 Good afternoon. Welcome to the 1pm public portion of the closed session of the March 10 2020 meeting of the city council In this part of the meeting the city council will receive public testimony Thereafter the council members will move to the courier conference room for closed session like to ask the clerk to please call the roll Mayor councilmember Watkins your Matthews Brown Lover your crone Vice mayor Meyers your and mayor Cummings Are there any members of the public who would like to speak to us on any items listed in the closed session agenda? Seeing none I'll adjourn this meeting to the courier conference room where the council will go into its closed session Good afternoon. Welcome to our 2 p.m. Session of the March 10 2020 meeting of the city council Before we begin I would I want to announce the city of Santa Cruz is continuously monitoring the spread of the coronavirus disease With the center of disease control and prevention encouraging the public to stay at home They're currently sick showing symptoms have knowingly been exposed to the novel corp coronavirus of recently traveled to an infected area and Consistent with the county's interim guidance for social distancing the city of Santa Cruz is taking precautionary steps to ensure the public's Access to today's city council meeting while limiting opportunities for COVID-19 to spread I just also like to let the community know that one of our city council members is currently Under the weather and will be joining us by phone, which is council member Sandy Brown The city is encouraging those who are unable to attend to view the city council meetings on the city of Santa Cruz website City of Santa Cruz comm slash government slash city dash council slash city dash council meetings on Community TV org slash watch slash government dash demand or on channel 25 The public is also invited to submit their comments via email to city clerk at city of Santa Cruz comm The center must include the agenda item number and title in the email subject line All emails will be shared with council members and will be considered part of the public record It will continue to be public comment during the meeting for each agenda item under the oral communications public comment section However, the public should be prepared for logistical adjustments due to the council chamber room capacity being temporarily limited to 50 people an Overflow area will be available in the Tony Hill room As individuals we all have a role to play in preventing the spread of COVID-19 And I want to share the top five key messages from the county regarding COVID-19 at this time Number one social distancing keep arms distance away from others and avoid large gatherings Especially with 50 or more people Following this guidance will be in place until March 22nd 2020 number two vulnerable populations People 60 and older and those with existing health conditions are at high risk stay home as much as possible Number three preparedness and prevention like any other emergency Individuals families and organizations are asked to plan for disruptions be ready Number four schools and workplaces Follows school workplace and health facility guidance Consider adapting business as usual to accommodate needs allow healthy kids at workplaces work from home Etc. Number five stay at home when sick and away from those who are ill For general information on COVID-19, please call 2-1-1 or text coronavirus to 2-1-1 2-1-1 or visit Santa Cruz health org slash coronavirus for updates and links to state and federal guidance, and I would like to ask the clerk to please call the roll I'd like to also acknowledge that the land on which we gather is the unceded territory of the awaswa speaking UP tribe The Amamutin tribal ban comprised of the sentence of indigenous people taking to mission Santa Cruz and San Juan Batista During Spanish colonization of the Central Coast is today working hard to restore traditional Stewardship practices on these lands and heal from historic trauma and the clerk could please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance I'd like to start with introduction of new employees And I would like to invite up the director of planning and community development Lee Butler to introduce Rachel Rodriguez Good afternoon mayor and council members It's my pleasure to introduce you to you today Rachel Rodriguez. She joined us last week as an administrative assistant to She just moved here this past weekend from Huntington Beach Where she was working as a payroll coordinator and payroll technician at California State University Long Beach for the past four and a half years. She's finishing up her BA and business administration at CSU Fullerton planning to graduate this fall she's been working in the administrative field for the past 14 years and She writes that she loves this type of work And I will say that her desk is with an ear cut of mine and I can tell that she loves this type of work I can hear that she is smiling when she is talking to customers on the phone So thank you for bringing that friendly approach to our customer service Last I would share a fun fact about her which is that her and her family own a local restaurant Holy smokes country barbecue, which is off of East Cliff and 17th and the farmers market shopping center in Live Oak there and That's part of what brought her to Santa Cruz. So please join me in welcoming Next I'd like to invite up the director of public works Mark Dettel to introduce Dora Perlonga Afternoon Mark Dettel director of public works. It's my pleasure to introduce our new parking facility maintenance assistant Dora Perlonga She was born in Lubbock, Texas and raised in Salinas and in Santa Cruz. She currently lives in Santa Cruz She has a partner of 12 years and her past work experience includes state parks maintenance volunteer firefighter and She attended firefighter Academy and the National Fire Academy as well as the Cabrillo construction code One of the what when she's not working she enjoys hiking and biking and a fun fact Actually Dora was volunteering with the downtown streets team. She's a real success story She was also a driver for the river street camp and We're very pleased to welcome Dora to our our staff on the parking maintenance facility maintenance position So please join me in welcoming Dora Next I'd like to invite up the director of water rosemary minard to introduce crystal galadia and andrew stroller Good afternoon mayor and council I'm really pleased to be here to and introduce two great new employees to the water department On my right here. It's crystal galadia. She's joined us as an administrative assistant three And she's joined a great team of administrative support staff. We have in our department. We're very very lucky She has a lot of training in psychology accounting and business at cabrillo and other Sort of institutions and she also has a cosmetology license. So that'll be good around our organization. No doubt So in work experience. She's had six years with the senilex theaters over as administrative manager over on the other side of the hill Plus eight years in the hospitality industry as an accounting manager at haze mansion high at place in crown plaza Again doing all kinds of administrative duties from social media sales and marketing graphic design policies and procedures general accounting and all of these things are really very Transformable here to our organization as well In her personal life. She likes to read a lot of books play video games and enjoys painting and she also likes Being outdoors and spending your time with her family and friends. So please help us to welcome crystal galadia And on my left here is um, a jay stellar andrew joseph stellar He comes to us from uh, he's not one of those success stories of people who've been a temp And he was a temporary meter specialist and has come now to join our distribution team He's grew up in scott's valley lived here his whole life And he obviously um graduate from scott's valley high and it's been doing a lot of different kinds of things Testing out, you know, various things that it might be interesting to him He's worked at papa murphy's for our three years. He did landscape work and other kinds of yard work around For neighbors and friends and working with a friend of his And then he started as a temporary with our meter shop a few months ago and has recently joined our distribution organization He lives with his mom and dad and brother and sister and Up in scott's valley and he um has a number of people in his family They're in the water industry that encouraged him to sort of try to take this as a place to have his career So we're really thrilled with that and he likes to ride dirt bikes and hike and camp with his friends and He says to me yesterday that he's extremely excited to be joining us and we're extremely excited to have him So please help me in welcoming a j Thank you all and thank you all the new employees for joining us Okay, we'll move on to our presentations of our first presentation. I'd like to invite up shannon tombs recreation assistant The proclamation celebrating the 80th anniversary of the civic auditorium So the civic the construction of the civic was initiated in the mid 1930s as part of a civic improvement campaign Which also included a new city hall campus in a new fire station by the mayor cd. Henkel The auditorium was completed in the early months of 1940 The need for such a building had been prevalent for many years And for much of the anticipated grant opening on march 28th 1940 5000 the eager citizens were in attendance Since its opening the civic auditorium has consistently hosted an impressive list of luminaries such as Eleanor roosevelt jesse jackson The dolly lama and maya angelo Musical legends such as tony bennett ray charles johnny cash and jane's addiction In a variety of local events such as the miss california beauty pageant The mineral gem fossil and jewelry. So the mlk junior convocation and the cabrillo music festival This year 2020 it marks the 80th anniversary of the civic auditorium Celebrating the generations that have laughed and danced within its walls and the performers have dazzled and enriched us And i justin comings mayor of the city of santa cruz Do hereby proclaim march 28th 2020 as civic auditorium day in the city of santa cruz And urge all its citizens and city employees to join me in celebrating the civic auditorium's 80th birthday By taking part in the festivities and expressing highest hopes for its continued service to our community in the years ahead I can just make a quick comment Hey, you guys should take that picture out in front of the civic You know, that's your photo op. So go take another one Also, I'd like to say, you know, it's 80 years old. It's an old building And I think the fact I mean, I just have to say at this point the fact that 80 years ago coming out of the great depression the city felt the kind of Need to make to invest in community Thinking forward something to be proud of and it's done that for generations and generations from sports to fine arts You you hit the Top of the iceberg and you guys have exhibits over there. I think don't you up on the history. They're great But we also know that it is like so many other facilities and aging facilities. I'm hoping as we go forward We're looking at reinvesting in that so that it it can really reach its potential now and into the future I can't help but make that for an 80 year old building. We all love it. But it needs investment Thank you all Next We have a presentation from second harvest food drive. The presenters are christina alberti office supervisor in dc. Lawson thomas recreational coordinator Arceli salgao development and marketing manager Um from second harvest food bank Hi, good afternoon everyone. My name is christina. I work at public works Kelly thankfully is here today from the santa cruz county second harvest bank So we just wanted to provide a brief update about our annual city efforts with second harvest as well as the results of our 2019 campaign But we'd like to first share an overview of what second harvest is and how important it is for our community Hi, my name is eris ellie and like I said, I'm here representing second harvest food bank So we serve about 55,000 residents a month through our 200 pound trees whether it's nonprofits our food for children our passion for produce sites and churches and centers We distribute about eight million pounds of food annually 65 percent of that is produce. So we have actually reached number one Healthiest food bank in the nation. We were second for a long time after San Francisco Um, and we're able to make this happen because of the community coming together It's leaders like christina and dc who are behind the scenes coordinating the fundraising Educating the community motivating and inspiring team members That make this success possible. It's really a collaborative effort that involves all departments You know when we talked about In our annual awards dinner we talked about it comes from the maintenance department from the fire stations and from the libraries And they're doing all this work on top of all their regular other duties. So we really appreciate everything that they do Um, I also want to say that we want to thank the city of santa cruz for helping us fight hunger Year after year and then i'm going to turn it over to christina to talk a little bit more about the efforts and How successful this really was this year DC and I started with the city about 12 years ago together And as as far as I can remember the city of santa cruz has always participated in second harvest and helping out our community And at that time it was mostly just collecting food some money But having those beautiful big large second harvest bins to collect the food and the cans and dry food But in 2016 that dedicated Loyal person that the city had for many years retired and my department head actually asked me if I was interested to take this challenge on And so once what what once was purely an email and food collecting fundraiser Has blossomed into something truly special over the last few years As we've assembled a group of very engaged individuals from each department to encourage our own co-workers To donate more and more every year We agreed to focus our attention more on raising monetary Donations since second harvest can use that money More efficiently on much needed items at a fraction of the cost or even with local produce from our county farmers So just a dollar can provide four healthy meals for our community So money does add up Not accepting canned and dry foods can also limited their team having to sort through Items that weren't really that needed or wanted and that may have been expired So we have seen an increasing engagement among city staff across the board As we've added annual events to help raise money for our city campaign Staff talk about our bake and meal sale throughout the year Remembering all the goodies our co-workers have lovingly made in order to help food insecure individuals in our community We added a new event last year and it went really well. It was our rummage sale Which invited staff to bring their gently used small and medium size items from home And all proceeds went to second harvest and anything left over at the end of the day went to goodwill So it was really a win-win Our team continues to plan on getting more engaged more people engaged every year As government employees we come to work every day with the intention and focus of helping our community and helping Who we need to help as much as we can And whether that's providing programs for our youth or maintaining And providing water service or collecting and disposing of our city's trash and recycling That's why we're here. We're here to help people And it only makes sense that our city employees take special interest in this fundraiser And we raise up to sixteen thousand dollars every year in our two month campaign And in 2019 our staff raised 63 over 63 thousand meals for our community And we'll continue our commitment to second harvest every year I am dc los and thomas with the parks and rec department Just using we do receive a lot of anonymous donations But just using the department totals from 2018 to 2019. We saw about a 48 percent increase We went from 11 000 to a little over 16 000 as christina said And moving forward in the future. We want to continue holding more events We will continue the bake sale and last year we improved it by adding Lunch items rather than just dessert kind of items So it's more whatever people want to bring for food And then for the rummage sale, we're looking at how to improve that for next year And then we're trying to think of even right now more events to help get more people engaged and wanting to donate Christina didn't mention it But we also reach out to local businesses to get small like five dollar ten dollar gift cards that we randomly Give out to people who donates And next or this year now I want to turn towards the council and see if there's anything that you guys can think of to help Boost engagement or with your help. I think we can get more money for next year or this year now Thanks Honestly and one more thing I