 I'm going to call the meeting of the Capitola City Council for Thursday, October 25th to order. May I have a roll call, please? Council Member Harlan. Here. Council Member Bertrand. Here. Council Member Peterson. Here. Council Member Batoir. Here. Mayor Termini. Here. Please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Of the United States of America. And to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, and it is a role of liberty and justice for all. May I have a reward on closed session, please? Yes. Oh, sorry, John. Don't worry. I mean to catch you off-guard. Thank you. The Council heard from our negotiator, Larry Laurent, with regard to the ongoing negotiations with the Capitola Police Officers Association. The Council took no reportable action on closed session, but on the Council's consent agenda tonight is a motion to approve a new Memorandum of Understanding with the Capitola Police Officers Association. So some action will be taken, but that will be taken in open session tonight. With regard to the Greenway litigation, Capitola Juan Escamilla versus Linda Freedy, the Council heard from the city attorney and gave us directions with regard to the ongoing litigation, but took no reportable action closed session. And finally, the Council took no reportable action in closed session on the liability claim of Patricia Dawn, but again, that item is on the Council's consent agenda this evening in open session. Thank you. That's the end of my all report. Are there any additional materials? We had one item come in for 8A and letter from the appellant. We'll go on to public comments. Any member of the public who would like to address the Council on items not on the ceiling agenda, please step up to the podium. Welcome. Hello, Mayor Councilman. Gary Richard Arnold. My concern is the lack of democracy and checks and balances. We have a shadow government that's been operating in the Tri-County area for a decade or more. It's called AMBAG, Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments. There is absolutely no, there is zero community TV. There is very seldom a mention of it in the newspapers. All three newspapers were walked by Bill Gates and turned over to Globalist. It violates representation at the last meeting when they met in Corito. They said that every single elected individual in the three-county areas in the 16 cities were lobbying for the tax increase, the increase also in registration and a prohibition for voter approval of any future taxes. So that's the position you are that they put you on record with. You never checked with people that voted for you. AMBAG is nothing more than a Soviet. It was years ago in England that the Fabian Socialist Society in the research of paper number 63 advocated regional government. And that's why anything that happens locally has to be approved in the Hague. It's the pre-foundation for a North American Union like we have a European Union where they lost their nationality and everybody's a globalist. The red Chinese communist collaborator, Leon Panetta, there's two plaques on the courthouse steps dedicated to that communist spy. He founded an organization called California Forward, which is an extension of common cause, which was headed by John Gardner, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and sat ahead of the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation. The vice president of the California Forward is Lenny Mundeka. He belongs to the Committee for Economic Democracy. They advocate the destruction of 80% of local government, and they want to reduce it down to the Soviets like AMBAG and ABAG and SCAG and all the rest of these outfits. The AMBAG and all these other organizations work with and make contracts, which is a violation of the Logan Act, which I don't think has ever been enforced, but a front for the World Bank and the United Nations is called ICLEI. Those contracts are being pushed on you throughout this committee, through every elected body under the guise of ICLEI. It is also, Zach Fran and John Leopold has been threatening violence to both people and property. Time to wrap up. The network is a Panetta network, which is about 70% of the local elected officials. It also includes the Republican Party, which is now run by Jim Reed, who is part of that network. Thank you. Anyone else like to address the Council on items not on the Senate's agenda? Not on the agenda. I hope this is correct. Go ahead. If I understand, it's public before you start. This is public comment, not on an agenda item. So if it's on the agenda, this isn't the time. I apologize. It's okay. Okay. Thank you. My name is Tina Andrea. And for 26 years, I had a small business here in Capitola on 41st Avenue and also here in Capitola. Before retiring, I have lived in Capitola. The house is across the street from me. The rail line is behind those houses. And I'm asking you, please do not postpone the rail with the trail option that's going over the trestle. I think it's very important that we remember the safety for our children, that going through the Capitola Village is not that safe. I do ride my bike through Capitola Village a lot. I think we need inclusive. We need to not postpone. Build it now. Don't be exclusive. Include our children, our grandchildren. Think about millennials who do not drive. Also our elders and four ex-mayors recommend voting no on Measure L, which are some of them having past council members. And I do not want to see that you folks have your hands tied that you cannot work with the RTC. And again, back what I think is very important, the safety of our kids and our grandkids, please do not postpone the rail and the trail, but the trail right now going over the trestle. Thank you. Thank you. Next. Good evening. My name is Barry Scott. I live in Aptos, kind of in between Capitola and Watsonville. I spend a lot of time in Watsonville, frankly, because it's easier to get to, but I want to spend more time in Capitola. I come with a couple of pieces of good news, I hope. One, and you guys have been following this, I'm sure one of the pieces of good news. The Unified Corridor Study, long awaited, has come out with some preliminary findings. I think they're valid and instructive with a scenario B that has very good scores, the best scores in economic vitality, the best scores in lowering greenhouse gas reduction. Scenario B is a rail and trail inclusive, as well as improvements to metro, bike paths, and so forth. Scenario B features the greatest, the largest bike mode share, meaning the greatest number of percentage of people using bikes, the greatest transit mode share, meaning the greatest number of people using transit. It also uses the entire corridor, the full corridor, for transit, whereas the bus rapid transit option stops at State Park. There's other advantages to the project, including the greatest reduction in collisions. So from a safety point of view, scenario B scores very well. I know that there are trail-only advocates who are going to argue with that findings, those findings, and that's fine, that's how it works. But I'm here to encourage you to look very closely at the Unified Corridor Investment Study findings and then proceed, as you will. My other good piece of news is Tuesday night at the Watsonville City Council after extensive debate, after hearing a presentation from the RTC and less from the RTC and more from the city's own analysts on what they want to see happen, we had resulted in a unanimous vote, unanimous City Council vote to support scenario B with some adjustments, for instance, to include freight and some other tweaks, some added highway capacity. But the point is they were very clear that their video will be available, some very good discussion and interaction with the RTC Deputy Director Mendez. I think it's very informative and I'll make that available, I'll share some YouTube links when it's available on their website. Thank you. That's my good news, thank you. Next. Hello council, mayor, guests. My name is Gray Jamison. I come to you tonight bearing a letter from Mayor Lowell Hirst of Watsonville, which he asked me to read to you. So I'll proceed to read that and then continue with my comments. So, dear council, mayor, guests, no of my interest in the RTC plans and in what it means for jobs, economic growth, and quality of life for our residents in Watsonville. With five current rail freight customers, I believe it is premature to remove the tracks and give up hope for future passenger transport as envisioned as envisioned with the RTC purchase of the rail line a few years ago. While there remain many hurdles to get to the future, paying back the state for the rail bed is probably not something that the tax-paying public will go for. They would more likely want to fix the freeway and let the rail bed right of way remain unused for the present rather than removing the track forever. But the addition of a trail along the rail sounds good too. Mayor Lowell Hirst. So, with that out of the way, I would like to add my own comment. I am a high school student. I bike almost everywhere I go. When I don't bike I ride the bus. I don't plan on owning a car. And the trail and the rail would be very useful for me to get around. Measure L is, well, it's a problem for the city and for people like me who bike around. I urge you to vote no on Measure L. And I need a way to get to Carrillo when I start going there next year. And biking through Capitola all the way down the hill and all the way up the hill with all of my heavy textbooks is going to be very, very difficult every day. And that is not something I look forward to. So I hope that a bridge for pedestrians across the trestle will be built at some point in the future. And that we may keep the tracks open for the rail line as well. Thank you. Thank you. And it's refreshing to see a high school student come up and be that eloquent and poised. I appreciate it. Yes. Most adults aren't able to do that. Just remember that. And carry on. Welcome. You can make me a liar. It's all right. My name is Stu Kaufman. Stu Ginsburg Kaufman. And I've been living in Capitola for, I think, close to 20 years. I live on Deepo Hill. Been there for at least 14, well, most of that time actually. I haven't dated it. But I wanted to talk to you about, I feel very strongly about no on L. And let me tell you why. In the late 40s and 50s, when I was raised in Los Angeles, they had a red car. And my mom and I used to take this red car. And this red car would take you down into the city of Los Angeles in like 15 minutes. And then suddenly it all disappeared. Oh, because Jim, I think, got involved. They wanted to put buses in. They wanted oil, usage. They wanted tires, et cetera. So now that same ride took us like 45 minutes with a couple of transfers. My mom is really upset about that. So I want to bring that to your attention. After that timeframe, of course, the air got worse. I developed asthma. I had asthma quite bad when I lived in Los Angeles. I don't have it here, but I had it there. So I feel very strongly that we should have the rail and trail. And one of the reasons I feel that way is because we've got to think of the future. This is not going to be just for us. Some people say, well, I don't want to have any type of trail, not trail, but transit inside of Santa Cruz. I just want to widen the freeways. That's not correct. I mean, we have to think about the future of our kids, our grandkids, our great grandkids. I've got an 18-year-old grandson that doesn't drive, doesn't even have an intention to. I mean, he's fine taking rapid transit or Uber or his mother. So, you know, I mean, it's a different world for these younger people. And I think we really got to give us some thought to having some type of transit here. You know, a rail is wonderful. There is somebody who's knocking on my door, you know, I'm living a deep uphill. I don't understand anything about measure L. And he says that I will be able to ride my bike or walk on this trail. Are you kidding me? Do you think I'm going to go anywhere walking or riding a bike? Young people are, but it's not going to be me. It's mostly not going to be my friend. So I think this is totally impractical. I also think it's going to take less people off the freeways. So I know there are mayors in here, one mayor in particular, that feel strongly about voting no on L. I know that we've got three others who feel very strongly about that. So I just want to say, I feel that we should consider having some type of transit, a rail line. And like I said, it probably won't be done in our lifetime. Thank you. Thank you, Sue. Next. Good evening, council members. My name is Paula Bradley. I live in Capitola and I'm a cyclist. I'm here to urge you to vote no on L. I was surprised to start seeing the yes on L signs in Capitola saying save the trestle. That's a very misleading statement. No one is proposing not to save the trestle and not the rail trail group. Another correction. The rail trail route is on the Capitola trestle. It does not include a detour on village streets as stated by the yes on L greenway group and also misstated in the local media. The rail trail is an approved, funded 32 mile multi-use trail from Davenport to Watsonville, leaving open the option to have future rail or something like that. The rail trail has been in the public review process for 20 years. And all Santa Cruz cities and the county supported it. Construction will start at the end of the year. Most of the trail will be completed in four years and it will entirely be completed in 10 years. Greenway has no approved or funded trail. If measure L passes there will be no trail in Capitola for another 10 or 20 years longer. Measure L will prohibit Capitola from spending money or staff time for any bike route improvements including any signage on the any trail other than a human powered transportation on the trestle. Greenway supporters prefer no trail rather than to have a trail that includes a future possibility of rail. I believe Santa Cruz county should keep our options open. So we have another transit corridor other than highway one. The trestle and rail right of way is not is owned by the regional transportation commission, not Capitola. No trail will be funded on the trestle until a study is completed to see what could possibly be built on the trestle. The RTC has a $50,000 study underway right now to answer that question. It doesn't make sense to me to throw a wrench in the rail trail, leave Capitola out of the plan, tie the city's hands and continue to have only the bike route on city streets that we now have because that's all that's what we have existing and that's all we're going to have until something else is built. The RTC's unified corridor study investment study estimated 118 more vehicle, bicycle and pedestrian collisions every year when compared to using the rail corridor for a combined rail and trail. The cost of those collisions is estimated at $26 million per year. Thank you. You have to wrap up now. Vote no on measure L. Thank you. Thank you. Would anyone else like to address the council? I'll bring it back. It's clear this is the last meeting before election day, so we'll keep on going here. We'll now move on to city council, treasurer and staff comment staff. Do you have anything for us? Seeing none. Oh, you do. A public works director has updated the library. I'm sorry, Steve. Good evening, mayor and council. I just want to rise to council and everybody out in the city capitol that will be breaking ground on our new library on Friday, November 9th from 11 a.m. to noon. Everyone is certainly invited. We will be introducing the project donors and kicking off construction, so I hope everybody can make that. And then quick update on the project itself. Site fencing should be going up next week sometime and demolition of the building will commence the week following the groundbreaking ceremony. And our project manager, architect and contractor continue to hammer out the details on the cost savings change orders. They everything is looking positive to meet the goals of those and they hope to have those in place in early November. Fantastic. We'll bring our gold shovels. Thank you. We'll have them ready. I know that. Those are the ones I was going to bring. Staff, anything else? Mr. Treasurer, what do you have to tell us? Well, I'd just like to take credit for an effective financial advisory committee meeting we had last week. We discussed a couple things, but the most interesting in my opinion was 50,000 plus dollars we found in effectively harboring our measure S funds and putting them in lay for a year and being able to get 2.65% interest on that money as opposed to just letting it sit in Wells Fargo. So that was an interesting discussion. We decided on it and we're moving forward with that. So we've got a little extra money in the bank. I think it came to almost 100,000 by the time we were finished massaging it, wasn't it? Well, I assumed 2 million. 