are two to four times higher from Families of law enforcement. So their own families are not as safe as regular civilians Instead of funding constant harm to our most vulnerable. Please fund community programs Please consider climate resiliency plans and environmental because environmental justice is directly related to social justice also, I can't help but but Have feelings after listening to so your quote Malcolm X in regards to seemingly supporting law enforcement like It makes me feel like there needs to be some serious cultural sensitivity training in within your city council And again, I think that we have made the city the community members have made it abundantly clear We want you to fund people And we want you to care more for those who need it and not With for property and the very wealthy who fund programs and fund, you know, the wealthy Really tried to stop measure P Like this this is That that measure P was was supported by a massive Landslide because the people By 70 percent wanted it Okay, so we're still like you're still seem to be focusing on this small percentage of people Who are very wealthy who have a lot of power and control and who want some sort of nice paint and flowers instead of caring for humanity And I think we're going to like this is becoming It is not becoming it is an absolute crisis It's an environmental crisis and it's a social justice crisis and you have the opportunity to help us But you can't help us if you keep doing exactly the opposite of what we the public have asked over and over and over Thank you. I yield my time Thank you, lee That's the live the last live public comment. I've seen so we'll go ahead and go to our voicemail public comments Mayor there were no voice message public comments received on item 15.1 Okay, then I will close the public hearing and bring it back to council members First i'll see if there are any additional questions before we go to a motion Jan go ahead Mayor if I may I just want to come back and clarify The distinctions between the two Budget items regarding police So in the general fund there are four positions that are there Measure all though Is something different measure. Oh, I believe is on slide 17. That was one of the appendices So the so the measure all requires bringing police back to baseline. That's a different subject It's the four positions that were focused in the general fund Um, so I just wanted to make those distinctions And mayor if I could add Just so we know the relative numbers that we're talking about because that that may be helpful to the council as they're Delivering on these issues The three police officer positions and the dispatcher as the chief said Would run about nine hundred and ten thousand dollars in ongoing general fund resources The five firefighters Would be an additional nine hundred and forty five thousand dollars And those would be ongoing general fund expenditures So the two of those Would equal one point eight four or five million dollars That we would be adding to our general fund deficit and that Having heard the council's discussion We would be looking for reductions Or revenues in other areas of our city operations 77 percent of our general fund or as jan said or 78 percent go to salary and benefits You know if we don't touch police and fire That leaves about 71.7 million dollars left to work with In all of our other general fund departments So parks recreation finance Etc etc We'd be looking to capture that 10 million in the current general fund proposed budget plus an additional let's just say two Here We're looking for 12 ongoing And that's a big percentage of 71.7 Okay, we'll go to councilmember fleming Thank you. I know most of this conversation is centered around police But I do believe it ties to issues around recreation and services that we provide and to that end I'm curious to know. I know it's such a small line item on the budget But if the cuts from parks, it will still be impacting the ability for us to serve Snacks and food at our pools this summer The reason why I asked this question. I know it's a small detail, but after Going through such a difficult year I'm wondering if our school children and their families are going to be able to access the most basic Pleasures of summer and and that recreation service So I I don't have that information myself councilmember Fleming. Um, it may be that uh, jason nut or one of the Directors in the recreation area has that information. Otherwise we can get it back to you I know there is a school lunch program that's funded through federal and state dollars I'm just not I'm greatly appreciative to that. I'm wondering if we're gonna, you know, take all of our services down to bare bones I do see kelly pop up Good evening councilmember Yes, we are reducing the snack bar budget at the finley aquatic center Families will be allowed to bring their snacks in themselves and we will be looking at Adding some snack machines at the facility And what is the cost to providing the snack bar? It's about $40,000 A season and that includes the seasonal staffing and the supplies And is that a net including the revenues for charging for for the snacks? No, that's that's just the cost. So what's the revenue on that then? Um, it breaks about even so we're cutting a service that breaks even Correct. Thank you for that information Are there any other questions? I don't have any more questions at this time. Thank you. Okay councilmember schwedhelm Thank you, mr. I just have a clarification the I wish we had another name but the kahootz program 1.1 million that's in this budget and that's in the police department budget, correct? And are there any police officers that equal or that Are included in that 1.1 million? Where are they all civilian positions? I asked chief navarro to respond to that um, yes So, uh, there are no there are no officers in that particular in that model. It's all civilian personnel And uh, it is in the police budget Great. Thank you. This is a pilot. It's a pilot program Uh for for this year, so it will include Uh civilians a paramedic from the fire department, but no officers. Uh, we would be um, we would be managing it Just through in kind services Great. Thank you Vice mayor Um, I'm sorry. I have to go back to the snack bar Why is a self self funding service Being cut can can she come back? Hi, I'm here Oh, why is a self funding service being cut? I don't understand. I'm sorry It was we we had to cut the ridgeway snack bar last summer and It wasn't too Too desperately missed and so we just decided to go ahead and cut this the the staffing And the supplies for the finley pool and then get some snack machines in It's just it's a practical move because we had to cut some of our general fund budget Okay, I still don't understand but i'll Okay If I may for the mayor Claire hartman interim assistant city manager and I um wanted to respond to A couple of those comments the uh budget reduction and recreation and why would we cut a program that Recovers revenue for itself We did need to make reductions to meet the baseline as been stated And we did look through all of the different avenues. We were as strategic as we possibly could be Every cut that we have in recreation Um, it's already a tight budget. We'll have impacts to Services but also to revenue. Um, so not just the snack bar That is an example of what we had to do but also in terms of facility rentals We needed to cut Two of our recreation Specialists they are vacant positions, but they're vacant because we have been experiencing Um responses to the covid pandemic Right now we are ramping up services. Um, but To make baseline These were the areas where we needed to make the reductions. So A lot of our positions and services make Revenue and they are offset But in the end we're looking at Uh Reductions and expenditures. It just has those those those further impacts In total the reduction target in recreation is 170,000 Yeah, thank you very much. Um, director Hartman and um Kelly the the reason I bring this up is because Of the strong correlation between the violence that we're seeing in the city of santa rosa is not a santa rosa problem It is a national problem With large cities and we're not a large city, but large cities across the nation seeing a 38 to 42 Percent spike in gun violence This is not a local problem and it is not a problem about police staffing It is a problem that has to do with Our strategic disinvestment in our communities and while I understand that it makes perfect sense to You know try to look at every department to make cuts I think that we're looking sometimes in the wrong places And it may not seem like it was hugely lost But are the families who would frequent the ridway snack bar? They are our frequent customers at city council meetings coming to tell us What a big difference it made in their experience I'm guessing that they're not because the families who have you know gym memberships the flamingo Or the the lovely place on montgomery avenue where most people that I know go to Have these great services and and they're not the people who show up to our meetings to complain about one fewer service because they're They're frankly a nerd to services being taken away And this is not a slam on the parks department or anything like that But I believe this is the time to invest rather than disinvest in in our services That we know to be upstream counter indicators for gun violence and for this type of thing. That's very expensive. I mean Asking what it would call cost to change our response time by a few seconds or a minute Is nearly a million dollars or to fund a gang violence unit nearly a million dollars If you spent half of that on recreation services This summer you would see an amazing return down the road and I know that that we all know this but I just I bring it up not to have a headline view about city You know cut service that breaks even it's more like wait a minute We have gone so far from like this upstream investment That we know works to having this discussion about how many police officers we should We should add when just You know a couple of months ago. We're settling massive lawsuits and a year ago We were sitting through hours and hours and hours and hours of public outcry Around not doing this which brought us back to baseline with our police department So I just wanted to bring that in for a little bit of perspective as we go forward That's all I really have to say about this is like let's let's try to keep things in balance as we move forward Are there any other questions from council? councilmember alberas Thank you, mayor My question is regards to the school resource officers. When was that program? Ended when was the sunset of that program councilmember alberas the program was basically put on hold and In the summer of 2020 they were there was some ad there's an ad hoc committee that was done with the the city of santa rosa school board and there was a recommendation to bring it back with some revisions and by the ad hoc committee school board elected to Keep the pause on and so As we were facing the measure o issue we that was the We looked at where our measure o positions were and that was the Best place to really take the measure o positions out of and then Take the rest of the sROs and put them back in patrol The only other options were the downtown enforcement team or the traffic bureau Has there been any additional interest from this ad hoc committee to reinstate this program? We haven't any conversations. It was an ad hoc committee. So I don't know if they're still going but we've had We've had some communication couple of communications with the Superintendent but They're I think I believe they are going through some leadership changes and so We do anticipate having some meetings here in the near future about what the Relationship looks like but at this point. We don't have the we don't have the staff to do that And my last question in regards to the gangcast force Should there be enough resources for those additional officers? Would this be a program that would be reinstated? The gang unit yes, sir or that So yeah, that that would be one of the areas that we're looking at We are the biggest, you know, our first priority is to make sure that we have enough staffing and patrol but that is one unit that Does a little bit of everything it does it does by the crime investigations Directly related to gangs. It also does a lot of community outreach and engagement and works They're they're the liaison with our violence prevention partnership And so they they are they're they're key and there are a lot of different things that we're doing And that was one that's one of my goals to get that team back In regards to figures, I know and I'm sorry if you don't have this information available today But since the inception of the gang unit have how do we have figures that have shown the the reduction in shootings and gang membership and in gang violence Or anything of that type any figures We have seen over the years that Violence has been reduced and you know, I'm not going to say that's all the police department We've had a significant partnership and collaboration with all of our nonprofit partners through the violence prevention partnership and then also the mayor's gang prevention task force Prior to that and so it really takes a holistic approach None of us can do it on our own and and again the the gang investigators and the sergeant assigned to those teams Play a vital role in that partnership and working with them to address violence