wanted on the record. They are so amazing that this year They were recognized as holiday food drives coordinators of the year I just wanted to actually I was going to say that as well Actually, the city was recently recognized for three different things I just want to point those out the most important one of course that christine and dc were The food coordinators of the year at the recent banquet the mayor attended Also, we were recognized for our level of contributions and a plaque for the 63 000 meals that we raised and also we were recognized for Public sector engagement. So we received quite a bit of recognition at the latest banquet And present the um Our leaders with the plaque from the city So Taking this picture She should be in it, shouldn't she? Rolf's on it Thank you guys It's great to see our employees helping our city engage in such a A wonderful effort to help fight hunger within our community. So I just want to thank them for all their hard work and encourage all of us to Continue our participation so we can keep these numbers rising in terms of the meals We're able to provide for hunger members of our community Next on our list. Uh, I have a few announcements and then we will move into our regular meeting Today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television channel 25 And streaming on the city's website cityofsanicrews.com Our rules of decorum are on the window ledge to my left and it is my job To keep the meeting running without disruption and we ask that you respect your fellow citizens When you're inside and outside of chambers I'd like to ask the council members if there are any statements of disqualification today hearing none I'd like to ask the city clerk To announce any additions or deletions. We have none announcement about oral communications Oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not on the agenda Oral communications will occur at or around 7 p.m To ask the city clerk or sorry the city attorney to report on close any items on closed session Thank you, mayor Cummings members of the city council the following items were discussed by the city council This afternoon in the courtyard conference room closed session which commenced at 1 p.m The first was liability claims the claims of jack and annie Troy and of Alexis Jenkins Those liability claims are also listed on today's consent agenda as item 7 Second item was a conference with legal council In which the council received a report from and gave instruction to the city's office with respect to the matter of Save our big trees versus the city of santa Cruz council member crone recused himself from participating in that Due to a conflict of interest and was not present during that portion of the discussion Third was a conference with legal council involving anticipated litigation that anticipated litigation entailed a receipt of of a demand to commence the process to initiate District elections under the california voting rights act council received a report from the city attorney's office and gave direction There was no reportable action. Lastly item d was a public employee Public employee performance evaluation involving the city manager. There was no reportable action taken this afternoon very much I'd like to call on the city manager to report out and provide updates on city events and business items I'm going to report on the corona virus, but we could do that as part of the emergency declaration item 8 and pull that from consent Thank you. Moving on to the council meeting calendar. We'll now call on the city clerk to provide any updates to the calendar We'll move on to our consent agenda These are items 4 through 12 on our agenda all items will be act upon in one motion Unless an item is pulled by a council member for further direction. Are there any council members who would like to pull any items? We assume that we'll pull eight correct. Are there any other items aside from number eight that are to be pulled from our consent agenda Are there any members of the public that would like to speak to any item on our consent agenda with the exception of item number eight Hearing none. I'll bring it back. I think there's a slight delay for council member brown So can we just confirm that she has nothing to pull? council member brown Hi, I would I just have a question on 10 She went on 10 Okay, since there were no members of the community who wanted to speak On any items with the exception of number eight Council member brown if you want to ask your question. I think now's a good time Yeah, this item is uh, notice of completion for the for an overlay project and There is a was a cost over on attached and that's included in the agenda report I'm just wondering if we could get a sense of What the original bid was how like how far out of range how how much more did this cost than originally? Uh into space Mayor council member christiniter system director of public works The um, we don't have that exact number, but it was within the 10 contingency. Thank you contract award So we have a motion by council member walkins seconded by council member matthews To mold to move the items on consent with the exception of number eight All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously Um now we'll move on to item number eight, which has been moved and I'm going to turn to the city manager for Um a presentation update on the status of the coronavirus Thank you, mayor first of all, I want to just start off by thanking the uh county health services agency director memihaw who helped provide a Slides here to provide an update and some uh key messages as well as a briefing that they provided the city managers and the county administrator Yesterday to update us on the situation as everybody knows. It's a kind of rapidly evolving a situation and it does vary by Areas and and we have a particular Circumstance here in our community So I thought I'd do an update on that and then focus on the guidance that has been given by the health department Which is all all being coordinated at the federal level state level lots of coordination and communications happening on a Ongoing basis between all the agencies and and also between the county and the various jurisdictions In the in the county of santa cruz so with that We'll start with just kind of the the big picture here So as you can see there's been a pretty rapid rise in the number of cases throughout the world On this map you see it's really concentrated in asia But it's really and then moved through through europe and then is certainly also in the united states and you can see the numbers there In the In the united states it's 607 confirmed cases 114 in in california And there have been 22 related deaths in the us and two deaths in california In santa cruz county, we have two confirmed cases one involving an individual that was on a cruise ship who is Uh, essentially isolated or contained in in santa cruz And then there was a second case of an individual who flew from seattle on a commercial flight And then came here and was determined that the person was infected and then has been isolated and contained However, that situation is the one that really is causing the changing approach because That individual it's unknown whether that person because they they came into contact Here and weren't contained and they were on this commercial flight Whether that person has potentially passed on the virus and so it's unknown at this time And so for that reason the focus is really shifted to a mitigation instead of instead of containment So that really and then there are some uh other cases that the health department follows very closely They have a tracking system. They've got staff that's assigned to to monitor They get information from the various health agencies throughout the state and from other counties So they they're doing a very closed monitoring of all of all situations and follow up and investigate wherever they feel there might be some potential spread or contact So as far as the timeline just really briefly here, um, you know, the really it's really has involved very rapidly The first new story is about about this emerged in december Which wasn't that long ago Then in january, um, you know, china announced the first deaths the county health department began to prepare So they've actually been working on this for a little bit of time And then Moving into february it really started then changing into Really preparing for an emergency here at the local level and the county Deployed their county health services agency department operation Which is similar to an emergency operation center But with the county department and they started it at a low level again Recognizing that we didn't really have any cases here in our county And as I mentioned that's changed This month and then also the county today adopted a local emergency proclamation And that provides them with additional authorities to be able to manage the health situation And then today as part of this item, we're asking that you also declare we declare local emergency and that one is really more around Our ability to have flexibility to if we need to reimburse costs if it's declared a national disaster And so it's for us. It's really more for those purposes the Emergency proclamation that the county does really provides all the really health related Necessities, so the purpose today for the measure before you is really more for our own internal tracking And being able to respond if we need to move to emergency an emergency situation at the local level Next slide, please So This is just kind of an overview of what the county Does and they they convene a weekly healthcare leadership and community partner conference calls Where members of the various sectors of the community can participate and get updates every week They've been doing a lot attending a lot of partner meetings Provide responses and updates. I mentioned they have their operation center And they've got any a number of subject matter experts that are assisting with a variety of different issues And we'll I'll go over this in a little bit, but with respect to for example, homeless services schools jail operations and the like And they they're also increasing their Technical and medical health capacity With respect to communicable disease and in their communicable disease unit Um, but they they they do all these various aspects, uh, you know emergency response surveillance the investigate they do testing Uh, and then communicate and do education and outreach The uh with respect to testing what we were informed is that testing kids Are becoming available. I'm not sure if they're actually started yet, but they've been made available They have some for the health department that they provide They have various criteria that they applied for the testing And then they provided some to private labs that are being made available to hospitals and clinics and they will determine how to Deploy those those test kits. So it'll be up to the various clinics and hospitals to do that But i'm not sure I don't believe I haven't heard yet at least that they're actually started started that But they were supposed to be available this week Right, please. Um, I mentioned the uh, the uh, this is just a photo of the The department operation center over at the county again, they operate they're operating essentially 24 seven next slide, please So as far as the key messages the mayor went over these, um A few minutes ago, but I think it's good to focus on those and they're really five Next slide and I'll kind of go over those. So social distancing And these are really uh, the goal the goal or at least a recommendation is to deploy these Immediately until March 22nd the reason for that is that provides for that that two week period for the person who came in from Seattle that by then the It's not contagious anymore or would have It would have passed the virus would have passed and so That's why they're they've come up with that data. Although that can change if the situation changes, but that's what they're Recommending at this point. I passed out and on your desk are Two documents one that refers to The interim guidance for social distancing and I think I've got a copy here As well for the PowerPoint And and these are really incredibly helpful Because we are getting a lot of questions about this as it relates to even many of our city facilities For example, we've got events at the civic auditorium. Uh, the symphony for example wants to know should they cancel Concerts we've got special events that are scheduled It's elements of park and the like so we are working with each of the promoters on their individual Venues and looking at these To guide us with respect to how to how to do those things. So I'll go over those I think it's worthwhile going over those really quickly. So first With respect to vulnerable populations and this is really important because there are sectors of our community that are more vulnerable, obviously and It's good for for them to take special precautions people that are, you know over the age of 60 for example And even over the age of 80 and then people who have various medical conditions to make them more vulnerable to the virus like diabetes or asthma and the like And so, you know for those individuals, they're certainly asking that they don't do large gatherings of 50 people or more Unless it's absolutely essential and to avoid people who are sick is really the guidance there Also with respect to workplace and businesses There's a variety of measures too that they're recommending as a city. We've taken these we've presented these and issued these Guidelines internally to our city departments and all of our city staff Again, essentially just really trying to make it so that the goal is to not The disease needs hosts and if they don't have a host that helps to slow it down to prevent it from increasing And so the goal is to how do you minimize the exposure and keep it from spreading? And so whatever a workplace where business can do to to do that is really the goal here So again trying to reduce non-essential work related employee travel Minimizing the important the number of employees that sort of work right next to each other in large Groups as well as minimizing, you know, large version meetings and conferences To the extent possible and also trying to accommodate those To the extent possible Again urging employees to stay home And if they're sick and maximizing flexibility with respect to sick leave and other leave policies and we've we've done that as well And so some of the accommodations for example that we're looking at just trying to be really creative For example, at some of our facilities, we've got the A lot of Nelson community center where we've got seniors that come in in a large group to eat meals We're looking now at doing pickup meals instead of sitting down at least for a period of time here And so again, wherever if it's not feasible or It's not the best thing to completely eliminate the service to close it down How do we adjust it to address a large crowd? So Reducing the size of some of these Meetings or functions and or rescheduling them for example, those are just some examples With respect to large gatherings again, there's really canceling non-essential ones and and then really trying to figure out ways to Make them safer If they do have to go through like for example having hand washing the capabilities You know cleaning And and having you know different physical spaces that can be Accommodate people to separate people as appropriate Much like we've done today with with our council meeting And then there's a whole series of also guidance that relates to schools and public and commercial transportation I won't go over all of those but they do have a lot of really really good information And i'll show a link to that as well with respect to these measures Back to the PowerPoint So that's social distancing And then other important things are preparedness and prevention And this is really key To a large extent, you know what individuals do is really important to the extent that people can follow these guidelines It helps as it helps everybody. So just being prepared and To deal with these situations and to follow the guidelines is essential I mentioned the vulnerable populations as well And following the guidelines for those populations For schools and workplaces, the county has also issued some interim workplace guidance And those are also there's a copy of them in front of you And available to the general public and there too they have some of the things that I've covered already With respect to alternative work arrangement Limiting prolonged contact Staying home with sick Performing regularly cleaning and encouraging and hence hygiene Again, these are available to the general public to the schools And are really good information And then staying home winsek Again, it's just just to prevent the potential spread And of course, if you're really really really sick and need to go to the hospital You should do that too. Don't let this keep you from actually getting medical treatment if you really need it With respect to resources The county has a really good website with Many links that are provided really