 Council Member Sawyer, do you want to do an audio and video check for me? Council Member Sawyer, can you do an audio and video check for me please? For those of you in attendance, we are going to start this meeting shortly, so hold tight please. Council Member Fleming, can you do an audio and video check for me please? Good morning. Good morning. I can see and hear you. Thank you. Council Member Sawyer, can you do an audio and video check for me as well please? I'm just checking to see if Council Member Sawyer's audio is working. Where are you so can you hear me? We can, you know, I have not heard from the mayor yet. If he does not pop on, do you mind getting us started? I can do that. I'm surprised. Madam Secretary, can you give us the role please? Yes, I can. Let the record reflect that all members are present with the exception of Mayor Rogers. Thank you. And I'm noticing that I am not showing a, oh, you know what? Maybe I should just lift that little thing and then there I am. OK, after all this time, I still don't know how to move myself or place myself in the camera. So, Reza, can you, let's see, I don't have a script in front of me. So, Madam Secretary, could you indicate how the public, I believe that's next. Indicate how the public can participate in this meeting. Yes, I can. Give me one second. Sure. Sorry to jump that on you. Before we do that, Reisa, can you read the government code? I believe we have to do that first. The one that says pursuant to government code section 54953E, that one? Yes, please. OK. So pursuant to government code section 54953E and the recommendation of the health officer of the county of Sonoma, economic development subcommittee members will be participating in this meeting via Zoom webinar. Members of the public can participate in the meeting via Zoom. Or by dial by phone by dialing 833-548-0276 and entering webinar ID 865-2001-0110. And members of the public access, accessing the meeting through the Zoom League will be able to provide public comment on an agenda item at the time the agenda item is discussed during the meeting. Thank you, Reisa. And at this point, let's take comment from the community on items not on our agenda this morning. Madam Secretary, do you see any comments of any type on items not on the agenda? I do see a hand raised from Gig Hitau. Again, I'm going to send you a prompt to unmute yourself. Can you please state your name for the record? It's Gig Hideout. I'm a resident and homeowner in Santa Rosa and own two businesses. And I'm also on staff with the city part time, but I'm not at work right now. So these are my personal opinions. So I have a suggestion for economic development for the city of Santa Rosa. And that would be to invite new, invite successful businesses from that are located outside of California and have no presence in Northern California to come and visit Santa Rosa. So the planning division has various programs. I'm not sure what would fit. We have Launch Your Business and Small Business Support and Workforce Development. And we have Green Business Support and we have Business Promotions and just Planning Assistance in general. And the website says that our entire department is committed to helping grow business in Santa Rosa. So what I'm suggesting is we look at the major cities surrounding Northern California. So that would be Seattle, Portland, Boise, Baltic City, Denver, Colorado Springs, Reno, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Albuquerque. And then in those cities, look for successful businesses that are growing in the industries that thrive in Northern California, which are consulting industries, retail, real estate, entertainment industries and technology industries. And so maybe the chambers of commerce in these other cities or other listings of businesses in those cities and find the big ones that are growing and literally invite their CEOs and their board of directors and their executive vice presidents to come and visit Santa Rosa and maybe give them a tourist package of some hotel discounts or tours and maybe set up a meeting at the planning department or something like that. So they could get an idea of if they're growing and they have nothing happening in Northern California and they see, hey, this is opportunity. Maybe they'll come and open up an office here or a facility here or that type of thing. So that's my suggestion. Thank you. Thank you, Gage. Appreciate that. And it wouldn't surprise me at all if our Economic Development Department was not already involved in that type of endeavor. It is a challenge to gather people together to come to any one city. But I love your ideas. I appreciate your comments. Raisa, can you introduce item 3.1 for us? Absolutely. And we actually have the really awesome Angie Dillon-Schor here to lead us through a presentation which I'm going to share here in one second. So this is the status report on program and program discussions on the Child Call Savings Account, Child Facility Fund Program and the Guarantee Basic Income Program, all of which we received ARCA funding for. And we, part of that money, just a tiny, not enough amount went to pay first five Sonoma County to administer the programs for us. And I will say that the city is at the table with Angie and her staff and the rest of our partners in the community developing the programs. And I feel the city is well-represented and Angie has our best interests in hand which you'll see on this slide. So Angie, I'm going to share my slides. You're ready to go. Great. Thanks so much, Raisa. Super excited to share this update on these projects that the city funded with local ARPA funds. We have just been in high gear for the last few months in all three program areas, particularly the Guarantee Basic Income piece, Child Savings Accounts and Child Care Facilities. I have a lot of data and information on the slides but we can stop after each program area if you have questions. Next slide, please. So first, the Guarantee Basic Income Pilot Pathway to Income Equity, the city contributed $1,008,000 to the county wide effort. Almost all of those funds from the city will fund the actual guaranteed income payments to Santa Rosa residents. So a little bit about outreach and communication. So a joint press release came out on September 1st. That was the same day that the application portal opened and a huge thanks to Mayor Rogers who was quoted in the press release. And he also helped to present a presentation to the editorial board at the PD with Supervisor Kurzi and Natalie Wright from First Five Staff. We knew that the press release would generate a lot of media requests. So we've also convened a PR and communications committee and we started that in August and we have reps from the three cities, including Raisa. One of the counties comes people and a couple of our nonprofit partners. And we, as the committee, we developed talking points for elected officials and other spokespeople. We developed a triage process for handling those media requests because we wanted to make sure that the information that went out was consistent, particularly for folks who wanted to apply. And we also recorded a short PSA in English and Spanish. That was on multiple radio stations as well as a social media kit, flyers with the QR code that linked directly to the online application. So we did get a ton of media requests, TV, radio, newspapers, both local and regional. Happy to provide a list of all of those. If that's helpful, I know the cities did get a few direct requests in addition to what came directly to First Five. So I actually think the number of interviews and articles was up over 20 or 25. It was on every station from KSRO to Telemundo Bay Area, KQED, and even the little papers out on the coast. So really, really exciting response from the media. Next slide. So the portal was open for... Next slide, please. 