in neighborhoods and And and work on engagement There's nothing specifically that says This gang shooting or this this amount of gang shootings per year were reduced by this x number, is there? I I would have to go back again We we have for years taken a have tried to take a holistic approach and and so we're definitely um, they've definitely been successful at uh clearing uh gang cases Throughout the years and you know everything that they do ends up Being in line with some sort of prevention and intervention work working with the With our nonprofit partners. So I don't I don't have the data on me, but I do know that there has been as One of the other council members alluded to that there has been a reduction by a crime in the past Or might have been public comment But a lot of that has to do with the work that we've done Alongside with our violence prevention partnership and nonprofit partners Thank you. Thank you chief. Yeah, what I was trying to understand for myself was The amount of gun violence gang violence that we have here in san rosa Compared to our neighbors Uh on a national level I thank you Yeah, I I don't I can't tell you what it is on a national level. I can tell you that uh, we are the busiest busiest jurisdiction in sinoma county and We're probably one of the busiest ones in the in the region With the the amount of the population that we have and an amount of cost of service that we get In crimes and so we have seen an uptick this last year As we've been loosening the restrictions up Thank you, sir Council any other questions? All right, mr. Sawyer. This is your item. Let's go ahead and put a motion on the table for discussion Councilmember Sawyer. You're muted At least I'm consistent and I waited until you started talking They introduced the resolution of the council with city of san rosa approving the budget for the city of san rosa for fiscal year 2021 That's 2000 to 2022 the capital improvement program budget for fiscal year 2021 and 22 and establishing reserves for the 2020 2021 fiscal year Way further reading. We have a motion. Do we have a second? second All right, I had a motion from councilmember Sawyer a second from councilmember tibet's Let's go ahead and open it up for discussion Councilmember Schwedham Thank you, mr. Mayor some of the I'm going to end this with offering a friendly amendment, but I want to give a little bit of history and so I totally get an understand The three police officers positions being lost via measure o because of revenue So measure o was passed by the voters as an enhancement of public safety But if the court sentenced sales tax is not sustainable for the positions, I totally get losing those positions But historically the san rosa police department has been a community-ordinated policing department and others engaged in the community And as we start losing these positions, we'll lose that ability And it really struck hard on me at our violence prevention partnership of which I've been chair Since then mayor Sawyer appointed me And when we typically when we'd have a number of shootings that did involve some youth of our community We'd have a crisis response team there and talking to our community engagement director She had started talking about oh, we're going to recreate that or we're going to create this crisis response team That had been in place for years when Chief Navarro was a gang detective It was there and it was talk about community Now there was one phone call to the schools one phone call to the outreach and all of a sudden we're working together to prevent future violence Because not all crimes are equal and when you talk about gang crimes One of the biggest fears is retaliation Right and that's based on you need relationships In other words police officers the community working together to prevent future violence into stop that And so When we made the decisions Last year to freeze the budget. Well, now we have a little bit more data, right? We've also now gone on this path. We're going to be creating this kahoots team But we don't have data. I heard the chief said we our hope is it will reduce calls for service I have that same hope But to me especially with the amount of time it takes to get officers qualified and chief navarro talked about uh academy positions one of the ways that City of Santa Rosa police department is trying to get as diverse as possible Is by hiring those for those entry level positions Right because the lateral the the reality in police work the lateral pool has not been very diverse It does take longer, but it also adds to the diversity and richness of the department And at certain points, I know there's a question about how long does it take to fill positions Previous councils that authorize over staffing because it takes so long to hire a dispatcher the dispatcher turnover rate Or the amount of training program it takes several months. It's not as quick as some other positions And so for that I would just ask For if mr. Sawyer would accept a friendly amendment. I would like to take one million dollars of the 52.9 million dollars projected reserves one-time cost to Refund at least for those police officer positions and the dispatch position I don't have the exact dollars But also with the caveat because I think we do need to look at the city services as a whole quite frankly We're fighting the structural deficit. I think we need to reimagine city services Right because when this council as mr. Cole and shared with us Put a hiring freeze. That was just a point in time So if a position happened to be vacant it was not surgical or strategic at all It was just stop and I get it stop the bleeding We have not yet or I have this council. I don't think has gone into what are the impacts of these different positions And again, we we use that with our transportation and Our bus our transit department where we reimagined the bus I think we need to do the same thing with cities and what is this council okay with So as we start cutting positions and not just police and fire But every department because we cannot continue to maintain the level of services that we have now As mr. Cole and said this just starts exacerbating as we all also know We still have not come to contract negotiations or an understanding agreements with all of our labor union I think we need to take a look at that across the board But I just can't say I don't think the police department current staffing level Is being able to meet the expectations of our community So with that mr. So I'd like to make a friendly amendment that we add One million dollars one year only To this budget so that we're able to maintain staffing or at least get four positions back for the police department The council members quite done because I agree with the strategy and the spirit in which it's offered I will accept that amendment Does the second agree Agreed Okay, let's keep going with comments So the new motion on the table is for the budget as introduced But with the four police officer and dispatcher position Added in are there any other comments? Or motions vice mayor So what happens after the year mayor? Or strut whom one of y'all What my thought is is that council take more comprehensive look What are all the services that we provide And wherever that dollar amount is that revenues and expenditures have to equal each other So whatever that dollar figures we need to cut let's look at the city as a whole What are we willing to stop providing services to the city that may come from the police department? We may say yep police department. We're going to cut another temposition. Here's the impact But we're okay with that and I don't think this count council has had that comprehensive analysis of all the city services To decide as to what services the city of Santa Rosa will provide to its community Wouldn't it make more sense to have the comprehensive analysis and then Add From there instead of it seems like we're doing it bastards When all the departments took a took a cut I guess we could debate that but I don't think you're right all departments may have taken a cut But I don't think it was strategic I don't know if we totally know the impact of each of the cuts through each of the departments That's that comprehensive conversation I want to have and I know having lived through it with a greater session When a former city manager made some decisions and all of our parks went brown Got a lot of community feedback about that. I'd like to have that thorough of discussion prior to making any significant cuts so that we are Stabilize our budget It just just to be clear that former manager is now sitting here No, no, it was not you. It was your uh successor Council member Fleming Yeah, um council member schwedhelm. I appreciate how um I can hear the the seriousness and the passion in your voice about this And when you did explain how this team does respond to these shootings It does make sense But I also have to agree with you about having a strategic approach to having these conversations And I I think that you and I are on the same page I've been asking for this for years to talk about impacts You know what the relative impact value and outcome of each department in each position is um, I am challenged to support this because of the ad hoc nature of it And so I'm wondering if you would consider um You know also adding some amount of services back for for our families since we know that the lack of services in recreation programming is so directly associated with these types of Spikes and violence Or if you feel that it we should just um add To to one department You know without doing this analysis. I'm curious to know what your thoughts are I'm totally open to your suggestions because I see recreation parks is losing the 1.10 positions What what is that impact? You know, I think it's a A halftime and a 0.6 recreation specialist I don't know what the specific impacts the community would be but i'm definitely open to their discussion Well, and I would love to hear from the community. I mean, I don't know how many positions have been lost over the past few years really You know, we're seeing you know in police. We've lost a number of positions over the past few years In parks and programming in particular I think that we're dealing with the cumulative impacts and so I would like to bring us back to to programming levels that we had a few years ago, but I'd be interested to hear from from miss magnuson The two positions that we're losing in recreation is a rec specialist in the neighborhood services section um Is a halftime position and then um A part-time position in the community center section that that person supported uh rentals and senior programs at the steel lane community center um and then There's some temporary seasonal staff dollars that we were cutting and then some services and supplies to finley community center What would it cost to um to not take out? I apologize, but I can't see this super well To to not take those things out and um add the snack service bag at riddway I think it's a it's 170 000 dollars for all those combined. That's it Yes, and then um to reinstate service at at riddway Pool would what be another 40 or 50 000 dollars. It's it's about 30 35 000 So I would suggest that we um add back 200 000 dollars to the parks budget for them to um Add programming as they see fit and and it's personnel And then the other portion of uh the parks is the two groundskeepers Uh, which are now in tpw. They're direct. They're um line workers to maintain our park restrooms and um And that's the 183 000 Correct. Yeah, I would I would suggest that you know, we're gonna um take a public health approach to Violence in the city of Santa Rosa that we we make parks and rec hole as well as police on this count So I would make a friendly amendment to council member soyer um adding in um the two groundskeepers as well as the 1.5 um On the other slide The the staff member the half staff member and then the the fine the finances for um supplies And adding back in richway services I think that'll be about 400 000 dollars In services and personnel Council member Fleming is this a one-year? um recommendation as It is the other one was it is a one-year recommendation I am strongly with council member schwedhelm that we need to do a strategic and in-depth analysis Across the board and I I think that the time of reckoning has come But um, I'm unwilling to let a summer go by where we don't invest in our our most vulnerable families Well, I agree with that strategy as well and I will accept that amendment. Thank you council member tibets I'll second it but before I do I want to ask the question of miss magnuson It's we've discussed briefly. I brought it up a couple of budget sessions ago about employing the use of seasonal help to Kind of clear some of the backlog we have at our parks particularly as it pertains to things like Seasonal snack bars groundskeeping or enhanced park maintenance during high traffic times such as summertime Have we ever since then kind of taken a look at it because again, I you know, I'm I'm definitely with uh The council member Fleming and the sentiment here, but we do also have a budget reality And I'm sure our city manager is looking at us and looking at the budget going okay Where are we going to get this? Well, we're going to go out and probably pass another sales tax measure And so I'm just wondering because we are so flush with one-time money right now Is there a strategic way we can address the needs of our parks using seasonal help? Yes, there is