incredible information Whether you're a business person or a business or an event organizer Or public facility or schools and they're available on the website. It's listed up here And they include some of the information I've provided. There's also a text Where you can text and get information On one system Daily or I'm sorry weekly partner meetings that are available conference calls that you can You can join on Tuesdays and there's an email here as far as how to do that So with that, we're happy to answer any questions I know our staff is really busy implementing many of these measures. We're putting up signage, you know Just letting people know about Protecting themselves with providing, you know, additional cleaning services at various facilities We're really implementing many of these measures. Um, and again, I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have Well, I just wanted I want to thank you for the update and thank you for your work on this really important Issue as well as to extend our thanks to the county I just wanted to just maybe share briefly that the county office of education has on their website a coronavirus update link As it relates to anybody who may want to follow the impacts that could be having on our schools So it's sort of just another resource to kind of share at this time And if I may add on that what we were informed of was that With respect to the schools if if they do have a case in the school that they're likely to close the school So they have to university with respect to the school that happens that obviously will have Down other implications for the rest of the community On the website it shares sort of what that criteria would be so for those who want to explore What kind of is that threshold and other types of updates? I think it's really important for to know about This is a good opportunity for redundancy. Do we have something on our webpage upfront On to I just haven't called it out, but I just say um, I spoke to people at the library and they've got something on If you go on the public library. Yes, we can certainly do uh something on the main page. We don't want to replicate We want to just like yes. Yes, we can do that. Um, and I've been forwarding to staff the alerts from metro which has gone through its own protocols and Visit santa Cruz county and visit california, you know travel has been like basically obliterated so I'm just trying I think the more we can forward what we're getting that I have found out not a surprise when I suggest a bright idea. They say yeah, we're already doing So um, yeah I'll just mention briefly that um, the university has also been in very close communication with us and This week they're going to be moving towards having online classes And they're going to make mitigations for final exams and then we're going to be in close communication with them to understand You know how this might move forward at especially with students leaving Santa Cruz for spring break and then them coming back and potentially Maybe coming in contact with the virus when they go home or travel abroad or what have you during spring break So um, just want to let the community know that we are in very close communication with the chancellor and the folks at the university To understand how they're also trying to um cope with the potential spread of this virus I'll just um, I know there was some coverage of this in the newspaper the metro specific Avenue station was closed for a day. I believe it's open. They did sanitize the building. There was a report of a potential Employee or visitor that had come in contact. So I believe they they did a Thorough sanitation uh procedure there, but I believe it's up and working again and open again I have one question. Um Seeing that list of vulnerable populations, I know that You know, if this were to potentially Someone within our homeless population were to get infected. There's the potential that it could spread Maybe potentially fairly rapidly amongst that population I'm just wondering if there's any current and a member of the community contacted me to ask about what might be happening to try to Work with our homeless population in terms of trying to see if there's People are potentially are sick like getting them testing and trying to isolate those individuals So we don't have spread amongst that population further into sanikers population Yes, my understanding is there is a sort of a plan that relates to homelessness that where It would involve how to essentially address a situation with that population and contingency plan for being able to Isolate and contain if there are individuals that are in the homeless population or an individual that's that's homeless And that needs to be contained and so there is a plan to have a facility in space available for those individuals And also to do some other measures around hygiene improvement much like the like the hippie outbreak As I understand that the county is looking at deploying a similar approach One slide you had up This one too Those 10 people sitting around the table are they real people who are dealing with the county Response Yes, those are the the actual staff from the the county health department. Yes, you said weekly It seems like they would be meeting daily or at least Yeah, the yes the the health department folks are there 24 7 on this Yeah, the the weekly are the the coordination meetings and the communications meetings that the the health department hosts So that anybody can call in Partners can call in to get the latest updates. We're doing that also internally as a city We have a team that meets after these meetings to coordinate internally to respond to any situations Or anything that that may have changed and to address whatever we might need to If we need to do them more rapidly, we will do that as well But that's the we're following their lead at this point and with respect to large gatherings You said what is absolutely essential? How are we defining essential? Well, you know, you have to sort of look at them on a case-by-case basis and there's a variety of factors. I think and None of these it's necessarily required. Um, and so I think every organizer or event organizer will have to sort of Determine, you know, what they feel is best given the this is his guidance. Um, and so I guess in our case, you know, if something you know can be Provided in a different way. We will do that first or if it could be delayed. We'll do that But there might be some situations where it might be more difficult and so therefore then they might have to look at Other measures Like like what we're doing But we are having conversations with with some of these event promoters right now to sort of figure out What's the best situation for them? Any further questions by council members Seeing none, I'd like to invite members of the public who'd like to comment on this You'll have two minutes for public comment Hello, I'm James you and Whitman I'm not going to contradict any information that I just heard but I have some different observations I think that all of you should continue your own research because this is potentially A big issue, but there's other systematic issues that are also in question So I'm here because I'm concerned in the past 10 days I've been to eight safety meetings four of which were Food preparation and food serving Two other were independent meetings about food serving The third one was with the huff group and then I also sat with I don't know 45 emergency responders last thursday for their Meeting that's the first thursday at 2 p.m. Every odd month except july At 5200 so Cal that was a really interesting I'm not going to mention the grades. I'll give each group My understanding is that the first case of this virus was discovered in noted october 16th in china not december 31st And my understanding is that the incubation period for this is up to 24 days And that this virus can stay On a smooth surface for up to 10 days So I don't know. I've probably read and watched 50 and 60 different direct Videos and document documentaries just on this situation But there's other situations that can connect sicknesses like this. This council seems to rarely talk about the chemtrails There doesn't seem to be a huge Interest in the existing wireless let alone the other wireless that's going on So I think that if this does become a serious issue Um, there's a lot of really good information that you can get from homeopathic doctors I'm certainly no homeopathic doctor although I've been studying stuff like that for more than 20 years So thank you for your time Yeah, i'm a council member who ever had a question Yeah, thank you. I know that uh, you'd mentioned Aspects of the population people experiencing homelessness, but just curious. Are we going to be uh offering a Handwashing and hygiene sanitation stations around the community to be able to provide maximum opportunities for people to wash their hands Especially those that may not have access to indoor bathroom or plumbing With respect to our facilities we are providing some of these services and then with respect to If you're referring to potentially uh, like homeless and camis and that sort of thing I think we're looking at those Yes on a really case by case basis as far as deploying some of some of those things Discussion just I thought it would be just helpful to maybe just have jason do a quick update from an emergency response perspective since he's here um, so from an emergency response perspective, obviously this is A impact to all of our personnel on a regional countywide Basis, we are working with county health our emergency medical director dr. Giller ducci To come up with contingency plans that I hope you don't have to implement as far as being able to provide service Because our personnel are going to have to engage in areas that are quarantine or people who are sick and we don't want to Estimate that population. We want to make sure that we have that continuity of service tomorrow morning All the county fire chiefs will be developing those plans in conjunction with our ems partners amr county health And they'll start broadcasting that out. You may see a change in our response to 9-1-1 To a different type of response a limited response or in some cases no response Based on what the criteria are for those people who are following What we don't want to do is move a disaster from the community into the hospital and overwhelm the hospital we have a limited bed space for Negative air pressure or for people who may be One thing I really want to stress is that this is really an opportunity for thoughtful planning not for panic End of the day. This is a flu. It does have a huge potential for disruption It does have a potential for sickness and in some cases death But the time is not to panic to go hoard But to really follow the guidelines for that social distancing for the next two weeks And what the county is trying to do with that is really put a hard check on the ability of this virus to spread And do that now so that we don't get into the position that some of the other countries are in right now So I would hope that all of you would really push that message as visible leaders within the community You're making contingency plans for the ability to With this declaration change our workforce change our work hours So that the public can be confident that we will be here ready to respond if needed But we may be changing that response and that messaging will be coming out So questions for our fire chief Thank you So I appreciate the clarity or I guess at least just the case by case basis kind of umbrella I'm just curious Since you said case by case What about the encampment that's located outside of the post office or along coral street because I drove down coral street the other day And there's a sizable congregation of people essentially that are there If they don't have access to coral street where are they using the bathroom and washing their hands? Also with the Post office, so we'll start there and then Okay, I'll have Susie. She's been working there. We have a you know a team that works on a regular basis on you know being responsive to Encampments as you can provide an update on that. Sure. So thank you mayor and council members homeless persons health project is going through a process of Engaging and outreaching with our homeless population on much of the things that we're talking about in chambers today And that the board talked about this morning There are obviously additional health and hygiene considerations for our homeless population And so the county is really taking the lead on that With our hep a outbreak the county provided the the bathroom facilities on our property And so I would fully expect as they are evaluating the risk. They will be engaging with the city to Additional portable portable bathrooms hygiene hand washing stations In the areas of highest risk of transmission Coral street post office. I actually just sent an email to me me with regards to the post office encampment That area obviously is of grave concern giving given its proximity to an high trafficked area And the potential of transmission within the encampment and also within our greater community So I expect as we talk about the camping ordinance next week We'll be talking about how to best manage high density encampments moving forward Having covet 19 part of that equation. I think is just an additional layer of complexity that we have to think about So the county really is the the responsible party for talking about health and hygiene response And I imagine as a city we would be open to hosting whatever they say is the most Prudent and urgent places where we should put those facilities Do we have a timeline on that with the county on when or if they're planning on doing those additional portable bathrooms? I don't want this to be A tool to further criminalize people experiencing homelessness or to make it so that we're strengthening our encampment regulations For fear. I'm looking at how are we offering or providing Infrastructure that can allow them the hygienic access to avoid there being any transmission since they may not have access to indoor bathrooms yeah, so what I would suggest with regards to the The intersection of the encampments and how we manage That kind of high density camping moving forward. I think there's some overlap in the discussion for the next agenda council agenda, however, as it relates to the covid response The county Has a plan they have communicated elements of the plan, but they are still informing themselves quite frankly on how best to move forward as it relates to The potential risks associated with transmission within not only our homeless population, but the greater community I would fully expect that should hand washing stations and public restrooms Be required that will happen immediately And we will have the resources to do that once we have been you know guided by the county to do so And just want to add that also There hasn't been a case of the virus spreading through the homeless community So that does does not not exist at this point and certainly on an ongoing basis like whether it's with the post office encampment We do offer individuals shelter on a regular basis and part of the challenge of course is that we have is not everyone Always chooses to to avail themselves to them. So that's that's part of the ongoing process but you know, we do Work really closely with the county to Try to get people services and and housed as quickly as possible Particularly if they're vulnerable, particularly if they have situations There are beds that are set aside For high risk homeless individuals at the homeless services center or the housing matters And they are making provisions for those as needed also in the case of the The coronavirus as well There's no Found case of anyone within that community having it I'm looking at more of a preventative aspect than a reactionary aspect and then also As far as the city goes while we're waiting on the timeline of the County to make their decisions Will we be opening up public bathrooms that have been previously closed and then implementing some kind of a hygiene regimen there because There was a post that was one up today or yesterday from homeless outside in santa cruz Citing that public bathrooms even during the day. We're still locked in some of our parks. So With those locked facilities That makes people that may not have access to bathrooms have to choose other means To relieve themselves. So what are we doing to proactively? Respond to people need to use the bathroom And this has been an ongoing conversation for a long time Even for last year at least since I've been on the council with access to public bathrooms But now it seems especially relevant Um, I just want to jump in here real quick I just want to remind the council that the item before you is the declaration of an emergency Uh adoption of the resolution that the primary Uh function of so doing is that when and if The state or federal government offers grant funding or assistance to local agencies that are Implementing the response including the measures that are being mentioned by uh council member glover That will have potentially the the ability to reimburse the city for the cost Of those but I think the discussion of specific actions that might be taken by the council with respect to homeless encampments or that sort of thing is really another topic that ought to be Separately agendized So I will go ahead and move Move adoption of the resolution declaring a local emergency disaster As described in the item and just noting that the Resolution item number four says although there have been no confirmed cases in santa cruz county So I think we should change that There have been two confirmed cases in santa cruz county and public health staff are busy monitoring And when we drafted this that was a situation That that was real at the time. So with that minor change i'll move the item before us So we have a motion by council member matthews seconded by council member wagons to move the staff recommendation on declaring local emergency as it relates to COVID-19 Any further discussion? Nope. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously And I would like to thank council member brown for modeling good behavior in social distancing sandy Um i'm following directions So that concludes public comment and we're going to move on to our next item Which is item of the first item of general business item number 13 Uh, which city of santa cruz commitment to menstrual equality Uh, this was brought forward by vice mayor donna mires and council member wagons And so i'll turn it over to two of them to kind of start us off on this item Well, we don't have a power point set up for you here for this item You're welcome. Um, but we are happy to introduce it Essentially what this is about is about putting gender equality and gender equity into policy action and Following just some leads that have already took place in the county. I'll just go ahead and share I know that the city of capitola administratively Decided to stock their city housed employees bathrooms as well as the county office of education So I think there is movement happening happening around Really having menstrual equality and menstrual equity Implemented in a way that allows for these sanitation products to be available to those who need them and What we're proposing here is really sort of a phased approach to really look at how do we? Sort of administratively begin to stock our bathrooms for city housed employees In the immediate but really looking at a broader movement and ask of our community partners To see how we can go even further and if we think about those who are struggling financially Our homeless women who are in need of these products or Youth or others who aren't necessarily able to access this or afford this. This is one thing we can do to help support them and Frankly, it's something that should have happened a long time ago in my opinion And I feel really proud that the city of Santa Cruz can hopefully lead the rest of the county And then hopefully we'll see even broader movement in the state and beyond I'm just kind of one thing I'd like to just maybe call out is Scotland became just recently the first country to end period poverty by providing free sanitary products to women of all ages So I think we can get there eventually But I want to just start we have to start locally and that's the beauty of local government. So I want to thank vice mayor meyers for Joining me and having this recommendation before you at today's afternoon's agenda and happy to offer her any Yeah, I will just state that I was excited to co-sign this with councilmember Watkins This is certainly a real problem. It's not something that we find in our normal social discourse talking about these kinds of inequities, but These products do cost a lot of money and So I think this is a place where there is true and needed assistance in terms of really trying to provide products that Are not optional to any woman At least once a month and so I'm just very excited to be part of bringing this forward. Thanks Yes, I have Let's hear from the public first. I do have a few Relatively minor changes. I've discussed with the authors. So I'd like to when the time comes present those Okay I have a few questions, but I'm going to allow public to comment first and I don't know if my other colleagues have any Questions either, but maybe we'll open up the public comment and they'll bring it back for Questions and and action. Um, so I'd like to open up this item for public comment If you would like to comment on this item, um, if you could please line up to the left and you'll get two minutes My name is Elise Kazvi. I'm a community organizer and homeless advocate Um, I just want to call out some of the people who have sponsored this very minor helpful Initiative to provide women with menstrual pads I just want to say that I have been doing a personal investigation and gone into several of the shelters in Santa Cruz And found that the overall health risks to be very extreme I've I've constantly found that the staff that is hired into the shelters Have not been trained in abuse versus conflict and they have no idea often how to How to handle conflict and abuse I have been put at risk for severe diseases I have been abused by male staff at the river street shelter. I have had Two sleeping quarters that are extremely dangerous with where people from Jail have been allowed to be in the same room as me I have slept with people with multiple addictions that are active Where they bring alcohol into the room and I have been molested And so I just want to say that as somebody who is facing one of the most Divided councils the governmental bodies that I've ever seen in my life One of the most deceptive set of certain city officials for them to bring such a minor thing across and to pretend All this concern for women when women are out there without shelter We have the women the walnut avenue women's center Is prejudice against homeless women? I have seen it I am tired of the pretense to be oh so helpful to women And I just want to say that the city of santa cruz is paying salaries That are so outrageously high to people like for example, tina shoal That we could have done so much more for women than give them menstrual pads. At least it's a tiny little bit of something speaker I um, I kind of like the idea if this was paid for by the state or the fed But uh, at any rate, I'll read a different view The best argument for this is the analogy to providing toilet paper But I can see people filling their purses up with free stuff And the cost per person is quite more than sheets of toilet paper unless you're talking about vending machines I would suggest similar to sounds a state where such are provided free from their health department But students need to ask for it. They also directly pay for it as part of a health plan If it was a big health issue, you would think health care providers would be involved somehow Indeed this is perhaps a health plan provider coverage issue Otherwise it seems like a public employee benefit at this point and I asked does the private sector do this and if not Well, then you have to question it as a self-serving government monopoly Benefit. Anyway, I don't like it being called menstrual equity. That sounds like you are leftist ideologues Please don't cite the leftist globalist doctrine of health and all policies as some standalone justification for any public expenditure There's no such thing as social science only social studies which live in isolation of a world of statistics probabilities correlations Can also confuse correlation with causation or ignore other factors For instance, there could be a hypothetical study that includes some people benefit from a 24-hour gym membership or free condoms Should the city then buy every employee a freebie gym and a free condom membership Such are issues with data driven policy alone decisions let alone leftist ones Equity is an ownership of property rights or stake. Normally one has to buy those unless the government gives such a way at public expense This is not the same as public property owned or used by all or private property equity Please consider and all council matters the relief of human suffering as a moral calling or imperative Not a right of relief of the sufferer or an obligation to affect that relief assigned as a supposed right on those who could affect their relief Sure, as a moral issue morals do evolve over time in the court of public opinion morals evolve involving equity also Yep Is there any other room to the public who wants to comment? Except lucero luna. I get arrested number 15 at feeding scamp And i'm against shelters on coral street was um, what's he called it I was arrested for trespassing. Excuse me. Can I pause you real quick? The item on the agenda is related to menstrual equity Okay, so if it's if it's not related to the menstrual equity program that's being proposed So you can come back and you can come back this evening at uh oral communications So thank you. Are there any questions from council members? I'll go ahead and put a motion on the floor then and I appreciate those who brought it forward It's a very rapidly developing issue. In fact, it's being dealt with at the state and national level um And so I do think it's appropriate to start at a modest local level And it's not going to solve the world's problems, but I appreciate this being brought forward So, um, I will move that and I I gave Bonnie a copy of it's it's just slightly revised language So I'll move we direct the city manager to develop a targeted menstrual equity program Making menstrual products freely available in city facilities used exclusively by city employees To be considered in fiscal year 2020 slash 21 and initiated as soon as feasible thereafter Communicate this action to community partners such as educational facilities and institutions health providers and organizations and local government Urging them to join in a countywide approach to menstrual equity with the intention of an official launch in late 2020 Send a letter to the chair of the board of supervisors requesting that they agendize this issue and direct the county health services to take the lead in coordination Communicate this action to our state representatives indicating our support for statewide action on this issue And report on the feasibility of the city program in progress And progress on countywide efforts in june 2020 for further council consideration and direction I'll second the motion and if I could ask one question for clarification for city employee house facilities and City facilities used exclusively by city employees. Is there a difference in terms of the framing of how that language works? I just found city employee house city facilities To be awkward. I just put a question mark when I read that so I think the idea is not to put them In the civic auditorium for the general public et cetera et cetera, but If that was the intention I'm just trying to understand Yeah, so um Good afternoon again So I help the council members draft this agenda And I think really the intention was to ensure that our city workforce across the whole demographic has access to these products My understanding is some of our departments already do this like our police department So i'm really looking internally to see what is available within our department structure and then putting some formality around that I think and I think you're right a lot of places do it public private nonprofit already. Yeah So this language if I may for clarification will cover the city First off, I want to thank the Authish for bringing this forward bringing this you know this entire concept and demonstrating what's going on globally and you know the Opportunity for us to start acting on this locally and hopefully we'll have a you know national acceptance of this these kinds of policies And I'll say that in the motion that was just provided a number of my concerns were addressed because I know in some of the recommendations there was Implementation of a of a program and I was concerned with the fact that there's implementation But what about the development side and so I think that this captures A lot of some of the concerns that I had I do have one question Maybe for the maker of the motion or like or for the people who brought this item forward One of the things that was brought up numerous times Is that and I think it's kind of what is encompassing this item is that it's really intended to You know provide these make sure that people who are vulnerable and don't have access Have access to these products within our community. And so one question. I have I know that we're That kind of first direction is looking at city employees, but I'm wondering if within that development of this mental equity program Focusing on city not only city employees with city facilities that offer services to Low-income residents. So for example Low-income residents go to the Loudoun Nelson Center for programs They go to the library for programs and if we're just focusing on employees who actually have jobs, you know Whether in these city run buildings Rather than all the nonprofits throughout the community But at these city run buildings that they'd be offered to members of the public who use the bathrooms For example in those facilities. So I'm just wondering what if there are any thoughts around that I'm happy to just share briefly in terms of the intention around Sort of where we could start now is really stalking our local facilities But absolutely where we want to go is so that every facility in our community is stocked every school is stocked Our jails are stocked and we have this new movement around No females shouldn't be able to access these products if they need them And so starting small but with the ambition to get to what you described Sandy has just sent me a text that she has questions. So Sandy and then we'll send the amount of views Yes, so thank you Councilmember Watkins and vice mayor Myers-Rivine is forward. I I do appreciate the The commitment that you're asking us to make and and I agree that we should move forward I have one Actually, I have two questions and I think one of them is kind of a follow-up to Mayor Cummings question about how it is that we We achieve the intention of bringing Feminine products to Marginalize women outside of the city workforce. I'm fully on board with moving ahead with that But given the list that you've provided in number two of your recommendation related to kind of some of the other organizations and And agencies that might be included. I'm just wondering how do you see that moving forward? I know councilmember Matthews has has raised the idea of Making the county the point on this but that requires that the county actually be Interested and willing to work on this and take the lead um If And then I also I guess I'm wondering in terms of the two of you if you're thinking about your involvement moving forward with trying to develop this program Is there a way that we can build into the recommendation? The motion something that gives you the opportunity to to do that. So that's a question and then the second question is The staff time that may be involved in from the city's perspective in moving forward I see a budget adjustment might come with more of a fleshed out program But in the meantime, how much staff time do we anticipate this taking? Susie is stepping to the mic. Sorry So one thing I wanted to mention with regard to potentially immediately launching something that is a little bit more comprehensive is In my research most cities and counties that have a menstrual equity Program that is targeted to those that are outside of the workforce happens in libraries And you know I think one thing that you could do in addition to the motions that are in front of you is add a specific request To the joint powers authority of the library to see if they would be interested in moving forward with something You know on the immediate horizon rather than waiting for the full robust You know system-wide Program to be developed. I think there's potentially High feasibility there with some obviously considerations around cost I had More math use next and councilor brown. Were you finished with your questions? Yeah, well, I just wanted to thank you um, Ms. O'Hara for that and I guess uh, given that response I'm wondering if the maker of the motion would be willing to include that as well request to The joint powers the library joint powers authority About their willingness to be involved I'm quite happy to uh, I changed my language from the original motion to be quite a bit broader about Educational health and civic institutions. I'm happy to include them specifically if that's reassuring to people So I would just add Partners such as educational facilities and institutions libraries health providers, etc Just so just a sorry. Thank you for that. Um, but I'll just a quick follow-up the I think what um, mido hara was suggesting was that perhaps The library joint powers authority would be willing to engage in the first round effort that involves um kind of immediate for facilities where city employees work, but also as a point of access for um, marginalized vulnerable women to have some distribution at the library. I think that's what I was hearing Which is a