61 days at close at midnight on October 31st. The outreach and communications effort was really successful. There were 17,500 unique visitors to the site, a total of 6,555 applications countywide. 943 of those applications were from residents of Santa Rosa's Qualified Census Tracks. And you can see the breakdowns in the table on the right. The top QCTs in terms of applications submitted were Roseland, Bicentennial Park, Bellevue, Wright, and then Taylor Mountain with 112 households applying. The average time to complete the application was just a little over a minute and a half. And I'll talk more about that in a second. This is a huge indicator of success as far as access to the pilot and the majority of applications completed their application on their phone about 86% on a handheld device. We're working with eight of our community-based organization partners. And three of those are in Santa Rosa and all of our partners exceeded their targets for outreach and for assisting households with the application. Next slide. So of those applications, 6,555, 2,383 were deemed eligible for the random selection pool for the pilot and 4,172 were deemed ineligible. Just a reminder that to be eligible, the applicant needed to live in Sonoma County and be either pregnant or parenting a child under six and negatively impacted by COVID, either or both health and economic impacts and at or below 200% of federal poverty level. About 40% of those ineligible applicants were not a parent or pregnant or parent of a child under six. So this was the primary reason for ineligibility. A little over 17% were not impacted by COVID and about 15% of those applications did not live in the county. These three reasons account for majority of the ineligible applications. Very few were ineligible because they were over income. So it was more about not being in the target population, not the economic need. Actually that huge application applicant pool does really reflect the economic need in our county. So the pie chart shows most ineligible applicants met some criteria but not others and we can share all these slides too and I can answer questions specifically about this data if you're interested. Okay, next slide. So we talked with our partners at Fund for Guaranteed Income, they're hosting the application. They're gonna host the payment platform about the large number of people that applied that were ineligible. It just seemed odd to us because the outreach materials and the media talking points were really clear about the eligibility criteria. And Fund for GI said that it's really common and almost certain that guaranteed income programs will have more ineligible applicants than eligible because the application's open, it's online, anyone can access it. It's also best practice for the application to focus on ease and low burden to applicants to make it really simple, not time consuming to submit. Ours took 91 seconds on average to complete and because they're available over the internet because the application is, it just exposes it to really a vast number of people. Anyone in the whole world with the URL and an internet-connected device can apply. But probably the biggest reason is just the level of need, again, in our community combined with the fact that guaranteed income programs provide cash directly to people. There's no cost or harm in just applying and so many people will apply just in case. Just in case we change the target population or even kind of to try their luck almost like a lottery, right? Even if they know that they're not eligible. So that was good to find out that it was relatively within what would be expected. Next slide. So now onto the selection. We did do the randomized selection of participants out of each of the geographic pools late last week. Keep in mind, these are preliminary numbers until each selected participant gets through the verification phase, which is starting this week. So in Santa Rosa, there were 80 participants selected that reside in those qualified census tracts, 46 that do not reside in QCTs. Remember that the QCT residency is a priority population, but it's not an eligibility requirement. We know there are people that meet all of those eligibility and are our target population that don't necessarily live in QCTs. The ARPA funding from the city will pay for the guaranteed income payments for those 80 QCT households and the county funding will help cover those that do not reside in QCTs but still live within the Santa Rosa city limits. And you can see the demographic info for these 126 households here, both race, ethnicity and family size, 68% are Latino, 12% white, 6% multi-racial, 5% American Indian or Alaska native, 4% black, 3% Asian American and Pacific Islander, and then 2% did not state their race or ethnicity. This demographic breakdown of the selected group mirrors pretty closely the pool of applicants for all of Santa Rosa. And for family size, the distribution was barely even across families of two to five with fewer, much larger families, 6% of selected participants were pregnant at the time of application, 19% were single parents with one child under six. As the evaluation phase launches, we'll have more detailed information about family makeup, ages of children and all of those demographics. And next slide. So the notification is going out today and tomorrow to the selected applicants. It'll be by email and text. They'll be directed to take certain documentation to one of our community partners to complete the verification of eligibility. We've really tried to make this as easy as possible. They'll get a checklist and a fairly broad array of options that they can, you know, documents that they can bring in to verify that they're either pregnant or parenting, that they live in Sonoma County, as well as their income, including self attestation, if it's not possible to provide certain things like birth certificates or paystores. And then once folks finish the verification, then they'll communicate directly with Fund for Guaranteed Income to get onboarded to the payment platform. Since their info is already in the system from the application, this is pretty streamlined. They'll add some additional info and most importantly, select their payment form, which can be a