I think we are looking at a new program To expand our park monitor program, which is a seasonal program And those positions would be Supporting the groundskeepers and the skilled maintenance workers out in the parks They'd be supporting our park permit program our picnic reservations The intention is to have more of a presence in our parks More of a customer service approach That's one of the programs we would be looking at wanting to expand if we were to have the additional funds And I think Jason that could probably respond to the groundskeeper You know park maintenance question Yeah, good evening, uh mayor council members with jason that uh assistant city manager Um Yeah, the two groundskeepers positions were specifically slated to manage and maintain the public restrooms that we have throughout the park systems And so the loss of those two groundskeepers does force us to keep those those restroom facilities closed It also forces us to limit the amount of Maintenance that we do in and around some of those parks So that's the type of impact that we have there. Kelly was right. There are certainly Aspects of the two departments working together to make sure that we have a good consistent program Out in our parks during the summertime utilizing both skilled maintenance workers and the recreation Specialist staff that she's been discussing so Working together we can do Likely a better job of being able to enhance the experience for the public that come in That does get more difficult as we begin to begin to reduce the number of maintenance worker staff that we have available to be able to provide services to those park areas Thank you director nut, but I guess let me ask the question more directly Um, it seems to me that if if these two groundskeepers if their primary role and function was maintaining our restrooms I'm not seeing why that couldn't be accomplished through seasonal help Is there a reason why we can't use seasonal help for those functions From a maintenance worker standpoint, uh councilmember tibbetz. We've had a very difficult time securing seasonal support staff We have had that in our repertoire of Hiring over the last several years. Um, we have limited success. It comes and goes There are times when we are successful at bringing in seasonal staff to come in and support There are other times that we've not been successful And so I know that we are currently out trying to find additional seasonal support for these types of activities But so far i'm not aware that we've been able to secure any staff On a part-time basis to come in and provide those services We've also talked about trying to develop a homeless service program that would utilize jobs training in an effort to help develop skill sets for certain members of the community And be able to provide support to our maintenance staff. That is not a program that's been Moved up in the priority setting with uh council when it comes to homeless services So it has sat in the bottom Of the list at this point Um, we've not been able to advance that uh to this date But there are things that we believe are out there that we can potentially do to increase the number of staff that are available to assist in this He's pretty good. Yeah Okay, um, I guess I I'm struggling with this one because I feel like this is one of those moments in the budget where we either need to try to Nudge staff in the direction of trying something new That may be to the benefit of the long-term fiscal health of the the local agency Or we just say okay, we got to keep services You know, I'll keep my second in place But if any other members of the council Kind of agree with my sentiments that I I feel strongly that we should be looking at seasonal help here and if retent if identifying potential help is an issue well instead of paying 24 dollars, maybe we look to paying 35 but You know, my point is that in the long term, we don't have unfunded liability issues with with seasonal help We don't have to worry every year Due to you know, the elastic nature of our sales tax base Where we are at the whim of the economy. We don't have to worry about keeping these people or hiring or freezing And I just really really hope that if we don't this budget cycle some budget cycle We take a look at seasonal help to meet the needs of our public. Victoria's right Especially when it comes to parks parks is always getting the hatchet first Uh in the budget process, but I just think we can be more creative than we're than we're being quite frankly I will say jason. I do appreciate the work that you did on the homeless Hiring program if you tell me a number right now what you need to make that actually get higher up on the priorities list I'll support it But thank you for the responses. I appreciate it Council members tidbits I just to add one more thing we did as we were looking at the potential of losing these two positions We did look at trying to expand services through our janitorial contract That came up with a number of about two hundred and sixteen thousand dollars to provide restroom maintenance services and cleaning Through that contract There may be the potential as councilmember schwedhelm alluded to during the during the study session to utilize measure m for that Measure m does not allow us to supplement Or sub supply doesn't allow us to supplant services. Therefore, I could not pay for the two groundskeepers that way, but there may be other Mechanisms that I could try to utilize which I would bring forward in the future if we'd be Thank you, jason Nice mayor so To say that I am confused would be an understatement I I feel like we're doing What previous councils have done although we're saying that oh we're only doing this for a year The reality is we're not going to hire Officers for a year and then fire them after a year and if we keep spending more than what we're making We're going to be in the same situation that we're in previously before we Were able to get the pjuni money. So with that being said since everyone has an ask I guess my ask would be that since we are in fire season That we restore some of our firefighters back Right and also that we invest additional monies into our community engagement since that is one of our Priorities, so I think that we all have asked I think that All of the departments deserve more than what we fiscally can give them in the long term But we're not in that situation. So that would be My ask is that we have additional monies for Community engagement and that we restore at least two of the firefighter positions back Um since we're having a prolonged fire season and this doesn't seem to be going away councilmember Fleming Yes, um, I wanted to make one more council member tidbits um brought up a cost cutting idea around um Seasonal labor and I had another thought that I've been meaning to bring up for a while. I'm not going to ask for it um in this motion that I would like Staff to come back in the next cycle of that which would be I know so many volunteers in our park system And one of the things that they constantly ask for is a volunteer coordinator And so I think it would be I'd be very interested to hear in the next round of budgeting What the cost and what the potential benefit to having an organized Parks maintenance Program would be because I know for example in my district We have one park that's entirely maintained by volunteers And I'd be very surprised if we couldn't get some significant cost savings measures out of Professionalizing the volunteer side of that with a staff member and harnessing Are all of that volunteer labor going forward. So Again, not going to ask to fund that this time But ask to hear that in upcoming budgets Ellie, did you have a comment? Um, I was just going to add um that recreation does have a Full-time volunteer coordinator, but that person does have several other responsibilities But we do coordinate with park maintenance on several ongoing projects We support the rural cemetery volunteer committee the bennett valley vision The you know several projects in the community and there is room to expand that program So I'd be happy to Talk to you more about it offline or give a presentation. I'd love to hear how we could expand that going forward. Thank you Mayor can I just expand on just for a second? For councilmember Fleming this the senate was pleased for and also has a volunteer Coordinator and they are volunteer. So it's a volunteer volunteer coordinator currently I'm sure they would like some enumeration, but they they do Does the best that they can he does a great job Right. Yeah, that's wonderful. And I think that you know, one of the great things I know this is really tense But one of the things I think we can be really proud of about our community is our intense level of engagement and volunteerism And so anything we can do to support that will help our bottom line and build our community Good point So council, I am going to pull this back just a little bit And make sure that folks remember that we are talking today about our structural budget And then we also have an opportunity in two weeks to talk about the use of our one-time funds Whether it's from the american rescue plan act or Our pgd settlement funds that remain So I did hear Significant concern from folks in public comment And I hear it from council members about strategic investments in our community That I think we all agree do end up Hopefully reducing poverty reducing violence reducing dropout rates in high school reducing recidivism rates All hosts a host of issues where we know that upstream investment works Uh Some council members have heard some of the the programs that I've asked staff to bring forward Uh, they are strategic in reduction of poverty It includes things like a pilot project for universal basic income It includes things like a worker program Guaranteed work for folks and then obviously we've also invested in child care as well I know that other council members have ideas on what they would like to see with those one-time funds I would encourage us to hold some of this conversation For that discussion as well Particularly if if the words came out of your mouth for one year only I'd suggest that we pass a budget that we can rely on that is structural and we can come back and make more strategic Or surgical decisions about later But then anything that is one time or for one year I would suggest that we come back and talk about in a couple of weeks with those access to those funds With that said the motion that's on the table right now and has a second Is to return the four police officer in dispatcher positions As well as the two caretaker positions and the Other section about 170 thousand dollars worth of sections including the aquatic center In the park's reductions I just want to make sure council is clear on where we're at with the motion And we have a second on the table with that as well Are there any other council member alvaro's I will not ask In regards to the to the money being refunded to the to the law enforcement police officers There is one issue that I have with it. We heard that dispatchers have dropped from 28 to 23 I believe we were just speaking about response times for quite a bit there And i'm wondering if we're going to improve response times by Employing more officers or employing more dispatchers I think that's a question for the chief. Yes, sir So council member alvaro's the the response time Is the response time does come from the officers who will have to respond the dispatch The dispatcher what's that need what that's needed for is really to To make sure that we are Not using as much over time as we are right now The mayor had asked earlier it is about we do spend about a hundred thousand dollars In overtime in dispatch or we did last That's our average We do anticipate that that's going to go up a little bit more with some additional people leaving if we can't Maintain these positions, but the response time is basically from the officers the Calls for service that we do it's based on The state state Asked us to pick up a 911 call after one ring. We're at about three rings. That's our average Now chief I hear not not only in the police department But in other departments where overtime seems to be a great amount of cost or increase of cost So would it be not advisable to maybe hire a couple dispatchers along with the suggested police officers? So we wouldn't have this increase of overtime costs Yes, again If if you go if we're talking about staffing We've had staffing studies in the past that have by 2022 We're supposed to have 188 sworn officers and then also 28 dispatchers. So We are we are not there in either of those staffing studies And so we do anticipate having another staffing study coming up By the end of the year or early next year. We're working on that right now But both staffing studies in the past We are not at the goals or the recommendations for those staffing studies and lastly I haven't been here on the council for more than six months Maybe even seven I lost track of time But in that time that I have sat on this on this board I've seen a council that is very proactive in in issues that we address Whether it be the homeless issue that has been going on for years and yet we are proactively creating programs to address this issue What i'm seeing with with whether it be the law enforcement or whether Even the fire department we're being reactive in the sense of of the investment that we're attempting to make in these two different departments And I would like to see more of