little different than just general outreach with a group The library jpa is a collection of Uh representatives from all our jurisdictions with the exception of watsonville And I think it's appropriate to include them in this group that in the near term would be We we would send a letter To the board asking them to take the lead in this but also send a letter to all these other entities asking them to consider this and um Join in the effort. So I I see that as entirely complimentary to what we're talking about that we would take the shorter term action would be for our own workforce and we would Take the initiative to engage others, but not do the work of carrying through on it Me that seems appropriate So next we have um councilmember glover myself vice mayor mires Thank you, uh, yeah, so I'm just looking at the original Recommendations and this alternate language and you know, I Appreciate what one of the community members had to say about it This is a this is great and I was happy to see it on the agenda But it being a very small step in trying to provide some form of equity, especially for people that are financially burdened in Santa Cruz Which there are many I'm a little it's a little strange to me and it's not that I don't care about our employees having access to feminine products but shouldn't our focus be on groups that can't afford it so Why are we prioritizing city facilities as opposed to prioritizing? say Shelters that are run by city Contractors or public bathrooms where people kind of access to them or you know starting with the library And moving forward that way It it seems strange. So if you can Please enlighten me as to the logic Behind that and why we would be prioritizing people that already have jobs and money in which to purchase these items as opposed to An unforeseen timeline with some kind of report coming back maybe in june That could include People that are low income or experiencing homelessness Just similar to what I um said before is that it's a first step and hopefully a broader Approach to providing these I would go so far as to say That our city employees could also really benefit from some of the alleviated costs associated around having to purchase these products as well So I think the more we can expand Starting with in-house and then expand beyond is absolutely the sort of the direction we want to go But we have to start somewhere and so starting here with our institutions Felt like a natural place and is very similar to other other Institutions who have also taken that first step and I don't know if you want to elaborate on that The research actually does demonstrate that the level of need is not necessarily based on income level It's based on the shame that happens if you don't have access on demand And that can be across all income levels. So Um, you know, we're obviously getting into a very sensitive subject But I did some research on this and having it available for your workforce is really Predominantly where you should start from the perspective of um, it really obviously those that have That are marginalized and more vulnerable need ongoing sustained access But on-demand access is very important for the workforce as well So I'm not debating whether or not it's important for us to have our city employees have access to the means or the materials what I am trying to understand is What this is a very vague timeline and it it's And unfortunately is reminiscent to me of previous policies and just historic decisions of the council where we are focusing on people That yes, they I'm sure it would alleviate stress or shame or what what have you but we're talking about hygienic needs for people that can't get it regardless of the level of shame that they have and Why like for example, new york, I believe back in 2016 Past a bill that would require public schools prisons and shelters And that and in la there was a recent one at the end of last year that would be in public bathrooms So I don't understand why it has to be all city facilities and employees first and then public bathrooms and marginalized communities as opposed to Moving on them at the same time And then receiving a report back in june. So again, it's you're we're going to do whatever you're going to do but The language here and the change from the original language And having it introduced as something to address the needs of homeless women when that was just completely removed except for some Unforeseen future is very problematic for me and is indicative of I think a pattern I could just interject I think that My understanding is that as a city You know, this can be a first step, you know in providing it to our employees, which is Probably a starting place as an easy first step and in order to get these products into the schools and jails and Shelters that there is a coordinated effort around Who's going to be involved in that conversation? Where's the funding going to come from? I think also making sure that our partners are on board which I think it's it's good that we move we're moving forward in this collaborative effort and my understanding from and And i'm glad that we were able to kind of discuss You know the report that's come before us because as I mentioned before I had some current concerns with this And but having had a bit of this conversation. There's clarity around, you know, this You know taking a stepwise approach I do like, you know, express the same level of, you know, wanting to make sure that these products are available for You know in city facilities where people who come from our more marginalized communities and vulnerable communities Can't have access. I do think that this is a great starting point and kind of to what council member brown said I'm wondering if the The council members who brought this report forward If there's a way Potential if there's any interest in working on a subcommittee of some or committee of some sort and we could have report facts Or, you know, how we can receive updates Because I think it would be, you know, it would be helpful to kind of see how this develops over time And so i'm just going to stick with the stack that I currently had So that's that's part of my comment of the other I have a question to follow up on too For Susie O'Hara So council member brown I think part of her question that I don't think was answered was around the amount of staff time that would be Allocated towards this and I'm wondering if there's, you know, in terms of workload What's currently getting worked on what's what this will replace because we've been having a number of discussions around Other items that have been brought forward by council members and I know that our Two-year strategic plan is coming up really soon And so i'm wondering as well like what will this kind of take the place of is this something we should include in the strategic plan Since that this could be a really big part of it So i'm just wondering So I think probably what is what that contingent is on what that content what the contingency is is how much the county takes The lead on this From my perspective the policy has been pretty built and is structured What i've seen across the state and in other cities in the united states is that That the clear policy directive is there. It's really a matter of cost. These are very expensive I think the the count are for the country of Scotland I think it's a 32 million dollar a year program It's it's not for you know a relatively small country So if you can imagine la new york city These are multi multi multi million dollar projects to ensure that everybody has access So, you know, I think really the intention and to you know respond to councilmember brown around The jpa I do think you know in reading number seven the the official launch being late 2020 Maybe there is a way to pull out the jpa specifically for some direction now to see if they'd be interested in Moving forward before the end of the the the current calendar year. That might be the one nuance between how Cynthia and sandy are talking about it, but but otherwise, you know, really the intention is is to hopefully get the county office of ed the sheriff's office the county and other Really more health and safety focused organizations take the lead on this City manager Yeah, just a couple of things with respect to the the the first question around the level of effort and how would it impact other things? I think the The idea I think behind the 10 up there too is to be able to do that and bring that back and and clearly also As the council moves forward with the development of a work plan and strategic goals You know, it'll feed into all of this as well given the timeliness and the timeline associated with that So that'll be you know part of the the consideration for sure And then secondly, um, I said on the on the board of directors for the library uh board And so I'm certainly uh, can bring this forward to them And I think it'll be a similar discussion You know, there'll be questions about budget implications and all that we're in the process of developing our budget And we're getting you know proposed budget. We had our five-year forecast to set our last meeting and We'll be getting a proposed budget moving forward and maybe also that actually we were already doing some I don't know But I can certainly uh follow up with with the The director and the board and and bring that forward and then we're back to the council Vice mayor Myers and then I have Councilmember walk-ins and then I would just offer that I believe councilmember walk-ins and I certainly intend to follow up with Partners. I don't know that we need to subcommittee. I regularly visit and try to Get in touch with many of the service providers Um monthly meetings different things site visits So I think if we can The intent obviously is not to delay Or somehow, you know, not provide and move this forward until june Um, I think in our regular relationships with nonprofit partners service providers education county office of education other institutions in towns We can certainly Bring forward this decision. Hopefully a unanimous decision by the council to Begin this conversation. I think what we most importantly want is that this is a successful program When you want to when you launch something like this, you really do want to take the time to make sure everyone understands the obligation We understand the the cost implications and So that when this gets rolled out, hopefully in a more broader way across various community partners Those expectations for women who who may be looking for this Specific resource Knows know know that it will be available to them So I think um, we just want to we want to do this thoughtfully This is not an intent to try to delay anything And we certainly will be doing a lot of outreach Immediately within the next week or so to to keep moving this forward and also work with the county on and our county partners to try to Put this together in a fairly quick quick way And I think it's just our our due diligence to make sure that we really understand the cost implications and and Understand how that would affect any partner in in implementing this I'll just I mean, I'll just echo the comments that vice mayor meyers brought up And then just also say I'm supportive of moving forward with having a conversation with our library system to see how that could be integrated potentially sooner rather than later and then for any I mean, I appreciate the comments that were made by Mr. Heron that Any woman who finds themselves without a sanitary product and is in need of one is a woman who I want to support And we can start here and hopefully lead our community in a way that all of our young women And women of all ages who are in need of these products are able to access them, especially those who are unable to afford them And I do think that this could be a conversation That we could have also at our city schools meeting in terms of how we can talk with our schools and our school district partners around More access, but I'm happy to exhaust my existing partnerships and definitely continue to work with staff and Vice mayor meyers on seeing how we can partner with the county as well to move this forward But I just want to not lose sight of the fact that this is a really great first step And this is products for women who find themselves in need of them regardless. So I want to celebrate that as well And so I've got um, just to make sure that we're having clear communication. I've Council member matthew's council member brown and then myself. So just acknowledging Um that sandy is in the room as well Um, I think we're coming near the end of this I don't think we need a special another committee on this I think we have at least a couple of people who are very interested in working on it And we'll point out that the county has a women's commission and a public health commission I think there's the opportunity to engage some other advocates. Um, and I would say Pick up the other entities as soon as they show interest and we don't That's just a matter of getting the ball rolling and um to me the launch The services don't have to wait until that time the launch is when you've hit critical mass and you think you just want to go That's how I see it Council member brown Uh, yeah, I I guess I'll just make one last comment about this potential for moving forward with the library more quickly Mr. Bernal, I appreciate that you are willing to bring that forward. I just want to make sure that if that's the case there's some um Kind of that we hear about that some you know that we are I just like to make sure it happens because I I do feel strongly that we Given the the rationale for bringing this forward and which I completely agree with I do think that We ought to make that commitment that we're going to we're going to work on this and and Create opportunities or spaces of accessibility for Marginalized women not just city employees. I really I appreciate that but I do think that Um that other commitment is is equally more important Okay, and I I would just like to state that um, I think the same should be said for some of the Other facilities because I just think about loud and nelson and with the teen center And whether or not those teens have access for example and you know potentially the civic too But you know there's there's city run buildings and if we're going to be you know moving forward and if we can You know think about city run facilities maybe in general as this kind of like first wave and that Including employees and you know members of public who use those facilities because I can imagine even here You know in the public bathrooms outside of you know chambers that having some products there for Members of the public who might come to city council meetings I think that that would be you know appropriate within these kind of first steps So I'll just put that out there as well in terms of Thinking it would within the context of urgency and then Additionally working with schools and county officials on next steps. I think is appropriate There's no further discussion Like to call the vote on this and so we have a motion made by council member matthew seconded by council member watkins There's no further discussion all those in favor. Please say aye. Hi Any opposed Let me just clarify This says six seven eight nine ten because that's the way my crazy computer did I cut and pasted and I had one two three four five And I pasted and it had its own idea to go six seven eight nine ten. So Oh, well, we thought you just like started All right So that item moves and we will move on to We're right on time. So we'll move on to our next item of business And that is our fiscal year 2020 collective selection of results and evidence-based our core investment set-asides funding recommendations And this is a presentation that will be led by Ralph de merica principal management analyst Okay, good afternoon council Ralph de merica principal management analyst with the city manager's office And it really is an honor to be here in front of you guys today to report on this item and It's a really bittersweet item in a way because we are We get applications from people from the community who want to do great work, but we just don't have enough funding to fund everybody So Jumping in I'm here today to request a motion to approve fiscal year 2020's Core investment set-aside funding recommendations and these recommend well the core investment Funding it's the predominant Funding stream for safety net services and each year the city sets sets aside $45,000 to reward to selected respondents We received nine applications this year and the criteria we based it off of was project need project description qualifications and the budget So on october 30th 2019 a city staff issued a request for letters of interest or an alloy and non-profit organizations and educational institutions with direct or related experience and operating social services Or eligible to apply We received applications in november of 2019 and as I mentioned We received nine applications this year for a total of $130,000 which is three times more than what we have to give away. So unfortunately, we weren't able to fund every applicant City staff reviewed the