 en español es disponible y los miembros de la publica o staff deseos de escuchar en español, pueden participar en el canal de español por clicar en el icono de interpretación en la barra de zoom. Parece como un globo. Una vez que has participado en el canal de español, os recomiendo que os desplieguen el audio principal para que solo podáis escuchar la tradición de español. Interpreter, por favor, traducen esto en español. Para los que recién se unen a la reunión, interpretación en vivo al español estará disponible y personales o miembros del público quienes desean escuchar en español podrán unirse al canal. Para unirse, haga clic en el icono de interpretaciones que ahora aparece en la barra de funciones de zoom como un globo terráneo. Una vez un al canal de español, se recomienda que os pague el audio primario para solo escuchar la interpretación en español. Hey, everyone, let's give this a go. I'm seeing a quorum. Can we call this meeting in order? Madam clerk, would you please take the roll? Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Rogers. Here. Council Member Ocrepke. Here. Council Member McDonald. Here. Council Member Fleming. Council Member Alvarez. Vice Mayor Step. Here. And Mayor Rogers. Let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of Mayor Rogers. Excellent. If I'm not mistaken, we go to public comment next. On closed session items. Thank you. Would you like to announce the closed session items on the calendar? Yes. Yes, I would. One moment. Oh wait, I might need help with this. So closed session item 3.1. Conference with Equal Council. 3.2. Public employee evaluation performance. And 3.3, conference of labor negotiators. Thank you. We are now taking public comments on item 3, the consent or the closed session calendar. If you're in council chamber, would like to provide a comment, but have not provided a speaker card. Please make your way to the podium. If you are participating, oops, pardon me, please raise your hand. Oh, nope, those are my old Zoom instructions. Pardon me, what a meeting we're kicking off here. You will have three minutes and a countdown timer. We'll alert at the end of that period. Mr. Dewitt, do you wish to provide public comment? I wanted to thank you all for your service, and I wanted to give you a good new year greeting. Also wanted to point out that these are going to be difficult times financially. The state has announced that they have a state deficit of many billions of dollars. And they've also stated that they expect to have deficits for the next four years of running. This is very important that we also look at the federal numbers that say inflation is down to 2%. So as you go forward, it's been said that perhaps you have a structural deficit also at the city. In your negotiations with the various labor groups, I would advocate that you please not give anybody more than a 2% raise. That will keep up with inflation. I know that sometimes you like to give people merit raises, and people have gotten raises as high as 5% in a year. This is not the time to do that. We have an unsettled political situation at the national level. We can't even get our elected officials from the two major parties to agree on how they're going to handle the budgetary matters. Those are still up in the air. So here locally, please keep in mind that things may not look as rosy, especially because the monies that came from the American Rescue Plan Act and the Inflation Reduction Act will be drying up, and you won't have any of those funds either. So last but not least, in these raises, I always want to advocate for the people who are at the ground level workers, the people who take care of our streets, and the people who especially take care of our parks. It's been very difficult for them all through the COVID years, and I don't know any of them personally now because many have retired, but the staff that's trying to do the best job they can for recreation and parks and for our streets, they deserve any type of raises that might be given. And last but not least, any type of funding that you might feel is extra, please dedicate it to curbs, gutters, and sidewalks in Roseland and Western Santa Rosa. We have parts of Santa Rosa that have been in the city for over 60 years without curbs, sidewalks, and gutters. So please help us all out. Everybody have a good new year. Look forward to seeing you again later in the day. Thank you, vice mayor. I see no one else in council chamber wishing to provide public comment. Thank you. I think this hazing ritual is over. I'm going to turn it back over to the actual mayor. All right, the mayor, the mayor has indicated that we will recess to closed session. All right, welcome everyone to our January 9th, 2024, Santa Rosa City Council meeting. We're going to reconvene Madame City Clerk seeing a quorum. Can you please call the roll? Thank you, mayor, council member Rogers, council member Ocrepke, council member McDonald, here, council member Fleming, council member Alvarez, vice mayor Stapp, mayor Rogers. President, let the record show that all council members are present. We will now proceed to item 4.1, our study session for the day, Madame City Manager. Thank you, Madam Mayor and members of council. Item 4.1 is a study session, integrated pest management policy. Good afternoon, mayor, members of the council, Sean McNeill, and I'm sharing the podium with Jen Santos and Paul Lowenthal to talk with you about our integrated pest management policy process that we're trying to put together and looking for some feedback from you today. So the outline of this talk is I'm going to go over the goals of an integrated pest management policy. We'll talk about the existing guidance that we've received from this council and impacts of product bans on operations. We'll kind of go through a number of our operations, talk a little bit about a typical integrated pest management policy, how they are used typically, and then we'll end with some staff recommendations and then move on to next steps for the policy. But before we get started, I'd like to kind of go over some definitions. There's no way about this discussion without making sure that we're on the same page. So a pesticide oftentimes is misconstrued as something that attacks insects, but it's a broader term. It's a chemical that's used to eradicate any kind of pest. That includes herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, rodenticides, et cetera. So just as we mentioned, pesticide think that that's the broader category. Glyphosate, this is an active ingredient in a type of pesticide, an herbicide, most notably in Roundup, but it's found in other brands of, or other types of named pesticides based on the type of environment that you're spraying it in. So when you spray glyphosate in an aquatic environment, that's a different product name called Brodio. So we'll respond to thinking about, even though most of us think about it as Roundup, we're gonna really talk about it as glyphosate because that's the active compound and that covers the entire suite of herbicides that use glyphosate as an active ingredient. And then neonicotinoids are a group of pesticides that are a broad spectrum, broad spectrum insecticide that kills more than the intended species. They've gotten a lot of negative press, have had implications to impacting bees and butterflies, more so than just their target species. So a lot of entities such as this council have sought to have us limit the use of those. There's a lot of reasons documented to decrease pesticide use and one of the most common ways to do that is through an integrated pest management policy. Pesticides and fertilizers were really used in the 40s and 50s to launch the Green Revolution. This has been shown to increase crop yields, preventing hundreds of millions of people from starving. So there was this chemistry to the rescue approach with pesticides and a lot were applied and that led to increased food crops. Soon after that, it started to document that many of these pesticides were having significant environmental impacts. They were overused, they ended up killing non-target species and were linked to human health impacts. And so since the 50s, a lot of research has been done and integrated pest management practices have been developed and that's really where we are to make sure that we're identifying technologies that help us do our jobs but also identifying the risks associated with them and making intelligent decisions about how to solve our problems. So the concerns with glyphosate is that it persists in the environment for days and in months, depending on the weather conditions and the soil and things like that. They're widely used in agriculture and landscape maintenance and it's been listed as a probable carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Lawsuits have been filed and won against the chemical manufacturer of this and health risks are most acute to the pesticide applicator, more so than the general public around where these pesticides are being used. All the documented cases of disease have been on the applicators of the pesticide. Integrated pest management, the goal is really today to begin the process of developing a city-wide integrated pest management policy. This policy would direct all staff and contractors working on behalf of the city as to how to use and manage pests within our jurisdiction. This policy would provide guidance, or excuse me, and we wanna make sure that this policy supports the city's ability to protect against increased fire severity due to invasive species and climate change and we've seen a huge growth of invasive species especially in our wooey areas and making sure that we have the appropriate tools to address those invasive species is part of what this policy, the development of this policy should address. So the city-wide applicability of our integrated pest management it would really only apply to city-owned properties. It's not building code, it wouldn't dictate personal use. It does not affect county, state, federal or school-owned properties but we could work with those entities that are operating within our jurisdiction to look for common ground to ensure some level of support for what we're trying to do here in our city. So this is a picture of the study of various herbicides applied to plots and each of these five-meter plots were given an herbicide treatment and then they came and took a picture on the day before they applied the herbicide and then tracked it for 35 days taking pictures at the different intervals that you could see at the top of the slide there. And then all the pesticides that are circled in the red bar within that red bar, those are different organic applications and then you have towards the bottom glyphosate and then glyphosate plus fuzaflop. And you can see that after 35 days many of the organic which are typically burned down chemicals are not nearly as effective as glyphosate. So when we're talking about spraying herbicides in the environment to you know, there's a difference in how you need to approach if you're using something other than glyphosate to have the result of dead weeds at the end. And so there's just this study put on by UC Davis is a good example of kind of the when we go through the impacts for our operations about product bands to see that to meet the same performance criteria there's a lot more action taken by staff to get to that same results. So far the feedback that we've received from policy or I'm sorry. So the feedback that we've received so far from policy makers is in August of 2018 the council approved the renewal of a landscape contract and directed the contract at that time and city staff to discontinue the use of glyphosates. And then on September 2019 we had a study session on city wide contracted landscape services and landscape maintenance options for city sites and the council provided feedback discouraging the use of products with glyphosate and neonicotinoids. On October 1st, 2019, city council approved contracts with coast landscape management with a scope of work limited to mowing operations. The landscape maintenance portion of the scope of work was not funded or approved. And then on a separate trajectory, the Board of Public Utilities for the landscape contracts that they oversee develop landscape contracts that implement something called the Russian River Friendly Landscape Guidelines which is an approach to managing landscapes in a manner that looks at more than just herbicides but a holistic landscape approach. So it doesn't necessarily ban the use of glyphosate but it looks at a lot of activities that prevent you from needing to use pesticides in your landscape management but it doesn't take the tool out of the toolbox should you have to use something like that. Thanks, Sean. Good afternoon, Mayor Rogers, vice mayor, staff council members. I'm Jen Santos, deputy director for Parks and I'll cover the next two slides and send it back to Sean. We wanted, so we've talked about some of the feedback from policy makers and here we wanted to look at from a park's perspective what sort of impacts we have seen with the reduction or the elimination of chemicals, pesticides and roundup in our contracted services. So with the elimination we've seen a lot less control in our landscapes. You've probably seen that out there in our parks as well as our redway landscapings. A lot of infestations as well as greater fuel fires, fire fuels in our parks, especially our open spaces. Those are weedy, shrubby areas in our parks. When we excluded that, another thing to think about is the cost, although obviously that's not our main purpose today but we wanted to make sure you had some information. We saw essentially a 50% increase in contract in one year to the next with an exclusion of roundup in 2018 to so 2019 we had an increase in our contracted services. Where we have a great deal of problems in our ball fields off season we had typically used glyphosate and other things in warning tracks and different surfaces that are very difficult to weed because it's a type of volcanic rock that's very difficult to weed. Civic landscapes such as this one here and of course our street medians and redway landscaping, those are really difficult locations to have landscape services without the use of our tool in our toolbox, which is glyphosate in our integrated pest management. All right, and so just another way of looking at that. We have a little bit of updated information. So in parks, one of the things that's difference between the water department or what the fire department's looking at is parks have a wide variety of surfaces and expectations for use. They're used a lot by our community and they're different than the open spaces. So when you look at the increase in cost to use a landscape model that is exclusive, excludes glyphosate or chemicals, you're looking at a 50 to 58% increase in cost when you are looking at removing that. Staff has done a calculation to show that right now what we're using is about 32,000 hours of labor in our current staff to try to manage these. That was based on last year without the use of an extended contract, which is equivalent to about 15 full-time employees. So they wanted to put that out there to let you know with the contract service. These are hours we could get back in our regular day-to-day responsibilities as part of managing the park system in the community. 32,000 hours is a lot of time to get back to our staff if we have a fully integrated pest management system. With a landscape contract, you're looking at a cost of around $2.2 million to remove weeds if we do have an integrated system that is allowed to use glyphosate as a last resort. Or we've seen recent cost estimates around $3.7 million without the use of any chemical controls at all. And so the big takeaway is a lot of extra staff time recently and we're looking at essentially a 50% increase in cost. And we wanted to put that to you because there is a cost and it is a tool in our toolbox right now. And so we want to make sure that there's understanding about what that could mean if we move away from a fully integrated pest management system. And I will turn it back over to Sean. All right, so, I apologize. With the impacts of pesticide avoidance on cenarosa water properties, we can't fully ascribe the change just to round up but our landscape contract went up approximately $300,000 per year for the Russian River friendly landscape practices. They only do mechanical removal. And so what we have seen is in more of the paved areas around some of our water tanks and things like that those cracks in the pavement between concrete and asphalt to those areas we've seen increases in weeds growing. Typically those would just get a quick spray. We have also adapted to the lack of spray, a lot of our levy maintenance or dam faces of our recycled water ponds. We used to spray with herbicide now. We were in dairy lands where most of those ponds are. So we have a lot more grazing on those levies. They're separate contracts to deal with that. And then we have a slight increase in weeds in some of our restoration areas. On many of our farms we have farm plans where we're implementing restoration along the waterways, the creeks there and some of those restoration areas, particular invasive plants like perennial pepper weed and some grasses have taken over and they're much harder to remove effectively, mechanically. And so those are some of those impacts that we've had. There's also some impacts on parking properties, increase the weeds in the lots, similar thing that we've saw in the water department in the landscape areas and lots of the garages and sidewalks we're seeing in those cracks. They're just really hard to remove mechanically. Parking opted out of participating in the landscape contract in 2022 to cut costs. And they've been completing all that work with in-house staff. And they say if they don't have an opportunity to use Roundup that it would require upwards of two FTEs to keep them weed free for an annual increase of about $250,000 a year to maintain a weed free, relatively weed free parking areas. And they currently use mechanical two stroke engines to accomplish their weed eating or weed weeding in those areas. So there's also the implication of those gas powered engines into the environment. The traffic medians is another environment that is dangerous for staff and contractors to work. Working in the roadway is the number one reason for workplace mortality in the US. And this is just due to the vehicles. So the more likely of an accident while somebody's out there working in that landscape is it gets higher the longer you spend out there. So we've seen in response to the ban on glyphosate is really just an increase of weeds in the medians. And it gives an appearance that the landscapes are poorly maintained and potentially reflects poorly on the city's maintenance in general. And that these non-glyphosate herbicides and mechanical removal requires repeated treatments to get that same level. Therefore you're putting more the staff in harm's way for greater periods of time. Good afternoon, Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor, members of the council. My name is Paul, I'm with the all division chief fire marshal covering the fire department's perspective of the plan and the request here this afternoon. So from the fire department's perspective we're seeing an increase in vegetation along our evacuations and right-of-ways. And that's for a number of reasons. Obviously with the weather conditions we have right now it prompts the growth of seasonal grasses which is not uncommon within our community. But our bigger concern is kind of the change of ecology that we're seeing primarily within our wildland urban interface. Parts of fountain grove, whether it's the tubs, nuns or glass fire burn scars were primarily oak and grass tree woodlands with the intensity of the fire and the loss of our canopy. It's changed the growth that we're seeing in those areas. So what used to be primarily seasonal grasses is now exploding with the growth of Scotchbroom, Frenchbroom, Bay, other invasive species that are really creating a condition that's actually worse today in many locations than it was in 2017. What we're doing right now to kind of mitigate that, we are in the process of rolling out, completing phase one, which is a $2.1 million hazard mitigation grant that's removing a lot of fuels in these specific areas to make our right-of-ways and evacuation routes safer with this growth. But that's obviously not a permanent fix just dealing with what is in place right now. We're also doing targeted fuel treatments. What we discussed previously is a lot of weed abatement activities. We're primarily using not only weed abatement for dealing with it, but also vegetation management funds through our PG&E settlement. And again, these are not long-term solutions. They're just addressing what essentially no pun intended, but pops up annually. It's important to note that through the weed abatement program, we're working with city staff and focusing on prioritizing where work is taking place. So when crews, whether contracted or in-house, are focusing on a lot of these targeted weed abatement activities, we're taking them away from other areas that they could be working, that are also equally as important to accomplish and also starts to affect our ability to maintain weed abatement when we have to go back and cut a lot of the regrowth. Ultimately, the IPM can really be supported through the Community Wildfire Protection Plan. The CWPP, which you'll actually hear from me again at the end of this month, was initiated just prior to the glass fire in 2019. That plan was based on a significant amount of community feedback. And one of the actual objectives of the CWPP was to address the ability to spray and deal with a lot of the invasive growth within our community. Next slide. So both the CWPP, as well as the ordinance that was just passed by council last month that will go into effect at the end of this month can support mitigating the risks of future wildfires. We've obviously seen the impact of our housing stock to our economy from these devastating wildfires in our community and really the Community Wildfire Protection Plan, which again addresses the need to investigate and support spraying that was actually also supported by about 68% of the community that was surveyed during that process, along with the vegetation management ordinance are designed to make our community primarily in and around our wildland urban interface safer. Just as a reminder, that ordinance will address a lot of the dead and down trees within the burn scar in specific locations, prevent mulch around structures, require defensible space around the entire wildland urban interface. And then most importantly, will physically require the removal of some of those invasive species, specifically Scotch