a proactive sense And I believe some of that was spoken to in regard to the recreation department and the recreation Efforts whether it be the swim center on ridgeway go ridgeway and and and and other services including the the child care programs And me personally I would love to see us move into more of a proactive Direction and investing into those type of situations. I won't ask for them But I definitely believe in this strategic Planning that we are going to move forward and such as our mayor just stated If we're going to be looking at programs for one year, are we really going to be able to make the difference that we're seeking? thank you thank you councilmember, uh, I also Neglected to mention. I think that we also have to talk about the elephant in the room And that's the increase in our ual payments are unfunded liability payments each and every year You see it in this year's budget at 30 million dollars It was 28 million I believe last year and it's expected to continue to rise to 44 million Unless we do something about that and jan I know you mentioned We do have a study session that's coming to the full council on a pension obligation bond That is something that I would hope that council would continue to to look at in terms of how to Prevent the crowding out of services And I think if each of us was told you've got 28 million dollars a year that you could be spending on community investment programs Uh, I think we all would be able to spend that I think that there's more than that need in our community But until we actually get to a place where our pensions are back to being funded Appropriately that's going to continue to be a drag on our ability to deliver services within our community So jan when is that discussion coming? Um mayor, I believe it's coming July 13th I just wrote um the staff report And um, yes, it's it's I I believe that's the date Is it the same meeting as when we discuss our one time? Perhaps this is a question for the senator actually it's coming. Actually no, uh, plb's are coming on 720 Okay, so it'll be the meeting after we discuss our one time funds. Great So I I think I understand what the council is What the motions before the council are doing is um Extending some resources on a one-time basis to the police department and our recreation services As well as restoring To the groundskeeper position so that we can keep restaurants open With the understanding That we are going to have a dialogue about what are the tough structural Decisions that we're going to have to make Based on priorities and strategic discussions about Impacts to the community revenues brought in through those services And the positive impacts created in the community as well as potential negative impacts if we cut or eliminate or reduce a service That still is going to get us back to a point Where this council is facing very difficult decisions And we're in effect kicking the can down the road You know six months or so But you're you're going to be back here probably with me in november And a new city manager in january february Having very similar discussions, but hopefully better informed As you go forward and make these tough decisions I appreciate that mr. City manager and I think that uh I think that the good news about our july meeting is that's money that has to be spent We'll be able to delineate delineate a little bit better between What are the the investments that we have to make in our community right now? And what does a long-term? Structural budget look like that meets the needs of the community and that's the conversation that I think many council members It sounds like are interested in getting to Are there any additional questions or comments from council members? All right sing them. Let's go ahead and call the roll Again the motion is to pass the budget As written with the amendments of adding in the four police officer positions a dispatcher position As well as restoring the cuts to the recreation and parks department In groundskeeper You get the groundskeeper because that was tpw Yeah, oh, yeah, thank you And the and the two groundskeeper positions that were moved over to tpw And the bridgeway services Yeah, that's at the recreation and parks cuts. They just what they weren't cut in this budget though. So I wanted to be clear Okay, councilmember tibbetz I Councilmember schwedhelm. Hi Councilmember Sawyer Hi Councilmember Fleming Yes Councilmember alvarez I Vice mayor rogers No Mayor rogers. Hi That motion passes with six eyes with vice mayor roger voting. No All right. Thank you council. We'll go ahead and take a five minute break and then we'll resume the rest of our meeting Who it is All right, madame city clerk, can you please call the roll so we can resume? Yes, thank you mayor councilmember tibbetz councilmember schwedhelm here councilmember Sawyer here councilmember fleming here Councilmember alvarez vice mayor rogers President Mayor rogers here councilmember tibbetz. Have you joined us? Okay, let the record show that all councilmembers are present with the exception of councilmember tibbetz Okay, and uh council unfortunately in my zealousness. I forgot that there were additional resolutions that we need john to read on the last item Just give me a moment. I thought I remembered there being several These are the additional resolutions Yes, there are a number of them But to introduce a resolution resolution of the council of the city center oza authorizing that public facilities improvement fees funded pfif projects contained within the city budget and the capital improvement program document continued to replace the pfif map and list on file with the city engineer and making certain findings with regard to sequa requirements for the adoption of the city budget and wait for the reading second Motion from council from councilmember Sawyer second from councilmember schwedhelm Are there any comments? Great, let's call the roll councilmember tibbetz Councilmember schwedhelm hi councilmember Sawyer hi councilmember Fleming yes councilmember alvarez hi vice mayor rogers hi Mayor rogers hi That motion passes with six eyes with councilmember tibbetz absent And i'd like to introduce the resolution of the council of the city center oza I'm mending the city's salary plan and schedule and authorizing the city manager to implement these changes included in the fiscal year 2021 2022 budget and wait for the reading of the text I would second that does that need to be modified with our adjustments to the motion and the friendly amendments? I think I heard councilmember this is the south This this is the salary plan That is that potentially So we better check with the city attorney So you're looking at The uh resolution FTE's Yes, you would have to add back in the full-time ground keepers and the I believe the all the positions that were restart should be amended in this resolution It'll write those positions are deleted in this resolution. So they need to be That those provisions need to be deleted from this resolution so that they remain in place Can we just use that as amended by the city attorney? Yes, what I would say is amended amended to align with um the Uh council's decision on the prior resolution heard the city attorney Very good. I will second that. Thank you So motion from councilmember Sawyer second from councilmember Swethelm and I will check the resolutions before I sign them And with that that i'm city clerk. Good idea all the role and I will review them and compare it To the the the changes that you made to the prior resolution. So it'll be double checked probably triple Okay councilmember tibbet Councilmember schwedhelm. Hi councilmember Sawyer. Hi councilmember Fleming Yes councilmember alvarez. Hi vice mayor rogers I Mayor rogers I That motion passes with six eyes with councilmember tibbet's absent Now i'll introduce a resolution of the council the city center rose up setting the stormwater utility budget and determining the amount of eligible funding that has been received from the flood control zone 1a benefit assessment in fiscal year 2020 2021 and based there on setting the stormwater assessment per equivalent residential unit for the fiscal year 2021 2022 and way further reading second Motion and the second let's call the roll councilmember tibbet Councilmember schwedhelm. Hi councilmember Sawyer. Hi councilmember Fleming Councilmember alvarez. Hi vice mayor rogers I Mayor rogers. Hi that motion passes with six eyes it with councilmember tibbet's absent Next i'll introduce a resolution of the council the city center rose up approving certain projects within the fiscal year 2021 2022 capital improvement program budget year and way further reading second And let's call the roll councilmember tibbet's Councilmember schwedhelm. Hi councilmember Sawyer Hi councilmember Fleming Yes Councilmember alvarez. Hi vice mayor rogers Hi Mayor rogers. Hi that motion passes with six eyes with councilmember tibbet's absent Next i'll introduce a resolution of the council the city center rose up approving certain projects within the fiscal year 2021 22 capital improvement program budget year and way further reading second Motion and the second Let's call the roll councilmember tibbet's Excuse me mr. Mayor on the If i'm Did i did i duplicate? No, there there are three res. There's a primary resolution That i'm actually not seen on my screen that accepts All of the cip projects with certain exclusions And then we have three resolutions That address those exclusions Um because there were some Abstentions required recusals required on a couple of those include it was in the first i see those Okay, i'm sorry. Yes, do are they included in the so they are included in the language of each one of these resolutions Those exclusions those exclusions, but then we have Are you at the cip excluded projects yet? Yes, then then excluded project 1903 That's the one i just read okay But it doesn't but it doesn't refer to them in the in the title of the resolution No, um does not but this concerned the last almost trunk replacement and i'm sorry i would have to go back As to who is What if i and i didn't stipulate those exclusions on the prior on the prior two either So they basically read the same And then the exclusions are further into the body of the document Correct and those exclusions um the reason those three resolutions are called out separately is because there are Council members that need to recuse on each of those um and i'm going to have to go back and Look, i don't know if the city clerk has uh Who needs to recuse on each of those? Let me bring that up really quick. Okay So we'll we'll reread those resolutions with the exclusions Correct. All right When you're ready, madam city clerk, let me know Okay, just give me a minute and let me open up the item Well, we're starting with exclusions 770 2356 Correct. Oh 77 770 2356 is uh Council member Fleming needs to um recuse Oh what I'm sure those um those two cip projects are within 500 feet of your residents Okie dokie these exclusions happen almost every year. So it's not a The first time it's happened to me I never get to recuse. All right So uh should I um It's turn my video off. It's a bird for me in a couple years. We had a motion in a second on this one We'll we'll assume your Abstention and then we can call the roll. Correct. Okay councilmember tidbits Councilmember schwedhelm. Hi councilmember Sawyer Hi Councilmember alvarez Vice mayor rogers hi Mayor rogers. Hi that motion passes with five eyes with councilmember fleming recusing and councilmember tidbits absent Now we'll go on to exclusions 2041 and 2379 that is um I don't know the notes is conflict rogers. I don't know if that is mayor rogers or Vice mayor rogers Who's closest to cleveland avenue? Not me and seven street That's the mayor I'm confused by that one because I don't own any property Now you're there and stop me. I don't own any property and I'm not in a lease. So I'm not sure why I had to recuse but It is what it is For simplicity's sake, I will recuse from this one and allow the vice mayor to take it over Can you believe that it may be The vice mayor it's parking garage maintenance Garage one and three Business is there a business address is the vice mayor? On if you want to go on to the next one. I'll pull up the emails that I have This one will probably be Mr. Tibbetts It's lost all almost trunk replacement Yeah, I believe it And councilmember tidbits has a conflict so same motion by Sawyer And that's seconded by Shwedhelm Shwedhelm. Yes Councilmember shwedhelm. Hi Councilmember Sawyer Councilmember Fleming Yes Councilmember alvarez Vice mayor rogers Hi Mayor rogers Hi That motion passes with six eyes with councilmember Tibbetts having to recuse Okay And I believe that completes the resolutions. Well, let's see if we got any clarity on the 2041 and 2379 And I'm city attorney. I'll make a quick suggestion. So I don't mind recusing The vice mayor could as well. We still have a quorum that can vote on this And then I believe it gets turned over to the dean of the the council to run The item which would be john Correct. Thank you And I apologize that we didn't have those everyone informed of those Okay, so the motion stands with councilmember Sawyer making the motion And I do have um, I actually do just have this And uh, thank you just got wegner That yes, it's it's the vice mayor that needs to recuse on that So mr. Mayor, you are free to participate. I just really wanted to call john the dean of the The legislative body. We all we all acknowledge that Well, all