applications and Based on the criteria that was included in the alloy gave initial recommendations to the committee community programs committee And the first initial meeting that we had with the community programs committee was held on january 7 2020 We received Great feedback from the community or committee members at that point So city staff with that feedback Revisited Our recommendation we vetted a lot of inquiries that members had and we went back to the cpc On february 27 2020 and at that point the committee approved The current recommendations with a 2-0 vote with one member absent So moving forward now to the actual recommendations the the first recommendation is to second harvest and The the project need that they stayed in their application is that 24 of the city's 65,000 residents are currently living in poverty And second harvest provides food access for 13,000 people a month in the city of santa cruz Set aside funding is essential to support their ability to deliver the food needed Food needed by city residents So they requested $20,000 and staff is recommending funding 15,379 and Before I move forward at this point. I do want to say that We did calculate funding Based on the amount of time left in this Fiscal year and so there's about three three and a half months left in the fiscal year So a lot of the funding especially when it came down to personnel costs We multiplied by 0.25 or a quarter of what they requested just so, you know, just because a quarter of the year left Although the second harvest requested $20,000 which was a max that they could request The annual transportation budget Actually has an annual cost of $61,000 and that's where we came up with $15,000 It would fund the transportation of food in the city of santa cruz for the remainder of the year and that would cost $15,000 It's a picture of their operation The next organization that we're recommending funding for is for the diversity center and their transgender program And they stayed in their project need that lgbtq plus individuals Especially transgender individuals face high rates of homelessness depression anxiety social isolation and drug and alcohol addiction and this funding will be utilized to ensure support to To ensure support to our their expanding population of transgender individuals and They requested funding for a coordinator and a director Wages funding for events supplies and staff training for a total of $10,000 Given the limited time left in the fiscal year. We will be able to fund 100 of The events that they requested supplies staff training in a quarter of the personnel wages And that gives us a total of the $3,816 at staff recommending and this is for their This is for their transgender program The the next organization that we're recommending funding for is for the neighborhood child care center And this need is stated as access to child care and early education And in particularly affordable affordable care is in high demand in the community And this funding will help the program Maintain program enrichments for the 2019-2020 school year While they begin to implement slight tuition increases except for their lowest income brackets And increased fundraising efforts across the board They requested funding for personnel wages teacher training professional consultants materials and field field trips for a total of $20,000 We the recommendation will fully fund teacher training the cost for professional consultants materials and field trips and a quarter of personnel wages, which is Which would be enough for the rest of the over the remaining of the fiscal year And so staffs recommending $10,250 for the neighborhood child care center The next program that we're recommending funding for is for the survivors healing center And the project need stated was the the prevalence of child sexual abuse is difficult to determine because it is often not reported Experts agree that the incidence is far greater than what is reported authorities And statistics below statistics represent some of the research done on child sexual abuse And the statistics are included in the application which you have in your packet So this funding would be for their imagined healing public awareness campaign And they requested funding for staff time presentations and outreach and materials They requested $3,000 giving them a portion of the staff time that they requested and fully funding their materials staff is recommending Allocating $1,875 That's the program And the last organization that we're recommending funding for is for community bridges and their child development division And the child development division is a program of community bridges and it provides affordable early childhood education and nutritious meals to children of low income families Who work in occupations like agriculture hospitality health care or gaining a higher education? And particularly this would go to the sycamore street child development center Where they provide solutions to families living in santa cruz And funding from the set aside fund will help support the renovation of the sycamore street child development center playground structure And they requested $20,000 for a variety of things the funding that we're recommending would fully Pay for the playground structure as well as some costs for the accessories that come along with it And so staffs recommending $13,680 for that organization and picture from their website So there's really three steps that we took in this process to get this before you today The first one was the administrative process where we received the applications Staff took a look at them reviewed them and we presented our initial recommendations to the community programs committee where members Gave us their feedback and shared with us what they thought the community's emerging needs were And we came back to the community programs committee after that with a second round of recommendations And that's where we are today and today. Hopefully council approves of staff recommendations and we can move forward with funding these programs For the presentation. Are there any questions from council members at this time? Just had a question kind of about the process and the the length of time Knowing that sort of we're making the awards Sort of, you know, almost four months. And is that a typical length of time? I Okay, I was going to say I mean, I think my one comment is You know, so many nonprofits are month to month and You know when you've made a request to fund your staff and you're you're not knowing Whether or not that's going to happen whether or not you'll be successful and then when that funding is coming So that was my only question really was was this sort of an atypical year that way? This scheduler process We went under this year was not typical of the annual on process that we usually go through and it's usually Funded a lot earlier in the fiscal year. Thank you. I'll just add to that. There were staff changes And Scheduling conflicts so it got pushed back and pushed back and A couple of points. So no, this is not what we strive for And part of our decision in the end was Allocations that could be spent down in the remaining time And typically the core set aside rather the set aside funds are for emerging or Exceptional needs not operation costs So I think what you're talking about in terms of nonprofits building their budget for the coming year is more longer term operations These tend to be kind of a different category Emerging or one time But we do did feel in all these cases it represented a variety of constituencies that they were reaching And we knew that they could Spend this money on the type of projects the emerging or one time Great. I had a question just um Maybe because you mentioned earlier that there were nine Applications and then there's five who were accepted just kind of like maybe what who some of those other other organizations were and kind of Why these organizations were selected instead of those? Because I didn't see that you know, like there's any mention of those other organizations in the report, so All right Right. So there were nine application applicants total this year and we based the criteria on The project need which was 30 percent of Our scores the project description Qualifications and the budget and then staff did initial ranking of those and we presented that to the cpc We had discussions and there were factors that we took into place such as the amount of service that that organization provided to the city You know emerging needs that members of the cpc thought Were a different priority from staff and we Using the criteria we had in the loi came back a second time and these are the funding recommendations that are before you today Any other questions from council at this time? Just maybe make a comment I'm really glad to have the list in the materials you sent today and I would just maybe make a comment to You know Maybe include that list in the staff report in the future Just so we understand in case we get questions from some of the organizations or what have you so thank you for Great feedback. Thank you And also echo that because there's another table here too that has the rankings and that would be really helpful in the future as well Yeah, great staff report and thank you for the presentation Okay, this time I'd like to invite members of the public up for public comment If you'd like to come up and comment on the cdbg allocations You can line up to my left and you'll have two minutes Thank you at least casby. Um, I just want to say that I I'm sure everybody feels this way, but I have to say this First of all, I did not hear a direct answer to justin's questions Which was very much what programs did not get funded? So thank you for asking that question justin and I personally would like to hear what programs did not get funded I would just like to say that the attitude of utter and complete contempt that is being fostered by Proponents of the recall and in fact three members of our city council against homeless women Is so egregious and it is resulting in a slow genocide on our streets of the homeless So I just want to say that I am extraordinarily concerned that there is no money or a program being mentioned here That has to do with homeless women So I just want to talk about a certain psychologist who is speaking to the issue of women His name is gabour maté. He has spoken at the south berkeley senior center and he talks about the incredible load of stress that women are under in this hideous extreme climate of Extraordinary wealth for the few and very little for so many multitudes of people at the bottom So I just want to say that I'm interested in a council that is so mean and divisive on the whole To execute this attempt to derail the progressive movement, which is largely about helping I'm going to stop it for one second. I want my time to be you you don't have your time. We pause you But I just want to recenter us around that this item is You know approving the fiscal year 2020 collective results of an evidence base the core investment set asides Yeah, I understand just and I think i'm speaking directly to that I heard exactly what programs are being funded and I did not get an answer as to what isn't But the money that is available for people and especially women homeless women Not transgender women women who can give birth and their children. I think this is Really a difficult time and things need to be said about who is not getting help Homeless women are dying on the street. Their children are dying on the street I want to see more funding go to women and homeless women I have seen institutions that are lauded in this community like the walnut oven women center be absolutely hateful to homeless women I want to see this attitude corrected I I think we should have a program to correct the attitude toward homeless people Because we're entering an extreme state where people are going to be put into huge concentration camp Elise your time is up. I'm sorry Thank you, police i'm gonna have to give you. Thank you very much. Thank you next speaker Hi, good afternoon. I will make this short. My name is lily and i'm the director of neighborhood child care center So we will hopefully be a recipient of of the set-aside funds I just want you to know that um You know, I've been in child care for a lifetime it feels like And the program that we run Is very near and dear to my heart. It's a program that I myself and My teachers and staff believe in many of us have been a handful of us have been there for 15 20 22 years So it's a program that works. It's a program that My community believes in So I thank you um for funding us With the set-aside funding I'm always going to say, you know, I hope there's always more Um in the future. Um, but at this time, I just like to thank you for a very difficult decision that you had to make So thank you. Yeah Is there any Sorry All right, is there any other member of the public who would like to speak on this item? Seeing none, I'll bring it back to council for action deliberation council member lover Thanks. I um I know at one of the initial meetings that uh, there was the discussion about the set-aside funding with the Neighborhood child care center. It's good that we're funding child care. I know that there's a question I asked um at one of those previous meetings about the demographics of them, uh, those centers, uh, and the numbers with regards to especially african-american Children and youth were very low according to the reports from the representative that was there I was wondering because I don't see anything connected to this was They were working on outreach plans or ways to justify or to um Rather balance out that equity of people that were there. Would that ever get received by the body? I'm not on the I see you looking at me I mean, I'm not I wasn't part of the final advisory for them I'm not specifically that I recall but I do know that uh neighborhood has a long record of making an exceptional effort to Accommodate with special with lower rates low-income families and diverse families and That's that's part of their Their operation. Thank you for the questions I'll um, I'll move the recommendation if I may um And I'll just make a few comments if I can I um was not part of the final decision making process But I've been on the community programs committee for for my time on council and it's never easy. There's so many Needs and incredible programs seeking our support. Um, and I know that we're sort of in a unique time this year I also know that we try to have it be complimentary to the core funding and having this be set aside So I encourage those who didn't necessarily receive funding this time to Stay connected to the city Reach out in terms of the next set-aside process, but also In terms of the core funding allocation processes How to get some of those funds as well? So I I just sort of I'll just sort of highlight that And then in just a couple comments about about childcare It's a huge need in our community and I know this just sort of just touches the surface of it But we're seeing uh facilities closed aging Providers, we're seeing a demographic shift in our community And so I hope that we can continue to find ways and identify ways to support our childcare industry That's a motion narrative Just the motion to accept the recommendation. Okay, so the motion on the floor to accept the recommendation second by Oh, well second by councilmember brown And And I know councilmember brown. Did you have a comment? Oh, I was gonna second it, but I defer Okay, and I know councilmember brown had um text with a comment. So councilmember brown if you want to speak at this time Yeah, um, thank you. I would just echo uh councilmember wacken's comments about the difficult decisions that we Have to make uh on that community programs committee There is all there are always more requests than the need and they're all Great programs. Um, I agree that the And part of the reason that child care has been included in this set aside because Within the core funding Priority areas child care kind of it's hard to fit child care into some to one of those specific areas So they've kind of been Um left out of that process in some way not intentionally, but it's just happened So that's part of the reason that we have Prioritized child care services. I know neighborhood child care is one of the only Um, I think it might be the only program in the city that offers subsidized child care um And so that is one of the reasons that we prioritize them In and I also want to just respond to the concern about no homeless services being provided here Um The and I'm sorry that there's the list was not made available to the public but the I'll just say for the public at the organizations that were Not funded was life wrap tutoring and Santa Cruz public care center primarily because they are in the county Not the city and families in transition a small grant. So um the The the most of all the services that we um support through community programs are are funded right now through a three-year allocation with Through the core process. So that's that's part of the reason that you don't see that here I agree that it's a huge concern and something