50,000, 100,000. Sometimes you're talking about real money. Okay. It buys a lot of bio trash bags. Yes. Okay. We'll move on to the council. Ed. I have a comment, but I think I might like to defer my time to the treasurer. He may have overlooked that. Would you like to give the council an update on the improvements at Peary Park? Yes. We expected you to do that, but I don't want to steal your thunder. You glossed over your hard work. Well, there was, so we had Katie in the environmental council meeting and we also had that this week and we were able to finish spending her money with George and company and finishing the Peary Park Soquel Creek rehabilitation project and got her to at least sort of kind of promise to continue the project up the creek and all the way to red tree properties, but that's something for the next council to consider. But we have, I think the environmental committee has got something to be proud of because we've actually with a lot of volunteer work and minimal funding, we're able to restore a significant portion of Soquel Creek, particularly Peary Park. So with that, I can also suggest that there are openings on the environmental committee coming this next year. So if you have a pet project, if anybody out there and we've done more things than just Soquel Creek, we've had beach cleanup activities, we've had all kinds of special environmental activities that because we have public works departments rabid attention for an hour, we can get things done and we have a member of the city council on the committee as well. So if you do have an environmental concern or a project, that's a way to get it done. Volunteer, get appointed on the environmental committee and you've got your local government behind you. Very good, thank you. Thank you. Anything to add, Ed? That's all I had to say. That's good. Kristen. Yeah, I just wanted to point out that on Monday is going to be the unveiling of the Esplanade Park sculpture. I'm really excited about that sea lion sculpture that kids get to climb on and play around. And so I'm looking forward to it and hope to see you there. And that's at four o'clock, I think, right? Yes, it is. Thank you. Four o'clock, Esplanade Park. Shock. I've been busy. Good. Okay, we'll move right along. Stephanie. Nothing new. Thank you. Nothing new. I have a few items. Chief, would you come on up to the podium? RVIPs received a very significant award this week. And I'm going to bring the chief up to explain it. It was impressive. Mr. Mayor, Council members, thanks for the invite to speak briefly about the recognition and the award presented to our volunteer RVIPs program with the police department this past Wednesday at the annual luncheon conducted by the Santa Cruz Volunteer Organization. This organization each year recognizes selects and recognizes 50 people groups or entities as the top volunteers for the year represent the entire county. Our RVIPs, our volunteers with the police department were recommended for selection and I was really happy to learn several weeks ago that they in fact were going to be honored during this event. And so we had several of them attend the event with Sergeant Sarah Ryan. They are really excited to be recognized with this countywide event and I thank them for all their service they provide to us in the entire city. They're everywhere all the time. I appreciate it. Thank you, Chief. Mr. City Manager, I know we all received an email regarding a concern that some of the village merchants had that we had an event recently and unlike other events this not only took up some parking, which is fine, but they also invited food vendors, and Desmonade Park and and and other vendors and hopefully I know we're going to get a report in the next few weeks on special events that will be able to tune it up so that we can we have plenty of places to eat and it's not like Art & Wine where you have 10,000 people. We should be more careful with that. Mr. Mayor, members of the council, I have looked into that and frankly we are going to be discussing the special event wrap up for the year or next meeting and I can assure you that the it was a it didn't meet my expectations for how the permits were going to be issued and unfortunately it was issued as a minor special event permit and clearly was not. So we will be tuning that up and bringing it to the council next meeting. Fantastic. Thank you. This following week on November 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th, we'll have our third annual Capitola Plenaire event on Thursday and Friday and Saturday. You'll see artists all around town, 40 of them in picturesque places I'm sure, painting live on the street scenes that you see every day. Check them out, try not to bother them too much but they're always ready to talk to passersby and on that Sunday from I think it's 10 to 4, we'll have a shelling of all the paintings they did over the weekend. It'll be at New Brighton Middle School, there'll be a food truck there, there'll be music, it's a great time, it's a great place and finally I want to give a shout out to a resident of Capitola who has gained some acclaim and is now living with us full time and he goes by the name of Crazy George, anybody who's lived here at any amount of time, no Crazy George, lives in Capitola now, he's been beating a tambourine for a long time and I just want to say hi Crazy George, welcome to Capitola. We'll move on to the Consent Calendar. These are items that are taken in a single vote by the council. Is there anyone on the council or in the audience who would like to pull an item on the Consent Calendar? Ed? I would like to pull item D just for a brief comment by the city manager to explain what this money's all about. Why don't we just have that now so we can take care of it. This is the fund balance for the Monterey Bay community power? Mr. Mayor, members of the council, this is approving basically releasing $134,000 that we had set aside as restricted fund balance to help guarantee a startup loan for Monterey Bay community power. Each one of the different entities that were participants in Monterey Bay community power were asked to do this, basically to back up a bank loan, if you will, to start the operations at Monterey Bay community power. So what this means is that with the revenue coming in now from Monterey Bay community power, they've been able to retire that debt and we are able to unrestrict the fund balance which was used to guarantee the loan. Thank you. Thank you. My concern to that was I just think the public should know that we took a little risk on that and it was a good investment and the project's moving forward as we had hoped and I just think it's good news we needed to share. Even better, I think we retired that loan a year ahead of time? Yes, definitely ahead of schedule. It was a year ahead of schedule so always good news. Thank you. Thank you for that update. Appreciate it. Anyone else like to pull an item or have a question? Anyone from the audience seeing none? Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? Motion approved. Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Passes unanimously. We'll move on to general government and public hearings. The first item is item 8a, considered appeal of planning commission's permit denial for application 17-019 at 415 Capitola Road, the Sears building. Katie. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council. Before you this evening as an appeal with a request to continue for 4015 Capitola Road, otherwise known as the Sears location, which is part of the Capitola Mall. It's located in the Regional Commercial Zoning District. The application includes a master sign program as well as a design permit. I'm going to go over a brief history of this. Where this is an appeal and they've asked for a continuance, I'll keep my presentation brief and I can get into the details if you'd like following, so with any questions. But in December of 2016, the Planning Commission reviewed a conceptual review for the application. Two months following that, the application was submitted. We got updated plans about a year after and due to not meeting the time limits, the 30-day time limit for sending out an incomplete letter, the applicant requested to go to hearing under the Permit Streamlining Act. Once we deemed that it was a valid request, we placed them on the June 7th Planning Commission hearing. During that hearing, the Planning Commission at a 3-2 vote denied the application with prejudice and a denial with prejudice means that they're not allowed to submit or the city's not allowed to receive an application for the similar application on the same property within one year's time. Since the denial, we received an appeal of the Planning Commission decision. When they did appeal, we set up a few dates. We could take them to the immediate next hearing. They asked to be heard at the October hearing, which is this evening, so four months past when they appealed. Other big events that have happened as Sears has since announced that they're going to close. We had a deadline of September 15th for additional materials to be heard at this hearing and at that time, they were not able to provide us with any new documentation as of September 15th. But I will say over the past three weeks, we've been working very closely with the applicant talking about the future of this application and what's necessary in order for the Council to review the application in full. So here's a site plan of the Capitola Mall and the Sears property. It's interesting, the Sears property is just about 100,000 square feet. It makes up a little over 23% of the mall. So it's a large portion of the Capitola Mall and under their application, they're proposing a TJ Maxx as well as a Petco and then the front portion of the building to remain Sears. But as you know, we've recently gotten the information that Sears will be closing. When the Planning Commission reviewed this application, they denied it for several reasons. One was that it didn't comply with the Capitola General Plan. They expressed that a lot of time had been put into the General Plan over the past five years and that they wanted to see an effort to really make the future of the mall follow the guidance of the General Plan. Some of the issues, I'm sorry, I'm going to back up for a minute, also included in this proposal was the development pads out along the streets, each are 4,000 square feet and that's part of their phase two and the phase two also includes improvements to the bicycle lanes as well as pedestrian improvements from Capitola Road to the Sears location. So again, in the Planning Commission's denial of the General Plan, they looked at circulation. They found issues with the fact that the new development would not connect to the Capitola Mall. They also wanted to see increased pedestrian safety between Target and Sears. They also requested more bicycle lanes throughout the project and in terms of the design, the Planning Commission gave positive feedback on the new Sears building. They thought it was really a well-designed building. It has an identity, a modern look to it. In their discussions, they were not satisfied with the design of the TJMAX and the PECCO as of this point. It didn't really have a specific identity and would have requested revisions had it been continued to another hearing. So to move forward with this project at this point, we have different information in front of us. We've got a project that includes the Sears, which we know is going out of business. So we'd need an updated project description as well as project plans to either to do away with the Sears if it's not getting revamped. We would also need to know during the Planning Commission hearing their attorney spoke and said at this point we'd like to remove the pads from the proposal. So the plans that we have right now have the pads in them and Phase 2 also includes the improvements that the Planning Commission had asked for in terms of pedestrian improvements and the bicycle improvements. So clarity on the plans in terms of what, if there is a Phase 2 or removing the pads and putting any improvements on the application itself. And third was there was a master sign program included in the program. I do have a letter from their architect at one point stating that shouldn't be no longer included in the application, but then talking with the applicants, they had wanted the master sign program included in the application. So we just really need an updated project description to know exactly what will be under review should this be continued and come back to you. In terms of environmental analysis, the previous use was an automotive center. They're currently in the process of a facility closure permit with the county. And during the time that since the denial they have been working with the county on doing analysis and soil sampling until we know the environmental impacts that exist at the automotive center and we, and they've figured out the appropriate mitigation for the, for the impacts. We, we cannot do our CEQA analysis. And so in deferred mitigation, the applicant has stated several