right, we have a motion in a second. Let's call the roll Okay, councilmember tibbetz Councilmember schwedhelm. Hi Councilmember Sawyer. Hi Councilmember Fleming. Yes Councilmember alvarez. Hi Mayor rogers. Hi That motion passes with five eyes with vice mayor rogers recusing and councilmember tibbetz absent I will state for the record sarah would have gotten a kick out of having to make me recuse from items if that's what it was With that, I think we have all of our resolutions done mr. City manager great We will go ahead and come back to our more procedural items since it is 10 30 at night We'll go on to item 14.1 Mayor rogers and members of the council item 14.1 is a report Regarding an amendment to the measure o implementation plan Alan alton our deputy director from our finance department will give the staff presentation Mayor rogers and members of the council this item is Largely administrative given The past budget conversation, but we do have a change to the The measure o funds Implementation plan so if we can go on to the next slide so The measure o ordinance calls out a spending plan An implementation plan if you will That was part of the 2004 ordinance and then it was updated in 2015 where we actually show The budgeted line items instead of just a generalized plan And it forecast those amounts going out until 2024 25, which is when The ordinance has set the sunset Any changes to this plan does require six affirmative votes of the city council Next slide please so What we do is we We forecast our revenues or we we make an estimate on our revenues and develop budgets To go along with that in this particular case The police department did not have sufficient Revenues to support Their expenditures For their operations for that year Nor did they have the fund balance to be able to make up that cost So we in consultation with the department Three police officers that were all vacant Were eliminated as part of the budget and This is now we need to make that same change to the implementation plan And I believe those positions were discussed at length in the previous item So next slide please So again, like I said, this is uh, this is a an administrative move that we do every year To have a implementation plan that's reflective of the city's budget And so with that it's recommended by the finance department police department fire department and recreation and community engagement departments that Uh, and the measure of citizen oversight committee That the measure of implementation plan be changed to one the judge program expenditures to reflect the 21 22 fiscal year budget and current forecast assumptions and to make specific implementation plan stacking changes to the police program And with that I'm can answer any questions you may have All right council any questions Let's see any hands. Let's go ahead and go to public comment on this item. See if there's any zoom public comments We'll start with ellen Madam chair. Go ahead Sorry, my head don't mute. I forgot about that um Thank you. I just wanted to say that the committee reviewed and approved uh, the proposed changes as was already stated and I wanted to thank the police department the fire department the recreation department and the office of community engagement for all the hard work and commitment they've had Excuse me. I've gone losing my voice for some reason and It's uh, the past three years have been particularly difficult Each department responded in some crucial way to fire fire wildfires social and political unrest and then the pandemic And our city continued to function during these unprecedented times. I want to thank all of you for your commitment to make that happen And I also want to just take this time. If there's any public awake Besides me and a couple of other members of the measure committee I'd like to remind the public that this measure out quarter cent sales tax measure is due to sunset in march of 2025 and I have the privilege every year to hear about what each department is doing with the money that they're given and They do a remarkable job of providing services and the youth violence prevention programs and the mayor's gang prevention task force and the recreation and parks programs are near and dear to my heart and They are very very important to the young people who live in our community and families that live here So I just want to remind the public that the loss of those sales tax revenue would mean the loss of all the services That those departments are now providing So that's that's all I wanted to say and thank you very much and I appreciate that you all worked since very early this morning until this late at night and I hope the public appreciates all the work that you all do Thank you so much ellen That's the only live comment that I see did we have any voicemail public comments on this item? Hello, my name is ellie tinnock calling in for item 14.1 I'm a member of the measure o oversight committee and i'm calling in to call attention to the sham of an oversight process It was my concerns are specific to the police department's overrepresentation funding going to officer salaries and equipment I remember and other community members that I've spoken to Recall the elevated gang violence that was occurring then and this tax will be want to support the police department's gang prevention intervention The police department has no records of how they've helped that issue I raise the concerns with others on the committee resulting in us not approving the budget to first go around for transparency and their actions They returned to our meeting with no real solid data And yet it was still passed Gang violence will continue to rise because we are not investing our tax dollars in reaching the audience that voters intended it to assist More police has not been shown to reduce game shootings or violence They respond to violence We need prevention that employs evidence-based approaches to the major contributing factors which the police do not do I'll leave you with this question What is srpd doing in regards to game prevention intervention with measure o fund? If that answers nothing, how can we keep them accountable to implement or even divert their funds to possibly the violent prevention partnership or record parks or other suitable bodies I spoke with a measure o funded case manager and they told me their funds have doing those for staff activities with young people The funds that can be used to support youth that quote-unquote at risk or living gain quote-unquote involved areas with funds that can be used for attire for work internships things of that nature And lastly, I'll leave you with this quote from capbrooks. I think young boys and girls Can pick up a gun or knife and shoot or stab or even kill another teen or bystander that would just like them What did that say about what we have taught him or her or them about the value of their lives? May hear that concludes voice message public comments on item 14.1 Okay, and this is councilmember schwedhelm's item Thank you. Mr. Mayor I'd move a resolution of the council of the city of san rosa amending the transaction and use tax implementation plan for police fire and gang prevention intervention services and wait for the reading of the text second It's a motion by councilmember schwedhelm seconded by councilmember soyer Does that need to have amendments based on the changes that we had in our budget discussion? Madam city attorney no, I Sorry, no, I believe that the changes that were made to the budget were out of the general fund Money is and not out of general not out of measure. Oh, excellent. Thank you. Thanks. Let's go ahead and call the roll councilmember tibbet Councilmember schwedhelm. Hi councilmember soyer Hi councilmember fleming Yeah councilmember alparez Hi Vice mayor rogers I Mayor rogers I that motion passes with six eyes and councilmember tibbet's absent Okay, let's go on to item 14.2 Mayor rogers and members of the city council item 4.2 14.2 is a report item on the covet 19 related parking user fee reductions Kim, they do our parking manager in our finance department will give the staff report And I I do believe we have to do our two-step process if we want to add this to the agenda Yes, we do. Mr. Mayor. Thank you. This item did not appear on the preliminary agenda Under our early agenda policy the council must find good cause If it nevertheless wishes to consider the item tonight As I know we've talked about before good cause Showing a good cause requires a finding by council that as a result of exceptional Stances beyond the control of council compliance with the preliminary agenda requirement would quote impose a substantial burden On the city's ability to conduct its business or result in prejudice to a private person This item can concerns Um I'm sorry parking fees waiver of parking fees continuing the waiver of parking fees And we do believe that should council desire that it could make a finding That the easing of covet restrictions has been uncertain recovery economic recovery from covet is a little more gradual than we are expecting And that individuals continue to face financial hardship that all of those are exceptional circumstances beyond the control of the council And that the imposition of parking fees the the reinstitution of parking fees Would create financial hardships leading to prejudice to private persons or could lead to Financial hardships. So if you make those findings, um, we need six votes Then you may proceed on to consider the item okay Before I look for a motion from council, I'll go and see if there's any public comment live public comment for folks on adding this item Not on the item itself, but on whether or not to add the item And i'm seeing none. So i'll entertain a motion from the council Mayor i'll move to um To hear this item for the for the reasons stated by our city attorney and and to In in acknowledgment of the findings We have a motion do we have a second second All right, we'll go with the the dean for the motion and councilmember with the second okay councilmember tibbetz Councilmember schwedhelm. Hi councilmember soyer. Hi councilmember phleming Yes, councilmember alvarez. Hi vice mayor rogers Hi mayor rogers. Hi that motion passes with six eyes and councilmember tibbetz absent Okay, let's go on to our presentation Good evening mayor and councilmembers. I can be a parking manager This item is to consider extending certain parking fee waivers through december 31st 2021 Next slide please As you're aware COVID-19 restrictions began in march of 2020 and were eased just last week on june 15 The impacts from covet on downtown businesses have been significant and the city took steps to help mitigate those impacts Including providing for temporary parklets and street closures short-term parking pickup spaces and waiver of certain parking user fees Next slide please Last april the council waived garage and meter parking user fees paid parking fees were resumed on july 1st 2020 with several free garage parking options waiver of temporary parklet meter reservation fees and a one-time mobile payment validation incentive set to expire on december 31st 2020 In december 2020 council extended the fee waivers to expire the earlier of june 30th 2021 Or when the county reached the yellow tier And in april when it appeared the yellow tier was imminent council approved the fee waivers through june 30th 2021 Regardless of the yellow tier status Interest has been expressed to extend the fee waivers through the end of 2021 Next slide please These next slides show the estimated revenue impacts to the parking fund to extend the fee waivers through december 31st 2021 Free garage parking after 5 p.m. Monday and through Friday is estimated to reduce revenues by 72 000 dollars Excuse me parking on saturday and sunday at the garages Has estimated revenue reductions of 106 000 The fifth street and de street garages are already free on sundays as was approved before covid Therefore revenue reductions for those two garages on sunday is not included here Also note if covid recovery is stronger than estimated and parking volume is greater The revenue reduction impacts will be larger The recommendation does not include extending these two fee waivers And proposes that evening and weekend garage parking fees resume july 1st 2021 Free parking on sunday at the fifth and de street garages would continue as approved before covid Resumption of these fees will help to mitigate the deficit to the parking fund Next slide please The first hour free at the fifth third and de street garages results in estimated revenue loss of 52 000 The first hour free in the first and seven street garages was approved pre covid And therefore those revenue reductions are not included here The passport mobile application validation is capped at 31 000 dollars And the temporary parklet meter reservation fee waiver revenue revenue reduction is estimated at 125 000 dollars Next slide please Looking at overall impacts to the parking fund for the current fiscal year The parking fee waivers are estimated to reduce revenue by 455 000 dollars With an estimated available fund balance Of 6.6 million on june 30th of this year Looking at the next fiscal year The available fund balance on june 30th 2022 is estimated at 5 million without any fee waiver extensions If the first hour free temporary parklet fee waivers and mobile payment validation are extended Estimated revenue reductions of 208 000 are projected And if all the current fee waivers are extended to december 31st Estimated revenue