we need to be Very proactive about and and committing as much as many resources as we can But then I would also just say I you know, I want to appreciate the work of Mr. DeMarket and all of the Staff who have been involved in this It I know it was a challenge this year and I just appreciate that you Helped us kind of make sense of How to proceed and and make those recommendations And also to the all the community programs, you know, just for all the work you do Thank you I'd like to say kind of echo my colleagues comments that you know, it's very difficult when making decisions about funding and As much as we want to provide full funding for all the nonprofits in our community We always have to kind of narrow it down and try to give as much as we can to each of these and so I'm glad that we are able to you know Provide some funding support to a number of the nonprofits in our community that do amazing work Especially for our low-income residents. I will mention that There was one agency that didn't get funding that wasn't mentioned and that was the central coast center for independent living So just so that it's clear to members of the community who were interested in knowing Which ones didn't get funded and so again, thank you to all the council members and staff And who put a lot of work into making these decisions and we just like to encourage all Nonprofits when I within our community to apply to these grants when they come up in the future And so with that, I'm wondering if we are ready to take a vote Okay, so there was a motion made by council member Watkins Seconded by council member matthews to accept the staff recommendation Seeing no further discussion. All those in favor, please say aye. Hi Any opposed Wasn't it council member brown? Oh, sorry seconded by council member brown. Yes, either way. That's okay. Okay on that one. Um, and so that was, um That um passed unanimously All right, given the fact that we're uh pretty ahead of schedule I'm wondering if we could take a five minute break And meet back um shortly after four or five We started our first public hearing item Which is item number 15 2020 2021 us department of housing and urban development Action plan and the 2020 2025 consolidated plan and we have presenters tiffany lake principal management analyst Good afternoon council. I'm jessica do it from the city housing division in economic development and here with me today our fellow staff members Tiffany lake sitting next to me And bonnie lipscomb out in the audience I'm going to provide you with a brief overview for anyone in the community that Isn't familiar with this funding process And then tiffany will provide more detail on the specific annual action plan budget and recommended funding requests So for the process The federal department of housing and urban development allocates community development block grant and home funding to designated jurisdictions The city of santa cruz recently received notification of its funding allocation for this action plan year While there are a couple smaller subcategories cdbg funds are largely split into two umbrella categories One is for projects that include Building or infrastructure improvements and building rehab that serve a community need And the second category is for programs that also serve a community need Home funds are primarily focused on providing new housing opportunities and tenant rental based assistance for low-income households For the city to allocate the home and cdbg funds a notice of funding availability was issued last november to provide the opportunity for the community organizations and agencies to respond with requests for funding The city has received funding requests from various applicants and the applications have been evaluated based on several factors Including HUD best practices and community needs Now tiffany is going to walk you through the funding requests that were received and evaluated and the recommended funding distribution per the city's community programs committee meeting on february 27th Thank you As jessica mentioned we had our notice of funding availability in november And then applications were due in january We ranked them the beginning of february and we brought those rankings to the community programs committee rcpc At the end of february to get initial recommendations for the budget And we're bringing those today to you For this first public hearing Where we're asking for initial council approvals of the budget which will allow us to then Draft our annual action plan So drafting the 2020 2021 annual action plan is the first year of our five-year consolidated plan Which is also going to be due to HUD And the action plan budget is where we tell them what we're going to do in that first year of the consolidated plan So for cdbg, which is the community development block grant portion We got our allocation number from HUD and we'll have about 600 000 of new funding for this upcoming year And we also have estimated program income. That's whenever loans are repaid of 8 000 And we have prior year funds that are available for reprogramming of 272 000 Which gives us about 880 000 available to allocate And those prior year funds are made up of a canceled project Which was 150 000 for a housing matters sewer line project Which we were able to resolve the city manager's office worked with economic development and public works And we were able to resolve the sewer line issue So we're able to cancel that project and allocate it to another project And then the rest of the dollars come from different activities that didn't use all of their funds And it was mostly administration So of that 880 000 available 20 of the new grant year allocation is A formula set by HUD for administration of the program And then we also have previous rehab and first time home buyer programs And then we have to administer those loans. So that's 8 000 So it gives us 750 000 available to allocate for both programs and projects So For the consolidated plan survey where we tell HUD what we're going to do in the next five years We reached out into the community and we did a survey We got results from all over the community as you can see and we got about 980 responses So we had a good turnout And one of the questions that we asked them was which of the following groups of people Do you feel most need assistance from the city of santa cruz? And that can help us with ranking our goals For HUD eligible programs and overwhelmingly the biggest category 34% said that person's experiencing homelessness was the category most in need of assistance And it's been a few years since we had last funded those programs with cdbg or home So with that in mind staff brought recommendations to the cpc and we have the final numbers from the cpc meeting And we have a new program in their homeless services coordination This is sort of an umbrella group that we can use for emerging needs. It could be for staff ADA bathrooms whatever is needed in the community we also Recommended and cpc agreed to fund a web avista at 100 000. That's the same level that we funded them at last year Also keeping funding the same for the teen center at 35 000 And for crla at 20 000. So that's 190 000 total for community programs We do have a 15 cap Which is 90 128 dollars that we can give to community programs But we're able to exceed that cap because new avisa is a community-based development organization or a cbdo So that's why we have The ability to fund at a level above the 90 000 And we also have the recommended recommended funding for the projects from the cpc So you might notice that there is only a recommendation to fund two of the three Projects that's in part because it's a HUD best practice to fund fewer projects at higher levels So that they're not stalled due to a lack of funding And it's also because the jesse street rehab indicated in Their application that they needed at least 250 000 In order to move forward with their project. They had requested 400 000 So funding them at their minimum ask would mean that we wouldn't be able to fund any of the other two adequate levels So the senior center at 100 000 will allow for ADA improvements and also hvac improvements And for the homeless infrastructure projects That 460 000 will go towards the first phase which will be for housing matters A renovation of their hygiene bay As many of you probably know they've had temporary services Through rented showers, which are expensive And the HAP our homeless action partnership was not able to fund their request For renovations. So this is an opportunity for the city to Sort of fund that gap in funding for this needed infrastructure project And so that's a total of 560 000 for projects This is just sort of an overview of All the pieces of that 880 000 so far. So we have uh the grant administration by HUD formula at 20 percent the ongoing administration of previous city programs at 8 000 And then 190 000 for community programs So we're again exceeding the cap by 100 000 and we can do that for new avivisa because of their there being a community based development organization And then the rest going to capital projects with the majority of it going for homeless infrastructure projects Then the other pot of money that jessica had mentioned for home funding We also got our final numbers from HUD for the 2020-2021 grant year. We have 385 000 dollars program income, which is repayment of loans at 40 000 administration again by HUD formula at 10 percent Along with prior year funds that we haven't allocated to specific projects that we've set aside for future housing projects when they're ready to move forward Which gives us a total of a little over a million dollars in the home fund pot So the proposal is to continue to fund the city of santa cruz housing authority security deposit program at 100 000 We also have choto, which is community housing development organization funds at 15 percent of the grant Which are available for either Habitat for humanity or a mid peninsula housing at 58 000 And it should be noted here that this set aside funds could also go to the jesse street project, which we're not Tentatively going to fund with cdbg dollars We've already allocated 113 000 in prior years of choto set aside funds for jesse street And this is additional funds that they could go after even before they know how they're going to move forward Because they have tentative plans for a larger project So when they know how they want to move forward these set aside funds could already be in the pot for them And then we have the additional uh with the remainder of the upcoming years funds and prior year funds for future housing projects We have over 800 000 available in a pot for that. So again the total here is a little over a million dollars so If we're able to bring the initial budget away today, we can draft the 2020 to 2025 consolidated plan That'll be available starting march 27th Then we'll have our second public hearing to finalize that on april 28th And we have a hard deadline april 29th is the last day to have the final budget numbers and still hit our remaining HUD deadlines And then funding first becomes available at the beginning of july That's it Thank you for that very much for that presentation. Are there any questions from council members at this time? Seeing none. I'll open it up to public comment There are any members of the public who would like to comment on this item at this time If so, please line up to the left and you'll have two minutes Good afternoon. I'm scott ram I'm just wondering about the first administrative cost that was up there. It's like 15 not 10 of the amount So I was wondering why it's above the 10 uh kyle and then with the homeless thing, um I read in the paper that it was going to cost nearly a million dollars to redo the the showers at the homeless center And you're funding like 400 000 of it or something, but it's like That seems to me to be an outrageous amount. I think if it was done by some private contractor In a non-government building this could be done for like a hundred thousand dollars And why it's costing this amount is just Seems to blow my mind. I mean Why can't we get a group like habitat for humanity to come in and redo the showers with volunteer labor? And maybe some sweat equity for a few homeless people It seems like you know these are real reasonable things to you could look into instead of like Having this become this bloated project that cost Way more than it would in the private sector. Thank you Next speaker Afternoon city council members. My name is edgar landeus. I'm the program manager for novice community resources and What I would like to do is just take the time to thank staff and everyone that for all the Hard work and thinking that went into this process And also just to simply Say that, you know, we're very honored for the continued support over the years everything and You know with the additional request that we requested this year What our intention was to be able to provide additional support with tenant rights In our community and the way we were going to do that was through currently we Are working with a retired attorney Gretchen red heart from crla and she was going to provide these services as pro bono But of course there's additional costs that would go into that which would be for her licensing fees and any other associated fees with that so First of all, I just want to thank everyone for your time and you know, it's not an easy decision, but Certainly thank you very much Next speaker Hi, my name is Roxanne. I'm also with community bridges. I work as the Program director for the family resource collective and I just wanted to sort of respond to some of the comments about addressing homelessness and where we're spending Community funds one of the things that the hap we work closely with the hap but another Grant has identified given given that we don't have the resources to house every person here is the importance of diversion And while Um, no vivista doesn't do diversion per se. We're not contracted to do that work Advocacy work is essentially diversion work. It's keeping people Economically keeping them supported keeping them stable keeping them in their houses And we want to continue that work with the tenants rights A legal aid program So I just want to thank you and sort of point that out to the community that well It might not be spelled out that way that that is, you know, something that we're impacting by doing this work So thank you for your support Next speaker In my deep investigations of santa cruz. I have I was I was educated in how to do that by the way by some consultants who taught me back in the 80s when I was Working in the mental health field Our department was actually called the department of mental retardation. Believe it or not This is in the state of massachusetts and I just want to say that as I have been investigating many aspects of What what it is like to be poor in santa cruz The amount of prejudice that I have found for example, um the The legal group up there. I forget how do you say the name california rural legal? Um When I was denied my fair hearing at ebt The only reason I ever got one was because I held a protest in the front of the lobby This was not the people in front by the way. These were people who had been Situated into official positions in the back What i'm just lightly trying to touch on here is that because I protested and i'm very good at you know, uh Assertively requesting my that my rights be respected I was given another fear of fair hearing within a month But it was egregious what I went through and I want to maintain a posit that many meek Poor people would never be able to assert their rights like I did I ended up opposing a lawyer who was for the legal group and I brought Zav Hershfield as a supporter with me to that meeting I'm going into this in depth because santa cruz is a very very corrupt and nasty town I don't trust almost any of these organizations because I've seen them I know that chris young grin tries to get people on the buses as an outreach worker That's mainly what she does yet year after year after year. She gets to be in that position She could barely make an appointment many times. She flaked out and just didn't show up during my appointments at what's now called housing matters I want accountability, please very much Any other members of the public who would like to comment on this item at this point in time Okay, seeing none. I'll bring it back to council for action deliberation If there are no questions, I'm happy to move the recommendation before us Uh, so we have a motion by council member matthews. I'll second that. Um, I I did have just um A couple comments to make um, but yes, I do too. Go ahead Well actually after you well, I just want to point out for the record that uh On consent we adopted item number five Which is a resolution of poison opposing the federal administration's Proposal to eradicate community development block grant program funding and urging members of the u.s congress to maintain funding This and and the resolution Describes how important this has been year after year after year to our community It rises and falls, but um, I would also Assuming we adopt this also and direct the mayor