times that staff could move forward with an exemption. And at this point, we cannot deferred mitigation is not allowed under CEQA. Second is stormwater compliance and staff has always been consistent in that when a project planning project comes in, we do not take projects to planning commission until we have preliminary compliance with stormwater to the effect that we know they will not change the site plan. So Olive Garden, it took a long process with Olive Garden to get them in front of planning commission because there was the plans, we couldn't get to that finding that their substantial compliance of the site plan would not be impacted. So that also needs work on this application. So the pending information is the updated project description and plans, environmental analysis as well as stormwater compliance. Once we have those items, we can move on with CEQA. CEQA, if it's, if it qualifies for an exemption, then we'll look at that. If it's, it may require a mitigated neg deck. And that takes a minimum of a, it'll take a minimum of 30 days to do the public noticing and the public comment period. So, and then after we've completed the CEQA review, then we can go, the city council may be able to make a decision on this application. In terms of the general plan concerns that the planning commission had, it was really, how does this development fit within an overall future redevelopment of the mall? And the applicant has come forward with a MOU towards a specific plan saying that they'll participate in a future specific plan. And we've, that's something we've been working on in the past three weeks closely with the applicant and they submitted a letter, it was the last item in your whole packet stating that they're committed to working with staff and putting together the details of a specific plan for this site for future redevelopment. So with that, our recommended action this evening is to continue the appeal to the, to January 24th. And with the commitment from the applicant, which is the last attachment within your packet, to continue to work with staff on the MOU towards a specific plan and that they'll make a good faith effort to submit the updated project plan and plans, project description and plans, the updated stormwater plans and environmental site analysis by December 15th, 2018. Question for you. The applicant's letter we received is additional material. There is a typo in there, is there not? They're asking for a continuance to January 24th, 2018. I'm assuming they mean 2019. That's correct. Very good. Any questions of staff? You have a question? Yeah. Can you just talk a little bit about what the site plan is, especially for the benefit of the public? In terms of the MOU, what kind of assurances do we have that they will faithfully review our general plan and include the public in that process and basically fulfill some of the things that we feel are important to capital? So the site plan question is what is the site, what is the site plan? And a site plan is, it shows the site and the property lines and all future development that will happen on the site. And I think also you're probably requesting me to refer to what a specific plan is. Sorry. And sorry. Okay. Thank you. So a specific plan is a planning tool. It's, in addition to your general plan, you can have a specific plan that provides a clear guidance on what the future development would be on a site. And it's often when you can do a specific plan for an area that's owned by one owner or by multiple owners. And the process is that you typically, a city would go through a stakeholder review and have different stakeholder committees, which are often made up of property owners, capital of residents, capital of businesses. So you'd have multiple types of stakeholders that would come in through and be involved from the beginning. And once the stakeholders and you typically do public outreach for community meetings in which people can come in and make comments of what they'd like to see for future redevelopment them all. And those ideas are put into plans. And typically you start off with options, different plan options in which then you have go through the public process again and show the public the different options. And there becomes an option that rises to the top or a mix of combination of different features of the option. And in the end, you have a specific plan that's gone through a vetted process with the public as well as the property owners and in line with the vision of the community. Thanks for correcting me on that. And that's exactly what I wanted. Thank you. Thank you, Katie. Would the applicant like to address the council? Welcome. Good evening. Christian Cibrian on behalf of the applicant and that's my typo. That's okay. I wasn't calling you out. So we would appreciate that continuous. We have been working very close with staff last few weeks and we believe that December 15th deadline is reasonable. Two of the items are very much in our control. One relating to the environmental closure. We believe it's under process now. The county itself thinks that December 4th would be an outside date for it. So we think that is also reasonable to get that done. And we think we can also use that time to flesh out this framework of future redevelopment of them all. And just in the event the council is not inclined to grant a continuous, I just appreciate the opportunity to come back up and address some of the other points that were raised in the presentation. But thank you. Great. Thank you. Anyone else in the public like to address the council on this item? Seeing none, we'll bring it back. Sure. I think that we all know that the mall is probably one of the most critical areas in our city that we need to pay particular attention to. And I think that from my information, Saratage has demonstrated that they want to be a participant in that development. So I think there's a good faith that's working right now between Saratage and the city. And for that reason, I'm going to go ahead and make a motion that we approve staff recommendation for the continuance until January 24th. Second. Any further comments? Council? If not, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Just like that. Okay. We'll move on to 8B, which is consider a resolution in support of the citizens climate lobby carbon free and dividend policy proposal. Welcome, Steve. Good morning. Good morning. Good evening. Oh, good morning is fine. It'll be there soon at the request of council member Peterson. This resolution of support for the efforts of the CCL community climate action is on the agenda. The citizens climate lobby is a grassroots organization that is promoting a carbon fee and dividend program be base be adopted on a federal basis. The program would place a fee or a tax on the production of carbon based fuels such as gasoline and coal. That tax would then be turned around in a dividend or return to the households throughout the United States. I'm certainly not an expert on this, but we have some in the audience. We have members of the citizens climate lobby with us. I'd like to introduce Alec Jesbeck who will be talking to the council. Good evening. So my name is Alec Jesbeck. I'm a volunteer with the citizens climate lobby. And I'd like to start by thanking the council members and Mr. Mayor for taking time to discuss this resolution. I appreciate that with so many issues to discuss and resolve, you've set aside time to discuss climate change. I'd also like to emphasize that this resolution requires very little action on the part of the city, but it will send a strong and clear message to our elected leaders at a state and federal level. I think it is worth noting that we've been working to get this resolution on the agenda for about six months now. And in those short six months, two significant things have happened. The first is that the intergovernmental panel on climate change released a report earlier this month emphasizing that time is running out to take action on climate change and the coordinated drastic action is necessary. The second thing that has happened in the past six months is Canada, the entire country of Canada has signed a carbon fee and dividend into law. And that's the same concept that this resolution supports. So I use these two examples to highlight that climate change needs to be addressed at every level and from every angle and that the carbon fee and dividend concept is one of the most powerful top-down approaches to address climate change and that other nations are comfortable signing this concept into law. Carbon fee and dividend is a market-based bipartisan solution. It is one of the most equitable ways to address climate change, but most importantly it will likely result in huge reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Supporting this resolution is a small action that combined with similar resolutions from other cities and municipalities, including the city of Santa Cruz, the county of Santa Cruz, the county of Monterey, the city of Monterey, Pacific Grove, Marina and Carmel, combined this may lead to something truly significant. It sends a message to Congress that we support bipartisan meaningful action and that we need it now. Supporting this resolution is the right thing to do for us, our children, our grandchildren and our planet. So along with the other volunteers from Citizens Climate Lobby, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about the resolution. Thank you. I have a couple for you. Yes. Is this being considered at all in the state or federal houses? I want to say yes, but I'm going to defer to Bob. Would you care to answer? I know it has been considered at a state level and I believe the state has, the state of California has passed a resolution supporting it. But there is no, there's no legal, there's no bill that's been passed with regard to this? Correct. And what has been passed at the state level is a resolution of support by the state of California for this proposal of a federal carbon fee and dividend. There is an initiative currently will be voted on in the upcoming election in November in the state of Washington and initiative that would attempt to create a carbon fee program in that state. And the other historical background, although the recent federal action by the Canadian parliament, which was just announced in the last week or so, is new. The province of British Columbia put in place a carbon fee and dividend program back in 2012 that's been quite effective and served as a model now for the default federal. So this is all in, in, in preparation in, in encouraging the federal government to pass it a law? Correct. And there are in the United States Congress several different carbon fee bills that have been introduced. None of those have gotten out of committee. There is the specific proposal that CCL is proposing of a carbon fee and dividend has not yet been introduced into the Congress, but hopefully that will happen in the next session. Can you give a quick explanation of how this dividend is returned to the populace? Sure. It would be returned in equal shares to households across the country. Each adult would get a full share, and children would get a half share up to two per household. And it would be handled by the Treasury Department, both the collection of the fee and the disbursement of the dividend. It would be handled in much the same way as social security dividends are paid out, either via direct deposit or by a monthly check. And the charges are imposed on the producers? They're imposed on the producers at the point at which the fossil fuel enters the economy. So this would be at the, the, where the oil comes out of the ground or where it comes off of a super tanker in a port at the coal mine at the natural gas field. And the federal government already collects excise taxes, existing excise taxes for most of these entities currently. So the mechanisms for collecting the fees would be simply adding on to fees that are already being collected. Thank you. Council, any other questions? Seeing none, I will ask the public, if anyone would like to address us on this subject, thank you very much. I will bring it back to the council. Discussion? Stephanie? I think it's a wonderful idea, and I thank all the volunteers for their hard work on this. It's one of these things that's going to take a long time, but if we all keep the one in the right direction together, we'll get there, I hope. So I would move approval of the item. Is there a second for this? Second? There's a second. John, anything to say? There was a mention that it took six months to make this happen, and I have to say that the group was very persistent. They met with a number of us that I know of, and there was also a presentation at the COE. So I think that that was well recognized. Thank you very much for that effort. Kristen? I think it's a wonderful idea. I know earlier this year we voted to join the Mayor's Climate Lobby, that was referred to us. And I think that this is another step in that direction towards preparing for the future and trying to address the issues of climate change. So I think it's a great idea. Yeah, I'm going to take a different position on this. I don't really think the city of capital should be involved in nationwide political items on this, especially when there's not enough information that gives credence to where we should go. I understand that Congress is looking at revenue-neutral carbon taxes. Unfortunately, ones like this are not necessarily household income neutral, and I don't think that that's been vetted out yet. I think the numbers that I've got show that somewhere from 53 to 58 percent of households will only receive income. So it's not a program that I think is fully beneficial to all Americans, although I understand the concept of it is to reduce greenhouse gases. So fundamentally, I can see where this is going, but I'm not going to support this. Thank you. I'm kind of on the fence only for reasons that were spoken of by Ed. I think everything about this is good. I think that it's not fully fleshed out, and I have concerns when little capital is asked to put weight behind something that's happening at a federal level. This tips the balance because I can't see anything wrong with reducing carbon and fossil fuels. So that's what tips the balance for me, but I just want to let you know I'm very much on the edge only for my own reasons of keeping the capitol business local that we speak of up here, and I feel the same way if you wanted us to be a nuclear free zone. So I'll put it in that venue. Madam Clerk, would you please take a roll call? Council Member Harlan? Aye. Council Member Bertrand? Aye. Council Member Peterson? Aye. Council Member Bator? No. Mayor Termini? Aye. Passes 4-1. Thank you very much, folks. We will move on to 8C Public Works Department report on the Wharf Project structural options, and before we start on this, before we get a report from Public Works, I want to let the council know that this could be one of the most important things we've discussed since we passed the library. I just said the mall is important. The mall is important too, but we're talking about something that we'll set in motion tonight with our vote and our choice, something that we'll carry on for decades. Will, sir. So we're going to take our time. We're going to go slowly, and one of our favorite Wharf people is here to visit us. I don't mean Kailash, but that's okay. You're just one of our favorite people. Okay. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. Tonight we're here to present to you the Capitol Wharf Project alternatives report. So to give you a little bit of background, on June 14th of this year, Council has provided a progress report on the status of the three measure F projects that are currently underway, the Wharf rehabilitation, the Judi rehabilitation, and the Flume rehabilitation. At that meeting, Council asked that Public Works postpone the further development of the design and engineering of the buildings on the Wharf to allow for time for more in-depth cost analysis of the possible alternatives to increase Wharf resiliency. Specifically, Council asked that we look at the longevity of the Wharf buildings at both the current height, considering the potential for future increased storm surge and sea level rise, the longevity of the Wharf in buildings at a raised height, and then also evaluate the difference in construction materials, mainly between the difference between wood and concrete. So with that, we've spent the time over the last handful of months developing the Wharf alternatives report. And at this time, I'd like to transition the presentation over to Sam Tully, who is one of the lead engineers on the team from Moffat and Nichols that has helped in helping Public Works Department develop our design and engineering of the three measure F projects. Sam? Welcome back, Sam. Thank you. Thanks, Kailash. Good evening, Council and Mr. Mayor. So as Kailash said, we've taken your concerns, and we have evaluated several options to increase the Wharf's resiliency and possibly address additional hazard from projected future sea level rise. So our first option, next slide, please. Oh, I've got it. There we go. So this is a slide that you've seen many times before, but it's just a reminder of the current Wharf's background. Basically every 20 years, there's some sort of event combined with ongoing deterioration of the timber structure in the marine environment that requires some sort of maintenance. And so in the early 1980s, there was a substantial Wharf reconstruction project, and then again in 2000, there was a major Wharf reconstruction project. So as you can see on the timeline, we're about due for another major mitigation to continue the Wharf's service life into the future. The projected sea level rise that we have analyzed comes from the California state sea level rise guidance. So this is guidance issued by the state government in conjunction with a bunch of academic institutions, and they present statistical models for the amount of sea level rise California is expected to experience. And the way it's characterized is in terms of the percent it's likely to occur. So the one and two chance, there's 50% chance that by 2080 we'll experience around 1.6 feet of sea level rise, and projections become more intense as the probability decreases. So there's a less than 1% chance that we'll experience 4.4 feet of sea level rise by 2080. The different elevations that are noted on here, the 19.3 is the measured current deck elevation of the Wharf, and as you can see under the present day scenario, the top of the Wharf is above the largest wave that we would expect in the typical year. But in a higher risk year, something that either has a higher than normal tide combined with a higher than average storm surge event, which seems to occur about every 20 years based on the Wharf's history, there is some damage that occurs. So this analysis is backed up by the experience that we've seen with the current Wharf. So we've developed a couple different project alternatives to address both the Wharf resiliency and the possible sea level rise hazard. So option one is one that you've seen before. We propose to increase the Wharf's resiliency by widening the trestle. The major benefit here is that by increasing the number of foundation elements, you're inherently increasing the chance it will survive some sort of damaging event. So right now there's only three piles across in the narrow trestle. So if there's damage to one or two of those piles, you potentially have to close the entire Wharf until it can be restored. By adding three additional piles, you'd significantly decrease the chance that the Wharf will have to be closed. As a timber structure, it may still experience damage from a large wave or storm event, but the Wharf can likely continue to operate. In this scenario, there is also the potential for building replacement or restoration on the current Wharf structure. Alternative two is namely the same as alternative one to widen the trestle to increase the general Wharf structure's resiliency, but it includes an option to raise the building floor elevations up to 24.5, which accommodates a large predicted wave, including up to about 4.4 feet of sea level rise. In that scenario, you'd basically be in the same situation you are now as you would be in 2080. So the Wharf would be higher than the largest predicted wave in most typical years, but in an extreme event, it could still potentially be inundated. Quick question. So the wave would still crash over the Wharf head, but the buildings would be elevated above the highest predictable odd year? In the most extreme scenario. I took us back to the sea level rise graph. So in the one in 20 scenario, there's a 5% chance that sea level rise will exceed the third category, so 2.9 feet of sea level rise. There is around a 1% chance that it'll be greater than that, up to 4.4 feet is the 0.5% chance. We're just protecting the buildings, basically. Yes. So the Wharf still sits below, obviously that 24.2. So the projected raised elevation is the purple line up there at 24.5. So we are above the most hazardous, a more extreme weather event for 95% of scenarios. I just wanted to specify that it is the building, not the Wharf, that's raising up to that. Correct. Good. Thank you. Correct. Yeah. As you can see here, on the right hand side, it's only the buildings that are above that elevation. Option number three further addresses that by providing a more significant area of the Wharf head that is raised up to that 24.5 feet design elevation. This alternative incorporates leaving in place the timber Wharf and utilizing it for whatever useful life it has remaining, and then constructing a new concrete structure to the right that would be more resilient and at the higher sea level rise elevation. So only the purple portion is being elevated, the lower one is still wood and it's still at the lower elevation? It's still at the lower elevation? Correct. And the purpose of that is to use it while we have it. So we have this beautiful timber Wharf asset. And on most days when there's not a large wave event, it is perfectly safe to be out on just like it is today. How would you transition from the wood portion to the elevated purple Wharf head at 24 feet? So that would be, so there's around a five foot difference between the existing elevation and the design raised elevation. Right. And that would be accommodated with other design elements, so ADA ramps, stairs. Good. It would be incorporated in some sort of landscape feature. And what is that the printing at the Wharf head pointing to it at the upper right? Oh, it just says option to include additional footprint as needed. So since we're going to be designing a raised elevation, there's not necessarily the constraint that we're bound into the existing footprint. It can be designed to accommodate the desired needs. Understood. Ed. Just a quick question. Is there a reference to the scale of each one of those boxes on there? The scale of each one of those boxes. Sorry. Trying to get a measurement of distance and there's squares there. Are they 10 feet? Is it 20 feet? Are they just boxes? They're just boxes. It is sketched to scale, but the boxes have no significance. How wide is the purple part? How wide is the white part? I believe the existing trestle is around 20 feet wide. We'd be widening it from 20 to 40. That would be the scale. Understood. Thank you. And then alternative number four is replacement with a wharf at the design elevation of 24.5 feet. The note at the bottom is option to redesign slash reconfigure to suit current needs. So like I said before, we're not necessarily bounded to the existing wharf footprint. Do your numbers include, again, a 40 foot wide entry? Or is that just 20 foot, which is what it is now, but under outer concrete and higher? This estimate only incorporates the existing square footage. As it stands. As it stands. And as Steve reminded me to mention, this alternative suggests a concrete wharf, so it doesn't have the same vulnerability as the existing timber wharf. So it's not necessarily, it's not as hazardous. Understood. Carry on. So this is a summary of our cost estimate for the four different alternatives. They range from 7.8 million to approximately $23 million to construct the full replacement. Each of these options includes the structural restoration or modifications to the wharf, new utilities and for the timber options, the restoration of the steel piles at the head of the wharf, new restrooms and two new buildings from the previous proposals. Can you envision any of these being able to be taken in two phases, such as I'm thinking option three, could you start with option three, and at some future time, the portion of a wooden wharf that you've left, bring it up and have it match the rest of the concrete? Absolutely. Any of these options can be phased. There are multiple project goals, including restoring the buildings and increasing the resiliency to the wharf. Most of these projects could be divided in such a way that you accomplish them sequentially. Except for option four, it would seem that the only way you can do option four is in one large bite, except for the buildings, perhaps. That is true. The way option four is presented is as one project, but option three, as you alluded to, could certainly be done as a limited section of new construction that's expanded on in phases. Option four could be done similarly. You wouldn't necessarily need to remove the existing timber wharf to construct a new concrete wharf. Depending on environmental regulatory approval. There's a scenario where you could leave the existing timber wharf in place for current enjoyment while you construct a concrete wharf next to it, and then as the timber wharf loses its remaining capacity, you deconstruct it in phases. Steve, could you speak to the hurdles that we would come up against with certain regulatory commissions and the entitlement of these four options? Certainly reconstructing the existing wharf option one in its current configuration is probably the easiest. I really don't know how many hoops we'd have to go through as we move through it and enlarge the wharf. I think there's concern. There would be support for raising it from a coastal commission standpoint to address sea level rise. I think we'd have support maybe for option two to raise the buildings, but from a Corps of Engineers and coastal access point. I think the bigger project, the more we replace the existing structure, the more hurdles we'll have to go through. Council, any questions from? Which one of these options is in budget? Define budget. That's actually coming up to option one, but I'll let Kailash take that. Thank you, Steve. To further our discussion on the budget, we have the next slide, which is in your report, kind of gives you a big picture look at the measure F, the goals of the measure F, and our approximation based off, you know, a lot of engineering work has been done by Sam's team to provide as accurate a cost estimate of the four alternatives that have been evaluated, but we wanted to take a look back at measure F to see where we're at with what our funding limitations are in order for us to make a decision on what's feasible for us to move forward with. This is just that for you there. Would you, could you speak to the potential for grant funds and to what proportion do you feel confident that we might be able to obtain grants for a larger than budgeted item? Sure. So we, you know, the grant evaluations that we've looked into so far are in the order of magnitude of, you know, individually there are hundreds of thousands of dollars. A lot of them are tied to boating facilities, so adding floating decks, adding more moring facilities, adding the ability to refuel and things like that that aren't really our current use of our wharf. Not to say that that we wouldn't be eligible for some of those grants, but they don't bring us from a $7 million project to a $15 million project. You know, I think combined, even if we were to achieve all the grants that may be possible, you know, the most that we've seen some of the other wharfs get funding is in the scale of a few hundreds of thousand dollars up to maybe one, possibly two million. Again, that's still not quite getting us to the point to make a leap from the more of a timber wharf to a concrete wharf. In a previous council meeting, I'll direct this to the city manager and the engineer. I think we all were taken back by the budget for the buildings, and we asked to halt on the buildings portion, and would it seem that option number two, which provides a pedestal for the buildings of five feet when we have decided to halt on the buildings, seems odd. Yeah, I think, well Sam can speak to this too. I think it was also just thinking about the need to have a more sound footprint for the buildings themselves, and I think that's what that had asked us to look at, and so that was partly there, but I'll let Sam follow up on that. Sam, could we do the substructure in such a way that would, at some future time, support that five foot pedestal when we do decide to build buildings? So we have looked into that, and that is certainly an option. When you're doing a project at this scale, they're called timber piles, right, the columns, and to splice them to add an additional five feet requires a specialty product, and at this scale it's pretty much cheaper to drive a new pile than it is to raise that many segments. But didn't the report speak about concrete piles under the building foundations to support that five foot deck? Correct. We provided two options to provide timber foundations underneath the buildings as it is now, and the potential upgrade to use concrete foundations. So if we put the concrete piles in now at the current 19.5 feet, could we come back later when we decide to build the buildings and pour the five foot pad? That would be an option. It would be a more expensive, long term option, but it could, actually there probably wouldn't be much difference between doing a heightened deck now or a heightened deck later. The largest expense in driving concrete piles is the mobilization. Right. So it is a feasible option, but it's probably price equivalent. I was just trying to move towards, if we're holding on the buildings, get ready but don't back us into a corner where we can't put a five foot pad on top. Sure. And with concrete, you certainly would be able to extend vertically. Council, questions? Yes, Stephanie? It seems like very expensive bathrooms to me. Now I know, I know that everything, these things cost a lot of money. And is that including the foundation and the electrical and the plumbing and the building and so forth? It seems like we could build two bathrooms for less than $650,000. You can build a house for that much. It agreed they are. It is a large number. It's from previous experience with public bathroom facilities. The budget for something like a restroom obviously can, you can design to whatever budget is allocated. This is just a budgetary estimate number. I hope it would be a lot less. Sure. Thank you. 10 years ago we built bathrooms. I was on the bond committee for one of the middle, one of the grammar schools, elementary school, main street elementary. And this is what it costs us to build bathrooms in the playgrounds. What? I'm sorry to say. How many bathrooms? It was a men's room and a ladies' room. And it was, you know, several, like three or four stalls in each one. So it was the, yeah, bathroom mahal. Jock, you got something? Yeah, I do. You had a question? I do. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know they were conferring. So it's good. We can splice. We can splice in both cases, whether it's timber or concrete. It is technically feasible, but it would, it would basically be a repeat of the project. If you're installing new foundations, it's the same price to splice them later. Okay. So when you price out putting in pilings right now, what's a consideration for the weight of the concrete on top? So we have a certain price right now when we replace pilings, put new ones in, et cetera. So the load's going to be a heck of a lot more. So is that considered the price also for the pilings? Yeah. So the piles we price start considering other projects that have a concrete structure above it. Okay. So it considers that. So if the piling broke on the current war, let's suppose it's on the one, two, three, and it's the middle one, how do we go about replacing that piling at this point? At this point, so that's exactly the scenario that you have right now. And the current timber piles experience deterioration or damage from large wave events. And you can either repair them with a jacket where you, it would be the same device basically that you would use to splice the pile. And that costs about $15,000. Or you can drive a new pile, you can cut a hole in the deck and drive a new pile and then restore the structure above it. Okay. So if there is concrete, cement, whatever, we wouldn't be able to do that. We'd have to come in from the bottom or the side. You would, it would be much more difficult to replace a pile. But with concrete piles, the chances of requiring replacement would be much lower. Concrete piles can be designed to accommodate basically most of the loads that the ocean could throw at it. They're not very likely to break. Okay. So it almost makes us go in the concrete direction. Because my point is that if we do have concrete, whether wherever it is, it's going to make a pile replacement a heck of a lot more expensive. Certainly more expensive, but they'll be much more resilient. So you won't need to do replacements nearly as often. Okay. And then the issue of, let's say, sideway motion. I mean, the current wharf does move. And if you have such a large weight on top of legs like that, and how is that designed around? So the concrete piles, the new foundations for a potentially raised concrete wharf would be designed to accommodate that. Concrete piles are much stiffer than timber piles. You can think of like a concrete skyscraper is much stiffer than a timber house. A timber house will experience much more shaking in something like an earthquake. And in the case of the wharf, a timber wharf will move much more than a concrete wharf. That's correct. So do you see any problem with the fact that some may have concrete and some may have wood? No, there wouldn't be a problem with that. You would account for that in some sort of a design solution. So they would need to be isolated from each other. The timber would need to be allowed to move around a potential new concrete structure. But that could be designed. It's very typical in parking garages and stuff like that. You would install a slider plate similar to a seismic joint where you allow one structure to move without inhibiting the other one. So we'd have to do that for the deck? You would have to do it at any interface between the timber and concrete structure. Got it. So we wouldn't even see that. You would see it if you knew to look for it, but it wouldn't be obtrusive. Okay. Thank you. I think shock. Ed? Couple questions. When you measure the height of, I think you came back that the deck is 19 feet above the water. Is that low tide? Is that high tide? How do you determine what that height is? So that is 19.3 feet, I believe, based on mean lower low water. So that's just a datum. We measured that height with survey equipment from a surveyor, and it's based on a sea level datum. So mean lower low water is 0.0, and that's basically your average low tide. And you can see on here the blue bar at the bottom, the first piece of all of those graphs is mean higher high water. So that's your average high tide, which is at 5.5 feet. Okay. All right. I want to go back to your cost estimate. I just definitely brought the concern about the bathrooms. And what I like about that is if you've got a $650,000 bathroom in here, then that makes, no, I'm okay with that. But that makes me trust your other estimates, because what I'm really nervous about right now is we built this building in town. I don't want to pick on it, but it started out at $10 million and ended up being $14 million because we weren't cost estimate accurate. So the fact that you come at me with a $650,000 bathroom gives me good credibility that for 7.8, you're going to do option one along the line. Would you kind of, do you see where I'm going with this? Sure. So these estimates, if I look at option three and you say it's 15.9, it's probably what it's going to cost. Because if we buy into something that's 15.9 and it ends up being 20, then we all look bad again. So my question was, you just feel really good about these estimates. I do. These are order of magnitude level estimates because obviously there's no design yet. But they were built with a fairly sophisticated with our cost estimating team. So they're based on current bid results from other similar projects throughout the Bay Area and California. So these are current prices that other projects are being built for. Okay. If you can go back to the picture, I think it was option three on there. I know there's a lot of concern about closing the wharf and businesses that lose occupancy out there. So one thing I'm looking about in here is when we talk about phasing, you said that phasing is possible in a lot of different ways. When I asked you about the boxes, I'm trying to get an estimate of that's the head there, which I'm going to call the purple head. How long that is? Sure. Is there any way that you know with that? I would have to look to get back to you. But the head is that shown there is the same as the existing wharf head that's out there right now. I don't know what that number is. I would have to look. Yeah. I mean, I'm going to guess that it's about 200 feet. Okay. I'm just, you know, from walking it. And I guess what I'm trying to think is that everything that's in purple there was your estimate for 59, I think, but what it was. So if we did less, obviously it would be less. Correct. And it's possible to do phasing in a lot of different ways. Correct. Okay. It would be more difficult to phase the improvements for a structure like this because we've recommended the ramp up. So if you built the concrete wharf head out at the end before you did the trestle, you'd need to address that in some other design element. The ADA ramps or stairs could also accommodate that. And similarly, it'd be a little odd to construct the ramp before you constructed the head. But you could phase it in other ways by constructing the substructure before you constructed the buildings. That's my last question is, I'm going to call, if we call the larger part the head, okay, and I'm just going to call the narrow part the handle for just for references. Sure. Would it be easier to rebuild the handle or to rebuild the head if we're just doing one or the other? In which material? In concrete or timber? In concrete. In concrete, it's probably easier to rebuild the head because most of these options will need to be constructed from a barge. It's hard to construct directly in the waves. Or the alternative is to construct from the land and build outwards. So in option two, if you were just to do concrete foundations underneath the buildings, that would be built from a barge. This option has a lower square footage cost but a higher total cost because you don't need the barge. You can start at the land and you can just build outwards on the concrete. Okay, thank you. So what you were telling us is, you can't build concrete portions off of wood deck. Exactly. Okay, good. Kristen. So in this picture here, if I'm understanding correctly, the solid purple is the concrete that's going to be raised, but above that, the white spot and the purple lines, that's the existing wharf and it would just stay as is? Correct. So it's essentially two wharfs? It would be two wharfs. Only half of it is going to be elevated. Correct. In this alternative, yes. With the hash marks, you had a different explanation of the hash marks last time. I understood the hash marks as being at the same height as the buildings. Sorry, let me clarify. The hash marks are shown there as, so we've estimated a square footage of the possible project. The hash marks are there simply to illustrate that we're not necessarily bounded to the square footage we've estimated. You can grow it or shrink it in areas that it makes sense. Understood. But in this plan, this $15 million plan, everything purple, including the hash marks, is all concrete deck and it's all at 24.5 feet. The solid area is the square footage we've estimated. The white area timber would be at the existing elevation. Correct. And then we've shown it on the section below. There could be timber that we leave in the hashed area or the hashed area could be concrete at the raised elevation. But the estimate does not show the hashed area, which is the existing wharf head. Correct. It doesn't include the whole area. Yes. So the $15 million doesn't buy us a concrete deck in the hashed area? Correct. As currently estimated, yeah. But that's not to say that it needs to be in the exact configuration that it is. Understood. Kristen, sorry. So if someone's walking on the wooden part of the wharf all the way down to the end and someone's walking on the concrete part of the wharf all the way down to the end, you'd essentially be up at the concrete part looking down at your friend on the wooden part and waving to them? And then you'd have to walk all the way back around to go down onto the wood part again? Yeah, yeah. That's a good question. That is part of the reason why I'm an engineer, not an architect. But that exact scenario would be addressed in architectural features. So there'd be stairs or ADA ramps and other features that would go from one side to the other. So it would be connected all the way down? It would be connected, yeah. But the plan we see here shows the trestle part ramping up to the concrete part, right? Correct. So that, you can see in the diagram here that this is the trestle part and as drawn here, it would have a gradual slope going up toward the new height of the head. ADA qualifying slope? Most likely, yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean five feet over hundreds of feet. So it'd be, but that would require extension or rebuilding all the piles from one, from the very base of the wharf up to the head. The idea that leaving the trestle at this height as the original height and then having a five foot connection, then you're going to get into the ramps and stuff. And that's really not what the $15.9 million estimate showed. That $15.9 million estimate showed rebuilding the trestle as a gradual ramp up to the new five feet. Right. And the head being at 24.5 feet? Correct. Mr. Mayor, members of the council, I do want to offer a little bit of insight on this in my perspective. You know, I think we need to be very cognizant of the overall project budget in this situation. You know, when we take a look at what we have available in Measure F and what the alternatives are in front of us, I think we just need to be very realistic and clear-eyed about how we approach a project like this. When you think about the wharf, I think we need to think about sort of what lifespan we're aiming for. And looking at the sea level rise reports, I see that by 2060 we are in the 1.2 to 2 percent chance of exceeding a two foot rise. And it's the rare storm that gets within two feet of the decks today. And obviously by 2060 we'll be seeing that more often. But I think we should take two steps back and think about what we are trying to accomplish with this. We are trying to accomplish a more resilient wharf. And what we can do with alternative one is we can widen that trestle. We can improve the resiliency of the wharf by adding the more additional piers. We can prove the utilities, bring them up above deck. I think you really should take a hard look at the buildings because I think at the end of the day the question becomes is, you know, I think the purpose of the buildings really is to generate revenue to provide services, maybe pay for the rest of the wharf. If it's costing us a couple million dollars, it's hard to see how that's actually generating revenue in the long term for the city to take care of the wharf if we're having to invest that kind of money on the front end. So there are other commitments we need to make with Measure F. And I just want to keep everyone focused on that and take a hard look at how many of the goals that we set out in the original project that alternative one really does get us. Question regarding... We're still in the question phase. We're having... No, we haven't even begun yet. I appreciate those comments, but I think we're still in the question phase and we have a way... Can we go back to option one, please? If we look at option one, we leave the deck at 19.5 feet. We widen the handle of the wharf. Go to the events again, please. Okay. So 19.5, there's a 50% chance, a one and two chance that in the typical year, the way is