prepaid debit card, Venmo or a monthly direct deposit to a bank account. Those payments will start in mid-January. I think January 11th is our target date. We'll be transferring the first year of funds for all 305 participants countywide to Fund for Guaranteed Income next month. We've also been working really closely with our evaluators, social policy research associates to develop a baseline survey of the participants. So that will happen in January. Participants will get a cash incentive to complete the surveys. And that will happen several times throughout the whole project through the two years. We do have the waivers in place now for all major public benefits. So this income will not count against eligibility for CalWorks, CalFresh, MediCal or subsidized housing or subsidized preschool, including California State Preschool and Head Start. The communications committee meets on Thursday of this week. So we're gonna talk about the next joint press release. We're thinking to have that happen just before payments are launched in January. So questions about GVI, that was a lot. Thank you for that. Victoria, any questions or comments at this point? Yeah, my question which is covered by this was was there gonna be a survey? And it seems like yes. I'm being curious to know what we're gonna be measuring for because that's the only concern that I've heard from anyone in the community is, how are we gonna measure our results and what are we gonna be measuring for? Yeah. So the survey will ask about expenditures, what they spent the funds on, how it's changed their parenting. And I can share specific information with you, Council Member Fleming, if you'd like to see the survey, totally happy to share that it's under development now. But we're really focusing on parenting behavior, time spent with kids. Actually we're gonna ask about reading because we know that that's a huge predictor of kindergarten readiness and school readiness, school achievement throughout the grades. And then just general kind of sense of wellness and mental health for parents, how this impacted their sense of being able to provide for their families stress level. And then also as the project moves on, if it impacted their ability to get, were interested in mobility, financial mobility as well as stability, so did it impact their ability to get a better job? Were they able to get one job that paid them more and maybe quit a second job so they can spend more time with their children, those kinds of things. So really focus on financial stability, mobility, specific expenditures and then parenting. Okay. I'd be interested, I'm glad you mentioned stress because there's such a correlation between stress and adverse childhood experiences. So I think that that's really, really helpful. Also, I like the piece about financial mobility in that it's very measurable. We can, what are your tax terms now versus what are your tax terms now and in a year and in two years and so forth. And then what will be our baseline or our control group? So we're not doing a control group. The cost to do that is pretty, it was outside the scope of what the county and the cities could pay for with ARPA funds. However, we will do a, the first survey that families will get will refer to kind of what is it like now? What are your economic conditions now? What is your level of stress about money now? So we'll at least have a look back for the selected participants. What we're really crossing our fingers about is in any day we should know, we did apply to the state, California Department of Social Services is also funding statewide, but I think eight or nine local guaranteed income pilots and focusing on a population that crosses over with ours, which is pregnant mothers and they will be funding a control group for the whole pilot and we'll work with them on that with our evaluators and building on our current infrastructure that we've built. And that cohort would probably start, maybe like summer of 2023, depending on when the state makes the announcement. So there are concurrent pilots across the state that will have control groups? Yeah, there are, I think right now in California, there are at least five or six guaranteed income pilots happening. Several of them focus on parents of young children, at least the one in Marin is all focused on moms, single moms. So, and some of those have control groups, some of them don't, but the one that the state's gonna fund, which is probably gonna be kind of overall the biggest pilot for the state of California will have a control group and they have the kind of funding to invest in what it costs to do that. I think that that's gonna be really critical to see what parallels we can draw between the state pilots with the controls and gaining further support. I mean, assuming that this is gonna work the way that I think it's gonna work, I think that that will strengthen our ability to convince the funding, larger funding entities to continue to do these types of things if we're able to demonstrate results. Yeah, definitely. And there is that pretty weighty pressure to be able to prove it through a randomized control. I think that the general public might not understand sort of the amount of staff time and just administrative costs to be able to do that. Well, I mean, it's pretty obvious to me that, not only would you have to get people who are already really suffering, but then get them to do work of participating in a series of surveys and a document they're suffering without. Exactly, right. I mean, there is the ethical consideration of it as well. So yeah. Okay, thank you so much. That's all my questions. So welcome. Thanks, Victoria. My questions are kind of in the same level. First of all, I appreciate the questions about the control because being able to prove efficacy, I think is going to be important as the program continues from pilot to actual full-blown program. And so what I don't remember since the last time we discussed this and the last time the council discussed it was the length of this pilot and whether or not the city of Santa Rosa is fully funded as to its obligation. Yes, the city of Santa Rosa is fully funded to its obligation. It'll be two years of payments starting in January so through December 2024. So 24 payments, $500 each on a monthly basis to each of these households. Okay. And the council, given the reality of our fiscal situation and which it's always a little bit of an unknown when it comes to the budget and being able to predispose future councils to that budget, I assume that there will be, and I think that's where the ability to show efficacy is going to be so very important because there will be council members who are not necessarily aware of both the need and the ability for the city to pay. So that's, so having that control, I think having that control group being able to say, look at this, look at the effect of this investment, the importance of this investment I think is going to be important and elemental to the pilot moving forward. And the future council understanding the