Group in French Broome, again from defensible space phones along property lines. And then most importantly for the purposes of this, along our evacuation routes within 30 feet. So the ordinance can be supported by IPM policy. So a typical integrated pest management policy really starts with pest identification, then research into the least toxic methods to address the impacts to those pests and determine whether or not action is needed, apply the least toxic methods first, and then evaluate, and then if further action is needed, apply the next least toxic and just kind of build that way. It seems pretty common sense like you don't start with a nuclear weapon to take it all out if you can just pull the weed out by hand or something like that. So that's the basic tenants of an integrated pest management policy and always starts with non pesticide actions first. And this is often in the design of landscapes. You wanna plant spaces with dense plantings so that there's very little room for weeds to grow, mechanical removal where possible is always approved. You can cover large swaths of land if mechanical removal will clear it. Avoid problematic species. So if you have certain plant species that you put in your landscape that are more disease susceptible, you could need to apply more pesticides to protect that species. So try to avoid those and then use pesticides as a last resort following a least toxic approach first. And we do use mulch. This is probably one of our most common mechanisms that we use in the city where we'll have these landscaped areas that aren't effective to be irrigated. And here's a sign that in the past we probably would have sprayed that sign with water, but given that we're more conscious about our water use, it then led this open space that weeds were growing. So using weed mulch there to prevent the weeds from growing is a win-win. It gives us that clear open sight lines at the same time it doesn't create a water waste scenario. Pesticide labels follow signal words and so all pesticides will have these. Starting at the bottom, you have caution. That's the lowest toxicity. And this is why you see roundup use so frequently. Roundup has a caution label. That's why people can buy it in a store. Most of the organics are warning labels which are moderately toxic because if you get that on your skin, it does cause rashes and can burn the skin. And then danger is highly toxic. You can't buy those unless you are a licensed pesticide applicator. And pretty much we don't use any of those materials in the city. So, but that's how the signal words work and that's why you see glyphosate often used more frequently than these organic burn down chemicals. So pest management solutions. Typically what you'll see in an integrated pest management is first, can you tolerate? Is that pest damage? Is that really that bad? So if it's not that bad, you can leave it. If it starts to get bad and you feel like you need to address that pest, identify the disease to make sure you're using the right tool to eradicate it. And so an example would be spider mites if you ever grow plants. Some areas they might get infected by spider mites. The leaves get all curled up. It's just as easy to cut that part of the plant out than it is to try to open those leaves up and spray right into that area where they've curled the leaf. So mechanical removal is a preferred mechanism for dealing with that pest. And then if you have to spray, spray with an appropriate pesticide. And then of course replace anything that's getting a lot of diseases and looks unkempt and replace them with things that are more pest resistant. And while Luther Bear Bank did a really good job in propagating plants that are relatively pest resistant, we do have Luther Bear Bank gardens that have a variety of plants that are appropriate for the period of that garden that are there because of the history more so than the pest resistant. So that might be areas that you have an integrated pest management policy that might be a little more open to different kinds of pesticide use. When you're dealing with pest management solutions for weeds, glyphosate is really only used for weeds. Neonicotinoids are used for insects. Can you tolerate? Are those weeds really bad? Can you tolerate that level? Ahmed, there's, you can put the high density plantings in there, the mulch as I showed earlier. Mechanical removal also works when you have one plant out there. It's easy to grab real quick. But if you build up a bunch of seeds in a seed bank for not having dealt with weeds for a couple of years, it might be more difficult to use mechanical removal to deal with that. You might bring in grazing if that's appropriate for that environment or then herbicides. Trato de retirar de la compassion como vasca, como vasca, como vasca, como vasca, como la tercera. Y aquí hay unos Remuovas ey, Ren Wolf�a en Ren Wolfежде on en Enfields y en kenntια planta y se planta 20 si no es capaz de tolerar el removo mecánico de las partes del diseño, puede funcionar. Esto es la única manera en la que se vuelve a llevar a fuego para algunos gruos de frutas. Si necesitas llevar a fuego, tienes que removerlo mecánicamente. No te respetas para el fuego. O puedes encontrar apropiados sprays para diferentes disejas, spray con el pesticido apropiado, que es el cofre, el sulfo, el sulfo para un montón de disejas fungalas. Y luego, al lado de los verdes de Berbán, si tienes una especie de planta con un montón de disejas, es más fácil de replicar esa especie de planta con una planta ambiental que no tiene todos los precios del diseño. Entonces, en pensando en las guiones que hemos recibido desde el City Council y el Board de Public Utilities y mirando las necesidades que la ciudad tiene para adresar un montón de cosas, el City staff ha venido con algunas recomendaciones para estimular la discusión. Entonces, la caída completa de neonicotinoides hace un montón de sentido. Estos son un grupo de pesticidas que no necesitamos para el manejo de nuestros landscapes. Y así, nosotros sabíamos que eso sería en todos nuestros contractos y nuestro staff no estaría usando esos. Minimiza el uso de todos los pesticidos en la ciudad, usando una política de manejo integrado. Requiere a cualquier staff que está aplicando pesticidas para tener un licenciador de pesticidas certificados o están siendo supervisados por una persona con eso. Y entonces, cuando sprayen cualquier pesticida, el staff usará goggles, clóficas químicas resistentes, gloves químicas resistentes y botas de robo. Y esto es más protegido de staff que los labios que necesitan. Pueden estar sprayando algo con un labio de caudal. Esto es bueno y encima de los mínimos standardes y es más protegido de esa persona aplicando los sprays. También proponemos banar el uso de Glyphosate en las áreas más sensibles. Estos son los playgrounds, los espacios públicos, las áreas picnicas. Y en cualquier otra área que están identificadas con los receptores sensibles en el uso de Glyphosate. Pero también preguntamos que habrá una oportunidad para aplicar algunas excepciones a eso en los siguientes casos. Entonces, ¿puedo ser determinado que está en el mejor interés de la salud y la seguridad para permitir el uso en esas áreas? Yo también. Es un Mei-Ghark, se tiene en el Distrito Espronente para actividades non-routines, no constantes mantiendas, una aplicación consistente, pero si hay una explosión de una especie invasiva para dar el uso de Glyphosate, si esa es la propia diagrama que nos parece de la guiadía que tenemos para esas aplicaciones de una hora. Y cuando los objetivos forman es realmente para reducir el uso o eliminar su uso completamente y realmente la única manera que puedes hacer eso es si hay un recorrido de lo que estás haciendo y un uso honesto y transparente de eso y lo que estamos proponiendo es crear un sitio web para destacar actividades para preventar uso de pesticidas, esto podría ser usado por el general público, también de los staff, que tendrán un listo de la Policía de Pesticidad Integrada de Pesticidad, los tips de manejar la pesta sin pesticidas anuales, y un reporte anual de la pesta de pesticidas en nuestras propiedades de ciudad, para que el Comunidad y el Comunidad puedan ser acuerdos de cuánto es el spray o el non-spray que está ocurriendo y mirar al año tras año, lo que estamos buscando ahora es probablemente, desde los puestos y nosotros no usando herbicidas y manejando nuestras landscapes, tenemos una gran pesta en nuestros soles y que haya un mayor amounte de uso y que deberías verlo reducir al año tras año, y así también estamos proponiendo para la comunidad que todas las aplicaciones de pesticidas estarán postadas antes de un listado de la aplicación, y cuando planeamos aplicar pesticidas, cerraríamos el área para el público y poste signos, así que es muy claro no estar en ese área mientras estas actividades están ocurriendo. En ejemplo, la ciudad de Davis tiene una gran pesta integrada, un website de pesta manejamiento, sería un buen modelo para nosotros para instalar su acción a esto, y realmente hace uno dar información a el público sobre lo que estamos haciendo y dar mayor claridad de las formas para que el mejor negocio con los puestos en el landscape. Entonces, los siguientes pasos que estamos realmente mirando son para escuchar, obtener un feedback de la ciudad de hoy, para el staff volver y traer una política y volver en un mes o tal, con una política de traje, con las líneas que has proponido hoy, y espero que haya aprobado, para que podamos poner eso en para que la próxima vez que tenemos que salir para un nuevo contrato de la tierra, y que podríamos decir que hay que adherir a esta política. Y eso concluye la presentación. Allá, gracias por estar aquí y por esa presentación muy linda, looking to counsel to see if there are any questions. Council vice mayor staff staff. Thank you for the presentation. I don't curiosity. What's what is the decline in use of glyphosate been since 2018, since the city embarked on this. To my knowledge, I think we have used none. Interesting. So in practical terms, it has been phased out. Is that what you're saying? We've used no glyphosate. OK. Yeah, so so the guidance that we've received is to not use glyphosate and integrated pest management and to come up with an integrated pest management policy. So this is that integrated pest management policy, which has the which would ideally the council would give feedback to us and then we would put that in the policy and then that would become the rule right now. What it is is just around the use of glyphosate and neonicotinoids and integrated pest management policy is much broader than just insecticides and pesticides use. It's it's a whole host of landscape management activities. Understood. Thanks for the clarification. Looking to counsel to see if there are any additional council member McDonald. Thank you, ma'am. I do have a couple questions on a few of your slides on slide number eight. I think those are weeds. I hope we're not using citric acid and clove oil because it doesn't look like that's effective at all. But do we use any of those currently or you said that there's no spray that we're using whatsoever? I'll just add for the parks team. We have done some trials with some of these in here to see how how we can look at changing up how we do things. And then as these results show, they're ineffective. Yeah, that's obvious. Once you know what you're looking at, I think it's obvious that some of them are quite ineffective for use in in areas. And if we're looking at fire prevention or some of the other things, pest management that any of these that might be thought about wouldn't be useful at all for us. Is that correct? Well, for parks, for sure, I will answer that these have not been effective for us as much as we've tried to use these on different scenarios. But I'll turn to my colleagues for the rest. So typically, should you use one of these burn down chemicals? They just killed the and these plants are grass. So they did this so that they used these turf fields and they're not located right next to each other. They're just these distinct plots in a big turf field. And so they're showing how the turf grows back and after being sprayed. So the concept here would be, should you choose an organic burn down chemical that you might need to apply three to four times to get the same kill effectiveness as one application of roundup. So along those same lines, and if it's three to four times, is that the increase in staff that we would have to have? And then additionally, my question would be, are there some dangers still around if you're just spraying once with something more effective versus spraying four times or five times? Wouldn't that be more concerning for our staff? Big Sean, I can I can take a stab at this. So an increase in the amount of labor etc. for staff is is is based on looking at a mechanical means and not necessarily a organic chemical. Because again, it creates a lot of extra work for and a lot of extra cost to purchase the organic chemical. So the cost differences you see there are for mechanical means versus using an integrative pest management system using glyphosate. OK. Y si yo pongo a slide número 10, I see that there's two different contracts. One contract you said was from 2018. Can you tell me the differences between those two contracts so that we're clear in what we what services are provided within those? Sure, this was an early look and our early understanding of what might be occurring with the removal of glyphosate. And so in 2018, it was a contract that allowed for maintenance of all landscapes throughout the city, including roadway medians and ballfields, etc. Mowing and in 2019, it was very similar except the roadside medians were removed from that contract. So you're looking at a contract that removes a portion of that. So it's essentially weed removal in the city for both without the medians, etc., included in 2019 and no use of glyphosate in the 2019 plan going forward. Let me make sure I heard you correctly. So in 2018, it was a full service contract that included mowing and all of our weed removal. But they were able to use spray. Right, they were able to spray in 2018. So that was the contract cost for doing business in roadway medians as well as our mowing and blowing services. And the difference in 2019 is that it's the same except for no glyphosate, no spraying, and no medians, no medians service in the medians. I'm reading your close caption. So that's a really, I know, a really mow and blow contract is in 2019. That's the cost increase. So we reduced services in 2018 and increased costs by 50%. So we weren't taking care of the weeds in 2019, but we paid a half a million dollars more in this contract. Is that our current contract then? It doesn't take care of any weeds because I know we just approved a one-time fund of about a million dollars for the weeds. But does that take care of all the weeds? Because I see another slide that the numbers don't quite add up for me. So I'm hoping you can help me through that. Sure, so these were the old estimates. This is not our current contract price. We did have, Council did approve the ability for contracted services to remove weeds on medians. And those were the things that were missing from the 2019 contract and on. Council did not approve use of glyphosate. So the increased costs you see on the next slide are current, more current costs. They're from a, when we put these slides together earlier, before Council approved, we had estimates from our current contracted services. And that's what you're seeing there, is those estimates to remove it. And our current contracted services are very close to those right there, the $2.2 million. But the contract that we just approved for a million dollars that took care of some of the weeds, did that take care of all the weeds in all the city or some of the weeds? And because I see that, like there's another slide that says it's $3.7 million in our current way of no spray if we wanted to take care of all the weeds in the city. So I'm trying to get to, what did we just spend a million bucks on? So you spend a million bucks on adding in those sites in the city that includes civic sites, like like City Hall, as well as all the roadway medians. So those- The most important areas. Right, those are really difficult. There's a lot of continued repeated, there's little tiny sites and there's thousands of them. So there's a lot of service in that extended contract that was approved by council that was not in contracted services before where we were spending about 32,000 hours of our own staff time, trying to maintain what we could out there. Yeah, that's the next slide I'm gonna go to, if you don't mind, just if I could get a little bit more explanation on the 58% and how that worked out to the 32,000 additional labor hours. And if we're spending that on taking care of just the weeds now, what is not getting done in our maintenance because we're trying to just mitigate this, you know, the weeds around the city to make it so it's safe. So I'd like a little bit around that. And then now you've explained a little bit on the cost removal of the weeds. That's kind of clear to me now that with spray it'd be about 2.2 million, which goes back to the other. Does that include a full landscape contract where it would be mowing and the spray? Or does that not include that? That does not include the mowing services. So these numbers include weed removal. So you can explain those top three to me just so that you can walk us through how that works a little better. Right, and I might tune to our parks superintendent to if I miss anything, if he has anything to add, but these are... Before you answer the deputy director, can we have additional staff come down here to provide some additional clarification to the question? Thank you. Hello, Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor Staff, Council members, my name's James Castro, I'm the superintendent for Parks Maintenance. Excuse me. So when looking at the 58% increase for the removal of weeds, we had a quote given for extending our current services. So our current services, this is prior to the approval of the additional services, council just approved about a month ago, was an 8% increase in our mowing blow services. So for just mowing blow, it was 8% increase for the weeds to be mechanically removed, it came out to 58% increase. So that 58% number is not completely accurate, it's more like 50% because of the 8% for IPM versus 50% for mechanical. And the 32,000 hours, that's an approximation, but 32,000 hours is 58% of the labor hours, the total labor hours that we calculate in park maintenance. So it's a simple math equation of 26 full-time employees at 2,080 hours a year, comes out to 54,000 hours, and so 58% of that is 32,000 hours. And then just simply equated to FTEs, it comes out to approximately 15 employees, FTEs. Does that answer your question? It does, so we're spending about 32,000 hours right now just trying to take care of the weeds because it's manually being done or mechanically being done versus a spray. That's correct, so we pulled park maintenance staff out of the parks in 2018 when a new contract was executed and we took 32,000 labor hours out of parks. So where you're seeing the decreases in service are our ball field maintenance, the condition of our restrooms, and weeds within parks. A lot of these conversations are on the roadside landscaping, but we also have 1,100 acres of parkland that also grow weeds that are not part of this conversation. That park maintenance staff actually take care of, but have not been taken care of because this has been the priority. Thank you. I really appreciate the clarification on the numbers. And then I just have one more question on slide 14, well maybe two more questions. On slide 14, it shows a median here and I'm not sure where that's at, but I know we just put in overfountain grove, beautiful landscaping, and so my concern would be that without being able to use some spray that it's going to end up looking exactly like this picture here because we've taken a tool away, either from a contracted service or our own folks. So can you tell me what that maybe used to look like before 2019? If this is, or this is, because this seems to be typical and it's no fault of our staff that's trying so hard. It feels like the fault of the decisions that have been made. So you're spot on. What we're talking about right now is the use of glyphosate. If we don't have a conversation around glyphosate, then we cannot talk about the beautification of the city because without the use of glyphosate, even in found grove, that's exactly what it'll look like in a year. And I would just like to add on the new found grove landscaping, one of the things we're doing as part of an integrated system up there is planting very densely. And we have comply with the community wildfire protection plan, which offered additional species selection to select species that would do particularly well and in those landscapes. So that's something we're also doing in addition to outside of the glyphosate conversation. I appreciate all the thought products into what we put in the mulch and everything else like that. But the one thing I'm really good at is growing weeds. So anytime there's water anywhere, it seems like that's where it's going to be and I just see that big investment and it's really needed to happen after all the terrible things that with the fire over found grove, I just wanna make sure that we understand if we aren't taking care of this in some way and using staff recommendations that that's what it's going to look like. And then just on slide 17, when you were talking about pest management. Through the chair. So I do wanna make some clarifying remarks on slide 14 and I'll see a superintendent. That is actually Highway 12. And I believe it took us 28 staff members to cut Highway 12 because it had been neglected for such an extended period of time. And do you wanna confirm that number? Three times in one year. 28 staff members times three. And does that have to be coordinated with CalTrans as well? No, it does. It's just us. But it's not just parks, it's parks, streets, TPW. It's the city. It's three departments that it takes care of that. That's why it looks so familiar to me as part of my area. So as far as the pest management, it starts on slide 17. Who goes out and checks the trees for pest management? Only because these are things we're hearing. So it would be whatever entity is responsible for that landscaping. So in say the water department, it would either be the contractor working on the water department's place or they would have somebody else come and take a look at it. So if it were a local water, say a water tank property, then the staff who manage that. Does the water department have a tree department? No. There's no tree department in the city. Or