reductions are 386 000 for the next six months Bringing the parking fund available balance down to approximately 4.6 million On june 30th 2022 There are over 20 million dollars of identified capital improvement projects to be funded in the next eight years resumption of parking fees Of some of these parking fees will help to address that need Next slide please This is a long one It's recommended by the finance department that the council won by motion find good cause under the early agenda policy and the open government ordinance To consider this item notwithstanding that the item did not appear on the preliminary agenda And two by resolution authorizing extension Through december 31st 2021 of a the first hour free at the third fifth interesting D street garages through december 31st 2021 The first hour is already free at the first and seventh street garages B One free meter parking session using the passport mobile payment application up to three dollars and 15 cents in value to a maximum of $31,500 Since its inception on july 1st 2020 and see a waiver of meter reservation fees for temporary parklets outdoor seating and retail To expand business footprints to meet physical distancing requirements related to the covet 19 health order That concludes my presentation and i'm happy to answer any questions that you might have Hey, thank you director. Do we have any questions from council members? All right saying then we will go ahead and go to public comment on this item We'll start with cadence and then go to natalie Good evening everyone nice to see you all again Long day. Thank you for being here I I'm really appreciative of the work that kin has done this past well really forever but the past 18 months with our downtown businesses has been a struggle as you all know and kin has been very supportive of their needs and I'm wanting to make sure that she's helping them in addition to helping the parking districts. So that's greatly appreciated When when the garage incentives were established last year the first hour free free weekends and free after five It was a big help to our business owners, but also to our community Those went into place right when we launched our initial open and out campaign So bring music and art and activities downtown and to encourage the community to come down and spend time and spend money downtown And it was a huge benefit to be able to share that we had free parking in the garages It introduced people to the garages and really made the difference for our business owners as well Now we have a whole series of family focused programming scheduled to take place in courthouse square over the course of this year We've got open and out happening now. We've got halloween coming up and then winter lights So a lot of events that we're doing to try and bring the community downtown and being able to Have a free garage parking on the weekends and evenings when when that's happening as well Really makes it more accessible to much of our community We're really grateful that council has supported downtown's economic recovery with these incentives and Feel it's very important that all three of them remain in place to the end of the year So really encourage you to consider keeping all Three of the garage incentives in place and others two additional ones on the On this agenda item as well And hope that you'll consider doing that to support both our business owners and our community who utilize the downtown parking. Thank you Thank you, we'll go to natalie We can hear you perfect. Hi My name's natalie balfour and I'm here on behalf of airport business center So we own 50 old courthouse square and then the building the roxy stadium is in And I do I want to echo The work that kim and staff has done We've worked with them and it's been really appreciated that In response to the impacts that code has had these fee waivers were were Introduced and my request our request I guess is That all of the current one so it'd be five in this case Just stay until the end of this year and my logic is that they They they came about because of the hardship that we're facing and that hardship has not gone away So logically, you know instead of it being tear yellow or it's costing this much And I totally understand that there's an impact to everyone for everything But we have our impact hasn't let up and and just to give you kind of an idea would be the The free parking after five and the free parking for saturday and sunday that additional cost to the parking district is 178,000 we have we have lost a number of tenants and Just one tenant the rent loss for one tenant for six months That we have lost due to covet is more than 178,000 That's one tenant in one building and so I just wanted to give you an idea of Totally understand that it's impactful, but it's also Very impactful for us as well because we can't get you know that tenants gone for good I also wanted to make the point that just because we're opening up doesn't mean that we're in recovery I would guess that you know, it's not recovery probably won't take place until the end of this year Just because people can come to restaurants and can you know shop and can go to the movies Doesn't mean they will and we've already we've already been noticing that so I just I just really I'm pleading For this it's a really big deal for our buildings And it's just in place to the end of this year and then of course You can always you'll revisit it then so that's it. Thanks Thank you so much Natalie. That's the last live public comment that I saw did we have any pre-recorded voicemails? No, we did not Okay, I'll go ahead bring it back councilmember Fleming if you'd like to put a motion on the table I was thinking more on the floor, but I can put one on the table Just kidding. Okay I'd like to move a resolution of the council of the city of santa rosa authorizing the extension of a temporary reduction And waiver of certain parking fees through december 31 2021 and wafer the reading of the text I'll second We have any questions comments about the motion I just will say I've heard from a number of the different businesses that this is Of huge importance to them to be able to extend this through the end of the year all of the different fees And I'm excited for us to do that I also understand kim that you're making do with what you can With with your limited budget in the enterprise fund But we obviously know how important our parking assets are to the future success of our community Including our development deals that we have downtown and obviously ongoing Business as well So I just want to put it out there for you kim that if this is the type of item That we need to backfill with some of those recovery funds or rescue funds I'd hope that you would bring that to the council in our discussion in a couple of weeks But in the short term this is economic development for from my perspective for us to make this sort of investment in our downtown And that can come from an appropriate place If the enterprise fund is is not the most appropriate Councilmember soyer Thank you, mayor. I just wanted to make a comment Then thank you for yours Mayor I it's it really needs to be stated how hard kim has worked and she and her and her team to balance the needs of the the merchants the putting off the deferred maintenance yet again on On the the grog is this will have an impact as she mentioned It is not every parking director that has been able to make those kinds of balances And I honor her effort And and it's ongoing and it's painful And parking is not it's it is often talked about They're usually negatively And it is not a sexy topic But kim you you and your team have really done yeoman's work when it comes to Satisfying the needs of the merchants while at the same time Allowing the the their customers to come down and enjoy the downtown without without some of the impacts That the past has has made on on the shopper. So thank you for that effort Thank you for their for bringing this item to us and for being willing to continue The the gift if you will a free parking is in essence There is no free parking and you've done a good job of making us believe there is so thank you very much And council member I wanted to do a point of clarification on your motion because there are a couple of different options here Your motion was it to extend all current fee waivers, which is the 386 000 I am simply reading the motion in front of me um The resolution here If um, there's a different resolution that you were hoping to have me read I would need to be provided with that, but I just pulled the resolution from the agenda Madam city attorney Yes, the the resolution um That is in your packet Attaches it's the addendum 3 that is attached to the resolution that sets out what is being waived And the one that is included in the council packet Will provide first hour free In each of the garages Um And I'll I'd ask um director nado to Find wrong, but I understand that it's just for those the the first hour In in each of the garages and that's why I asked for the clarification And that that's what I see. Um, I can read the whole text if you like, but that's when I scroll down and look at it That's what I'm reading So Yeah, I was going to say that that is I I think the the mayor was asking clarification that that was your intent And not to waive the other fees that um that members of the public mentioned My intention is um, I wish the the resolution that I have in front of me doesn't have a number on it. I wish I could um Read the number just so that we were all in In agreement, but it is my intent to read the resolution that is attached to the council Packet that provides for the first hour free um, you know, basically continuing the The what we've been doing, um Would you like me to read the whole thing? No, that is not necessary for you to read the whole thing. Um, there were just um There were other options that the director mentioned, um, but Uh, the department's recommendation her recommendation the department's recommendation is just for those first hour free in the garages So that is what is presented So we're all in alignment, thank you Thank you And and the reason that I asked for the clarification is my preference and this is part of what I brought up Why I brought up backfilling Is my preference is to extend all current fee waivers Not just the first hour free at garages temporary parklet fees mobile app I'd like to keep what has been Keeping businesses afloat In place through the holidays and into the new year And so my understanding is that the resolution that was read is the one that would cost $208,000 And be limited to first hour free at garages temporary parking fee waiver and mobile app My intention is to vote for the one that's 386 thousand dollars, which is an extension of all current fee waivers Did I um Okay Did I get a second on that? second Okay, sorry, you're seconding what I put on forward So our mayor are you are are you making a another motion? Are you asking for a friendly amendment? I'll ask for a friendly amendment Okay, um, I would like to bring what are one is it that we're going to talk about the When would this go into effect? This this would go into effect, uh Well, it would it would just not expire on July 31 It's it's uh intended to expire on July 1st currently and our discussion about the one time funds is two weeks later So if we wait until that discussion there'll be a two week gap Yeah, well, I I don't really like making decisions under the gun like this, but um I don't want to put our our merchants in a bad place You know generally speaking i'm not inclined to To you know the free parking is comes with with significant costs. Um But for the sake of continuity and under the special circumstances all accept the amendment And will the second accept the amendment? Yes, mayor Okay, so the motion on the table is to now extend all current fee waivers Which is three hundred and eighty six thousand dollars Is there any additional discussion? I have not seen any let's go ahead and call the roll councilmember tibbetz Councilmember soya shredhelm I councilmember soyer I councilmember fleming Yes councilmember alvarez Vice mayor rogers I Mayor rogers I That motion passes with six eyes and councilmember tibbetz absent Okay, mr. City manager. We'll go back and we'll do some of our procedural Elements of our council meeting now We have no proclamations, so we'll see if we have any brief staff briefings Yes, mayor rogers. We do have a cobit 19 Update The national study to track and detect cobit 19 viral strains in local wastewater Is one of the updates santa rosa water is one of 320 wastewater treatment plants participating In a national study to track cobit 19 in wastewater The study is funded by the u.s. Department of Health and Human Services And the center for disease control. There's no cost to the city to participate On monday june 7th Santa Rosa water sent its first wastewater sample to bio bot analytics a research analytics firm That is leading the study one wastewater sample will be submitted and analyzed each week for nine weeks Bio bot analytics will use the data for national statistics And to detect the locations and spread of specific viral strains The analytics firm will provide santa rosa water with the weekly results And that will be shared with the sonoma county public health department The update on the sonoma county cobit 19 vaccinations Sonoma county's cobit vaccine supply is plentiful and currently available to everyone 12 years and older regardless of insurance