importance of it. And I appreciate that. Thanks, Andrew. Sure, you're so welcome. And just to remember that these were ARPA funds, all the guaranteed income pilot, all ARPA one-time funds, and we're actually just pushing it all out to pay the, to actually banked basically at fund for guaranteed income. So it won't even be in the budget. It's already been spent, basically expenditures already been made. Yeah, and those one-time funds are some of the most controversial that we ever engage on the council. Of course. I appreciate the report and the update. Thank you very much. Yeah, so you want to talk about child savings accounts? Let's move, I think we should probably move to public comment on this particular piece, just to see if there's any, if anyone wants, if we have any comment of any type at this point, Madam Secretary? Yes. We do have a hand raise, gig high-tow. Again, I'm going to send you a prompt. Please unmute yourself and state your name for the record. Yes, gig high-tow again, and Senorosa. And you probably don't know that I have a long history. I'm actually a professional survey research questionnaire design expert. So I totally understand what you're talking about there about the nuances of a control group in a survey. Control groups are very difficult to establish and very expensive to do. But, and since you don't have a baseline of before the participants started the program, but you still can ask the participants in the questionnaire and in each of the parameters that you're measuring quantitatively, you can also ask them to compare themselves to say, is this factor, is this more or less of the same as it was before you joined the program? So it is a little subjective, of course, but it does, you know, it's not just, well, this is how many times I spend money on this. Okay, well, is that more or less of the same as it was before? So by doing both the quantitative and the comparison, then those two factors, you can work them together and get some pretty accurate results that way. That's all, thank you. Thanks, Kate. Any other comments, Madam Secretary? There are no hands raised and just so you're aware, we haven't had any email or voicemail for this meeting. Excellent, thank you very much. Okay, Angie, let's move on. Okay, so let's talk about child savings accounts. These next two programs will be a lot more brief. They don't have nearly the kind of, you know, detailed complexity in the infrastructure. So first, for child savings accounts, the city of Santa Rosa, as a reminder, funded these at about 1.5 million. They are 529 savings accounts for any child under six years old that lives in Santa Rosa. We are being very intentional about ensuring that all eligible kids in the family also get enrolled and get a child savings account, a college savings account established for them. And just as a reminder, the 521 funds, when the child comes of age, they can access those and use them for anything related to education and training after high school, including books, tuition, fees, uniforms, whatever it is. And they are under the child's control at that time. And in the meantime, they're sitting in a 529 savings account with Scholar Share, which is the state child savings account program. And so far we've opened 216 accounts with a $500 initial deposit. Some of these have already earned, the families have already earned an additional incentive deposit for participating in a program that supports early literacy or financial education. There's an array of programs that are eligible for that incentive deposit. Next slide. We're coordinating with a lot of community-based organizations as well as school districts to outreach and refer families. Santa Rosa City Schools sent out a notice just last week in their newsletter to all families in the whole district. We've had a ton of interest because of that. Really exciting. So I expect that number to grow pretty quickly. Staff are also doing a lot of tabling, presentations both in-person, in Spanish, in English, as well as online to reach parents of young children. Also working on establishing an opt-out agreement for Head Start families. That means basically they would just get the account established for them unless they opt out. Does require a confidentiality release of information. So it's taking a little bit more time. We know that's really sensitive. We did approach for a C's about this. They weren't comfortable with the information release piece and that's very legitimate. A lot of families have a lot of concerns around information release, especially due to immigration status. So instead at four C's, the teachers will be sharing a flyer that will go home with families and then staff will also be doing some presentations. Next one. Oh, so before we move on to childcare facilities, are there questions about child savings accounts? We've been pretty focused on guaranteed basic incomes. So once we get that kind of launched, we can move much more focus on child savings accounts. Go ahead. Victoria, any questions at this point? No, I mean, I think this is really great. I appreciate you incorporating my feedback around, you know, not, you know, separating out siblings and families. I thought that was a recipe for, you know, just strife. So thank you. It's really nice to see that that was taken seriously. And I'm, you know, just really excited. This is going to be one where we're going to have to wait decades to find out what happens. But it's going to be well worth the wait. Hopefully at that point, our downtown will also be, you know, super vibrant. And you know, we're going to have all of these young people who will have gone out and gotten educated in careers and want to come start businesses. And it's just going to be this great aggregator effect. So it's a good reason to want to stay healthy and get old. Right. Right. And, you know, it's also, it's exciting to look at the, I mean, this is a relatively new field, right? All of these kinds of supports are relatively new. And the research is just starting to emerge. And the research on child savings accounts is pretty clear that especially for young children, that even a small amount of money that's in a savings account that they can't touch actually shifts the parents' perception and attitude about what they can expect for their child, right? That it does change their sense of my child can go to college if they want to, right? And that, you know, that expectations really, really matter. Yeah. And people do have conversations. You know, my kid asked me the other day, she's like, you know, will I be able to go to college? And, you know, I said, yeah, she said, well, why? I said, well, you know, I put aside a little bit of money every month for you in this account. She's like, well, can you take it out? I was like, actually, I can't. She's like, why? She now is off, you know, with all of these plans in her head that, you know, she's got some ability to do it. So it really does change your mind shift. It does. My question is kind of in the same realm. I'm curious. And I don't remember having