I guess a tree maintenance department. I'm just wondering who takes care of that now in the city. If there was an issue with a tree that needed to be addressed, we do have contracts for arborists to come and take a look at that throughout the city and decide whether or not they get removed. It's outside of the public right of way. Most trees are allowed to die. We just don't really spray for trees at this point. I've heard of some beetles and some other infestations that are causing problems in our trees. So I'm just trying to get at who's gonna spray, who's looking at our trees and how that's gonna work in the city as well. In regards to how we're gonna write the policy, I wanna make sure it's encompassing of everything. And then my last question is, you have an adoption of the Russian River friendly policy for the water department. If we added that language in our policy, would that make sure that all the staff recommendations can be done so it could just be a city-wide adoption? Yes, the integrated pest management is a component of Russian River friendly landscape guidelines. And these guidelines are something that's promoted by the Russian River Watershed Association. It was modeled after the Bay friendly landscape guidelines and it deals with waste from the landscape as well. So there's on-site composting and just different ways of viewing landscaping that it's not all gas-powered equipment applied to management of these landscapes that there's a holistic approach of how best to manage these landscapes, reducing not only pesticides, but gas-powered equipment and the amount of material that's off-hauled and moved around from site to site. Those are some of the basic, there's seven basic principles. That's all of them, thanks. Looking at council to see if there are any additional questions. Before we go to public comment, I did have a question about contracted services and I know in the policy, you're trying to make sure that it's very transparent. If it is a contracted services, what do they have to have the same transparency standards that we're trying to have when it is city staff that are performing the work? Yes, so the intent would be that as a stipulation in their contract, any pesticides applied by them, not only do they have to report those to the state, but they also, or that commissioner's office, they also will need to report that information to us and that we would collect that information annually and put out an annual report. Perfect. I wanted to commend you. I wanted to take the time to commend you before we go to public comment because I know this was a very difficult task. You had to balance staff needs, you had to balance what we can actually do within our budget environmental needs, which are very important. Our community needs as far as using our parks and being safe. So you guys said, in my opinion, a very great job in taking the feedback that we've provided thus far and really coming up with what you have right now. So thank you for doing that. And with that, I will send it over to Madam City Clerk for public comment. Thank you. We are now taking public comment on item 4.1, the integrated pest management policy discussion. If you're in chamber, I would like to comment, but have not yet provided a speaker card or your name, please make your way to the podium. You will have three minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period. We're going to start with Dwayne at the West podium. Please go ahead. Much to the dedicated staff and all that they do to try to make for better parks. I want to make sure that they could use the park superintendent and the staffs that he bring out. They do some good stuff over there in Southwest Santa Rosa, especially along Rosalind Creek. The item today was about implement methods to reduce the need for pesticides. And I didn't hear a large discussion about using goats and sheep. And those are used in many other places and they do a really good job. They cut costs. You don't have to off site. What's the detritus, right? It leaves with the animals pretty much. So give it a thought. You might think, oh boy, that's so old fashioned, but it costs a lot less and you might not even have to pay the people who bring the goats and the sheep to the sites of the larger parks. The whole idea of using the glufosate is just a lot of people feel it's very it's causing problems with people's breathing is causing problems where lawsuits have actually been filed and won by workers that had to apply that material. So please keep this in mind also. We want to avoid our risks towards liability for the city and our employees being negatively affected by the pesticides that might be used. So take it from an old goat, look into some sheep and goats. Thank you kindly. Mayor MC, no one else approached the podium for public comment on this item. Thank you very much. Again, thank you very much for the presentation. We're gonna, oh sorry. Council member Rogers. No, thank you so much. And first of all, I want to thank you for all of your work on this. And we saw I think four times now at the Climate Action Subcommittee. I just wanted to make sure and I'm supportive of the direction that you're going, but I wanted to make sure that we didn't lose sight of the other half of the conversation. And I know it was alluded to a couple of times, but the reason that we moved this direction initially was because of concerns that were brought from the public about spraying in public areas where people's kids were playing. And I know that you've addressed that, but I don't want us to just focus on the economic side of the conversation. Yes, it does have an impact on quality of services if you don't change anything else at the same time. And I know when we talk to environmental advocates, they'll be the first to tell you that using pesticides in our parks, in our public spaces becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that the way that it actually changes the ecology of the area it makes it so that you need to use more and more pesticides to keep up with it, rather than other types of management that you've got in the IPM. So I appreciate that. That's not to say, as Paul and I've had extensive conversations about areas that are impacted by wildfires, you need something stronger in some of those areas. But particularly where our kids are playing is why so many people turned out back in, I think it was 2018, 2017, to really push us to try to do better from an ecological perspective as well. I think you've found that balance, but I wanted to make sure since most of our presentation focused on the economics, that we acknowledge that reality to of why we were doing what we were doing. It's about level of service for kids and for our community. So thank you. Vice Mayor Steph. I just wanted to thank Mr. DeWitt for his comments and ensure the public that we're looking into raising opportunities. As Mr. DeWitt outlined, it is a really good option for the city and something that we're talking about behind the scenes. So thank you. So again, thank you very much for the presentation and thank you for being here today. We will now move on to item five, which is interviews for boards, commissions, and committees. And I will hand it over to Madam City Clerk. Thank you. We'll be holding interviews for the Board of Building Regulation Appeals. We had a scheduled a interview for the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board. However, that applicant is unable to attend today. We'd like to call down Eric Miller to the staff table for your interview. Good afternoon, Council. Hi, Mr. Miller, and thank you for being here today. Can you tell us why you applied for this position and why you think you are best fit? Sure. I applied for the position because I wanted to use my professional experience and knowledge to help my community. I'm a kind of a new resident in Santa Rosa, owned a house for about a year, and I love it here. I enjoy all the nature that Santa Rosa and the Sonoma County House offer. And so I plan on living here the rest of my life, and I want to do what I can and with my skill set to improve my community. I'm a building code expert. It is my profession. And so I'm immersed in building code every day, and it's not just building code, but Calgary and energy code. And so I'm very up on all the current trends with the energy commission and things like that. And I know that the Board of Building Regulations and Appeals also deals with difficult projects that might where the applicant or the contractor, architect, engineer, and the building official do not see eye to eye. And being a part of a third party group that would look at the projects from all aspects and point of view is something I'm really interested in. So I'm going to look to council to see if there are any questions for Mr. Miller. In seeing none, I would like to thank you for your willingness to participate. We need more participants around the city to step up and do this. So thank you very much for being here today and we will actually decide and take the item. I believe it's 12.1. But thank you for being here. All right, thank you very much. Bye bye. And with that, we'll go to Madam City Manager so we, Madam City Clerk, so that we can have our public comment. Thank you. We are now taking public comment on item 5.1, a board interview for Board of Building Regulation Appeals. If you'd like to make a comment but have not provided a speaker card or your name, please make your way to the podium. You will have three minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period. A comment. On the, on item 5.1 for the five. About the disability position and the bike and pedestrian board. Yes ma'am, we'll hear your comment. Oh well, I was just wondering if you were going to address that. The applicant was unable to attend the meeting but has requested that his application be considered under item 12. Thank you. All right, seeing no additional public comment, we will now begin our regular meeting and go right into item 7, which is report on our study and close session. So we'll hand it off to Madam City Attorney. Thank you, Madam Mayor and council members. We had a closed session on three items, 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3. There's no reportable action on any of those items. Additionally, you just held a study session on your integrated pest management policy and direction was given to staff during that time. That concludes my report. Thank you so much. We have no proclamations for today, so we will go to our staff briefings. Madam City Manager. Staff briefing, item 9.1, is the community empowerment plan update. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor and City Council, Lon Peterson, Director of Communications and Intergovernment Relations and I will be providing the community empowerment plan update today. First, today is Law Enforcement Appreciation Day. So likely we can shout out to our law enforcement agencies, the Police Department, FIRE, EOC, in response and all our mutual aid. As well as Starbucks invited, speaking about appreciation, they invited the Santa Rosa Police Department to their kiosk inside Target and Codding Town, where Starbucks and Target shoppers and staff were able to enjoy free coffee as well as conversation with the Police Department. It's great to have the Police Department recognizing community for their efforts to protect and serve. Next up, last week, the Police Department wrapped up their holiday toy drive collecting more than 300 toys, new and unwrapped. Those toys are donated to the Rosenbase United Women's Group for distribution. And if you haven't seen the photos for all the toys, encourage you to visit the city's homepage or look at our social media account. It's really awesome to see that. Finally, at the upcoming City Council Public Safety Subcommittee on Tuesday, January 23rd, 9 a.m. SRBD will outline the chief's vision for the newly reinstated gangs crime team and how they plan to adjust gang-related crime in Santa Rosa. The community is encouraged to attend or watch online. You can find that meeting information on the city's homepage calendar at srcity.org. And that concludes the update. Thank you very much. Looking to council to see if there are any questions. Seeing none, Madam City Clerk, can you please facilitate public comment? Thank you. We are now taking public comments on item 9.1. If you are in the chamber and would like to comment, but have not provided a speaker card or your name to the administrator, please make your way to the podium. You'll have three minutes and a countdown. Time a well alert at the end of that period. We're gonna start with Mr. Dewitt at the West podium. Hello, my name is Dwayne Dewitt. I'm from Roseland. Last night there was an organization known as American Veterans and AmVets 40 Post locally. I had met and talked in the past about how to be helpful on removing graffiti. Gang graffiti is something that's endemic almost here in Santa Rosa now, especially over on West 9th at Link Lane. The really badly graffiti tagged fence has basically been ignored now for months on end. And in the past year, I came here one time and spoke about how we could have graffiti removal with veterans in neighborhoods helping to do this. Many veterans would like to step up and do some positive things in the community. Totally volunteer, no cost required. And we would actually provide the paint to cover over all these foul and vulgar tags that are left out there that the kids and their mothers have to see on a day in and day out basis there, especially at West 9th and Link Lane. So perhaps you could take a little bit of time in this community empowerment and look to the resources you have with non-governmental organizations and veterans groups. We'd really like to help you to, I guess you might say, empower the civic engagement that you speak about and let's really get it done. Thank you for your time. And I do believe you have my phone number and my email and my address because I've formerly served on the Waterways Advisory Committee and nothing has changed except I don't get to serve there. Thank you. I'm here, I see no one else approaching the podiums for public comment on item 9.1. Thank you very much and thank you very much for the briefing. You're welcome. We will now go to item 10, the city manager and city attorney's reports and I'll hand it over to the city manager. Thank you mayor. I'm sorry, that was not purposefully. Would you like to go ahead and give your public comment? My name is N.E.Y.L.O.N. and I was born in the United States 75 years ago last August after my parents came here from Canada so my father could get a free college education. I have remained in the United States mostly because I wanted to protestó la guerra vietnamiana cuando era 20 años, mi hermano era en el aeropuerto y estación en Tailandia, pero enviado a la vietnamía a trabajar en radios, en el aeropuerto. Él volvió y murió a Canadá, donde él estaba nacido ahí, así que era mi abuelo. Canadá es un país socialista, que significa que tienes lo que necesitas y tienes lo que puedes. He vivido en este muy triste país por un tiempo muy largo. Soy un protesta de la mañana. He salido con los granos de Raging, un par de veces. Y también he dicho que soy maestro de la guerra de Bob Dylan por el Council hace unos años. No he podido decir hola en unos cuatro años. Pero hoy he escuchado una reunión y quería decir hola, y que América tiene tres tipos de gente. Soy un wolf, y siempre seré un wolf. Y estamos muy jugados y nos adoramos a nuestras familias. Son las higiencias que seguimos la vista supremacida de la cristiana. Y luego hay las higiencias, las higiencias de la guerra. Y son muy poderosas. Gracias por escuchar. Gracias. No hay más comentario público. En el 9 de la tarde, continuaremos con el 10 de la tarde, el manager de la ciudad y los reportes de la ciudad. Y lo voy a dar a este manager de la ciudad. Gracias. El Departamento de la Comunidad y el Departamento de Servicios de la Comunidad Se busca input para ayudar a la fiscalía de 2024 a 2027. Consolidación plan. Y este plan actually helps us determine how we're going to use our federal funding on housing and some of our homeless needs. There are three ways individuals can participate. The first way is a community forum, which is located at the utility field offices at 35 Stony Point Road. That meeting will occur Thursday, January the 11th, from 5.30 to 6.30. There will be a virtual online participation held January the 12th, from 9.30 a.m. to 11.30 a.m. And there will be a short online survey available. Individuals wanting additional information can go to srcity.org slash conplan. That is C-O-N-P-L-A-N. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor, council members. It is time for the monthly report and settlements in active litigation and attached to the agenda is our monthly report. I do have one item to report out at one settlement that was approved by council. The city settled a dispute with KBBF over costs and penalties. The city assessed related to a 2006 code enforcement action at, I'm sorry, 4010 Finlay Avenue. Under the terms of the agreement, KBBF paid the full $7,000 in assessed costs. Granted the city a 15-foot utility easement for sewer and a 30-foot access road easement with a combined value for both easements of approximately $20,000. KBBF also gave the city $10,000 worth of free radio spots to be used within five years. In exchange, the city released a special assessment lien and forgave $118,000 in penalties and interest. Our caseload does remain consistent at approximately 28 matters. Many cases are currently in discovery. We have trial dates assigned to most of our cases. We continue to try to resolve smaller cases with little or no cost to the city. And that concludes my report. Thank you so much, Madam City Clerk. Can you please facilitate public comment on this item? Thank you. We are now taking public comment on item 10, the city managers and city attorneys reports. If you'd like to make a comment, please make your way to the podium. If you have not submitted a speaker card, otherwise they will have three minutes and the timer will appear on the screen before you. We'll start on the east lectern. Please go ahead. My name is Gregory Farron. Most of you know me and I've been around this city for a long time. But one of my first jobs in this area was working for KBBF. At one point, I was their fiscal bookkeeper and I was proud and still am proud to have been associated with them. I wanted to thank the council for this settlement. It's been a long time coming. And it helps KBBF in its own fiscal strength. It helps the community because the property becomes available for other uses. And I just wanted to thank you for it. Thank you, Mr. Els. Are you going to make a comment on item 10.1? Oh, yes, do forgive me. OK, thank you. Along, I didn't know the action of the city regarding KBBF. So for a long time, we were in negotiations with them in order to put a safe camping or safe parking on their site. And they were unable to do that because of the lean over the top of them. There is something that I will be discussing, I think, on items not on the agenda later on that relates to that area and what's going on. But it is greatly appreciated to take the burden off of KBBF. It was a cause, not of the board, but by a manager who was doing illegal things. And when they found out, the board found out, they fired him. And he's been gone for many, many years. And the accumulation of really essentially almost all of that is a penalty, not really the actual tax. And I'm sure that they're paying the tax and have gone about whatever that is. So it's much really appreciated, I want to thank you. And hopefully, maybe it can be considered for those things that we were considering, which was safe parking or safe camping or something. Now, some other uses, as Gregory said, thank you. And my point is, that was over a period of seven years that we were in discussions of that. So it's very helpful. Thank you. OK, seeing no additional public comments, we will now move on to item 11, statements of extension by council members. And looking to council to see if there are any abstentions. Seeing none, we will go right into item 12, which is our mayor and council members reports. Are there any reports from council members? Councilmember Alvarez. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Very shortly, over the holidays, I actually had a chance to go and visit the yard of KBF. So I appreciate the acknowledgments that were made today by our committee members in acknowledging the importance of the first bilingual radio station of this nation. And for those that don't know, KBF was a property that was donated by the Kennedy, Robert Kennedy Foundation. Ellen Kennedy should be exact. She came to California many times. But three of those times was to visit Cesar Chavez during his hunger strike. And once, also to me, with the members of Sonoma County and in her quest for addressing human rights and the right to exist. Sonoma County in San Rosa specifically was blessed with KBF. And it's just celebrated its first 50 years of existence. And we are looking towards the next 50 years of KBF being the radio station that we know it to be. And really, the benefit that has served the migrant community, the underserved community of San Rosa. So I want to thank my colleagues for really seeing the vision of KBF and for the community too, for having always fought to keep KBF on the air. And it's faced many struggles. But it continues forward. Thank you. Vice Mayor Stat. Several of us on the day has had the chance to be at the ribbon cutting last week for the new Sonoma County fire department, fire district contract for emergency services. It was great to be there to hear the mayor speak. Also there with Chief Westrop and the city manager. I'm sure the mayor will say more, but again, of privilege. And then last night, the city's violence prevention team did a really nice job presenting to Safe Campus Alliance. Daniel Garduño led her team talking about the kinds of services that the city has to prevent violence, especially among the youth in the community, talking about our intervention options, tattoo removal, other kinds of programs that the city is running that the city hopes will help stem the uptake and violence that we've all been experiencing. So thank you. Thank you. I'm looking at council members to make sure that I did not miss anyone before I get into my report. Thank you, Vice Mayor Stat, for reminding me about the ribbon cutting that we did go to, which was very great. Sonoma County Fire and Medic Ambulance Company will soon be our sole providers for ambulance services. And so we were very happy about that. And we were very happy to do that ribbon cutting. It started out with a mustard seed of a vision. And it has manifested into something great. So that ribbon cutting was awesome. On January 15th at 9 AM, I will be at and I encourage my fellow council members and community members to join me for the MLK Day of Service, a day on, not a day off. And it will be at the Martin Luther King Junior Park, which is at 1208 Hensley Street. And this event is a longstanding tradition in Santa Rosa. It's great to see community partners, stakeholders, members coming together to do great things in the community. So I invite everyone out for that. And let's do a little housekeeping since I have the floor. We will start with vacancies that we have. And we have the Board of Public Utilities. We have one vacancy, and that is an appointment that will be made by council member Alvarez. So if you are interested, please let him know and or go to the website to apply. Community advisory board, there are two. One is council member Fleming's, and one is council member Alvarez. Again, if you're interested, please do apply or contact the council members. Design review board, I have one vacancy. So if you are interested, please, please contact me and or apply. Marin Sonoma Mosquito and Vector Control has one. Vacancy and SRTBIA has one. Full service, hotel, operator, vacancy. The Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board Disabled Community Rep Vacancy and the Board of Building Regulation Appeals and Waterways Advisory Committee. Vacancies we will be handling today and hopefully those will not be vacant after this meeting. I also wanted to make some changes on the subcommittee assignments and I will be adding Chris Rogers, council member Rogers to the open government implementation task force in lieu of council member Fleming and council member Fleming. Thank you so much for serving on that committee. I will also have make a change on the public safety subcommittee and I will be adding myself onto the public safety subcommittee and also taking off council member Fleming and our next meeting council member Fleming I will be adding you to something else. So thank you so much for your patience but that needed to be agendized that item and also a small correction. Right now council member Krepke is chairing that. So we will get that updated but again if you are interested in volunteering please go to the website or reach out to council members so we can get you all set and ready to go. And with that I will be handing it over to our city clerk for public comment. Thank you. Thank you we are now taking public comment on item 12 the mayors and council members reports. If you are in council chamber would like to comment but have not provided a speaker card or your name please make your way to a podium. You have three minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period. Mayor I see no one approaching the podiums for item 12 and we do not have any names submitted to the administrator at the top of the well. Thank you so much. Going on to item 12.2 board commission and committee appointments. This is a time where council can vote to make appointments to the following boards of the bicycle and pedestrian advisory board with one vacancy and we have one applicant the board of building regulation and appeals. We have three vacancies and one applicant and waterways advisory committee. We have four upcoming vacancies and four applicants. So before we consider making those appointments I'm gonna look to madam city clerk to go ahead and facilitate public comment on this item. Thank you mayor. We are now taking public comments on item 12.2.1 appointments to boards and commissions. If you'd like to make a comment but have not provided a speaker card or submitted your name please make your way to the podium. You will have three minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period. And we will go ahead and start with Mr. DeWitt at the west lectern. I will get it turned on one moment. There you go. Hello, my name is Duane DeWitt from Roseland. I've been following the waterways advisory committee for over 20 years. This is an agenda from 20 years ago. And I think it's really important that we understand this is just advisory. So often the information they bring forward gets ignored by the planning department or by the design review people and they just go ahead and allow the creeks to be essentially abused. That's the best term for it. Especially over on Roseland Creek along West Avenue there was an opportunity to put in two affordable housing units at the corner of Barham and Dutton Avenue next to Roseland Creek in a seven housing unit project. The two affordable housing units were actually taken out by the planners when they said they needed to have a variance along the creek and along the roadway to allow for a bike path. And if you've ever been on Dutton Avenue you know that's the most dangerous road in the city to ride a bike on. That's not the place to be doing it. So I just would like for you folks to give some power to this waterways committee. Let them actually be a part of the decision making and policy making so that the things they put forward get recognized and the creeks get protected. Specifically it was a 50 foot setback was what the city of Santa Rosa says they now have in place for along creeks. But in actuality that gets ignored almost all the time and people can build right up next to a creek. They'll put their fence on the creek bank. That's not the way it's supposed to be according to your guidelines and ordinances. So please put these four people on there again. They're willing to volunteer their time. They've done good jobs but give them some power in the decision making process so that they actually get to protect our creeks. Thank you for your time and for looking at the way back agenda here. Thank you mayor. I see no one have one more person approaching the podium. Please go ahead Mr. Elz. Do forgive me. As a civil environmental engineer you know we have been struggling with this for since the Clean Water Act 1971. So I just noticed that there was a new construction as Dwayne mentions and it just came to my mind. It was driving by and I saw this and it was pretty upsetting that there was a new construction that is built right on the top bank of a creek here in San Rosa. And I'm thinking for how long was that property on Brookwood between Sonoma Avenue and 3rd 2nd Street. How long was that? Any development in a pants because of the setback from and many other places all around the city and all around the county that no development could occur because that property is if you know where I'm talking about it is the hearts of Sonoma on the corner they're gonna build now into that. But the point is they're not gonna build into the setback but nothing was able to be built there because of this setback. And in another place I just saw and they're built right up to the top of a bank of the creek and how in the world is they got by the planners? What is going on? So Dwayne is exactly right. So do forgive me, but I mean this just happened and it couldn't have happened at any time in the last 50 years, but it could happen now. Why is that? I don't understand how that could fall back. How could we fall back that far? Thank you. All right, seeing no additional public comment we will go ahead and bring it back to council to see if we can make those appointments. Does anyone have it? You want me to read it? Yeah. So Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board, we have Scott Doge is the name of the applicant who was unable to attend but would still like to be considered. Eric Miller for the Board of Building Regulation and Appeals and for incumbents to the Waterways Advisory Committee, Art Dike, Mark Neely, Steve Rabinowitz, and Kevin C. So moved. All right. We have a motion made by Council Member Ocrepke and it's seconded by Council Member McDonald. I want to call you Vice Mayor so bad, I'm so sorry. Madam City Clerk, may you please call the vote. Thank you, Council Member Rogers. Council Member Ocrepke. Aye. Council Member McDonald. Aye. Council Member Fleming. Yes. Council Member Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor Stapp. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. Let the record show that passes with six affirmative votes and Council Member Rogers absent. Thank you. We'll now go to the approval of minutes. We have one set of minutes for December 12, 2023. Council, are there any corrections to the minutes? All right, C&M, Madam City Clerk, can you please facilitate public comment on this item? Thank you, we are now taking public comments on item 13.1, approval of December 12 minutes. If you are in the chamber would like to make a comment, please make your way to the podium or provide a speaker card to the administrator. You will have three minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period. Mayor MC, no one approach the podium for public comment. Thank you. Moving on to item 14, Madam City Clerk, can you please read the consent items? Thank you, Mayor. Item 14.1, a motion for a second amendment to professional services agreement with speak right, LLC. Item 14.2, resolution waiver of competitive bid and approval of nonstandard master services agreement with Flock Group Incorporated. Item 14.3, resolution approval of second amendment to professional services agreement with Bucaloo programs for the in response program. 14.4, resolution agreement for the first responder advanced life support services between the City of Santa Rosa and the Sonoma County Fire District. Item 14.5, resolution South Santa Rosa specific plan professional services agreement. 14.6, resolution to extension of proclamation of local homeless emergencies, or pardon me, extension of proclamation of local homeless emergency. Item 14.7 is being continued to a date uncertain. Item 14.8, resolution authorizing the acceptance and execution of agreements and related documents for grant funds from the State of California Budget Act of 2022, AB178, or the State of California Budget Act of 2023, SB101. Item 14.9, resolution adoption of the of addendum to Roseland area, Sebastopol Road specific plan and Roseland area annexation EIR for the traffic signalization at the Hearn Avenue and Burbank Avenue. 14.10, resolution approval and issuance of a purchase order for the purchase of five, 2024 all wheel drive Dodge Durango pursuit vehicles. Item 14.11, waiver of competitive bid and purchase and installation of camera equipment for transit fleet from Seeyon Design USA Corporation. Item 14.12, resolution approval or pardon me, 14.12, approval of fifth amendment to general services agreement, F001847A, universal protection services, LP, DBA, allied universal services for citywide security guard services, 14.13, resolution, third amendment, approval, blanket purchase order 167129 with TARIC, I'm gonna butcher this pronunciation, so my apologies, Tariq Roshidi, DBA, international effectiveness for translation services, 14.14, fourth amendment to service agreement, number F001539 for governmentjobs.com incorporated, DBA, NeoGov, sorry, my system is moving slower than my fingers are. And item 14.15, ordinance introduction, ordinance of the council of the city of Santa Rosa to increase the mayor's monthly salary from 2200 to $2,220 retroactive to December, 2014, 2022 to comply with the city charter and correct a clerical error in ordinance number ORD-2022-018. If I may, Madam Mayor through the chair. Yes ma'am. Item 14.1, the agenda lists as a motion, but as the recommendation makes clear, it's actually by resolution, not by motion. Thank you. Bringing it back to council, are there any questions on the consent items? All right, I did want to go ahead and ask a question. So for 14.4, is there someone to address for that item? Good evening, Mayor Scott Westrop, Fire Chief City of Santa Rosa. Thank you. Because there are going to be some changes going on within the city, I just wanted to use this as an opportunity to educate the community members about what those changes will be and how we will see those changes and how it will impact us, as far as services. All right, thank you very much for that opportunity. So if you go back to two study sessions that we did in November of 2021 and then in February of 2022, we were talking about the opportunity for change in ambulance service provider here in Santa Rosa. We looked at three different aspects that were really important to the city and important to the fire department. Hey, Chief. Joining me is Chief Markine from the Sonoma County Fire District. So we looked at three major issues that we saw in the way service was being delivered for the last 20 or so years. It had nothing to do with the employees. It had nothing to do with the service and the quality of service they were providing. It had to do with the contractor that we were working with. And what we looked at was, there were some issues with service delivery. Was it community-based? Was it patient-focused? Was it outcome-driven versus was it for profit? Number two was, what does the business model look like? The sustainability of the business model. And the third part was, what sort of control that we as the fire department or we as the city had over the EMS system. So, we've been in this venture for a number of years now. The County of Sonoma went through and did an RFP process to select a new ground ambulance provider in Sonoma County for EOA-1, which is about 75% of the call volume is within the city of Santa Rosa and it includes Sebasta Pool, Roner Park, Kenwood and the unincorporated areas of Santa Rosa. So, through the competitive process, Sonoma County Fire District was selected as the new contractor and a partnership with Medic Ambulance that's based out of Solano County, but is now here. And so, what we've seen and as we've gone through and built our first response ALS contract is exactly the improvements in those three areas that we've been looking for. We have better operational enhancements to provide better service to the community. We fully intend with a partnership that we have with the district and the way we've built the system together that there's gonna be far more ambulances in the system. So, response times will be faster with highly trained employees. A lot of the employees were retained and we were happy to see that a lot of the employees moved over to the new contractor, the new provider. We have, so we have that system control in that we have a partnership with a public entity now versus a private entity. So data sharing and things like that will no longer be an issue. And thirdly, it's a much more sustainable business model for not only the contractor but also for the fire department in the city. So, we really are fortunate and we're really excited about this opportunity as a paradigm shift in EMS service delivery really throughout the state of California that we now have a public provider here providing service to our community and in a great partnership with Sima County Fire District. So, I hope that sort of covers it in a broad spectrum and I turn it over to Chief Hine for any comments that he may have. Thank you, Mayor, Councilmembers. I wish Chief Westrope was the one making the bid originally four or six months ago cause he kind of hit a home run there. We are thrilled to be the new provider for ground emergency animal services and exclusive operating area one, which is the chief said a big chunk of EOA one is the city of Santa Rosa. In addition, we'll be serving the city of Runner Park, Cotate, Pengrove, Goldridge Fire District, Response Area, City of Sebastopol, Grayton and all the way up to the lower end of Windsor. This has been a four year endeavor for us to get to this point. We actually started this process as the mayor alluded to a very small vision and it grew into what it is today. So, we're able to bring to you because we are a public entity. As the chief said, we'll bring 100% transparency. Everything we do is open to the public and discoverable and we're happy to share anything and everything we do. The other key component that we can bring to the table as a public entity versus a private for-profit corporation is that revenue gets returned right back into our service area, back into the communities that we all serve in the form of enhanced emergency medical services. So, we are thrilled to be your next Ground Ambulance Provider. We go live with the system next Monday night at midnight and I'm happy to answer any questions or address any concerns you may have. Are there any Council Member McDonald? I actually just have one question. When it comes to contract services, when you're looking at healthcare, how does that work? Because I know you have a contract with AMR or for city employees. How does that work now that we're switching over and does anything need to be amended specifically for healthcare providers? Is this in regards to the city or is this in regards to ambulance transport services? Well, say I call 911 and an ambulance service comes to me and that ambulance is contracted with our healthcare providers. How does that work now that we're switching our ambulance service within the city if we're not contracted with AMR? So, or anyone for that matter, is there a process that needs to happen or has that already been taken care of? Yeah, the way that this works is that the contract is between the Sonoma County Fire District and the County Sonoma to provide the Ground Emergency 911 Ambulance Service. So, midnight on Monday when you dial 911 it would be one of our ambulances that responds to that call. We work directly with the patient's insurance companies to ensure that their insurance company pays that bill. That's what I wanted clarification on, not just for me, but for the community as well that you take care of that part of the insurance company and the contracted services so that that wouldn't be anything that we needed to do as far as having that service. Not for the city council. Great, thank you so much. You're very welcome. A few questions that I have received from the public is are we expected to see any kinks with the transition and are we meeting you ready to take this on? So the volume of calls, everything. So we're ready to go for the 16th. Yeah, that's a great question. I'm glad the public is engaged on that. So we have been conducting years of analysis of response data, patient data, how many ambulance transports occur throughout the region in the particular communities, such as the city of San Reza, going back looking at three to five years of data so that we know exactly how many ambulances we need to deploy, how many paramedics, how many EMTs, how many nurse practitioners and everybody else that works in the system, what the community will see as much faster response times because we're able to put more ambulances on the street than the current provider is able to. So you're gonna see much quicker response times, you're gonna see more emergency vehicles on the street and quicker turnaround times for the fire department's engine companies, for example, respond to those emergencies to get them back in service and available to serve the rest of the city. With some of the same friendly faces. Pardon me? With some of the same friendly faces. Yeah, that's an important point and I think it's a point that has sort of gotten lost along the way. Our bidding on providing the ambulance service has never been about the paramedics and EMTs that work for AMR providing the service for many years. They are stellar subject matter experts. They know the lay of the land, they know the communities that they serve. About 95% of those incumbent workers have come over to our system to help us run the system as we move forward, starting a Monday night. And I am thrilled to have that subject matter expertise on staff. They know everything about how the system runs and we've taken a lot of the input and feedback and how we've developed our deployment modeling for ambulances from them. Perfect. And seeing no additional questions from council members. I just wanted again to take the opportunity. I know there are a lot of other people that worked on this but to thank you guys for your hard work and dedication and seeing something that needs to be fixed and taking that initiative to see it through. So thank you very much. And with that, we will go over to Madam City Clerk for public comment. Thank you mayor, we are now taking public comment on the consent calendar. If you are in the chamber and would like to provide comment but have not yet provided a speaker card or your name, please make your way to the podium. You will have three minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period. We are going to start with Erica Thibolt. Good afternoon, City Council. Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor Stapp and City Manager Smith. I'm here from the Sonoma County Library. I'm the library director and I'd like you to support this agenda item 4.8, the resolution to accept and expend grant funds from the State Library, the California State Library for the Building Forward Together program. When the State Library announced two years ago that they had $476 million for infrastructure for libraries in this state, this was an unprecedented amount of funds that is really a one time amount of money that we will be able to take advantage of. With the state's current budget woes, I'm not very confident that we will be seeing any future funds from the state, so it's really important that we take advantage of this opportunity. The library has agreed to work with the city and negotiate part of the matching funds for this project. The total for the project is $1.7 million y focuses on the HVAC upgrade and electrical upgrades. As you know, the city of Santa Rosa and Sonoma County is experiencing unprecedented climate events with air quality index problems and making these repairs and upgrades to the Northwest Library. We'll ensure that our community residents and our patrons will be able to enjoy a facility that has the most modern systems and has clean air and a cooling center. So I urge you to approve this request and I look forward to working with you all. Thank you. Thank you, the next speaker will be Duane, followed by Gregory. I'd like to use the overhead again. Okay, we'll do. This helps me focus better. I can see that better than that small stuff. My name is Duane DeWitt, I'm from Roseland and I'm real concerned on a couple of items, one being the South Santa Rosa specific plan. This document right here points out something that I think really needs to be brought into your attention over and over and that's that this is Roseland right here as the city and the county agreed upon 37 years ago. All right, that's the boundaries of Roseland. These are the boundaries of Bellevue. Right here, 37 years ago, going all the way down there to Todd Road. As you do your deliberations, keep in mind that 35 years ago, basically we were already talking about how the city was going to annex certain spots. This was all in the county at the time, Roseland, all in the county, Bellevue, all in the county. The city formed a county island by making these annexations 94 and 95. And then, surprisingly, they did not realize that that county island was going to make it even harder to get this stuff down here on Moreland Avenue at Todd Road into the city. So now you're talking about doing that with a specific plan and I'm here to make sure that you have authentic community engagement during that specific plan. I was a member of the Roseland-Sebaspal Road specific plan effort and there wasn't authentic community engagement. It was all top down. We were limited by what they said was Brown Act restrictions and that's not the way the Brown Act is supposed to be utilized. It's supposed to allow the public to actively participate and have even more insight in what's occurring. So I wanted to make sure that as you go forward on that, that also tonight you'll be talking about the Herne Avenue Burbank Avenue signal. And that's very important because you're going to have an addendum to the EIR from that Roseland-specific plan. Please don't keep the public out. Have the public be a part of your deliberation to make sure that you get the best public and I guess the best way to put this is a signal that will save lives at Burbank Avenue and Herne Avenue. We already lost a kid out there on Bellevue called Jerome Patrick Scott. Patrick Jerome Scott, excuse me, back in the day. I don't want that to happen again so get the streetlight in there as soon as possible, making it a four way stop so that those people who use Herne Avenue as a raceway in a speedway will have to now deal with law enforcement. Thank you kindly for your time. Thank you, the next speaker will be Gregory. Good evening, my name is Gregory Farron. I'm here to talk about it, item 14.5, the item that Duane just talked about. I too served on the citizens committee for the annexation and the specific area plan development for, at that time, Rosalind area. As I understand it, this particular item is east of 101, south of 12, it's south Santa Rosa, but it's not Rosalind. It's a south, I mean it's a plan and a consultant you're hiring in order to do what I think of as pedal of a hill road. If I'm wrong, I apologize, but I would like to say that I think you ought to be doing the same kind of citizen engagement that you did for Rosalind on which I served. Sure it had problems, but I think we've come a long way since then. I'm totally confident in your staff member, Jessica and the rest, who can help us get citizen engagement in this south Santa Rosa specific area plan and I support it. Thank you. Thank you mayor. I see no one else approaching the podium for, oh we do have one more speaker on the consent calendar. Do forgive me again about environmental engineering, just we can't get past this. So when it's mentioned by the library director that it's important to get the funding from the city for the county library at the northwest, what is the meaning of that is that the cities control the properties where the county libraries are. For instance, the downtown library. So if you're ever talking to the library about dealing with something, particularly an environmental issue with regard to the central library, they punt and say everything is maintained by the city and the city owns this property. And in particular, exactly what the director said has been an issue at the central library, in other words, that the heating and ventilating goes out. It's a magnificent building, really fantastic architecture open space, it's terrific. But it has a large flat roof with no shade and when the heat gets on that, it's an enormous load. There's people inside, the people had load and then the heat from the sun, tremendous load on that and it blows out the air conditioning. And I have suggested, which goes nowhere, is that we have a demonstration forest just out to the west of town and they have very, very tall trees, 60, 80 feet tall and if some of them were planted along the west side of the central library, you would alleviate much of that heat load on the flat roof, tremendous amount. And then they're deciduous. So in the winter, they drop their leaves and the sun shines and you don't have to heat in the shade of that. So it's a kind of passive effect to benefit the air conditioning and the heating. You could do the same thing at the northwest library that along instead of having shorter diminutive trees, if you will, along the western side of the northwest library, you could have taller trees that are deciduous that would shade it principally during that really heat, not when it's at noon, but in the afternoon, actually it gets hotter in the afternoon. And because for whatever reason, the sun is able to get through the ionosphere and so on easier in the atmosphere when it's at an angle. Why that is, does it seem like it's real or possible, but that's what happens and it gets hotter in the afternoon or the afternoon sun is able to get. And if you had those trees, you could alleviate a lot of that load and a lot of that cost. This may be totally necessary, but you could benefit your electrical usage by reducing that and having that load diminished. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ells. Do we have any additional speakers on item 12, the consent or 14, the consent calendar? Victoria Yanez for item 14. Thank you, go ahead. I wanted to address the homeless proclamation emergency. The homeless emergency proclamation. I'm with homeless action, exclamation point. And my concern is that we have an empty homeless proclamation while people are freezing their buns off right now. We do not have a warming center open. I'm going to address that in my other public comment. But I would have liked to have seen a report from the homeless coalition. I noticed it was a possibility on the agenda, I was looking forward to it, but there was no report. The other item under number 14 is Sam Jones Hall. It's a real pity that we have folks, there's a person right here that has been trying to get into Sam Jones Hall and has not been able to. So we need to maybe open another hall. I don't know what the answer is because I'm just here to make noise and be angry about the situation, the way it is now because I know people are freezing. There is a van and private persons that have been going around picking up people and taking them to Sebastopol because that was the only warming center open. But all this applies kind of to the same thing. And I will comment further in public comment. Thank you. All right, seeing no additional public comment on the consent items. First Vice Mayor, are there any comments from council members? Nope, seeing none, Vice Mayor Stapp, can you please make a motion? Thank you Mayor. I'd like to move that we approve items 14.1 through 14.6 and 14.8 through 14.15 with item 14.7 move to a date uncertain. Second. We have a motion made by Vice Mayor Stapp and a second by council member McDonald. Madam City Clerk, may you please call the vote? Thank you Mayor. Council Member Rodgers. Council Member Ocrepke. Aye. Council Member McDonald. Aye. Council Member Fleming. Yes. Council Member Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor Stapp. Aye. Mayor Rodgers. Aye. Let the record show this passes with six affirmative votes and Council Member Rodgers absent. We will now go to item 15 which is our public comment on non-agenda matters. Madam City Clerk. Thank you. We are now taking public comment on item 15, non-agenda matters. This is a time where any person may address the council on matters not listed on the agenda but within the subject matter jurisdiction of the council. Please make your way to the podium if you'd like to provide public comment on this item. You will have three minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period. We will take 12 speakers under item 15. If we have more than 12 public comments for item 15, we will take the remainder at item 19. The first public speaker will be Elizabeth Nilan followed by Dwayne DeWitt. Thank you. Dwayne, please go ahead. Understood. Here we go. If we'll get that right there. So my name is Dwayne DeWitt. I'm from Roseland. Most of my life, always saying I'm from Santa Rosa but always letting people know that Roseland was to the west and outside of the city limits at the time that I was growing up. This area here was forced into the city by Ernie Carpenter, the supervisor for the fifth district of Sonoma County back in 1996 when he said he wasn't going to allow you folks to create a county island and go out to get Bellevue Ranch which was down here on Herne Avenue. So this was the first part of Roseland that got annexed in after this section here along Highway 101 was a part of Santa Rosa. Those people, the only park in all of that area of Roseland was this little sliver which you can barely see where my fingernail is. That's called South Davis Park right now. And there's a number of people who've been looking at this whole area needing more small parks. And the dilemma is the recreation of parks department felt well they'll just do one and be done and have it be this community park they wanted to put up here in this general area. And people are like well wait a second the people that you're putting the housing in up here for they need parks. The people that you're putting the housing in over here they need parks. Parks need to be down here. We're not getting these parks because the city council's not pushing the city manager and the recreation of parks director to go after these smaller parks. And this is what is truly needed and this was pointed out in a Rosalind revitalization study from 2000 back when there was a redevelopment project area which I was on the elected committee of and we knew then we needed to have more small parks. And essentially it's just been a can kicked down the road now for a quarter of a century. So I'm hoping that you folks will take the initiative as council members and say we want small parks like Humboldt Park, North Park, Fremont Park that the city of Santa Rosa has scattered in other areas and let Rosalind have six or seven of these small parks up along the north side of Sebastopol Road near Highway 12 over on the west side out by Stony Point Road. There was a plan to have a park along Rosalind Creek to the west near Stony Point Road and what was called the Rosalind Creek concept plan of 2004. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker will be Gary followed by Johanna. Gary. Okay, can we get Johanna to a podium followed by Janet. I'm looking for Gary Johanna. Okay, please go ahead Johanna. Mayor and members of the Santa Rosa City Council. I am Johanna James, a Santa Rosa resident for over 45 years on Lance Drive near Jennings Avenue. I appreciate how much the city council has had to deal with over the past several years and the many challenges which continue to confront our city. Even so, today I ask you to devote some attention to the still closed Jennings Avenue pedestrian and bicycle rail crossing and develop whatever actions necessary for the crossing finally to be constructed and reopened. Residencies, businesses and services on both sides of the rail line have been waiting for many years now. A brief review. In 2015, after much public input, study and planning, Santa Rosa applied to the CPUC, the California Public Utilities Commission which has exclusive authority over such approvals for approval to construct a pedestrian and bicycle at grade crossing at Jennings. In 2016, the CPUC, also after much public input and consideration, not only approved an at grade crossing but also ruled conclusively against any elevated crossing. Then SMART, which initially supported the approval, first delayed construction and then opposed the crossing, reportedly seeking an indemnification agreement from the city and then claiming the crossing would be unsafe despite the CPUC approval. By 2022, with the crossing still not built, the CPUC had reaffirmed and extended the approval four more times, even over SMART's objections. In 2023, the most recent approval was to expire in September. So in August the city filed for yet another extension. The CPUC's administrative law judge is questioning the long delay however and has now ruled, quote, in the event that an agreement to construct a rail crossing is not reached by March 1st, an order to show cause hearing will be set where the city of Santa Rosa will be provided with an opportunity to show cause why the commission should continue to extend the deadline for the completion of the crossing, end quote. In other words, the CPUC won't necessarily support this stalemate forever. Reportedly, continuing delay now as due to SMART's demands for exceptional insurance or indemnification to be provided by the city for the Jennings crossing. Unlike any other crossing in the city, even though the approved safety features at Jennings will make it among the best protected. Why is Jennings singled out for such demands? Perhaps more to the point considering SMART's intransigence, what might the city do, perhaps through legal action if need be to be able to move forward with this project. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker will be Janet followed by Eris and this is for item 15, public comments on non-agenda matters. Good evening, council. My name is Janet Barraco. I've lived on Jennings Avenue in Northwest Santa Rosa for 23 years. For eight years, I've been an advocate for building an at grade rail crossing at Jennings. And you heard some of the history, but I'll repeat a bit here. En case you didn't know, there had been an informal pedestrian path over those tracks at Jennings for over 100 years. Prior to 2016, people used the path to reach businesses, services, et cetera on East and West, both West and East side. When SMART service began, the path was fenced off and a detour was put in on North Dutton and Gernville Road, which increased the trip by about a half a mile and up to 20 to 30 minutes longer, just to walk East West. My neighbors and other supporters collected hundreds of signatures. We attended public hearings, we wrote letters to the city, et cetera. We organized a public hearing, and which a judge from San Francisco attended and the crossing was approved. And you heard a lot of the history from Johanna already. We've had eight years. I feel disappointed that the city seems to have lost interest and forgotten us in the Northwest and the crossing that would reunify our neighborhood. I would remind you that Jennings Crossing is part of the Jennings Bike Boulevard and Highway 101 Bike Bridge that is in the Santa Rosa General Plan. Given intensifying chaos in the climate, I would think it desirable for Santa Rosa to be as pedestrian and bike friendly as possible. Why is it so difficult and taking so long to restore one safe car-free path that is so obviously wanted by the community, has the blessing of the CPUC and supposedly the city of Santa Rosa and that has funding. Climate change is happening, population is growing on the Northwest side. We have lots of housing being built. We have this March 1st deadline for the city and SMART to move forward with an agreement. Time is running out. I urge you, City Councils, please put Jennings Crossing on the Council agenda as soon as possible, and I invite any of you who would like to literally walk the path with me as the judge did back in 2016 to contact me and we'll make a date. Thank you. Thank you. The next public comment will be from Aris, followed by Thomas. Please go ahead, Aris. We are the executive director of the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition. We are also supporters of the at-grade Jennings Crossing and I don't think I can add anything to what the two previous speakers already said about the necessity for that. But the other thing that I wanted to comment about, usually when I show up in front of you, it's to ask you for something or to complain about something, but I also wanted tonight to give some thanks and gratitude and praise. The last year we have seen renewed energy and activity in creating other bike infrastructure. The Class 4 bikeways that were built, the first ones the city have done on Armory. I'm seeing new bike racks popping up all over downtown, lowering speed limits in different parts of the city is really crucial for safety. The draft transportation element of the general plan explicitly prioritizes act of transportation over individual vehicles and I am so, so excited that you have just hired Dan Hennessey for the new director of public transportation and public works. I have been following Austin, Texas and what they have been doing to build out their bike network and they've been doing fabulous things and so I am so excited to have an individual who was very involved in all of that coming to our city, the energy enthusiasm of the newer transportation planners is so infectious and I'm just really excited to see what comes next. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker will be Thomas followed by Jody. Please go ahead, Thomas. Can I use those? Oh, certainly. This is hopefully this is right side up for you. So this is Duane's annexation plan exhibit from 1995 and it shows annexation of the Santa Rosa Airport 1988 and so this is the area that we're talking about that will contribute to Herne Avenue because there is no Bellevue crossing, right? And so I want to point out that there is a new, there are many roundabouts. This is Petaluma, this is, this is Roner Park at Southwest. Again, Roner Park at Southwest so you can get an idea of where it is. This is in the Netherlands and so there is a new thing, a turbo roundabout. It has these unique extra lanes here and so I've added that to this design because it said potential roundabout and so I've added a turbo roundabout with design here at Herne Avenue and this is really important in light of those annexations. Those are definitely going to develop those areas in high density housing, medium to high density housing and those are going to contribute and there's only a total of three crossings six lanes to get across. In the north you have nine crossings and over 27 lanes, 11 or 12 crossings of Highway 12 on the east side that produces a total of 69 crossings for anyone in the northeast and there's only a total of 27 lanes and there's seven crossings so you need to add these crossings I'm not sure if you can see what I'm showing you because the light doesn't appear here but this would direct the lanes in ways that are profitable and beneficial this is what has been this turbo design has been built in Gilroy Highway 25 and 156 which has just reported they've been used since 1990 in the Netherlands and they're very accommodating for drivers they get accommodated to this that facilitates how they maneuver and so on so this is the opportunity to do this look we're talking about these generations over the years talking about these generations over which these things occur this is the time to do this the designs are available the money is available thank you very much thank you the next speaker will be Gianni followed by Jordan Gianni Jordan please make your way to the podium followed by Zoe can you hear me? okay there we go hi everybody thank you for being here tonight my name is Jordan and I am here again to urge the city council to adopt a ceasefire resolution today the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco passed a ceasefire resolution and it is time for Sonoma County to get out from underneath the rock that we've been in for a long time and it's curious because actually in 1985 Sonoma County was the second county in California to pass a commitment to divest from apartheid South Africa so we have been progressive in the past and that was actually a resolution where they committed to divesting from South African apartheid and the resolution that we're asking for is not calling for any action other than a statement declaring that we are against our tax dollars being used to commit genocide and I want to thank Mayor Rogers for working with us so far and being responsive to our group's request and I want to encourage our other city council members to respond to the request to meet with the constituents that are trying to draft a resolution regarding this matter more than half of you guys are up for re-election in November and I'll give you guys the benefit of the doubt because the holidays were just happening but if I were you I would respond to our group because we are a hefty sized amount of people that are adamant about this issue and if you want to prove to voters that you are accountable and available to them then I would really urge you to be expedient in responding to us because every day that passes hundreds of people are dying dozens of children are dying medical staff that are having to perform amputations on children without anesthesia our tax dollars are funding this horror and like I said at the last city council meeting over 2.4 million dollars approximately of our money is going towards this from Santa Rosa alone that could go towards homeless services education services we are complicit in this genocide and I just want to also say that I reached out to the city manager and left a message to circle back to accountability I know council member Chris Rogers is not here right now but I left a message with the city manager because his phone number routes to Mayor Rogers voicemail so he is not able to be called by the public thank you thank you the next speaker is Gianni Gianni are you in the room thank you we will go to Zoe followed by Victoria I want to thank the city council and Mayor Rogers for hearing us tonight my name is Zoe Kessler thank you I'm a small business owner here in Santa Rosa and I'm Jewish and I'm here to beg you and hear us as we say that this genocide is wrong and we are my people over here we are appalled that this genocide has been done with our tax money and me as a Jewish person I am appalled that this is being done in my name I was raised very Jewish in the synagogue I went to Hebrew school until I was 15 I am not ill informed on this issue I have been connected to it and have been learning about it and speaking about it all my life and in the last 500 the last 100 years the Palestinian people have been enduring a brutal military occupation and as of right now over 22,000 Palestinian people have been brutally murdered we are witnessing a replay of the holocaust being done to the Palestinians so this this genocide is not being done in the name of Jewish safety in fact this genocide is actually creating more anti-Semitism and is making Jews more unsafe it is a siege and barbaric conquering to obtain land over half of those thousands of Palestinian people are children and babies the only difference between this holocaust now and the holocaust in the 40s was that we actually have a chance to do something about this now and we are looking to you to represent us we are looking to you to do the right thing so I'm