we're breaking, you know, uncomfortably close to the bottom of the wharf? Let me ask you this. If we go to the cheapest plan here and we have a 50% chance of high risk year getting to 22 feet, how long is our wharf going to last? That's a totally loaded question. Do you know what I'm going for? I'm trying to find out if spending $7 million is going to give us in 10 years a destroyed wharf and have we just thrown away $7 million or...? So this improvement project would be very typical of the previous improvement project, because even in the present day, during infrequent events, the wharf is hit by a really big wave. There is a 50% chance that by 2080, which is the end of any long-term project's design life, that you'll achieve 1.6 feet of sea level rise. So to answer your question, I don't think I would characterize it as any different than current wharf mitigation project. So in the past, we've seen a major rebuild project, basically every 20 years, and I think we could expect a similar design life out of the current option one. But 20 years of replacing a dozen piles and getting 20 years out of almost $8 million is two significantly different decisions. Correct. And the other difference though between option one is that it's buying you resiliency against having to close the entire wharf by widening the handle. So it's an improvement project, and then that will require the same 20-year maintenance. You'll probably have to replace a couple piles in that every 20 years too. And we wouldn't get into real danger until 2080. Correct. I mean, yeah, there's a 50% chance you'll see around a foot and a half of sea level rise by 2080. Okay. I'm going to open this up to the public now. Is there anyone in the public who would like to address the council regarding this project? Mr. Treasurer, I knew if I mentioned $7.8 million, I'd get you to the podium. The mic. The mic. So used to having a mic closer. So as I recall, when Steve first presented this, it was it was a widening the wharf. We're going to go six piles across instead of three. And that everybody made sense. That made sense to everybody. And it was a very easy sell. Now we're talking about changing a wooden wharf to a concrete wharf and changing the look and having a bi-level thing. I can't imagine that the public at large would think that we had enough hearings to make such a dramatic change to our charming wharf, which is one of the highlights of Capitola. So I would just caution you before you start committing funds to do some crazy things, even concrete pilings, that a wooden wharf is what we have. I think the wooden wharf is what everybody likes. To divert from that is going to be very controversial. And you mentioned that the wharf moves with the waves. Well, maybe that's a good thing. So I highly recommend from an aesthetic standpoint that you go with option one. Thank you. Sam, one more question before TJ comes up. And that is, you show all of the elevated wharf designs in concrete. Can we not elevate the wharf in wood? You certainly could elevate the wharf in wood. An option to include it's down on the bottom when it could be timber or concrete. It's certainly an option to elevate it in timber. So you could do the entire wharf up to 24 feet in timber? You could. The cost isn't estimated in this report, but that's certainly feasible. Significantly high or significantly lower? It would be significantly, well, it would probably be comparable but lower than a concrete construction project, but you would have much more ongoing maintenance. You would have this similar ongoing maintenance to what you have. There's no real savings going to concrete. There's not the long-term life cycle benefit for dollars. TJ, come on up. Really, nothing new. Just a new opportunity for me to present it. But you know, I remember helping Council Member Bottler put these major F signs up. They had the fancy wharf name with F and really nicely consigned. And I'm all for having our wharf reinforced. So it stands another 100 years. It's a historic wharf. I hate to see it change from what it is today, but really the reason I'm up here, which you'll find no surprise, really has to do with the funding because one of the reasons I voted for major F as a resident of Capitola was because in that warding also included to maintain our police staffing, take care of our police staffing. Now you tonight just move forward with a contract to help our police officers. And I probably don't need to beat this up, but maybe where the city manager is wondering where he's going to get the money to pay for this, this is what this funding is about. So we're at a point where our city staff is primarily underpaid. As I mentioned earlier, we paid 500% more in special interest groups, but yet our police officers by the end of this contract will still be 3% lower paid than what the surrounding areas today. At the end of this contract, you just gave them. And it's not just our police, it's our public works and it's the rest of our city staff. And I hate to see us through all of our funding away when we still got to talk about flumes, jetties, and I would hope having a mechanism that's going to take care of our city staff and maybe get them where it's comparable to our surrounding area and we can keep the good employees we do have. So enough of beating the dead horse, but thank you. Anyone else in the public like to address the council? Council, any more questions? Seeing none, Ed, why don't you start? Okay. There's lots of things in this town that people are passionate about. And I had the opportunity this last weekend, went to the boat house and rented a boat, went out into the bay, got out about a mile and turned around and looked at Capitola. And there's some noticeable structures that stand out. There's the crest departments, which really don't add anything to the sculpture and style of Capitola. But they prominently sit on the bluff. And then you notice the colors from the Venetians. And you notice our beautiful Espanade and there's our wharf. It stands out there. Very prominent. And although my grandfather never swam in the lagoon, and I have not lived here for 50 years, it doesn't take long to figure out, you know, what adds to the charm character of this town. Measure F. I've been on the council for six years. I was a big hand in passing Measure O, which created about four million dollars to pave streets. And we pave streets. And I've tried twice for TOT tax measures. I lost once and I'm hoping to have a better time this time around. And then the wharf, which was mentioned. My design, you know, the F in the wharf was a picture of the wharf. And I believe that my pass Measure F to rebuild the wharf. That was my commitment to the citizens of Capitola. There was language in there that said there was going to support city services, including the police department and parks and some other language that we put in there. So, but I think with the message, if I stand here and I think if somebody were to ask what was Measure F for, I think people mostly believed it was to rebuild the wharf. So here we are. We're sitting here with a very big decision. The mayor mentioned tonight. This is a pretty big deal. And I think it's a huge deal. And I'm as passionate about the wharf as a lot of people were about the library. So the shoes on the other foot because I was maybe an opponent of the library because of the cost. So here we are with the shoe on the other foot. But what I'm concerned about here is that, you know, there when we do something of that wharf, you know, that's probably there's probably a thousand pictures of people have of that wharf and in their house. And I'm worried about changing that what it looks like. And but mainly what I'm worried about is that whatever's there last and I'm going to do is I'm going to take a moment here to pass down some pictures and pass this down. Yeah, but in the picture of the of our wharf. There was that extension that we lost. Anyway, Santa Cruz wharf, right? Yeah, this is a picture of the Santa Cruz wharf. And the reason I bring this up is that, you know, I was out with my tape measure today and I don't want to go against our engineer because I think engineers are great and they're accurate. But when I stuck my tape measure into the water, all I could get was 16 and a half feet from the bottom of the deck to the water. But it was when tide was coming in. So there is a variance there. Because I looked on records trying to find out the height of the wharf and I couldn't find it. But the Santa Cruz wharf is at 23 feet four inches. And it's a lot higher. And what this picture shows is a picture of the Santa Cruz wharf with a wharf next to it called the cow wharf. And if I can read, let me just borrow this for a second. It says, the cow wharf was claimed by storm waves a few years after the photo was taken. And the cow wharf is probably the same height as the capitol wharf. And I think the history, Sam had it on a chart. You don't need to bring it up. But it shows that we're repairing this thing every 10 or 20 years. And it's a complete drain on on what we do. And there's really, you know, the budget on the wharf barely pays for it. So my my thought for measure f and we with the whole idea about making this measure was to build it so it lasts so it's reliable. And then we hire these great architects fuse comes out here and they want to they want to build these fabulous buildings, which I'm in love with. I think they're the best buildings we can put on that wharf. I think it would be great to have a nice restaurant out there in a boat house and bring back the fish tank and all the things that we liked about that wharf. My problem is is that being fiscally responsible. I don't see how I spend $3 or $4 million on buildings that aren't on a foundation that's going to last for 20 years. So I challenged you know, Steve and Kailash, I said, Hey, what can we do? You know, how do how do we make this thing so it lasts for 20 years? So the idea was to raise it. And I said, we talked about adding on and the add ons, you know, is it just as much money as it is to put in a new pylon? Whether the top of this wharf is wood or concrete, I think that's something for later discussion. Uh, I'm really concerned about the structure lasting. Um, I don't think it does us any good to raise up and put the buildings up higher. I think what I'm trying to do is get the wharf out of the water line, the damage line. Um, the charts that are up there that were being referenced to were about, you know, climate change, whether you buy into climate change or not. I think one thing we're seeing now that's happening a lot is just storm surge. Okay, storm surge is going to bring those waves up. I sat there one day of the city manager. We watched, I don't know, was three years ago, four years ago. We're wondering if when we got up in the morning during the storm, the wharf was going to be there because the waves are coming over the top. And I don't know whether it's, you know, the wharf is stronger when the waves are coming over the top of it, just when the random logs come in and hit it from the side and knock it out. But we do know that the throat is vulnerable. And that's what this all started about was we were told that the wharf would be three times as strong if it was twice as wide and maybe exaggerate on the numbers, but more or less, Sam, that's and what I'm looking at now is, is that seven million dollars will get me a double wide throat at the same height with new buildings. And I can't buy that. I can't go ahead and spend seven million dollars for to widen the throat at the same height and build new buildings because it's a waste of money. I can't vote for that. So city manager, his job is to make sure that we don't spend too much money or try to encourage us not to spend too much money. We sometimes give away money we don't have, but you know, that's a double edged sword. So where I'm stuck with this is I think that something around option three, the purple option is where we need to be. I think that I would like to see something where we rebuild the head of the wharf. And when I say the head of the wharf, I mean the restaurant and the boat house. And I'm thinking that there's some way we could possibly this is what I asked the engineer. There's some way that we could thank you, Mr. City Manager. Appreciate that. Some way that we could tear down the head of the wharf, rebuild that at a higher height. I think I asked for three feet originally. Sam was generous enough to take me up to 24.5, which I appreciate. But there's a line probably right about halfway through the building. And the reason I say halfway through the building is because when we do anything in this wharf, we're going to put these are the restaurant, the boat house out of business, and that does not make the people that work out there happy. So if we were to tear down half of that boat house and leave them enough that they could retain the hoist, retain the building, run the business, restaurant be out of year, we build a new wharf at 24.5 feet, I think would spend, I'm going to just say that it's probably going to spend about $15 million. And Sam's going to look at the numbers and say, well, if you only built half of it and all the purple, they probably would be less than that. And what I know is, is that if we built it back at 24 feet, it gives us incentive to move forward. And after we build a new restaurant, then you could come back and you could tear down the boat house and it's possibly a way that, you know, would minimize how long those people are out of work. And then we start building it back because that portion is I was trying to listen to is built from the ocean. And that would be done. Correct. Okay, good. And then we start building ourselves back. The problem is we run out of money. So city manager is over there thinking, okay, I like where you're going with this, but there's no money. And it was mentioned that part of that money is to go for services. And I think if we go back to the budget page that was on there for nine, how much we have left? Yeah, there it is. Okay, so what we really say is all we really have right now is we got nine million. Okay. And then two left over. And the one thing played eight million after you do the flume and jetty. Okay, good. Because I didn't see that in there. And I know that the flume and jetty are in there. And yeah, in there. Okay, so we got nine million. This was about an $11 million project. And and when I want to go back is is that I think, you know, when I sat down because part of the intent of measure F was we said it was to build a war from we said it was going to be for city projects. But what I call this was an ocean defense fund because the ocean is out there beating on this town in many ways. Okay, whether it's the flume or the jetty or the seawall or the wharf or someday the espionage, we have absolutely no funds dedicated to fighting the ocean. So even though measure F was passed for 10 years to raise $11 million, the fact of the matter is is that's not enough. Okay, and