this. I know I'm sure I didn't ask this question when we were talking about it the first time. As far as limitations on the use of the funds, what can it not be used for? In other words, at the end of one, when the person, when the individual is moving toward college and they make a decision in their future, that they are not going to college. Can the person use, is it a grant? Can the person use these funds as a, and loan it to somebody, for instance? I'm just interested in the restrictions on the funds themselves. So they can take the money out and spend it on something else, but there's a fairly big tax disincentive around doing that. But they could if they wanted to do that and use it potentially for a down payment on a house. But it really is intended to be used for post-secondary. They can use it for vocational training. It doesn't have to be a four-year college. They can use it for books. I believe they can even use it for housing for college. It might have to be specifically housing sponsored by the institution. But yeah, I mean, it's pretty, pretty broad what they can use it for. OK. And I think that's actually was one of my concerns because I've seen some, had to have these discussions, seen some discussions where the recipient of, and these are actually not the same program, where they used it to buy a car and then justified it by saying, well, I need a car to drive to school. It is, and I don't want to use the unfortunate decisions of some to darken the importance of the decisions made by those that are using it for what it was intended. But it still gives me pause, not knowing the list of things one can't use it for, where the ones that things can be used for are generally highlighted. So it does give, it just concerns me somewhat. The tax ramifications I think are important. But it is the reality of grant money, that how will it be used appropriately or will it be considered kind of a slush fund. So that's kind of where I was. The fiscal piece, part of me was coming from a place of being concerned about that. Of course. And again, the emerging research on CSAs and on 529s in particular, show that the vast majority of young people use the money to continue their education past high school. That's good to hear. And how long has this program been in place in California? Scholar Sherry think it's been in place for at least a decade, but just underutilized. There hasn't been a lot of effort to promote it or investment by the state in promoting it. Current administration is actually invested. That's how we got started. We initially had a grant from the California Student Aid Commission working with Scholar Sherry to push out child savings accounts, college savings accounts. And the state is putting a lot more into making sure that this is actually a universally accessible program, putting small deposits for every baby born in California. So, yeah, it's been around a while, but just underutilized I think by in a universal way. It's been more for folks that actually are college graduate parents themselves and want that future for their child as opposed to something that could lift up more marginalized population in California. Thank you. I appreciate that. And could you remind me beyond the seed money, if you will, what the city's obligation is in the future? Let's see, where is it? The commitment of a part of the city was 1.575. The vast majority of that will go directly into accounts. This is ARPA funds. So we have to use it to establish child savings accounts by the end of 2024. So, yeah, and that's already, go ahead, Reza. We built into the process, check-in, quarterly, periodically, to make sure that the funds are being expended at the rate they need to be in order to meet the ARPA obligation. And if not, then we have plans to redirect the funds. I think the city manager's office is particularly interested in making sure that funds get used effectively and have that check-in as well. Excellent, thanks Reza. Thank you, Angie. Well, good, so let's move on. Okay, so let's talk about childcare facilities. I think everyone knows that the childcare sector was really vulnerable before the COVID-19 pandemic and really, really suffered as an economic sector during the pandemic. We lost probably 2,000 slots, I think, maybe more. So for childcare facilities, the city of Santa Rosa funded 2.75 million for grants and 1.3 million, which is actually general fund money for loans. So I'll talk about the loan piece at the end, but this is about the grants. So in August and September, first five staff conducted a needs assessment to gather some data around what is the current need out there for funding for facilities in our community. And we had 77 respondents within the city limits. About 20% of those were center-based providers, both subsidized and private centers and the rest were home-based family childcare businesses. But half of the respondents indicated Spanish as their preferred language and half English. If the committee would like the report, we actually do have a report for all the data from the needs assessment. Happy to provide that. But the key finding was really that the vast majority of respondents indicated that they need money for renovation and repairs and retrofitting for existing facilities. There's a huge need just to preserve the existing facilities that we have so that they can continue funding or serving the children that they're already serving. Huge kind of emergency situation that happened a few years ago, which is just such a great example of this is when we had a large childcare center closed because of mold mitigation and more than a hundred families lost their childcare overnight. The providers that worked there lost their jobs overnight and that business basically had to shut down because there was no opportunity to the cost of mold mitigation is so expensive and childcare operators operate at a very thin margin. It really is a not profitable business. Next one. Angie, I'm just gonna add on this, just when we were conceiving of these programs, this is what we thought. We had the idea that we wanted to and I think in this group had discussed quite a lot the idea of new facilities, encouraging childcare in new development, especially in the downtown. Just to be clear, this was always gonna be the bulk of it because fewer have this need. But again, on this fund, we have check-ins to make sure that the funds are being expended. The other piece of it is not just the new or rehabbing old but the conversion of spaces as well. And so as we go through the program, we'll probably see other opportunities that we're bringing to the forefront in developing new sites. Great. Next slide. So based on the needs assessment, we just closed a 30-day window to submit a letter of intent to apply for funding for an ECE facilities grant. We received 40 letters of intent from Santa Rosa childcare providers. So staff is busy reviewing those providers. We're looking at the range of requests. We know it was between 20,000 and 300,000. Staff are looking at them for economic feasibility. They're