or citizenship status Currently 74 of the county's eligible population Has been partially vaccinated And 65 has been fully vaccinated There are many opportunities in sonoma county to receive a vaccination including pop-up clinics and events sonoma county Chura project cura Is hosting two wellness events in santa rosa this weekend where residents can get vaccinated The first event is on saturday june 26th from 11 to 5 p.m. At la plaza Located 850 west night street The second event is on sunday june 27th from 2 to 5 p.m. At the arlene frances center located at 99 6th street in santa rosa For more information, please visit la plaza n cc.org That's la plaza n cc.org And remember santa rosa city bus offers free Fair free transportation for anyone traveling to a vaccination appointment within the city limits vaccination destination shuttle That operates between the downtown transit mall and grace pavilion vaccination site at the sonoma county fairground Is available through the end of the month at june 30th All right. Thank you. Mr. City manager. Are there any questions? Okay, we'll go on to item 7.2 And I don't know if magali is still here or not. I saw her pop-up. There she is she stayed up. Welcome Good evening, uh mayor roger's members of the council magalithaeas director of community engagement here Providing an update for the community empowerment plan So really quickly with let's connect us are this was launched this month and we're currently testing out the site with several community groups We're looking to see if the site is easy to navigate and provide community members with an opportunity to test engagement tools We're also utilizing this as an opportunity to see their questions that community members have about the site before doing a full launch The projects featured are the multicultural roots project the mary lee lowrider the community Alliance on remote education Care a project of the srpd The full site launch will be complete next month and if you if community could just go to Let's connect sr.com to view the site and to explore the projects currently in the queue Under about let's connect us are please let us know the other projects or city issues You'd like to see featured on the site the citizens guidebook to participating in local government videos The guidebook is in its final editing stage Once completed it will go through the to a graphic designer for the layout The civic 101 videos the scripts are completed and in review and also being translated Afterwards they'll be sent to fta productions to create the final videos once the affirmation is complete The community empowerment plan feedback loop. This was goal three of the community empowerment plan Community engagement staff is currently working on developing a feedback loop process for the community listening sessions to meet goal three of the plan This process will be used to follow up with community on what the city has done with feedback from the listening sessions The follow process will also serve as a model for other city projects once completed and we will be re engaging listening session groups once the feedback loop process is established The Mary Lou lowrider filming began on june 17th for the short documentary on the Mary on Mary Lou FTA productions conducted interviews with city staff and elected officials Involved with the project as well as members of the Sonoma county lowrider council We are working with the city attorney's office to develop and finalize our mo you We purchased the hydraulic system as well as other parts needed for the conversion to begin and lastly The crisis response team in light of the recent uptake In gun violence in our community. The violence prevention partnership is in the process of creating a vpp crisis response team With this is community Neighborhood safety was a prevalent theme in the community empowerment plan report And we'll be working with our partners to formulate a response team composed of the vpp team And direct service providers to address the various needs and healing process for neighborhoods After a community violence incident occurs Some of the partners will be nonprofits mental health providers as well as our partners in education We will have more to come on this and that is the end of my report Thank you so much director and thank you for sticking with us I know it's uh late in not getting as much attention as it probably deserves But just wanted to say thank you for all of your hard work and the team's hard work I know it's it's something pretty special that we're working on here Counselor are there any questions? All right. Thank you so much Mr. City manager Madam city attorney. We have our city manager and city attorney reports who wants to go first I have nothing to report this evening I also have nothing to report this evening Okay, we'll go on to public comment on these items and uh, I apologize and councilmember schwedum was Whispering in my ear. We also have to take public comment on item number seven Let's start with item number seven and see if there's anyone in the public And I do not see any hands. Do we have any pre-recorded voicemails on item seven? No, we do not All right. We'll move on to item number eight I don't see any hands And did we have any pre-recorded voicemails for that one? No, we do not Okay Mayor's and councilmember reports. Is there anyone who would like to give a report? I'll give a very brief one Tomorrow smart anticipates having its two millionth rider It's a monumental milestone for them. And so all day if folks ride the train, they'll be Potentially eligible to win prizes Outside of that We also have passes that were given to smart board members To give out to the public for folks who have not had a chance to ride the train It would like to take a free trip. So if you are interested go ahead and reach out to me I'll be happy to to hook people up with that. So you get a chance to experience the train And that's all I'm gonna have on my report We have no minutes. We did consent So we will go on to item 17, which is our public comment for non agenda items I'm looking to see if there's any hands if you're interested in providing live public comment But hit the raise hand feature on your zoom or hit star nine I'm not seeing any. So let's go on to our voicemail pre-recorded comments Hello, my name is terry moon. I'm a Sonoma county resident and I'm calling regarding non agenda item number 13 I want to urge the city council to support the fiber to the premises So that we can have Stop the stop the 5g and have Safer technology to protect us and also bridge the digital divide at the same time And oh, this is much safer in the wind And I think that it could really support us with the climate change. So Any funds that it might require? I know we have some climate change money available for that So I would urge you to consider putting those two together We got to solve all those this put these pieces of the puzzle together in a way that's going to work and keep everybody safe And I think that fiber to the premises would do that. So and for many many other reasons But for the sake of time, I will stop there. Thank you Hi, my name is Joanna Meakin. I'm calling regarding non agenda item number 13 I'm calling because I just want to go over some points I think are really important for our small cell policy that I know is going to be presented to the city council soon um I want to make sure that the city not telecom takes on the responsibility of periodic rf radiation testing of small cells And then it will be done on a regular basis and at different times of the day I also support fiber to the premises And I think that it's really important that the city does its own research to see how that how this can be profitable for the city And help bridge the digital divide and it will allow faster more secure reliable energy efficient internet I would also want um the city that to look into if small cell facilities are co located But there needs to be a setback of at least 100 feet from residential dwellings You know, this would really ensure safety for all of the residents and especially in co located areas where the high density population area And we also don't eat 5g small cells for a fire or an emergency are existing 3g and 4g infrastructure for text invoice Is more than adequate and doesn't involve the 24 7 exposure to radiation in our neighborhoods I really hope the city council really takes into account all of these points when reviewing the small cell policy in the next few weeks And keeps its constituents in mind. Thank you Agenda 13. Hello. My name is mary doll. This is my fifth time I've addressed the city council regarding the cell tower which was installed on the corner of 439 calla stogo road In rink and valley. I'm trying to prepare my presentation while in the throes of a yet another severe reaction To the radial frequency radiation emitting from said tower that was turned on july 2018 It is so evident that the past city council of 2017 without my knowledge permitted said towers and To also the present city council. They don't really care how the rfr affects me and The citizens of santa rosa you have fallen short of protecting us which has impacted so many of us to the point of slowly killing us You don't listen to us as you are so intimidated by the almighty dollar and the cell tower companies Who say there is no known health issues related to rfr? Surely they are going to say that yet they know about health issues But are so powerful and can squash any information to the contrary They are lying as there are multiple health issues. I know I suffer with it 24 7 Three years now and counting is city council prepared to pay restitution to those affected by rfr for the rest of the person's life The money as you receive from them wouldn't even begin to cover any lawsuits, etc. That may arise I've been in my home 51 years the rfr in my home ranges from 4000 to 8 000 microwatts per square meter and up For three years. I have been able to live in 90 percent of my home I have been able to do decent house cleaning and gardening is out of the question The microwatts per square meter ranges from 15 000 and up in my yard Are you willing to pay house cleaning and yard work for me? Again, the entire situation has caused me great distress My physical well-being and comfort in my whole home and yards has been ruined It is a living hell and it's not getting any better only works I still hold everyone accountable city council members past present and future and cell tower companies for my health issues well being Property value decline stemming from the cell towers. I hope you have truly listened to my presentation and taken it to heart You are to protect and serve the citizens not destroy them each time a permit for a cell tower is granted It is like a very slow death sentence. Are you willing to help us or destroy us with more? Cell tower permits in residential areas. Thank you. Hi, my name is lendry Purcell. I'm commenting on non agenda item number 13 Um, so that's actually live in pedaluma, california, but I work frequently in san rosa and my husband and I are considering relocating We will not relocate to a place that has small cells Close to homes and schools in pedaluma We have really good setbacks here because we understand the hazards of non ionizing emf radiation The sciences is really showing that there are a lot of hazards and It's really important that you have setbacks that are at least 100 feet from residential dwellings Fiber to the premises is actually the way to get this all the digital divide. It's faster. It's safer It's more secure people can still use wireless in their homes But there's no need to have a 5g tower right in front of your window emitting radiation 24 7 and impacting your children's health Um, and so that's my comment Um, actually, I'm a funder environmental health funder and I fund Research on emf radiation as well as heavy metals and pesticides So I work with top scientists in the world on this issue and I can put you guys in touch with any of them You can talk about why um, this rollout is irresponsible as it's currently being proposed by the telecom companies My number 707 658 2847. I'm the president of a group called sacks families advocating for chemical and toxic safety. Thanks so much. Bye. Bye Hello, this is or lane curler I am part of the group safe tech for centeroza I'm also president of eco forum of sonoma county And I'm calling about the non agenda item number 13 Referring to the small cell policy that the city of center of the hands I'd like to make four comments First of all request that It is really the city's responsibility to periodically test The rf radiation of the small cells we have It should not be the telecom industry's responsibility Our city council members Art should realize that this is really their responsibility to make sure for the safety of our city people And any resident living within 300 feet of a small cell facility Should be able to request that that radiation level be tested And if these results should be made available for anyone who wants to find out about them To if there is a small cell on a pole The setback needs if there's more than one small cell on a pole, which sometimes there's as many as Three the setback needs to be at least 100 feet away from any residents Any church any school really high level of radiation Number three we support fiber to the premise The city is looking into that it would actually be much safer. It would provide faster more secure reliable energy