and what I what when we went out to build this, I think we had aspirations that we were going to be able to secure grants. And there was going to be funding that would come in. It would, you know, I think maybe some somebody said we might get two or $3 or $5 million in grants and one great, you know, that means that we have $16 million instead of $11 million. Well, you know, Kalash was pretty, you know, accurate about, Hey, the grants really don't amount to that much. We're gonna make it maybe $1 million in grants. Well, that's not going to get us where we need to get. So the fact of the matter is is before I would ever commit to spending $7 million to do a band aid and I'm sorry that the band aid on the throat and then $4 million would be a waste of money. I would rather go back to the taxpayers and say, I need an extension on this note from 10 years to 20 years. And it might even be a perpetuity thing because as soon as we get done dealing with the wharf, we may deal with the seawall, you know, we may find other things that this ocean has in surprise for us that we have no funds dedicated to do. So I think the the the wise part of this city looking forward, knowing that that the costs associated with having the ocean right at your door are expensive and the and the repairs that we need to make are not cheap. And with, you know, we're not going to get money from any other source to take care of how the ocean is beating us up. So I'm thinking that Measure F may have to become a, you know, one of those funds, you know, we a quarter cent a year, quarter cent a year. So that would have to go on. It wouldn't be an increase, but it would have to be extended. And my only regret is that, you know, had we had this information, you know, we've been working on this for a while, had we have had this earlier, I would have put it on the ballot because I my belief is, is that the wharf matters to the people in Capitola. And if and if the inclusion is that of the of the whatever that amount is 20% of it is to go for city services. I know that makes the city manager happy because he's trying to figure out how to just keep everything afloat. But to me, you know, 80% of what that money that's generated needs to go to ocean protection fund. So where that puts me is, is that I believe that the right thing to do is to raise the wharf to 24 feet. Since that's the height that the engineers recommend. And I don't think it costs any more whether you raise it to 22 or 23 or 24. It's an arbitrary number. To do that is where we need to get. I want to put the buildings out there that deserve to be there. I think the quality of the buildings that were designed was good. I can't with any good conscience approve buildings on what's there now. I don't want to do piecemeal. It doesn't do any good to have, you know, build this great stable thing and have the rest of the wharf fall down around it. So it's pretty much an all or none kind of a thing to me. I just can't seem to go out there and support what we do. And that's my position. Okay. This is a, this is kind of a difficult one because I agree that we need to consider longevity of the project that we're considering right now. That being said, I have serious concerns about option three and option four. And I'm leaning quite heavily towards option one and potentially option two. In my opinion, with measure f and in all the discussions that we've had, it has always been about widening the wharf and only in the last meeting or not literally the last meeting, the last meeting we had discussing this was there kind of, it was kind of thrown out. What if we raise it too? And I was willing, you know, yeah, let's entertain that. And I'm glad that we did. It's a curious and interesting proposal. That being said, the price increase is incredibly concerning the potential for the aesthetic of how it's going to look having a half wood and half concrete wharf that are two different sizes. There are two different elevations. Because half of it is wood, my understanding is that the original wharf that will stay there will deteriorate around the concrete one that will be raised. So eventually we will only have half a wharf unless we continue to find funds to build the other half in concrete as well. And ultimately I agree with what the treasurer said as well, was that we haven't had any public input on anything more than widening the wharf. So I hear and understand the concern about the materials used and the height of the wharf because of things like climate change and sea level rise. And so that's why I find this to be very difficult. But that being said, I'm not sure that I can feel good about moving forward with an option that's so much more expensive than we expected. Not necessarily what we've been telling the public we were going to do. Yeah, those are my two main concerns. And in the option that's not one or two. So we have a TOT increase and part of the funds if we get that vote from the public is to dedicate money to children's activities. And in reality what Ed has brought up is something that is a reality that is very hard for people living on the coast to face. And that reality is nature, waves, storms. I actually agree with Ed that if we're going to solve this problem we do need something that's going to allow Capitola moving forward in time to deal with the many issues that we're going to have to face. It's not just the wharf. If we replace this flume it's going to be needing replacement also. There's the espionade. You might know that San Francisco is considering on its ballot a whole replacement of its waterfront. A wall that was built, I don't know, 100 years ago with stones and a bunch of other stuff, maybe old boats. I'm not too sure. But it's lasted a long time. The example that Ed brought here just sort of brings up the reality that nature will have its way. Now I'm not too sure. Cal Wharf, which was lost a few years after this picture was taken in 1905, I'll say 1907, was as well maintained as Steve has made sure that our wharf has been maintained. I'm not very confident of that actually. But it does point out that we have to somehow maintain our wharf in a condition so that we have to fight Mother Nature. I also agree that when the public was brought forth with this exposes idea of F and protecting the wharf, all public comment was basically widening the handle. And all comment that I've seen or heard is that wharf is totally iconic. We want that to stay there. We want that to be as we've learned to love it. And people say, I don't want more businesses out there. I like going out there in the evening. I used to walk my dog out there. You can't do that anymore. But I mean, it's a wonderful place to be. Also like to ask or make us think about if there was cement, whether it's a raft, excuse me, a ramp, or if the buildings were on cement and stuff like that, it seems to me the whole functionality of the wharf would be disrupted. Yes, you're right. You're an engineer and not the architect. So maybe that could be handled. But I could see that being a big problem. So I'd like to sort of marry Ed's ideas. I think that we have to look forward to the future. But we have a problem right now that we could actually solve. And I think that's with option one. But that's not to say that we should let this issue just rest, that somehow we've solved it. So I do agree. I think this F should be extended and that other solutions as we move forward should be addressed. If somehow we could extend it now and come up with a solution that would mean raising the wharf in such a way that we get a similar look and feel and use, I would support that too. But I don't see one right now. Stephanie. I have a question for the consultant, Sam, or Steve jump in. If we were to add some other boat docking areas, that would increase our chance of maybe getting a grant because it would provide more opportunities for boats there. And I would certainly consider that if that would help us receive a grant. So I believe there are grants that would pay for the new docks. They're not going to give us extra money to help us redo the wharf. So if we added another set of floating docks at $100,000 or whatever that we could get a grant from potentially get a grant for that $100,000. But there isn't they wouldn't then add to that and give us another million dollars to fix the wharf. Okay, thank you very much. I think we need more public input also. Right. And we should, you know, it's hard to do it. I wish we had a way of putting out a poll and letting people know, you know, through all of the various social media and so forth. And then they could, you know, do it on the computer or call in. Of course, somebody could call in 100 times. But, you know, it'd be a nice way for us. It'd be great to get some, have some way that we can, we can get the word out more and get more feedback other than just our usual channels of committees and neighbors and, you know, things like that. But I'd really like to have more information on the looks of a difference between the wharf and a concrete, wooden in a concrete wharf and more elevations about that, the potential for having a people walk on the lower deck and like to just see more elevations about what that would look like. And just more information. This is this is good preliminary information, but I'm not ready to make any recommendations tonight other than widening it certainly seems like a great idea. And raising it certainly seems like a good idea and raising the buildings certainly seems like a good idea. But I don't want to spend it too much money on it. I'm going to break with tradition and give stateswoman privileges to Kathy Howard and let her come up because she ran down here from home. I barely got her coat on. I'm surprised she isn't in her bathroom and bathroom slippers. What do you have, Kathy? Go on there. I know. Really, I would like you to move this forward. Kathy, pull the microphone. Thank you. Could you please move this forward to other meetings? I would say as a person who has lived here for so many years, that is a landmark. My great grandsons have been down there already. We want it right. Every year the wharf gets beat up and it goes over the top. There is just no question about that. It does not make sense to me that you have asked me to vote for a bill that would fund things without raising the wharf to a safer level. I don't see putting band-aids on anything nowadays with what we have to deal with because costs are so exuberant. I would just like to see you not make a resolution on this tonight but to move this forward to the public to see if we would even do another quarter of a cent or even a half of a cent tax increase in order to pay for that and complete that. This is a wonderful project. The whole community has been waiting for a long time for this to happen. Let's do it correctly. Let's not bag it or just move it around. I don't even care concrete versus wood. That mixes very well together. There are purposes for both and for the bathrooms, even for the fee of the bathrooms. I happen to know some people that go work on those bathrooms almost once a week. Let's do it right. Let's do it correct. We have the opportunity now and I think this is the opportunity to do it. Thank you. Thank you, Kathy. Jacques, do you have another comment? Yeah, Stephanie sort of took thoughts out of my mind. When we dealt with the jewel box, I think we moved too fast. I think that's a perfect example. We've been presented with some plans that look compelling. We've been presented with some arguments that look compelling also. I totally agree with you, Kathy, and Stephanie, she brought that up too. I have to mention that we need to go back to the public on this. I think also maybe think of some of the ideas that we've been talking about here. Quite frankly, I would like to see something sort of mirrors what we have right now at a more protected or sustainable design. I'm not too keen on walking on cement or going out there. To me, I see what I see right now and I like it. I kind of like to have that in a more protected manner, quite frankly, but that hasn't been presented. If we could get there, I'd really like to see that. Thank you, Jacques. Okay, first of all, regards to getting a plurality or getting a poll on which way we should go, a wise politician told me that you're going to have 100 people come to the podium and tell you something. And if you don't feel it's right for the city, it doesn't matter. You have to do what's right. So if we got 100 people to come up here and tell us that we need to spend $7 million to bandaid the war for the next 20 years, that still doesn't make it right. I do feel strongly that the buy level solution is not the way to go. And I'll give a nod to you. You're a great engineer. You're a lousy architect, but you admitted that already. I think that it should be wood and not concrete. I think that's going to be something that we're going to hear over and over again. And frankly, Ed, I'm partial to option four. And I'm partial to option four in wood, the entire expanse. I think that once we're up at 24, 25 feet, the idea of a concrete deck, I'm not that worried about it. Now, concrete pilings, no problem. But I think that having the wood rail, the wood deck, there's just something about that, what it looks like. And even, you know, from a distance, I don't know that a concrete pile of wharf looks significantly different than a wood pile wharf. But anything that works out, you know, financially and also engineering wise, that'll get us the longevity, we're looking to spend the amount of money that will give us a 100 year wharf. So if we want a 100 year wharf, we have to raise it. And again, Ed, I have to agree with you, I would not put a dollar into buildings on that 19 foot wharf ever. And certainly not $2 million. That's crazy. So perhaps, you know, some community meetings are appropriate. And I think that we need to focus down, though, and go give option one, and then do a complete rebuild, and then talk about concrete versus wood. And then we'll have a clear direction. Stephanie, you had another point? I was going to say, maybe we could rehab the library and bring it over there, and set it there for now. It would probably cost us less to build our library on the wharf. It just wouldn't last very long. Ed? I appreciate your comments and everybody's comments. And because of that, and I'd like to make a motion. I'd like to make a commitment to working with the engineer personally, because I think we got a lot of information tonight that we're not able to easily digest. So I'd like to take it upon myself to meet with the engineer and come up with some options. Okay, we have these options that are here, but I don't think they're the kind of options that we're looking for. I think that it's an engineer's conception of what he can do, but it needed to be blended with what we're looking for. Okay, and not necessarily were we looking for, you know, Kristen's point about, hey, I'm up here with my friends and I'm looking down these people, and we don't want concrete. And