looking at whether they can commit to using the site for the purpose of childcare for a specific period of time. So site control. They're ensuring that they either have a valid license or that they are an exempt formally an exempt provider. And just in case you're not aware, you can be exempt from license if you're only caring for children of your family member or a neighbor. Also looking at whether they're able to contribute 25% of the project costs and also whether the letter of intent seems that the project will align with the grant that they're requesting. So there's three types of projects, minor renovation and repair grant with additional slots, minor renovation and repair grant without adding slots and then major renovation and or new construction. So we're reviewing all those letters and then out of those will be inviting operators to apply for a grant. Next one. The grant application will open in December. It'll stay open for eight weeks. We'll convene a review committee that's composed of several ECE providers, representatives from our resource and referral agencies. So in Sonoma County, that's Four Seas and River to Coast. And then a few first five commissioners, committee members obviously can't have a conflict of interest meaning they can't also be an applicant for funding if they're gonna be on the review committee. So the goal will be to review the applications, make preliminary recommendations to the first five commission in February and then the commission to approve the grants in February or March and then we'll be able to push those funds out immediately. So there'll be a really clear process and methodology for scoring the applications based on our unmet need for childcare. We have a huge need for childcare for children of all ages, but the very top need nearly impossible to find is care for infants and toddlers. So those will certainly rise to the top, I think of priority. Any questions on the grants piece and otherwise I'll move on to the loans. Victoria, any questions first or comments? No, no, I'm just watching along and grateful for the information. Thank you. Could you go back, Angie to the slide before the last one, I moved away from it on my iPad. The letters of intent. So could you go over the valid license except exempt? I mean, what I heard you say, and please I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm wrong. If I had a family member in my house and a next door neighbor's child in my house and I wanted to redo my family room to accommodate childcare, would that be possible? Or would that not be a valid reason to receive funds? No, and this actually has taken quite a bit of thinking through, right? Because when people are providing childcare in their home sometimes there is a kind of a crossover of where childcare is provided with how the family, the residents of that home use that home. So there's some subjectivity there, but what's going to be very important is that anything that's gonna pay for a improvement or repair in a family childcare home has to be directly related and supported and primarily for the purpose of providing a safe environment, a nurturing environment and also just meeting basic, is there running water, is there hot water, is there a bathroom that's dedicated to the children being cared for, these kinds of things that even if it's a family friend and neighbor, which we call the FFN category that is licensed exempt, that they meet all of those basic health and safety requirements. And so you can't just do it in your family room or it really does have to be a designated space. I mean, it's just my skepticism with fraud that seems to be, can be an issue and when dealing with funds of this type that kind of raises my attention. And there is staff involved that will be able to highly, I'm like do site visits, et cetera, as opposed to talking to somebody over the phone. A hundred percent, I was just gonna mention we will definitely, particularly when it comes to family childcare homes, do site visits, make sure the project is feasible, make sure that it's, there's actually an operating childcare business happening there. Yeah, there'll be a lot of vetting and verifying. And also this isn't our first rodeo with childcare facilities grants. We've been doing these for I think 15 years. We've done a lot of cycles of facilities grants and we have a lot of expertise in it. And we also partner really closely with our childcare specialists at River to Coast Children's Center and Four Seas. They know a lot about sort of the licensing elements of it. Yeah, having said other grant review processes even for lower amounts like 2000, even a thousand there's a lot of due diligence on this. And so you can spot questions and they're fairly easily, especially with the folks who are anticipated to be on the selection committee. So even for the smaller ones, there's a smaller grants, there's a ton of due diligence on this. Well, I could think of a few things that are more important than this kind of program. And then that's why, you know, every, my question comes from a place of protection in that, you know, every dollar that is used inappropriately is a dollar that can't be used appropriately. So that it's my lack of understanding of the due diligence, I think as far as monitoring the amount of money, because it's limited and making sure that it's spent according to the restrictions is really important because these are really valuable funds used in a very good way. So thank you for that. Yeah, you're so welcome. And then just one more slide about the loan process. So again, you know, the city committed funding to develop a no interest or low interest loan program. This was not ARPA funding. This was general fund dollars. So, you know, this is something that's been discussed in the community in the childcare sector for years, how needed a some kind of revolving loan program. The example of the loan mitigate or the mold mitigation is a great example because there's just, unless you're, you know, happen to be in good timing for a one-time grant opportunity from first five or the state, which don't happen very often, you know, you're kind of out of luck. So we have had a need for this for a really long time. So our goal really is we're not gonna launch this immediately. I mean, we, these ARPA projects, ARPA funded projects are our top priority now. We're really concerned about doing this right. First five is not a financial institution. We have lots of experience doing grants, vetting projects, vetting child and family serving projects. But this is a little bit different. So, you know, we wanna be very thoughtful around researching and designing a pilot kind of and potentially incubating that pilot. The design for a revolving childcare facility loan program in Santa Rosa that can be sustainable and that can really support the community in a long-term way, not just a one-time grant way. So it's really around sustainability. So we're researching best practices, meeting with a few other first five commissions that do do this in their community, meeting