just begging you to call adopt our ceasefire resolution and help stop this genocide thank you thank you the next speaker is Victoria followed by Dre Dre you can go ahead and make your way to the opposite podium while Miss Yanez makes her comment thank you good evening I'm Victoria Yanez Victoria Yanez to be honest and I'm with homeless action exclamation point a couple of other groups but very upset about the homeless situation here in this city because we have no warming centers open I called 211 I think yesterday and they could not direct me anywhere for my friends that are out in the cold because as you know Sam Jones is full now this is a very difficult situation for the poorest people in our community because given the city's towing policy to tow anybody who's out of registration instead of going by the state rule of towing when it's out of registration for six months we should let that rule stand and we urge the city council to change the policy that they are directing the police department to do to the poorest people of our community because when you look at all of this together it's sheer hell because first of all being towed every time they turn around now the camping arrests are starting to come forth because you can't sleep anywhere in the county and then the city also adopted the same type of ordinance so all this paints a picture that is pretty sad I don't think it's an accurate number but there were 79 deceased homeless people memorialized on December 21st here at the Arlene Francis center and it's really sad that I knew a lot of people on the list but I think tonight we might be starting the list for 2024 because this list was compiled from the coroner's office of people who were homeless that died and since I have 14 seconds I want to say cease fire already I've heard of an eye for an eye but this is going too far we need to stop this city council please pass the ordinance or a resolution about this thank you the next speaker will be Dre followed by Hannah Dre please go ahead I'm relatively new I've been here about a year and a half and I am currently homeless I find that in most areas what resources are available aren't even known to most homeless I found out about Sam Jones Hall by seeing a folder across a counter with the name on it and it rang familiar to me because I know someone named Sam Jones Hall it's the only reason I found shelter they allow you to stay for six months and if you follow all the rules and are a good kid they let you stay for a full six months and then you're exited and have to go back on a waiting list I'm back on that waiting list and since Thursday they haven't been able to tell me where I stand on that list I'm living in my car with no heat and it makes it very damp I am a medically at risk person I went into the hospital a couple of days before Christmas and had a lovely doctor who let me stay until the next day to talk to a social worker who promptly told me there are no beds in Sonoma County so back to my car I go now we hit down into the temperatures of freezing I don't know if you're aware of it but most of your new refrigerators freeze two degrees above freezing we have been in that area imagine sitting inside your refrigerator for 24 hours then imagine it raining where do you go what do you do we all need to be somewhere preferably warm and dry I also like to think that we could look at the homeless with new eyes and realize that we are not all criminal not all mentally ill that we take care of some of our needs that we are people who simply need a hand out not a hand out and do something instead of cutting numbers instead of the mayor walking through Sam Jones and seeing what is not really the reality of it I don't know what to say but I know we need some help so far your homeless proclamation I think you need to open communication with more of us who have been and maybe are there now so that we can do something positive for everybody not just the homeless but for everyone thank you for your time thank you the next speaker will be Hannah followed by Lexie Hannah Lexie Michael Hannah are you in the room Lexie are you in the room please go ahead Lexie good evening can you hear me yes there are 50,000 pregnant women in Palestine 150 women give birth every day without electricity medication and water on a day that should be joyous it is filled with death and terror I am here as a mother and a resident to implore you to pass a ceasefire resolution because I want my children to grow up in a country that does not fund wars and is not complicit in a genocide we should follow the leads of San Francisco and Oakland and pass a ceasefire resolution we must stop this genocide thank you thank you the next speaker is Michael Michael please make your way to the west podium thank you please go ahead hey everyone I'm Michael Tatone I'm a member of the Sonoma county tenants union I live in Santa Rosa I live in district 2 and I'm here to also encourage you to pass a ceasefire resolution it's important that we set an example of how we want the U.S. to act on this issue because the U.S. bears particular responsibility for the atrocities that are currently being committed against Gaza and it's important to stand with our Palestinian community and stand against anti-Semitism and those two things are absolutely not in contradiction at all so I encourage you to pass and draft a ceasefire resolution so that we can stand for peace for safety for everybody I also want to encourage you to find solutions to keep the warming shelter opened because the rules around the warming shelter are way too stringent it has to be below a certain temperature for multiple days it's 28 degrees sometimes it's 37 but there have to be all these other conditions and it's just too stringent I know from stepping outside and talking to people that it's too cold for me to be out there and it's cold enough that if my mom were sleeping outside I'd be deathly worried that she would die and so I really encourage us to get the warming shelter open more often so that people are not sleeping in this weather and are not reliant on you know y no let's warm the cities frowning upon and trying to further prevent people from doing thank you thank you the next speaker will be Miles Miles is the next speaker and that will be the 12th speaker on item 15 non-agenda public comments mayor we'll take the remaining public comments on non-agenda matters under item 19 please go ahead testing testing thank you ¡Hola! Mi nombre es Miles Sarvis-Wilburne. Tengo trabajo como special de la enlaying de la estuartura para los laminos. He sido de la Tierra en el foro hoy, haciendo reducción de fiel de las fielas del Wildfire. También soy un firefighter del Wildland. También he sido el director del Board de Direcciones de la Acción de la Acción de Sonoma. Y, ya sabes, trabajo con escuelos de la Tierra cada sábado, enseñando a ayudar a las escuelas de la Tierra, en la ciudad de la ciudad de Homo, Miwok, y Mishawa Wapoland. Y les enseñé cómo creer los árboles, cómo hacer un brazo riperio, corredor, trajes, todo eso. A través de los veintidós, llegamos a las escuelas y les enseñé a niños sobre las vías y la polonía. Y no sé cómo podría ver todos ellos en el río. Si estoy haciendo lo que creo que estás haciendo, no voy a llamar a un incendio. 10,000 palestinianos son muertos, no han hecho nada. Están listos. Creo que hay 35,000 niños en Santa Rosa. Es la tercera de la población de los niños de Santa Rosa. Están listos. Y cada día, tienes el poder para decir, el barman, no te estoy preguntando para aprender las relaciones palestinianas. No te estoy preguntando para las relaciones palestinianas o colonialismo. Te estoy preguntando para el mínimo barman, que es decir que el murder de los niños es malo y que debería parar ahora mismo. Y cada día, cada día que no pasa, no sé, no puedo hacer lo que creo que está sucediendo. No puedo hacer eso. Yo tendría que hacer algo más. Y así tengo que preguntar comunidad por tiempo que lo diga. Bueno, me interesa para que un personero quanto a un treintaríotros pueda pescar más el queligtón, que lo pega más potente. Ha sido su親为什么 que le shorten su tiempo en la reelección, ¿es la persona que quieren representarme y los niños de Santa Rosa? No. no hay que mehr ni mas, no es nada, no es más bien que elegirnos, no unon el camino derobe, no hay que más en la ciudad, no es nada, en la ciudad no es más bien, en el mundo de contra uno de los colegios que tenemos, es mucho más importante, realmente es una granlosada, pero esa es una comunidad que lo dice la presidenta Presidente de la ciudad de �uilio, la querida general de la ciudad de Magalalt, no tenemos ningún reportaje para hoy, así que vamos a ir a nuestro public hearing que tenemos, madr. City manager item 17.1. Public hearing public hearing on fiscal fiscal year two thousand twenty four twenty five budget priorities good afternoon mayor and city council members bringing for you today a public hearing on the budget priorities for fiscal year twenty four twenty five public hearing. The purpose of this budget hearing today is to receive public input on public budget priorities for the next fiscal year and to also receive public input for council goals. This public hearing is something we hold annually it's a requirement of the city charter and it's just an opportunity for the public and the citizens to come forward and offer their feedback on where they would like the available resources of the next fiscal year budget to go. Public comment online at srcity.org forward slash budget comments. So as we hear public comment today we're going to take this into consideration during the budget cycle which gets kicked off at the end of this month. Council goal setting will happen on February six and seventh at which time council members will also take into account the public comment heard today. February through may departments in the city manager work collaboratively with these public priorities in mind to respond to the budget. We will bring forward a study session to council on may seventh and eighth to offer an in depth look at the budgets that have been put together. And we anticipate having a draft of the budget document available to the public on June third twenty twenty four and then the final step in our budget process is the adoption hearing on June eighteenth. So this is a very short presentation for you today I'm happy to speak with you. Thank you. Thank you. And with that introduction we will go ahead and open the public hearing. Madam city clerk may you please facilitate public comment on this item. Thank you mayor we are now taking public comment on item seventeen point one the public hearing on the budget. If you're in the council chamber would like to comment but have a niña de la ley y then make your way to the podium you will have three minutes and a countdown timer will alert at the end of that period. The first public comment will be from. Duane followed by airs. In thousand and four there was a Roseland Creek concept plan adopted by the city of Santa Rosa. To this day it is still not been implemented. ha sido la fundación que viene en la pared de desarrollo para los parques. En la última administración de la mayor, Chris Rogers, decidió que, en vez de tener un pared de desarrollo específico para los parques de desarrollo para el sábado, que pueden ser usados por la ciudad. Yo creo que la ciudad de Santa Rosa tiene una obligación moral para ayudar a esos personas en la área del sur, en el área de la anexación de Rosalina, para obtener las facilidades que necesitan y que fueron promedidas años atrás. La mejor manera de tener esto suceder es seguir adelante con la misma acción que ha sido tan sucesiva para la pared de desarrollo del sábado. ¿La ciudad ha estado parterizando con esos personas? La ciudad ha hecho un gran esfuerzo para asegurar que la pared de desarrollo del sábado irá adelante y nosotros, durante años, en Rosalina, hemos estado diciendo que estamos en una pared de desarrollo del sábado, y que deberás nos conectar a la pared de desarrollo del sábado, y que el sábado deberá tener solo mucho impacto en tu decisión como el sábado. Realizamos que no estamos tan financiados, por ejemplo, como esos personas en las secciones norteas y en las secciones sábadas de Santa Rosa, pero hay 16,000 personas en el área general de la ciudad de Rosalina y las ciudades de sus propios números están esperando para desarrollar 24,000 personas en la pared de desarrollo del sábado en la ciudad de Rosalina y en las secciones sábadas de Santa Rosa. Entonces, 40,000 personas en el sábado de la pared de Santa Rosa estarán muy apreciados si usas la pared de desarrollo para todos esos desarrollamientos de la pared de desarrollo, y la ciudad de Rosalina, cuando sea la pared de desarrollo personal, se ha vuelto a entrar en la pared de desarrollo y flies, de la ciudad de Rosalina. — — — — — en el momento en el que la gente está moviendo a través de la administración de la Bicicleta y la infraestructura de la industria que hace que sea segura para la gente de todos los años y habilidades, pero si la ciudad va a alcanzar nuestros目os de reducir el gas de greenhouse, de mover más personas de los carros privados y de la transportación activa y otras formas de transitar, el progreso debe ser más rápido y es muy rápido. Es muy rápido. La parte superior de la ciudad es, ¿cómo es el prioridad de la ciudad que nos muestra lo que es la prioridad, y por lo que nos colocamos en el budget. He spent a good chunk of the afternoon going through this current fiscal years budget trying to see if I could pull out what is the sort of percentage of transportation dollars that are specifically for some projects kind of cover both. But going through the CIP budget I came up with somewhere between 10 and 12% of that budget being spent on bike and pedestrian improvements with close to half of that going for two projects, the Herne Avenue exchange and the 101 pedestrian bike over crossing which are important projects, but there's lots of those other projects that I was mentioning earlier like more bike paths, more bike parking and other things that are needed to complete out this network as well. So I would love to see the city in the budget set a specific percentage of the transportation budget. 20%, 25%, but a minimum amount of if basically put the money where the goals stated before and then going to address these issues of climate change that we care about so much. Thank you. Thank you. I did want to remind public commenters that if you submitted a written public comment by the deadline at 5 p.m. yesterday it was republished as a public comment and this is not a second opportunity and any late public comments will be published tomorrow. We'll go to Gregory followed by Thea. My name is Gregory Farron and I'll be as quick as I can. Housing especially for low income and I know you'll probably be working hard as I will to try to pass in November of 2024 the housing Bay Area Bond, but $121 million to $241 million coming to Santa Rosa if it passes would do a significant make a significant dent in the low income housing needs of this city. You'll hear from Jan H who have also I assume a strong support for the measure they too would be affected and impacted by 121 to 242 million dollars starting about January, February, March of 2025. So it is the fiscal year we're talking about. I want you to try to make every effort to have your housing authority and your homeless staff prepare the best expenditure report. The most effective soonest possible get some housing built if it passes and I hope everyone in this room votes for it. The second I want to advocate for is for civic engagement . Your community advisory board needs the support of this council and it needs to be directed to try to engage citizens as much as possible in all of your decisions. I have other advocates positions I want to advocate but you have people here to speak for them, obviously bicycle pass, obviously anything getting us out of cars and finally as you can see the city all parks all over the city those four things housing, civic engagement, bicycle paths and parks. Thank you very much. Thank you the next public comment will be from Thea followed by Steve. Hi good evening Mayor Rogers vice mayor staff city council members mayor special fiscal Irene iPod Diffficulta syrup y it's a complex and strategic decision making process and I applaud all of you for the work adquisición para los últimos 15 años y ahora la propiedad será horas cuando el nuevo budget está en lugar. Muchos de ustedes saben que esto no es el primero, sino que será el último tiempo que he escuchado antes de ustedes con una pregunta. Es crítico que continuemos a tener apoyo a los staff para los próximos pasos, la plana de Greenway y la mantenimiento. Muchos de ustedes saben que la campaña con nuestros compañeros increíbles, Sonoma Land Trust, ha creado el dinero para la adquisición, más de 2 millones de dólares. Estamos intentando permanecer compañeros de la ciudad, voluntarios y creando dinero para ver la visión de la comunidad ser realidad. Quiero darles la bienvenida a Dante Watson, el director del parque, y preguntarles a ustedes para darles los tools para que tenga que llevar nuevas ideas para nuestro sistema de parque. Estamos muy contentos de trabajar con él. Como formador de la coalición Bicycle Board, también quiero darles la bienvenida a el director de la transición, Dan Hennessey, como Eris mencionó, estamos muy contentos de tener él en la ciudad. Queremos agradecerle a él para su fokus en la transición multimodal, como que el Greenway se convierte en otro link en la cadena de recicletas en esta ciudad. Me pregunté hoy, funden los parques. Hacen el Greenway un objetivo prioritario y nos damos la cadena de la cadena. Gracias. Gracias. El siguiente comentario publico será de Steve, seguido de Jane. Steve Rabinowitz. Buenas tardes, Mayor Rogers y los miembros de la ciudad de la ciudad. Steve Rabinowitz, soy el presidente de Santa Rosa. Te voy a apreciar hoy para apoyar más fundación para el mantenimiento y el mejoramiento de nuestros parques y lugares públicos. Y considero estos investimientos en nuestra comunidad. Estoy ahora involucrado en dos proyectos que beneficiarán mucho Santa Rosa y nuestro ambiente. El proyecto del Greenway de la Southecia y el Greenway de la Princesa. La ciudad ha estado instrumental en trabajar con la campaña del Greenway de la Southecia y la Trinidad de la Sonoma para adquirir la propiedad de Caltrans y estamos ahora muy cerca de alcanzar el objetivo de la ownership de la propiedad, como decía. Este grupo de ciudadanos ha sido involucrado en este proyecto por más de 14 años y intenta ayudar de cualquier manera que podamos. Como estoy seguro de que lo sabéis, será necesario aumentar la fundación para el mantenimiento y las operaciones del Greenway. La campaña intenta trabajar con la Trinidad de la Sonoma y la ciudad en obtener grantas para los parques de la Southecia. El proyecto del Greenway de la Princesa es un proyecto de restauración con bicentros conectados a la ciudad de Sonoma en la línea de la Trinidad de la Sonoma y la Trinidad de la Sonoma y la ciudad de la Southecia y el Lagoona de Santa Rosa en Santa Rosa, y tiene muchas conexiones, potencialmente, a la Santa Rosa del Norte y a la Southecia en el Greenway de la Sonoma y el Greenway de la Southecia. Es necesario incrementar el mantenimiento y las operaciones en varias áreas. El proyecto de la Southecia de la Sonoma fue construido en el 1990 y 30 años atrás hay mucha actividad y muchos problemas que han sido tratados con el daño en ciertas áreas, pero todavía tiene gran potencial para encontrar diferentes partes de nuestra comunidad y ser parte de nuestro ambiente. Y parte de nuestra economía, por lo que si queremos atraer los residentes a la comunidad y a la ciudad, es una gran parte de lo que podría ser usado para entañar a las personas a venir. Un nuevo grupo, los amigos de la Southecia de la Southecia de la Southecia se forman, compradas de los negros, miembros de la comunidad, la asociación de la Riel Road Square, el hotel de Hayet y el barrio de Courillard, y estamos todos trabajando juntos para mejorar la Southecia. Y varias departamentos de la ciudad han sido muy, muy ayudantes. La Southecia de la Southecia y el Departamento de la Water, los trabajos públicos, el programa de la cittad, el departamento de la policía, y el departamento de los parques, en el que tenemos una reunión con nuestro nuevo director de parques, Dante Watson, que nos ha llegado. We appreciate this assistance, and we're hoping to continue to partner with the city to improve the Greenway through better maintenance, new public art, more public events that we're hopefully going to work on, and other improvements to the Greenway. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next public speaker will be... No, pardon me. The next speaker will be Jane, followed by Joshua, then Jen. Hello. My name is Jane Rosenberg. I live on Stewart Street in Santa Rosa, and have worked at the Santa Rosa Junior College as a math teacher for the past 35 years. I've been a volunteer for the Southeast Greenway for well over a decade. The city council has been very supportive along the way, and together we are celebrating the good fortune of acquiring the property in 2024. The Greenway raised the money to make this purchase, and fundraising efforts will continue to support the master park planning of the Greenway. Our next phase is to speak to the Bennett Valley neighbors, school principals, teachers, and parents to encourage their participation in the future planning of the Greenway. The proximity of six schools near the Greenway can offer opportunities such as service learning, outdoor ed, and the Bikes to School program will be greatly enhanced. My point today in speaking is to remind our city council to ensure that the city parks are given the necessary budget to maintain our parks in general and the Southeast Greenway. After the acquisition of the property, the committee wants to continue all efforts to support the project. Imagine the bike path from Forestville to Spring Lake. It will be advertised in tourist magazines around the globe. Santa Rosa is already known as a cycling destination and the Greenway will add more opportunities for safe cycling and tourist destinations for the city and the county. In this budget year, we hope the city will provide the needed funds to support the work of the parks department including the capital improvements and maintenance. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker will be Joshua followed by Jen, then Al. Good evening, Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor's staff, council members and staff. My name is Josh Shipper. I am the director of special initiatives at Generation Housing. Thank you very much for letting members of the public participate in the budget planning process. We need a budget that reflects the city's needs and no single area of the budget has a wider impact on cost of living, economic production, climate and quality of life and housing. And I wanted to mostly thank you today for initiating steps that will ensure our budget reflects housing as a top priority, particularly through steps to assess and reform our existing impact fees and a lot of small budget amount to enable this. We know that when it comes to the cost of housing, very little is under the control of local governments. High material costs, labor shortages, extraordinarily high interest rates are immensely hard for cities to counteract. So when cities take action on the cost that they do control, in this case impact fees, it is the clearest sign that you all are using your budgeting powers to prioritize affordable housing. It shows residents that you are aware of how cities can spur housing and you are maximizing your role in closing the financing gap for new housing. In addition, by considering affordable fee relief, rather than just fee deferral, you're signaling to everyone here a willingness to move from incremental reforms to implementing the best known model employed in places like Sacramento, where a $0 rate fee waiver has completely flipped its past under production of affordable housing. There they have been built three times the number of affordable housing in the first third of their last cycle as they did in the first six. And so the program was so successful that they renewed its stipulations and Santa Rosa has got the mitigation FIAC reserves to do it and you could be poised to join Sacramento as a model for the rest of the state. Although it's only a small budget adjustment, it's an important one that we're talking about this today, planning to agendize it immediately following a study session later this quarter and we look forward to talking about this more in coming weeks. So thank you very much for your continued diligence on the best practices for getting housing bill. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next speaker will be Jen, followed by Al, then Alexa. Good evening. Okay, thanks. Jen Close, Executive Director of Generation Housing. Good to be with you tonight, Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor Staff, Council Members, Madam City Manager. For five years, housing production has been a top priority for the city since we've made limited progress on that and the need has not changed. I assume it will remain a priority. And budgeting is the walk to goals and priorities talk. This is how you walk the talk of priorities. Unfortunately, our current economic climate threatens to reduce production to a trickle and the last time the economy shut down production, the great recession, that shutdown lasted 10 years, a decade, more than twice as long as the actual recession. Some disasters are obvious, fires, flood, pandemics. This economic climate is just as disastrous, just maybe not as obvious. This council and staff has responded disaster with appropriate speed and can do spirit. The Resilient City Rebuilding Permits Center, for example, opened just six weeks after the start of the 2017 wildfires. So this same disaster necessitates that same kind of bold and swift response. So we thank you tonight as we understand that you plan to add fee relief and swift implementation of AB602 to a study session that was planned for February 13th, and we understand it will take a little more time to prepare for this, and so we look forward to it, look forward to it being scheduled in March, and we'll be here with you for that. And we strongly urge you to schedule an action item concurrent with that study session or at the very least, the next scheduled council meeting. Please let's treat the situation with the urgency it demands and get these powerful solutions on agenda for action before the end of Q1. We cannot risk another decades long halt in construction. Not while the food bank lines grow that I know you see like I do. Not while housing and affordability drives folks onto the street. Not while families are living precariously paycheck to paycheck for going healthcare or terrified of a surprise car repair. Not while we can't hire enough teachers or healthcare professionals. Not while our workforce moves far away or clogs our freeways commuting in from cheaper areas. And not while we continue to fail to attract new business, we cannot wait. So please consider this an urgent item and we look forward to it being here before Q1. Thank you for your service as always and in advance as you step into this leadership, bold solution-minded leadership on housing that the city desperately needs from you. Thanks. Next speaker is Al Lerma followed by Alexa Forrester. Good evening everyone, my name is Al Lerma. I work with the Mito Te Food Park over in the roads and section of Santa Rosa. I'm here tonight wearing a hat with the Sonoma County Hospitality Association, which I'm a member of the board. We represent Food and Beverage, hotel, lodging, wineries, retail, you name it, hundreds of businesses in Santa Rosa and throughout Sonoma County, probably 30,000 plus employees across the county. And so for us, one of the top priorities of our members and employees and businesses is housing. Housing, housing, housing. We need housing. We employ about 60 people more or less at the Mito Te Food Park over on Sebastopol Road. And one of their top needs is housing. And so tonight we're asking you to really make that a priority in the budget. We think housing, particularly affordable workforce housing is at the center of economic development and resilience for our local economy. Without housing for folks in the community, we can't have all the other good stuff that was mentioned here tonight. And so we're asking you to please consider a waiver of impact fees, specifically for affordable workforce housing as you go forward in the budget priorities for the new year. I think as has been mentioned, other communities have used fee waivers as incentives to expedite, accelerate housing, Sacramento, San Jose, Oakland, San Mateo. So we do believe that removing any barriers to expand the housing stock in Santa Rosa is critical to our economic development. And also I think it's been mentioned to please add this to your next study session as a topic of discussion. And with that, thank you very much. Next up is Alexa followed by Rick Wallach. Good evening. Can you hear me? Is this mic on? Good evening mayor and esteam council members. My name is Alexa Forrester. I'm a Santa Rosa resident mother of two kids in Santa Rosa schools and a full-time professor at SRJC. I'm also one of the co-leads of Bikable Santa Rosa. Representatives of our campaign have spoken to you before, but just to remind you who we are, Bikable Santa Rosa is a campaign of Santa Rosa residents advocating for the rapid implementation of a low stress mobility network connecting all neighborhoods in Santa Rosa. People have been joining our campaign by the droves month after month for various reasons, but the common denominator is this, the completion of protected connected transportation infrastructure for people outside of cars is absolutely necessary for Santa Rosa to make good on its commitments to equity, inclusion, economic opportunity, climate resiliency and vision zero traffic safety. Residents of and visitors to Santa Rosa need options for getting around town without driving. And that requires all of you to be leaders on the matter of multi-modal transportation. We are grateful for and encouraged by the leadership you've recently shown on this matter. We applaud the recent hiring of super competent and committed transportation staff members and your green lighting of key projects. But we come today to request that you take additional crucial step of supporting these staff and projects with your budget allocations. Even in the tightest of budget cycles, city general funds get allocated to building and maintaining street infrastructure that occupies and defines the nature of our public right of ways. Our campaign is asking you to in the name of all cities, key values and goals, commit to ensuring that at least 15% as an absolute floor of the general funds spent on transportation projects in the coming year and all future years be spent on the build out and maintenance of a low stress bicycle network. Our campaign also stands in support of the request by a number of our allies and neighbors here today, including the Southeast Greenway Campaign, Friends of the Prince Memorial Greenway, all the greenways, generation housing's request for waiving impact fees and Santa Rosa Yembe's call to pedestrianize Fourth Street. All of these steps can help Santa Rosa become a more vibrant and resilient city for generations to come. Thank you. Thank you. The next public comment will be from Rich followed by Abby. Sir, can you get a little bit closer to the microphone so we can hear you? Oh, there we go. My goodness. Thank you for adding the fee waiver and AB 602 adoption to the future study session. By the way, I'm with Burbank Housing and we recently in 2022 worked closely with the city of Petaluma. They're what they called, rather than a fee waiver and a non applicability of the impact fees for affordable housing and that has helped tremendously a number of projects in the city of Petaluma. For one project of ours alone that created over a million dollars of less gap that the project had at that point in time. Appreciate it. We do request that a concurrent action be set for that evening of the study session and immediately after that next council meeting and some be set an approval of that. Thank you again for your commitment to development fee reform and we look forward to continuing this discussion soon. Thank you. Thank you. The next public comment will be from, excuse me, Abby followed by Sonu. Good evening mayor, vice mayor and members of the council. My name is Abby Arnold and I'm a resident of the Montgomery Village neighborhood. I am here tonight to speak on behalf of housing and bicycles as priorities for you coming up. I'm really grateful to hear that you have added the waiver of the housing impact fees and implementation of AB 602 to the agenda of your upcoming study session. This is essential to what I think is a very urgent budget priority which is making it easier and less expensive to build affordable and workforce housing in Santa Rosa. We request that you added a concurrent action item for that same evening so that you don't lose any time in implementing the possibilities of the impact waiver and AB 602. Solving the housing crisis should be a top priority for the city. We can demonstrate some of the basic laws of capitalism and increase in supply will stabilize or lower rents for apartments and purchase prices for condos. Adding more residents near our business centers will provide more people to dine, shop and enjoy entertainment when they can walk or bike to the businesses. Increased availability of housing will benefit our businesses by adding to their customer base and also make their employees better able to get to work. Being able to get to work without using a car, being able to bike or walk to work is a huge advantage both for employers and for employees. And that brings me to the second point I wanna make. Please consider adding more protected bike lanes to connect residents to business destinations. I'm 70 years old and I would like to use my car much less but the lack of protected bike lanes makes me scared to use what I have now which is an adult tricycle to do simple errands like grocery shopping. My priority would be to add protected lanes to farmers lane so I could go to Safeway and to the Saturday farmers market on my trike but adding to the inventory of protected bike lanes will improve safety for all who bike in any neighborhood. After housing, adding bike lanes should be an urgent priority for the city. I really thank you for holding this hearing and for considering my input and that of the other folks here tonight. Thank you. Thank you, the next speaker will be Sonu followed by Rina, then Peter. Can you hear me? Dear Mayor Rogers and council members, my name is Sonu Chandi, owner and CEO of Chandi Hospitality Group. I'm here on behalf of my business and my family who are thankful to be living here in Asanor as a community. Today I want to address city council with a crucial appeal which I, the Genedge team has done a good job of doing the outreach to bring this issue which is already as a community in the city of Santa Rosa has done a good job that we have a lot of developments happening in our community, whether it's in the core area of few starting in downtown area and then outskirts of city as well. But it's still a dire need to continue to look at this issue very seriously and take additional steps, especially because the recent interest rate change really makes it harder to do these new developments. That means some of the projects that I have personally learned of that were in the pipeline and now looking at not breaking ground because they cannot make a pencil. So every little thing that we could do as a city can make a difference. So I truly, you know, I really, I'm glad that I thank you for adding AB 602 and the fee waiver to the conversation already. And we appreciate you to look at seriously and take addition, those actions as soon as possible so we can see more of those housing needs, housing developments happen, especially when you look at, you know, we as a business, we have seen the impacts directly where our employees, many times, it's hard to attract employees, you know, to the area when they cannot get affordable housing. We've seen a big gap between here from Santa Rosa going up to Yukia, where the rents are like 40% less and we've seen some time people driving that far and it's not good for the individuals who are working minimum wage to a living wage jobs and they're driving that much in the community. So that's one item. Since I'm here, I also wanna add to that we should look at our schools, you know, in our next year priorities, we should also look at what could city do more proactively in our schools, that we are not in the news for wrong reason, that we are in the news for right reasons. How could we really prioritize what are those needs for our schools? So our children are getting education, not in fights while they're in schools. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker will be Rena followed by Peter than Victoria. Good evening council members. My name is Rena Wang and I'm a Santa Rosa native and Santa Rosa resident. I was born and raised in Santa Rosa and I went to Montgomery High School. When I was in high school, I had the great fortune of being part of an amazing program called Santa Rosa Teen Council founded in 1993. It was an absolutely transformative experience for me as a young Asian American woman. The mentorship that I received, the insight into city council, city government and civic engagement was absolutely incredible and a really rare and important experience for a young person. So as you consider budgetary priorities for this next fiscal year, I highly encourage you to take a look at the teen council proposal. Specifically, I want you to consider the preferred proposal of the youth internship program. I would consider this to be a revision or a rather a new version of teen council. It would let youth chart their own course and provide numerous educational and engagement activities for these youth. There would be seven paid internships, one from each council district. And what's amazing about this latest iteration of this teen council proposal is the incredible equity where these youth would be able to participate who otherwise may not be able to afford it. And this would be an amazing experience for them as young people, perhaps get the more interested in civic engagement and also to think about their careers as they enter college and beyond. So as you consider budgetary priorities, I highly encourage you not to forget the youth, the youth, the high schoolers here in Santa Rosa who could benefit from this amazing program. There's incredible value and I think it's very important to consider. And thank you so much for considering this as a budgetary priority. Thanks. Thank you. The next speaker is Peter followed by Victoria then Allie. Good evening council. Thank you for the opportunity. My name is Peter Rumble. I have the pleasure of serving as a CEO of the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber of Commerce. At this point, we all have personal experience with the housing crisis beyond the things that we deal with in our professional lives. We read article after article about the increase of cost of living and unattainability of housing for our community. We all have experienced that personally. I believe that this is the single most important issue for us to deal with as a community. We either do everything that we can to secure our future or we roll the dice on our seniors, our young families, our kids ability to stay or return here to build their own lives. And it's because of that that I commend the city of Santa Rosa for adding fee waiver and AB 1602 adoption to the future study session. It's easy to get sucked into jargon policy and fiscal analysis when considering housing issues. It's also sadly easy for the public to have perceptions about affordable housing. But let's be clear. What we're talking about is making it easier or even just making it possible for people who we consider essential to our lives and our community. Average salaries for social workers, teachers, first responders, construction workers, restaurant workers, retail workers, just to name a few, would qualify for the housing we're talking about supporting today. In other words, to borrow from the economist Ed Glazer, we must free ourselves from the tendency to see cities as their buildings and remember that the real city is made of flesh, not concrete. Investing in housing is an investment in city-centered economic development and the quality of life for Santa Rosa families and in Santa Rosa's overall sustainability and resilience. And I'm proud to say that the chamber is doing everything that it can to partner on this effort. We are the only chamber of commerce in the country that provides below market rate loans to affordable and workforce housing developments. And I'm always, always, always, always happy to partner with the city on housing as well as other interrelated priorities, which I hope you include as well, such as downtown revitalization, overall economic development, expansion of quality, childcare in our community, and public safety. Thank you. Thank you. The next public comment will be from Ali, followed by Jotie, then Angie. Okay, I'll move along to Jotie, Chandy. Okay, we'll move it to Angie. Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Angie Dillon-Schor and the executive director of first five, Sonoma County. I'm also a member of the board of directors of La Cien, Sonoma County. So I'm speaking tonight on behalf of both organizations as we are closely aligned in our focus on our community's future. As someone who considers the impact of housing scarcity and the escalating rents almost daily, particularly the impacts on families with young children, renters, and especially those who live at the margins of our community due to racial and economic disparities, I can say with confidence that the priorities in your next budget will significantly shape the future for these families. The North Bay next action steps are more than just policy recommendations. They are actually essential strategies for survival and growth in Santa Rosa. So I commend the city for adding the fee waiver and AB 602 adoption to the upcoming study session. This is a huge step in the right direction. We would like to echo our community partners at Generation Housing to strongly urge the council to set a concurrent action item for that evening or the immediate next council meeting so that you can take action before the end of this first quarter. I do wanna take this opportunity to appreciate the council for not only recognizing the importance of early childhood development, but creating local policy that is informed by that understanding. So I don't need to remind you that disruptions in housing, frequent moves, housing insecurity and homelessness are profound barriers to optimal early brain development and school readiness and learning. The research bears this out very clearly. So not only do we have a housing crisis, but we continue to see in first five's annual assessment that nearly a quarter of our community's five year olds who due to disruption in development lack the necessary readiness to succeed when they start kindergarten. This has massive implications for their future and our community's future. So thank you for your commitment to development fee reform for elevating Santa Rosa's housing crisis as a budget priority. Investing in housing is an investment in Santa Rosa's economic vitality in the quality of life for our families and in the city's overall sustainability and resilience. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. The next public comment will be from Ali, followed by Joti, then Thomas. Okay, I will no longer call Ali Joti. Thomas. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the budget priorities. So budget priorities are often representative of typical financial trade offs. So the example would be park impact fees are really capital improvement in lieu fees with in lieu of actually doosing the park within the development so that fee is sitting there but are frequently diverted to maintenance or for deferred larger parks. So that's sitting there and the reason is clear. For instance, at Shinnate a $15 million purchase for 1,000 units means a $15,000 per lot raw cost. Whereas the profit of those is closer to the $250,000 to $350,000 single lot price in the area of Fountain Grove. So if they charge you for a water service, water system access of a single lot and they charge the city $15,000 because that's the raw lot cost and you think, oh, the raw lot cost $15,000 and so it doesn't have a whole lot of meaning but for the developer it's a $250,000 profit that they forego for that lot and the same thing would be true of a park, a small park. So they're not gonna give you that park, they're gonna give you the in lieu fee and then it's gonna go to maintenance and so you don't get any other parks except a large park maybe because there's a climber for parks but that's the way budgets go. So rather than just a trade off, I don't wanna talk to you about a trade off, I wanna talk to you about your building four lanes for Herne Avenue and you're getting two. You can do everything I said within the budget that you have and there's no additional right of way that's required. It's not a typical trade off. It is a part of the budget priorities though because if you don't do it you're gonna have to solve all the problems that you're gonna have with regard to annexation of those areas and the development that Dwayne said there's gonna be a 40,000 people and that doesn't even include the other areas that are already annexed. Once they develop such as the, so right now there's a solution which is sitting there, we have the agreement, the consent agreement on California Tiger Salamanders that requires mitigation banking but there's no banking, it's very expensive. There's a new solution that's being offered to do Tiger Salamander banking that's gonna change that pricing, it's gonna make that airport area able to be developed when it's developed. Now you're gonna have a huge traffic problem. So then you're gonna have, oh, we don't have any money. So how do you do that? It's better to solve it with the money you have. Thank you. The next speaker will be Jenny followed by Joti. Good evening mayor and council members. My name is Jenny Bard and I am the president of the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition and I just wanna thank you all for this budget hearing process. I really support all of the commenters tonight. It's been a very deep breadth of issues, important issues for the city of Santa Rosa. So I appreciate and applaud all of your work on this. I wanna thank you in particular for the wonderful work you're doing on Santa Rosa Avenue. I live in the Burbank Gardens neighborhood and can't wait to ride the bike lane on Santa Rosa Avenue that'll take me straight into downtown very safely. And all the other work you're doing as well, the Armory Drive protected bike lanes, the lower speed limits downtown. I would like to see Humboldt Bike Boulevard added to that list, protected bike lanes on Hearn Avenue eventually, your commitment to the Highway 101 overpass and we know this is just the beginning. So I love seeing that there were 26 letters in your correspondence packet all speaking to the importance of protected bike lanes and bicycle infrastructure throughout the city. And I echo the request to, as Ere said from the bike coalition, at least 25% should be our goal. Many of the roadway improvements that need to happen that we all would like to see can include bicycle infrastructure as well. You've heard about all of the many goals that increasing investments in bicycle infrastructure will address, reducing crashes and fatalities, addressing our climate emergency. One thing that hasn't been mentioned is really helping many more of our children be able to ride a bike safely, not only in their neighborhoods, but to school. Making our city more sustainable and equitable for all those who can't drive such as children or may not be able to. I think the way to look at these investments, they will help us today, most definitely, but they're going to protect lives today and for future generations. So for that, thank you so much for your consideration. Thank you, the next speaker will be Joti. Good evening, council members, mayor and city staff. My name is Joti Chandi with the Chandi Hospitality. I wanted to speak on this houses crisis. First of all, I do want to say thank you to the city staff and council member and mayor of the steps that were taken back in the fires that we lost all those housing. I would hope that we're almost at 100% of what was lost, but I know there's been a proposal of getting the impact fee waived. I think I understand city does not control everything, but I think impact fee is one of those that city does control if it could be waived, it does make or break some of the project, either are in a pipeline or either will get in the pipeline. So I hope on the February 13th study session it's looked at it closely, see if that's something can be waived and it brings more dropper into our city to do those affordable and work for housing. Sonu said it well, we're losing all those workforce from our community that are going to different cities because they can afford to live here. So I hope this is looked at it closely so it is something that could be approved that now as a Chandi Hospitality we're looking at as some work for housing and I do see those droppers shoot because they can pencil these projects. So yeah, thank you. And other thing I wanted to mention since I'm here, I'm on a board of directors on a Wednesday night market that has been happening for 35 years which is on a blink of eye that might not happen this coming year, that would be a 36 years that we will be separately sending an email to the council and a mayor seeing if certain of those budget could be looked over for the Wednesday night market to keep happening for those next 35 years. I have spoken to some of the local downtown business owners. One, it brings all our community together in Old Square House, plus it does benefit the local owners, businesses that are in downtown. So thank you. Thank you. There are no additional names or people that have signed up for public comment on the public hearing for the budget priorities. If there is anyone else in council chamber wishing to provide comment, please make your way to the podium. Mayor, back to you. Thank you. We will now close the public hearing. Council, are there any comments or anything we'd like to say to staff? No, yes. Comment wise, parks, parks, parks, thank you. Thank you. So we'll now move on to item 18, which is the notice of the final map on Stonebridge Home. That is in the packet, item 19, is public comments on non-agenda matters. So if you signed up for public comment on non-agenda matters and you were not able to provide your comment during the first go round, now would be your time to provide your public comment and I'll hand it over to Madam City Clerk. Thank you, Mayor. The first public comment on non-agenda matters under item 19 will be Una, followed by Jeremy. Are you in the room? Oh, thank you. Please go ahead. Okay. On the right hand side of the podium, there is a little toggle up and down. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Una Riesling Scholl. I am a District 5 voter, a lifelong Santa Rosa resident, a member of the Hupa Tribe of California, and a volunteer with MASC Sonoma and Sonoma County Acts of Kindness. Thank you for hearing me. I want to briefly address the ceasefire resolution. My family's indigenous history on California soil means I'm unable to ignore its government from state to local, how it chooses to interact with the world, especially oppressed peoples. What's happening to Palestinians by the State of Israel with over $2.4 million of support from the city of Santa Rosa is devastating to me personally, but it also puts my friends of Arabic and Jewish descent here in Sonoma County in increasing danger. Time is of the essence. I know that some members of Santa Rosa's government are wanting to change how it operates for the better in many ways, both local and beyond. This resolution is a very basic and obvious way to begin as San Francisco demonstrated today. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Please go ahead. Hello. All right. Good evening mayor and city council. My name is Jeremy, a Sonoma County resident, and I'll try to make this quick as others before me have already made this point crystal clear. I implore the city of Santa Rosa to adopt a ceasefire resolution as soon as possible. It's imperative to act as every day more and more innocent lives are lost. And the United States has played a major role in the funding of that loss of life, of the genocide that is currently happening in Palestine. This funding that is used for war and death could instead be used here to provide localities with affordable housing, with houselessness, with the creation of new parks and much, much more stuff that we've already heard people talk about today. So I like, please city council, I ask of all of you to work with community organizations calling for a ceasefire and show your support for human life. Thank you. Thank you. The next commenter will be Gary, followed by Hannah. Council members, thank you for being here. Can you hear me now? Yes, thank you. Yes. For a lot of years I've been sad and affected by the plight of the Palestinian people. Y lo que está pasando ahora es casi increíble. Y tenemos que ser una voz para ellos. Y no veo esto como un issue juicio, pero la gente con poder abuso esos sin poder. Y necesita cambiar. Y yo tengo dos hijas, mí mismo, uno en la tierra y uno en la vivienda. Yo vivo en Santa Rosa. Y yo personalmente no puedo apoyar a ningún council member que va junto con la genocidia de las personas palestinianas. Quiero decir, con nuestra propia historia de la genocidia de las personas de estas tierras donde estamos, me apagé que estamos evitando a Israel para cometer el mismo acto. Yo, por favor, no quiero ninguna de mis dolares de taxa en la pata de la sangre. Ciertamente, los de nosotros con los niños y otros no pueden continuar a hacer un ojo blindado. Perceptuos están cambiando, por cierto, y yo sugiero que el council diga que hay un incendio ahora y no esperará más y que estén en el lado derecho de la historia y que, mientras todavía podemos salvar algunas vidas, esto debe ser resolvido y es lo más que podemos hacer. Gracias por escuchar. Gracias. El próximo comentario publico será de Hannah, seguido por Nhuí Lee. Entonces, Tess, gracias, Hannah. Hola. Mi nombre es Hannah Barracat. Soy americana de Lebanese y estoy aquí a solicitar una resolución de incendio para que sea adoptada para la ciudad de Santa Rosa. Lo que está pasando en Gaza ha creado en mi y mi familia a la cor. Los horarios que hemos visto, escuchado de amigos y familia y también los horarios que hemos escuchado de uno de nuestros miembros de familia que es un jornalista en el Bank West cubriendo las atrocidades que están tomando en lugar. Están más allá de mi peor niña. Los dolares de taxas aquí son, literalmente, la fundación de la genocidia israelí. Y el apoyo de la U.S. ha dado la cobertura para ir a este tiempo. No quiero mi dinero de taxa fundido por la violencia. No puedo imaginar una buena conciencia que nadie más podría. La razón de una resolución de incendio aquí es enviar un mensaje para el país y la liderazgo nacional para hablar y dejar de la violencia. Dejó esta genocidia. Quiero mis dolares de taxas a ir a mi comunidad instead. Hacer a las personas cuidando el ambiente y pagando para los servicios aquí. Reinvestir aquí, en donde estamos. Mi nombre es Hannah. De nuevo, me gustaría solicitar una cifra. Gracias mucho por tomar el tiempo para escuchar. Gracias. El próximo comentario publico será de Inhui Lee, seguido por Tess Vendales. Hola, bienvenida. Mayor y miembros de la comunidad. Esta es la segunda vez que veo a ti en persona. Mi nombre es Inhui Lee. Soy un residente, viviendo en la Tierra 5. Estoy aquí conmigo para incendiar a los miembros de la resolución de la violencia. Para la violencia, hay una gran crisis terrible, terrible humanitaria, que está pasando en Palestine. Y la violencia es solo el primer paso para ayudar a la crisis humanitaria. Y yo vivía en el medio de la guerra coreana, y puedo realmente relacionar con lo que las personas en Palestine están pasando por ahora. Mi madre tenía cinco niños y todos murieron, excepto mi y mi hermana. Tres murieron en infancia porque no hay comida, no hay medicina. Y esto es después de... La tierra. Entonces, la tierra es el principio, pero más sufrimiento, más sufrimiento, estoy 72 años, y en el sur y en Corea, estamos aún en la guerra. Así que también puedo relacionar con mi madre, que me subí en mi cama cómoda en Santa Rosa, California, en Estados Unidos, pero mis niños son aca y me traen para siempre y me necesitan sonridos en mi cama y me necesitan ayuda con mis tiendas, y todo ese tipo de cosas como madre grandiosa. Entonces, me pregunté, estoy pensando en madre grandiosa en Palestine, cómo se evenan? No se evenan en la cama, se evenan en la cama, en el río, y cómo... No hay medicina, no hay comida, y no sé cómo... O sea, todos nosotros, no sé cómo ser un socialista, o un budista, un budista, o no, para tener una compesión. Podemos relacionar con mi madre grandiosa, con mi padre grandiosa, con las casas, las casas, que vienen de tu corazón. Por favor, ransom contagioso, una releiliaría más tutoring, pero esto no esuyo, sino una conditionera humanitaria en los palestinos, y te confieso, porque�� serviciosanciado Andodynamio, y no he mustado por otro... Y using Wearman, por esto, me llamado, me heetu sexo, el próximo speaker will be tests followed by Dallas then Jacqueline hi my name is tests and it's a pleasure to be in front of the Santa Rosa City Council tonight Mayor Rogers and my own representative Miss Fleming. It's great to be in front of you again. Additionally, it's great to be within a large group of community members who care very deeply for what is happening in Palestine today and for the past 75 years. Today we've come here to ask you the City of Santa Rosa to speak on behalf of the City of Santa Rosa and join other cities like San Francisco just this evening, Davis a while ago, Detroit there are other cities we could name who have signed ceasefire resolutions to say that their city does not stand for genocidal violence like it is being currently committed. Additionally, last time I spoke in front of you all I reminded you of California's history of genocide. California committed genocide against the indigenous peoples just as Israel is committing genocide against the indigenous peoples same story different decade. I would like to speak additionally to the idea that this is a foreign issue and not one that should be managed on the local level. I like many here in this room are and I'm beside myself with grief and pain as day after day, hour after hour. There is just a barrage of photo and video evidence of a genocide happening right here right now in real time on our planet. I've seen too many dead babies for one lifetime. I've seen too many dead children, too many dead women, dead men, dead people, and I don't want to see it anymore, but I can't look away because looking away doesn't stop it from happening. I've seen bodies dismembered, mangled, riddled with bullets and burnt beyond recognition. And when I see them, I wonder with each dead body, each dead person, I wonder if my taxes paid for that bullet in that person's chest or if my taxes paid for that bomb that eviscerated a bakery or the missile that took out in an entire bloodline of a whole family. I wonder where my tax dollars are in this genocide. I know that they are there. Most of us now have seen the more horrific things than we've ever wanted to see in one lifetime happening in Palestine. And here tonight, you, the city, the city council for the city of Santa Rosa can make a tangible effects on our lives here. You can say to the community that you affirm that this is a city that does not support genocidal violence. We are not asking you to move mountains or create world peace tonight, but we are asking you to affirm, along with countless members of this community that you represent, that genocidal violence is not a value that the city of Santa Rosa upholds. Thank you. Thank you. The next public comment will be from Dallas, followed by Jacqueline then summer. Hi Dallas. Go ahead. Good evening. My name is Dallas Walmack. I'm a Santa Rosa resident in Sonoma County born and raised. I'm a software engineer specializing in cybersecurity, one of the industries that is most prevalently known for handling extraordinary circumstances. The National Institute of Standards and Technology outlines a cybersecurity framework for handling these sorts of extra ordinary occurrences. These one of many cybersecurity networks that kind of outlines how to handle these things. The NIST cybersecurity framework outlines identity or identifying, protecting, detecting, responding and recovering from extraordinary circumstances. We have found ourselves as members of this world in an extraordinary circumstance and we need to do the first step to be able to handle this, which is to identify. Identifying this circumstance is going to be by adopting the ceasefire resolution and acknowledging that what is happening in Gaza is unacceptable, unacceptable and needs to be addressed. The ceasefire opportunity allows for peaceful resolution and negotiations to exist. That allows us to move on to protecting, protecting the people, everyone who is involved in the conflict. We are able to detect the different areas that are causing these things, respond to them and therefore recover from them. If we are trusting different cybersecurity organizations to protect ourselves from power grids, to water supplies, to banking institutions, why do we not try to adopt the same sort of mindset when we are trying to protect each other, when we are trying to protect humanity. It seems like a reasonable thing to me, I think that taking the step forward allows Santa Rosa to be a part of the solution, be a part of peace talks, be a part of moving forward and creating a future that is safe for everyone. Thank you. Thank you. The next public comment will be from Jacqueline, followed by Summer, then Samaya. Can you hear me okay? Good evening, honorable mayor, council members and staff. Thank you all through time this evening. My name is Jacqueline O'Neal-Mermay, I come to you as a constituent of District 5 and also as a fellow professional public servant, I work in local government in another bay area municipality. I'm here today to echo and amplify the voices of so many other community members, my neighbors, who I'm very proud to stand next to today, who have already spoken urging you to join so many cities, Oakland, Richmond, San Francisco. And the call for an immediate and sustained ceasefire, and a call to end financial and my military support to Israel. You've heard the numbers and statistics and no doubt, I believe you have seen with your own eyes through your phone and on your screens at home, the absolute devastation that is occurring in Palestine, not just today or yesterday or since October, but for the last 75 years. It is our duty to humanity to condemn these actions. Not only do these atrocities require that we speak out against them, but I implore you to consider the ripple effects that can occur, including exacerbating anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in our own community as well as abroad. Your own resolution passed in November of 2001 declares racism, a public health and humanitarian crisis. That's your resolution. Genocide is the ultimate tragic iteration of racism and our tax dollars are funding it. The request for resolution is not controversial. Please listen to your constituents, listen to these community organizations, faith leaders, your neighbors who are coming to you, begging you. And I'm begging you to just look inside your own hearts and look within your own humanity when you consider making this call. Any delay in doing so is shameful at this point. We know what's happening. You as elected, you have been entrusted to do the public good. So please I am begging you to do it. As my neighbor said, we don't expect this to make a massive change in foreign policy. But I know that we all believe in the power of local government. We all believe that changes start small and they require our dedication and our persistence. Our community needs our tax funds here. Our unhoused neighbors need our tax funds here. Our educational system needs our tax funds here. Please, please do the right thing. To be silent is to be complicit. Thank you for your time. Thank you. The next speaker will be Summer followed by Samaya. Good evening. Thank you so much for your time. My name is Summer Abduchalik. I am speaking in support of a ceasefire resolution to be adopted. As a young person and also as someone of Palestinian descent. I've struggled with adequate housing, student loan debt, inflation, climate crisis here in Sonoma County and these issues are connected. I believe that our tax dollars need to focus on issues here that are. That are more important. My sorry. My father was born in a refugee camp in the West Bank in 1949 after my family was displaced from Nazareth in 1948. To see families continue to be displaced in my father's homeland is a pain that is hard to describe. Every time I see a video of a mother in Gaza struggling to take care. Of her children or be pregnant and have to give birth in the midst of this genocide. I see my own grandmother who had to survive the same oppressive forces. Palestinians want to live life. They want the freedom to return the freedom to travel the simple ability to live a normal life. A resolution here in the city I live in is of utmost importance. As a taxpaying citizen I'm continuously disappointed by our elected officials who are ignoring the majority of the public calling for a ceasefire. Please as our most local form of a governing body I'm asking you to put a ceasefire resolution on the agenda and call for the easiest, most peaceful thing that you can do. And that is to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire. Thank you. Thank you. The next public comment will be from Samaya. Good evening. My name is Sumayam Ugannam. I'm a longtime Sonoma County resident. I would first like to say I am not Palestinian, but I am a proud Christian Arab woman. I am married to an amazing Palestinian man and have Palestinian children. My 84 year old father-in-law is a byproduct of the 1948 NECBA. I implore you to pass a ceasefire resolution. We need to stand up for both Palestinian and Israelis that are being killed during this genocide. I want you to know that my family and I were just able to visit Israel and Palestine this past June. You cannot understand the horrific nature that the Palestinians are living until you see it firsthand. The starvation plus living that they are all living by needing water jugs above their homes in order to get fresh water because they only get running water four days a week. I want you to pass this resolution to tell all Palestinians that their lives matter. That includes my children. Lastly, I want to share with you a little something about our culture because there's a lot of misconceptions about the Middle Eastern Arabic culture. My father taught this to our family and it is something that is shared amongst most Middle Eastern families. We are a welcoming culture. Our worst enemies can knock on our front door and what we're going to do is open that door and welcome you in to have a cup of coffee and to break bread with us. This is a type of culture we are. This is a type of culture we like to share. It is not what you always see on the news and what propaganda that is being spread. So again, I implore you, please stand up, do what's right, stop sending our tax dollars to a word that we don't need to be in. Thank you. Thank you. May I see no one else approaching the podium for public comment on non-agenda matters and that was the last speaker who had signed up. Thank you. Seeing no additional items on the agenda for tonight, we will now adjourn the meeting.