efficiency, especially if the wind is blowing Number four we don't Want or need 5g small cells 3g or 4g are perfectly good I've actually written a book about 5g and I know how dangerous it can be My book is called woe nilly And if anyone is interested it can be found at booksfortruth.com I believe that 5g small cells are And especially in a fire hazard are really dangerous And as we know Sunrise it had a very difficult fire season both in 2017 and again last year And so I urge us not to have 5g And 5g is also really just being used for faster data collection. We don't really need that either Thank you. I appreciate you're listening to this and hope that you will Especially thank the responsibility ourselves to be in charge of all of this small technology small cell technology For our city and not rely on the telecom industry Hello, my name is Sydney Cox and I'm a member of safe deck for santa rosa and this is for agenda 13 I'd like to thank start by thanking Gabe Osborne your deputy director of developmental services for all As hard and careful work on the small cell ordinance that will be voted on next week The ordinance reflects several years of effort by mr. Osborne with input from many concerned citizens We feel mr. Osborne has done the best job possible given the increasing demands by telecom companies such horizon and AT&T And the restrictive edicts handed down by the FCC Given all that I must add some of my feelings that deeply disturbed me I have an internationally recognized and well calibrated RF meter the safe and sound pro 2 That measures radio frequency levels and values of microwatts per meter squared I've taken readings at different distances from small cells on utility poles in five neighborhoods in santa rosa One location was on four street and the others are in neighborhoods with single family homes low meters avenue Brigham avenue king street and Monteverdi drive. I have also done measurements from mackerel's with multiple antenna Building biologists and thousands of scientific studies agree that the us FCC standards for RF radiation are exceedingly high Totally unreasonable and unsafe and they are currently being sued in federal court for their outdated standards from 1996 But added it as it is now these FCC levels are what are used to limit the exposure on the general population Building biology precautions recommend anything over 1000 microwatts per meter squared for sleeping levels to be considered extreme concern The bio initiative report guidelines first adopted in 2012 stayed a precautionary target of only three to six microwatts per meter squared not in the thousands So here are my readings Directly under the small cell the levels are generally the smallest although by no means safe anywhere from 2,500 to 36,000 microwatts per meter squared At 50 feet. They are 22,000 to 86,000 and at 100 feet for 12,400 to 250,000 microwatts per meter squared That last reading was done twice since I thought it was too high for 100 foot distance Thinking it must have been an anomaly. So I took it again a few days later into my shock at maxed out at 280,000 I was able to enter one of the homes 5110 Monteverdi in the rf levels in the kitchen maxed out at 11,500 with levels close to 4,000 in the woman's bedroom where she sleeps Her house is 42 feet away from the bottom of the small cell pole By contrast the macro towers I have measured have ranged from 20,000 to 113,000 microwatts per meter squared At similar distances. How can small cells give up more intensity than a macro tower? I must note that my meter does not measure millimeter waves above 8 gigahertz that Verizon also broadcasts Their small cells emit a mixture of all frequencies from the lower bands 3g and 5 4g to the higher bands 28 gigahertz to 39 gigahertz right now There are no consumer meters that measure millimeter waves although companies are working on creating them I share this info with you so you understand the Hello, my name is Richard Boyd and this is a comment for agenda item 13 I'm a resident of Sonoma county who has a deep interest in what is being planned for santa rosa Specifically, I have been following the rather frightening progression of wireless infrastructure for over five years I recently visited a small cell facility at 5110 Monteverdi And found it as a metal sign affixed to the pole which states RF exposure near antennas may exceed FCC general population maximum exposure limit Workers should maintain a minimum approach distance of 20 feet Well, what about someone who lives near this pole and is being exposed 24 7 to this radiation? Granted levels of 20 feet are bad, but recent meter readings with my meters show that greater distances can be even worse There is a way around this problem though I strongly support the city's interest in establishing a municipal fiber network To bridge the digital divide and bring fiber to density locations as well as more rural and underserved neighborhoods Fiber is by far the safest fastest and most weather resilient answer to mitigating dangerous small cell radiation pollution I also support a ban on co-locating small cells on the poles as this will double the dangerous emissions to neighboring residences Certainly a setback of several hundred feet to residents. It should be required if there are to be co-locations Finally, it is mandatory that the city higher building biologists not tied to telecom Who will take regular RF readings of small cell emissions and make these numbers public? They need to be taken at different times of day and at different locations fronts sides 50 feet 100 feet and so forth And residents should be able to request these readings whenever necessary as they are often the first to fill the upgrades That telecom is surely planning It must be noted that some people are undoubtedly more sensitive to RF radiation than others Just as some people have a slight allergy to peanuts or none at all Even one peanut can cause life-threatening reactions and others However, medical research has shown unequivocally That biological damage can result from RF radiation even if the individual is not aware it is happening Going forward. I urge you to adhere to the most careful precautionary principles possible back through My name is dr. Catherine Dodd. I'm calling on item number 13 Mayor Rogers and city council members. I'm a registered nurse Representing the alliance of nurses for healthy environments and I live in zip code 95403 We testified in december of 2019 and in every subsequent city council meeting about strategic planning To make comments on the need for a safe wireless telecom ordinance for the city of santa rosa And to emphasize the importance of the city investing Any new dollars federal infrastructure dollars and wired broadband to the premises not just to the driveway Which becomes a giveaway to corporate wireless carriers Sonoma county just passed broadband planning legislation governor. Newsom is investing seven billion dollars In broadband fiber santa rosa must invest in last mile fiber to the premises This will eliminate the digital divide because it will regulate access and cost Increasing unregulated expensive wireless is not affordable in low-income neighborhoods and will not eliminate the digital divide After 19 months, it's our understanding that an ordinance is being drafted for your consideration We hope that this will be voted on and not delayed further Residents rely on local government to protect their safety and well-being The ordinance must include unannounced monitoring of rare frequency emissions at least semi annually and upon request If emissions are higher than FCC rules, the antennas must be removed We must ensure protection from unnecessary radio frequency radiation which causes the host of acute symptoms Which can be disabling because of that all antennas must have in their contractor clause that they are ADA compliant And that they hold the city harmless from any and all ADA liability as well as from liability including fire And antennas must include setbacks for schools. They care for cities Facilities parks health facilities and residences as more and more antennas will be located on existing antennas And littering our skyline We need setbacks that need to be at least 100 feet We should all be able to go outside and look out the window and see sky not antennas That's why we live here and not in the city Lastly technology is changing quickly. So similar to Sonoma city Please adopt their language that all facilities should require conditional use permit as well as an encroachment permit And should be reopened every three to five years. As you know, we're in fire season We don't need extra wires and antennas blowing around which are known fire hazards Again wire to the premises won't cause fires and is is safer in fires Don't let the carriers mislead you. We don't need 5g in emergencies, which is for data and video Our existing 3 and 4g structures are what we use for emergency communication We love our nixals. Thank you for your consideration Hi, this is uh for non-agenda item number 13. My name is Tom La Porta from Santa Rosa This is what we need in the telecommunications ordinance, which is to be voted on June 29 The city not the telecom should take on the responsibility of periodic rf testing Of small cells and it should be done on a regular unannounced basis and at different times of the day Any concerned resident who lives near a small cell facility should be able to request rf testing The results should also be available on the city's website Um, if small cell facilities are co-located More than one of the tenant on the same pole The setback needs to be at least 100 feet from residential dwellings right now the draft ordinance Defies only a 50 foot setback from residential dwellings And the same for co-located small cells Telecom claims that such a restrictive setback in the majority of Santa Rosa creates an effective prohibition of wireless services This telecom claim will need to play out in the courts on a state and federal level as it's open to interpretation Next item I support fiber to the premises the city And county are actually looking into the feasibility of a municipal fiber network Which would bring money into the city as well as help bridge the digital divide Especially the underserved in rural areas Fiber to the premises is faster more secure reliable energy efficient and safer in the wind um Do we really want 10 10 year long permits on these 5g antennae when the city may establish a municipal fiber network Perhaps two or three year permits are more appropriate Finally the big language in the draft ordinance Under limited exceptions to design and location standards give the telecoms too much leverage to site these antennae in front of homes What is the definition of technically invisible? Good question. Thank you non-agenda item 13. My name is jennifer la porta I'm with safe tech for santa rosa The telecommunications ordinance is to be voted on 629 and this is what we need One the city not telecom companies should take on the responsibility of periodic rf radiation testing of wireless antenna And it should be done on a regular unannounced basis and at different times of the day Any concerned resident who lives near a small cell facility should be able to request rf testing The results should be available on the city website To if small cell facilities are co-located more than one on the same pole The setback needs to be at least 100 feet from residential dwellings Right now the draft ordinance specifies only a 50 foot setback from residential dwellings And the same for co-located small cells Note that pedaluma and san and somo have 500 foot setbacks to residential dwellings Telecom claims that such a restrictive setback in the in the majority of santa rosa Creates an effective prohibit prohibition of wireless services This telecom claim will need to play out in the courts on a state or federal level as it's open to interpretation The issue is this What comprises wireless services? Is it talk and text or must it include streaming? Streaming is not necessary in an emergency only talk and text are which we already get from 3g and 4g Three let's support fiber to the premises The city and county are actually looking into the feasibility of a municipal fiber network Which would bring money into the city and county as well as help bridge a digital divide especially to underserved and rural areas Fiber to the premises is fact faster more secure reliable energy efficient Safer in the wind and safer in terms of radiation emissions Four since the city is looking into municipal broadband Do we really want 10 year long permits for these 5g antenna? Two to three year permits makes more sense Five we don't need 5g small cells in a fire or emergency Our existing three and 4g infrastructure for talk and text is more than adequate And does not involve 24 seven exposure to harmful radiation in residential areas Overloaded utility poles caused the malibu canyon fire in 2007 Look the underlying goal of 5g is to harvest data and spy on us Six the vague language in the draft ordinance under quote limited exceptions to design and location standards Unquote give the telecoms too much leverage to fight these antenna in front of homes What is the definition of technically infeasible? I'm guessing none of you would like a 5g antenna in front of your home, and I sure would not May or that concludes voice message public comment on item 13 and 17 All right, mr. City manager adam city attorney. Do we have anything else? Great with that. We are adjourned