with community partners and stakeholders to inform that design of both of the loan product, but also just the infrastructure and the implementation of a loan program. So some of our key folks that we're talking to low-income investment fund in San Francisco, they're a CDFI and they do a lot of stuff, but they particularly do focus on childcare facilities. They know a lot about making sure that loan funds are available to the very thin profit margin sector, childcare sector, Creser Capital, which is a new organization in Sonoma County, I think Marin as well, it's a regional organization. And their focus is funding small businesses, particularly BIPOC-led, Latino-led small businesses, and then Redwood Credit Union, also talking with them about this. And we wanna develop a pilot that is also informed by our grants program, right? The successes and the challenges and some of the things that you've brought up, council member Sawyer, around vetting projects. How do you know that this is a economically feasible project, not just a way to fund something that's gonna be a personal benefit? And then also looking at some of the efforts of BuildUp San Mateo and now BuildUp California, which is really focused on bringing cross-sector folks together to address childcare facilities issues across the community. So those models bring together your Chamber of Commerce, your city and county, your childcare community, the first fives. I mean, traditionally in our community, we really, it's just been first five in the childcare community that's tried to address this childcare issue. And it hasn't been really until the city and the county have gotten involved that we've gotten some traction around, really let's crack this nut and make sure that there are resources available going forward. So we don't anticipate launching the loan program until early 2025. We wanna make sure that we have a very robust design. A lot could happen between now and then we may determine we're not the right entity to be actually administering loan products, but we could partner with another entity that might be better positioned to do that. So there's more questions than there are kind of answers and firm kind of path forward, but we're laying the groundwork for answering all those questions. Do you wanna add to that, Raissa? No, I think you hit everything there, but I just to double down on this, the thoughtful process is this is the one that's gonna last us forever, hopefully. And so that's why we're taking the time we do anticipate learning from the grants and what the needs are and applying it forward. But we have the offer restrictions in terms of timing. So it gives us the ability to create the relationships that we need, the time to create relationships we need for this ongoing process. Thanks, Raissa. Victoria, any final comments or questions on 3.1? Okay, thank you. And do we have any, I don't believe we do have any public comment on the last item, Madam Secretary. I think you indicated that there were no hands raised. Council member Sawyer, there are no hands raised. Yes. Okay, thank you very much. Angie and Raissa, thank you both very much for a really comprehensive report. Our children are our future and these kinds of investments will pay off even if it takes a while to see the results which oftentimes can, these kinds of investments ultimately will pay off it in a very big way. So thank you for your efforts and your report very much appreciated. Thank you so much to the council for the investment and for believing in first five. And we will be back to report whenever you need us to and always willing to share as much information as possible. And it's just great working with Raissa both in her role at the city and also as a commissioner, it has been really great because she can kind of leverage those two hats to really support our work and really have a thriving partnership with the city. So thank you so much. Well, thank you for that. And we're lucky to have an organization like first five to help guide us through some unknown waters. And it's very much appreciated. Thanks, great. Thank you, Angie. Okay, Raissa, so 3.2. Yeah, this is the last things we don't actually have department reports today but I just wanted to give you a really quick update on where we are with the Enhanced Infrastructure Finance District. So we went out for an RFP to get consultants to help us do the infrastructure finance plan. And we selected a company called DTA, David Tossig. So he's done quite a number of EIFDs. There aren't a lot in the state that he's really done some great work. I had the opportunity to talk to a few of the cities he's worked with and just glowing reports. So there are two phases of this work. The first part is the feasibility analysis where can be looking at boundaries, setting boundaries, the tax increment analysis and the work in phase one will results and give us some study results in order to write the infrastructure finance plan. So in phase two, it is the writing of the EIFP infrastructure finance plan but it also includes the resolution of intention and establishing the public financing authority. So it's been a while since we talked about EIFDs but for the public financing authority, it is a separate body that assuming that we continue to work with the county will have two city council members, two board of supervisors and one at large person property owner from the district. The other part of phase two includes meetings with the property owners and the public financing authority setting the public hearings, any modifications to the EIFP to the financing plan and eventually ends in submission to the state board of equalization. So we received $80,000 in one-time funds from the PG&E settlement. The contract with DTA is 49,500. So we'll have 30,500 for the next phase. Just a reminder, we already have under contract our legal council for this, which is Chris Lynch and I can't remember the permies with but he actually helped write the EIFD legislation and then we also have Bob Gamble who is retired from PFM but this is one of his legacy projects that he's seeing through. So with the remaining $30,500 we'll be able to cover the next steps which is actually getting to the vote and formation process but then also to look at the possibility of community facilities district. So those two things that EIFD and the CFD can happen in tandem and this would cover those costs. So the other piece of it that we had talked about is two districts, one in the downtown, one in Roseland. They would not be one combined districts because EIFDs can be contiguous or non-contiguous. They would be two separate ones. The difference between the two besides location obviously in demographics, et cetera, et cetera they are both opportunity zones and qualified census tract areas but where the downtown is more ready, it's ready because they've got, we've got two community benefit districts. So we have property owners already organized in the covering the bulk of what the district would be which is the general plan downtown area