like I said, you know, he admitted he's an engineer, not an architect. And I try, I think it needs a little bit of input to what we're looking for. And I'd like to, you know, take the time to work with him and come back and have the city manager put this on the agenda in February to bring it back for another go around. When do you want to meet with the engineer? Well, I have to see when he's available. I don't think this is something's going to happen right away. I think it's going to be take time to talk about, but I don't think it's going to be anything we're going to do anytime soon. And just for some direction on your motion, because I like the way it's going. And I'll second it for discussion. I think, because we're so close to council turnover, that we need to be very specific about the timeline. And I'm not ready to create a two council member committee to meet with the engineer. Because two of the five council members aren't going to be here in two months. So are you thinking that in January that a two council member committee would meet with the engineer? I was going to try to meet with him between now and the end of the year so that he could come back with some options to present to the council in February. And as a clarification to your motion that I would appoint a subcommittee of two council members to meet with the engineer in the month of November. And then the results of that will be brought back to the council in January or February. That would be fine. Is the engineer open to that? Okay, there we go. Very good. That's the motion on the floor. I would say February or March, because during the holidays it's real hard to get people together to get community input. Well, it's not going to be, there aren't going to be community meetings. There's going to be a two council members are going to meet with the engineer, try and solidify some options. And then it'll be brought back to the council. And the council at that point will probably go out for public outreach. Okay. Or if you want to get public, get some feedback in the meantime, that would be good. But I think what I saw here, Stephanie was, is what the engineer took this on themselves to come with all these options. And it lacked some of our input. And we had all good input tonight about things we'd like to see an award. And had he had that information, I think his presentation would have been different. He was doing it. And so I just wanted to get together with myself and someone else. I think that's a great idea, just to make sure that what we bring back in February will be something we can talk about. Do we understand the motion? Madam City Clerk? I am getting a subcommittee, but I don't have, I have one name. No, you'll have another after this motion passes. Yes. Okay. A subcommittee of two to work with an engineer to develop more options and to use a meeting until February. Or to focus the options or whatever the options might be. That is the, that is the motion on the floor. And there's a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. The subcommittee will be Ed and myself. We'll meet with the engineer. And in the month of November, that's important. And then we'll go. Because I'm gone. That's right. Thanks, Kathy. Great input. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, TJ. The horse is dead, but we don't mind you beating it because it's always good to be reminded. Oh, yeah, because he's not turned out yet. I was thinking you won. And remember, you're not a lame duck till after election day. Madam City Clerk, would you introduce the staff member who's shadowing you tonight? Thank you. Yes. We have our records clerk, Chloe Woodmancy, who you have met for the social media presentation. She will be taking over duties as the clerk for the planning commission as part of our staff transition. So she is seeing minutes in action and we'll take it over herself next Thursday at the planning commission. Welcome, Chloe. Thank you. Anyone else? How did the treasurer wind up out there with Sam Story? That was, we have one more item. We're not even close to the gavel yet. Okay. Then we will move on to item 8D. Consider Sister City Options with Bahia de Banderas in Mexico. Mr. Mayor, members of council, first off, I need to apologize. My Spanish is no bueno. And so my pronunciation may not be exactly up to snuff this evening. Like Nair it? How do you pronounce that? This is going to be a challenge. Go for it. Recently Mayor Termini received a letter from the municipal Presidente Jaime Tello of Ben Bahia de Banderas expressing interest in establishing a sister city relationship or some type of relationship with the city of Capitola. I think they actually mentioned twinning cities. The translation was twinning. Yes, the translation was twinning. Bahia de Banderas is a relatively large area. It's the smallest municipal entity in Mexico, but it's I think a couple hundred square kilometers comprised of multiple little small towns on north of Puerto Vallarta. Overall has population according to Wikipedia of about 84,000. The city does not have an established sister city relationship to date. This is where it is. Bahia de Banderas. This is Puerto Vallarta right here. For those of you who know where this is, we're looking at the west coast of Mexico, Pacific Ocean. So staff went in and looked into sister city relationships and there's a great organization called Sister Cities International and they talk about how to set up a sister city arrangement. And interestingly enough, when staff research it, it actually involved more than you might think. They talk about local nonprofits coordinating the relationship, exchanges of culture, tourism, business, emissaries over time, relatively long term commitments. They also talk about something as a less formal alternative, which they coined a friendship city. It can be a first stage towards becoming a sister city. And sometimes they're coordinated through Sister Cities International. They do coordinate Sister Cities as an entity to help arrange these things. But friendship cities can be less formal in nature. So staff doesn't have a recommendation at this point. You know, we haven't established Sister Cities with any other city in the past. We certainly don't have a lot of extra staff bandwidth in-house to do work like this. So I think the options the Council could consider would be to just reevaluate something like this at a future date. You could direct the mayor to contact President Jaime Tello with information about Capitola and maybe suggest a friendship city or we could talk about other options for us to move forward. And with that, I'm available for questions. One of the other thoughts I had is that we don't necessarily have to involve staff that much. This is something, especially with cultural exchange, we could pass on to the Art and Cultural Commission to do some outreach. There are a lot of options with our various and sundry committees like this, the Commission on the Environment. I thought about this city because they are experiencing the same sea level rise we are. They have the same challenges we have. And it's a little beach community in a large area. And I'm kind of liking the word Presidente, but that's just me. Council comments? Sure. I looked up a little information and I'll go ahead and pass these down. You have so many handouts. You have a lot of homework. No pictures? I did look here. Sister cities participate in at least three exchanges annually while friendship cities participate in at least one as the city manager mentioned. And there was a couple policies here, one by the city of Austin, one by the city of Irvine for policies with friendship cities and sister cities. And as the city manager mentioned, I'm concerned about the relationship because there are some financial concerns that go along with it. But more importantly, what specifically bothers me is that this Bahia de Banderas is it's about the size of the county of Santa Cruz population-wise has a bunch of little, they have a different term, what they call it, municipal territories inside, which I'll call cities that are about the size of 5,000. And the fact that we don't have a sister city doesn't make me want to jump out and grab one. I think if we were to find one that was a good fit, I'd be all for it. I don't necessarily think that this is it because it's not, we're having a relationship with like a Santa Cruz county, okay? I mean if Santa Cruz county wanted to be with Bahia de Banderas, it would be, we would call it Twin City to be like a good match. But for us to be with this conglomerate that's 150,000 people and you know, 773 square kilometers, it's like, I just don't think it's a good fit. And it doesn't mean that I want to close the door ever to having a friendship city or a sister city. I wasn't going to suggest sister city, by the way, because of all the complexities. I think friendship city is as far as I would go. Yeah, but even with the friendship city, there are some commitments, because when you read into the language on friendship cities, it's like, it's kind of understood that once you develop a friendship city, you are, it's kind of like proposing, it's like an engagement. You're proposing to become a sister city. I like yourself, I have no fear of that. Obviously, you've proven that many times, but in my case, I'm a little bit more reluctant on that. So, so my thing is, is I don't feel comfortable entering into a relationship that I wouldn't want to proceed with. And mainly because if we do do, I think there was something discussed about we were going to do with some Japanese city at one time while back. It's like, if we did it, I would like it to be something around our size, 10 or 15,000 a coastal city, something that we had, you know, because it requires trips by the mayor to go to the city. And so I end back and forth. Yeah. And so, I mean, I think it would be, I don't know, it's necessarily required. Like I said, my understanding of the friendship city is, while it could be certified by city, sister cities international, I don't need, I don't believe it needs to be. There's more to it. I think the city matters. Okay, there. I mean, it is a commitment. And it's, you know, you, I would rather do it with the city that I felt we had some bond with, because there's even something here, like if that city goes through some kind of disaster, you are in a position where you're going to generate revenue to help that city. And so, you know, it's just something you need to be all inclusive aware of. It's not it just about saying, Hey, if I got a cheap flight to Puerto Vallarta, I could go to Bahia de Banderas and, and you know, hang out, hang out. So, I mean, I, my feelings on that are, I don't think it's appropriate at this time. Kristen. I appreciate your, your comments, Ed, and especially that you're not, you're not opposed to keeping that door open for something in the future. I understand the concerns about the size. I like the idea of the friendship city. And I'm wondering if there is any, if we don't as a council feel comfortable with even the friendship city part of it, is there any way to just make something up that's not quite a friendship city that doesn't necessarily require us to be bound to any other body's rules or definitions, but we just want to be, you know, like a cultural exchange or a, of that nature, but without the formal I think if that was the council's will, we could certainly come up with something whether it was just an expression of goodwill and proposal to exchange information and maybe, you know, some me, mementos and things about the cities. That's certainly something staff could develop. All right. Chuck. I'll go along with Kristen's. Stephanie. I think we have enough on our plate with, with the mall coming up in the next couple of years. Just look at all the time we just spent on the wharf. We have street projects we're going to, we got to catch up on. We have the library project we're going to be working on. We, I think it's, you know, it's an interesting idea, but, you know, we need, we don't have enough people to work on that. I don't think we have any time unless we had somebody who's really dedicated to it. So I think we should just put it on the back burner for now. And if you want to send them a letter, send them a pin, send them a capitol, a book, you know, things like that. That's kind of the level I was thinking about. Extend, you know, this, this friendship, but not form anything formal because we just, we, you know, you just don't have time to do all the wonderful things we love to do. Understood. And that's why I was, I was soft peddling this, that it was, and I mentioned the Art and Cultural Commission, only because we do a lot of art. We don't do a lot of culture. Send them at the Goni Festival poster and an Art and Wine Festival poster. Well, communication and cultural exchange and what we do, what they do. So I don't know, Mr. City Manager, how much load would that be on staff to, just to be able to communicate and pass things on from the Art and Cultural Commission slash Beach Festival people? Well, I mean, obviously it depends on the load. You know, I think, I think the framework that we've outlined, I think is something that's certainly workable that if we were to, you know, the council were to direct the mayor to sort of draft a letter of goodwill. We could work with them to help prepare that, develop a little gift basket, send it along, and then if Art and Cultural wanted to tackle something down the road, certainly that would be something that you guys could look at independently, but we wouldn't look at establishing a formal relationship at this time. That seems like that's something that's certainly manageable. Anyone prepared to do a motion or do you have another statement? I can make a motion. Okay, yeah. I'm prepared to make a motion that we direct the City Manager to address a letter of communication with Bahia de Banderas, include a gift basket to include some Capitola paraphernalia, i.e. pin, button, t-shirt, etc. and say that at this time we're not willing to enter into a committed relationship, friendship, etc. That's a pretty practice sentence. But thank you for your interest in our city. Second. Any adjustments or, so as I understand it, the motion is to form a friendship slash buddy city. Not the word friendship or buddy, just no friendship. Not even buddy. Not even buddy, a quaint yet. Thank you for your inquiry. We're not prepared to enter into any relationship at this time. Ships passing in the night. But here's a token of our appreciation for your inquiry. You know, there's so much, if it weren't so late, there's so much good material here, Ed. I'm going to leave it alone and let the motion go. Take a roll call, please. Council Member Harlan. Aye. Council Member Bertrand. Aye. Council Member Peterson. Aye. Council Member Batur. Aye. Mayor Termini. Aye. Wonderful. We have a new buddy and the meeting is adjourned. Be careful out there, Capitola. Be nice to each other. Gosh, we're not going to part of it. We get paid for this.