map, right? Roseland, we don't have that. We've been spending a lot of time putting together business groups. We're trying to get together property groups to get to a point at least to have a community benefit district. So we have identified a new group of folks who we think will be able to be a stable guide in getting us to both a community benefit district and eventually to an EIFD. In speaking to David Tossig, the DTA guy, it is still possible without the, with Roseland being not quite as set up in terms of their business or property owners as downtown to move forward. We have basically in terms of timing until March to figure out if they'll be the second district or if it's better for us to wait until a later time to do an EIFD in that area. The, in terms of the timing of the taxes, there has been concern that we have some development happening already in the downtown, specifically the project at 888 4th Street. I think it is that's Heath of Trails project on 4th Street as well as the Pullman loss. So the good thing is that we didn't miss the timing to have those included at their pre-development rate. Because if, so long as we submit, as I understand it, so long as we submit to the BOE by December 1st of 2023, it is the fiscal year 2022-23 that would be considered. So we would cap the, the assessments would be taken out prior to when those are gonna be finished, even if they're finished and be given occupancy before December 1st of 2023. So that's where we are with it. Let's keep you guys updated. And if you have any questions, I'll attempt to answer them. Victoria, any questions for Raisa? My question is like, so with the body, the governing body that you described, would that be the group that negotiates the tax share split or how, or is that a staff to staff matter? How does that get worked out? At this point, the work would be predominantly coming out of the city manager's office, though clearly, I don't think it's the PFA at that point, because by then we'll have had the infrastructure finance plan done. So I think a lot of that work happens before, but definitely the PFA would be setting in stone and doing any modifications at that point. My understanding is that the city manager would be leading that charge. Okay, and then to that point, is this something that we'll want to reach out to her to give direction on? Will the council have a study session where we determine this? Because this is, as far as I understand, the thing that can be the sticking point. And interestingly, I don't know, John, if you got this, there was a survey, people who researched how municipal directors think about city council members and supervisors think about things like, I'm so worried that we're gonna miss out on this because of this idea of wanting to guard resources too tightly. And it's so important to me that we do reach a consensus and get this thing happening. So I'm just curious to know, will the council have an opportunity to weigh in or is this something that we should just reach out directly to our city manager? And that's a fair question for you, but... Well, my understanding in working through Claire and assistant city manager, Gunston, obviously we'll have to take direction from the city manager, but my assumption is that it would be, we'd have to go through a series of public meetings even before it gets submitted to the Board of Equalization and gets to the point of formation. I personally had been anticipating a study session, but I'm not yet prepared. I have not heard yet what the process is gonna be. I believe when David comes on when we get him on your contract, there'll be meetings with the city manager and then I'll be given the direction that that would be. That makes total sense. Thank you. Thanks, Victoria. I think at this point, let me just ask for a final public comment on this item. And if you like, I do know that assistant city manager, Gunston, is on, as is Claire Hartman, who's the director. I can see if either of them have something to say if that question is the answer to this one. Should we ask if they have any comments at this point? Well, yeah, if they wanna raise their hand, I don't see them raising their hand. Okay. But I sure will hear from the city manager through one of them. Any public comment, then that might actually get a raised hands. We have any public comment on this item. If you're joining us to make a public comment, you can press the raise your hand icon at the bottom of your screen. And if you're calling in, please press start nine. Yeah, there are no hands raised. All right. Thank you, Madam Secretary. I appreciate it. And no comments at this point from our other attendees. Anything, Raisa? Oh, no, not for me. Sorry. Okay, thank you. Well, this will probably be my last meeting on this subcommittee. It has been a distinct pleasure to serve. This is on this particular committee, it is the spirit in which we have moved forward has been very rewarding and satisfying. And I wanna thank everyone who has been on these tiles in the past and today I really appreciated Victoria. Best of luck to you this evening. And thank you, Raisa, for allowing us. Well, thank you all for allowing me my freedom to offer fiscal reticence at times and being able to move beyond that or make that a part of the conversation. It's just part of the way I'm wired. So thank you all very much. And we will see you out there some place. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you trying? Are you trying out there someplace? Wait, hold on, I get to say something nice before we adjourn our last one together. It's kind of fitting, no shade to Chris for not being able to be here today, but that you and I started this up in the height of COVID and with the help of Raisa and the three of us really put our shoulders to the grindstone together. And I think that as a result of having our differing perspectives that we've gotten some really good things done and John you will be, I'm gonna miss you and I really appreciate your perspective. And this has been the most rewarding committee that I have served on as a result of our partnership and the way that this works together with our amazing staff leader, Raisa. So, you know, this is, it's a little bit of a bittersweet adjournment. I was like, you can't adjourn without letting me tell you how much I appreciate you. And also for me, John, it's been an absolute pleasure. I think I've known you my whole career here almost at the city and that's been a long time. And this group, again, as Victoria said through the pandemic to be able to have honest, earnest conversations to really do what we think is best for this community. And I think we did do well in that front because it has been just an absolute pleasure and just a real highlight for me as well. You will be missed and best of luck for it. Thanks, Raisa. It has been a privilege. Thank you all. Okay, you can adjourn it now if you want. Okay, and with that, I'll adjourn it before I start getting all, you know, teary, which tends to happen to me. So thank you all very much, meeting adjourned.