working with others to Communicate the specific importance of cdbg and home Our community year after year It's not academic. It's real That actually fits with that was To make the community aware of the letter we sent earlier today. Um, and I'd also like to just encourage um I know that kind of as we mentioned before We're not able to give all the money that we would like to to all the um organizations in our community We try to provide as much support as possible And I just like to um kind of on the comment made by the representatives from community bridges and what I've Evisted, um, I just like I'd encourage that group and other groups to um work with Other organizations like tenant sanctuary who are providing who receive funds from the city and are trying to provide You know services towards tenants, especially people who might be facing evictions in our community Just because that's another organization that's doing work that we're funding and maybe there's some way to partner with them In terms of the services that um, you know that you all can provide I just had one question regarding could could you provide just a little bit of information on the senior services and kind of like Um, the updates and upgrades that they're requesting. Yeah, let me go back to that slide Senior center If I can just say the description doesn't begin to describe the problems that building has that's what I think that's what you're getting Yeah, so, um, they they really need over 500 000 of repairs So they were trying to just focus on some of the more critical Issues that they have. Um, they have issues such as plumbing and mold problems rotting Um, sort of a counter near the sink. It's falling in. They have an unsafe ramp in the front of the building Um, that makes it hard for those in a wheelchair to get in and then the bathrooms themselves aren't usable by people in wheelchairs Even though a large number of the people they serve, um, have accessibility issues so, um It doesn't go towards all everything that they need. Um, so I think they want to prioritize HVAC improvements Energy efficiencies and also the ADA improvements and they'll they'll still be More work needed After they make their way through these funds and this is located in the city. I'm just not familiar. Yeah, it's on market street And it's our building It's heavily used That's that's what I was trying to get at because there's a little bit of information that I was kind of wanting to follow up on regarding that Yeah, Suzia here Um, if you wouldn't mind I'd like to clear up some misinformation about the hygiene bay project So, um, we are working really closely with housing matters and the county of santa cruz to work Very urgently on making those, um, those changes and upgrades. It is not a million dollar project. Um, there are, you know, a lot of, um Significant HVAC infrastructure changes that need to be made to ensure that the 100 to 150 showers that happen On that campus can happen in that facility. It really wasn't built to accommodate that many showers So there is a significant need for more airflow to happen Um, it is going to cost less than what has been allocated. Um, which gives us the opportunity to use the remainder funds Which could be on the order of 50 60 thousand dollars to Potentially fund catch recommend infrastructure recommendations that come through during the year That might be emergent that we don't have general fund funding to support and then on Questions around neweva vista I had an opportunity to meet with ray cancino last week really the There is potential for neweva vista and community bridges to assist with tenant protections And diversion programs for those that are undocumented that really don't fit into the other programs that are in the community so I think even the 35 thousand dollars that was funded for homeless Programming could be part of ongoing conversations with community bridges So I just wanted to let you know that that hasn't been foreclosed on I do think From the perspective of continuing to fund neweva vista Keeping up the hundred thousand dollars makes a lot of sense, but there is more opportunity and flexibility We really did want to create additional flexibility with the cdbg funds for this year And I got sandy brown Sandy can you hear us? I'm sorry I couldn't hear you cut out. Um, our team just came back and told me I'm on So yeah, this is sandy. I'm Just wanted to make a couple of comments having recently Come back on to the community programs committee. I was at the meeting at which we discussed This these allocations and I supported them. I support them And I want to follow up on mayor Cummings Point that he made I made the same point at our community programs committee meeting and you know suggested that I think that it's very important that we take You know tenant legal services seriously There's a lot of there are a lot of services that can't be funded Through crla because of their very strict rules About around undocumented immigrants, but also other Requirements and I do think that there's some potential here given the opportunity to to have A legal expert Do the volunteer work to build up a program around that and so I am going to Ask my colleagues to be open to having that conversation And I want to thank mizohara for raising the potential for some of that satisfied funding to be used perhaps for this Because that's exactly where I was hoping we could go As we make final decisions at budget time And so and I'm glad to hear that that conversation has been opened up with community bridges I think that ten and sanctuary and you know a lot of the same People are involved in these different efforts and I think they are Working together and and I think there's some real potential there as we know preventing people you know preventing evictions is Critical and a much lower cost way to address You know issues for people who are at risk of becoming homeless So I do really want to encourage and I'll be You know involved in that conversation Moving forward to consider Funding this program in the future We had councilor matthewson then Just in reference to that I think the Line item we're referring to is homeless programs for 35 000 Plus Which are not set aside? They are non specific funds for thank you I think we don't given the comment that we had from staff we don't need to be more specific We understand that there are conversations going on that some of those funds may be allocated to the legal services that are described so I think I'm Comfortable with the recommendation as it stands understanding that there are Discussions in progress And and thank you councilmember out here for clarifying when I said set aside. I that was a a flip of the tongue. I meant the on out the Unrestricted funds that are there and I again I wasn't suggesting we include that now in our and motion But just to put it out there that this is definitely on the radar and I would like to see it move forward I just want to thank the Program committee for going to work on these. Those are always really tough And I also appreciate the context around the request. Unfortunately. I wasn't able to connect with that editor before so I That's very helpful information And if there is any kind of outcome that does come of that in conversation I would I mean to be great to have a report back to understand What kind of is what's the sort of the fruits of that? Potential partnership that would just be sort of my request informally I'll second that and Looking back to a previous Action that we took on the menstrual equity thing. We talked about reaching out to partners I think anytime the staff can just shoot us a just an info Doesn't have to be an agenda item, but just an information Update on on how things are going that you know, we're interested in that answers questions. It's helpful Yeah, I just wanted to thank the staff and Also all the organizations It is a lot of work to put the these these budgets together so that we can award the funds for Projects that will benefit the community. So I just want to recognize the work on both ends And I'm glad to hear also that we have some some flexibility with the with the services coordination I I I think that work is very important And I will echo All of the tenant outreach we've gotten some reporting back But that's something we really need to get a handle on and understand more about so the more that we can receive any Information reports about that the the more helpful. I think so. Thank you for all your work All right, if there's no further comment One of our council members is currently out of the room But I think that we can probably move forward with this item so, um, there's a motion made by Council member Matthews seconded by mayor Cummings to accept the staff recommendations and again Thank you staff for all the work that you've done and thank you all the community partners on this item And so seeing no further discussion. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye Any opposed? So that passes with council members Glover Watkins Matthews brown vice mayor Myers mayor Cummings Present and with ayes and council member crone absent That will conclude our afternoon agenda city council will recess until the 7 p.m. Session Overflow seating set up in the tony hill room For the 730 agenda items All right, good evening and welcome to our 7 p.m. Session the march 10 2020 meeting of the city council Before we begin I'd like to announce that the city of count the city of santa cruz is continuously monitoring the spread of the coronavirus disease With the centers of for disease control and prevention Encouraging the public to stay home if they're currently sick Showing symptoms have knowingly been exposed to the novel coronavirus COVID-19 or have recently traveled to an infected area And consistent with the county's interim guidance for social distancing The city of santa cruz is taking precautionary steps to ensure the public Access to today's city council meeting while limiting opportunities for COVID-19 to spread The city is encouraging those who are unable to attend to view the city council meeting on the city of santa cruz's website cityofsanta cruz.com slash government slash city dash council slash council dash meetings Or on community tv.org slash watch slash government dash demand or on channel 25 The public is also invited to submit their comments via email to the city clerk At city clerk at city of santa cruz.com The sender must include the agenda item number and title in the email subject line All emails will be shared with the council members and we consider part of the public record And I would like to ask the clerk to please call the roll All communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not listed on today's agenda Are there any members of the public who would like to address the council? If so, please line up to the left You will each have two minutes to speak and we request that you sign in to ensure correct spelling of your name in the meeting minutes However, it is not required Out of respect to other members of the public many of whom are not accustomed to speaking in public I'm going to ask the members of the public. Please refrain from clapping cheering booing Hissing or other similar types of behavior that might discourage all members of the public from stepping up to the microphone to have their views heard Oral communications will take place for 30 minutes At which point we will move on to our evening item And I'll ask a surge cagano to come up first who had requested four minutes of time for stepping up santa cruz I'd also like to mention that Councilmember brown is not feeling well and is in the back room, but we'll be participating in tonight's meeting And so with that I'll ask surge cagano from stepping up santa cruz. You'll have four minutes I wasn't able to do it on usb Sure. Yeah, we'll call you up. Uh, you'll be our last speaker then Okay All right, so uh, we'll start with our first speaker and you can step up to the mic. You'll have two minutes Hey everybody, I'm sure you know who I am, but I'll tell you if you don't I'm paced gun cannon the program coordinator for the california homeless union We are uh Our primary mission right now is to educate our community on the complicity of becoming homeless and being homeless Organizing our community towards finding solutions to address homelessness Empower people at risk of homelessness and currently experience homelessness We the california homeless union believe that doing these things in a civil manner And within the confounds of the law will give will gain the respect of the community small business Taxpayers and elected officials. Thank you. Thank you I'm lucero luna and i'm just asking uh to reopen phoenix camp uh for a single women and a women who have young children Because women are dying on the streets Okay, and I was arrested uh number 15 for trespassing and we weren't trespassing and we wanted to open again Thank you As we move beyond the march third primary. I think we Can see by anybody who's doing serious investigations That the level of corruption and absolute absolute unethical Campaign tactics and strategy by the far right here in santa cruz has reached really You could almost say Deathly proportions The annihilation of the characters of council members groan groan and glover is is so Deleterious to their professional careers their family lives their personal lives That I think we really do have to start looking in terms of property damage and personal damage to their lives in real Profound concrete ways as well as the psychological ways. So what I'm going to ask for tonight is The product of what I have witnessed I have witnessed synthia matthew's Agent Robert singleton. I believe he's the perpetrator putting up The flyers he put up on campus that have a young woman gagged By duct tape her midriff showing and it said clearly in big letters That council members groan and glover were convicted sexual assault criminals So I found that many of the other agents of synthia matthew's donna meyers and unfortunately martin in tandem with them actually don't know that this kind of Absolutely ruthless scandalous Immoral conduct is being perpetrated on their behalf They do know many of these agents however that the believe the women campaign is disingenuous It is heinous people like me who suffered long-term life damage from not being believed Can only say we know you're doing this because otherwise you would have no leg to stand on to win your campaign Hi everyone Hello, yeah, okay um Just wanted to read a guardian article not to take away from the gravity of this issue But I would like to just make a public service announcement It is a global emergency that is already killed on a mass scale and threatens to send millions more to early graves As effect spread it could destabilize entire economies and overwhelm poorer countries lacking resources and infrastructure But this is the climate crisis not the coronavirus Governments are not assembling You shouldn't see national plans and you're not getting push notifications Transmitted to your phone breathlessly alerting you to dramatic twists and developments from south korea to italy With that in mind since we are acting how we should be acting with the coronavirus and not the climate crisis Though arguably and undeniably it is a big crisis We're left only to consider what we can do when our systems fail us And that is a problem when you have issues with communities trust Because this right here this this back and forth that has been going on This is broken trust and this is broken the ability to connect and in times of crisis. That's all you've got So I would encourage you to focus on healing Where you can because this is not normal and it is not going to last that much longer. Thank you Thank you members of the community and council members We need bathrooms and hand washing stations for those outside Earlier the city's avoid the obvious machine spun into action council member Glover asked will close and lock bathrooms be reopened will facilities be placed at the coral street and post office and encampments You know to slow the spread of the coronavirus you may have heard about that city manager bernel ducked Reassuring but avoiding specifics Cummings whose vote closed down loudon elson bathrooms last year Said nothing and is looking at his own work right now apparently I thought you were public relations massage master susie o'hara slid around the issue No timeline for restoring 24-hour bathroom access. It's a county matter. She reassured Bernal interjected we have to wait for state and federal funding before addressing the obvious In the midst of a declared city and county emergency city attorney kandadi Close the things down saying the whole discussion was off topic The out of county real estate speculators have all but won the recall to remove two questioning voices Any challenge to the well-oiled muzzle the poor machine will be smeared and spent out of power When not evaded and dodged at city council Whatever the cost to the health of the community to renters students and those being priced and driven out of town On monday cops directed the post office encampment to disappear or face jail and property seizure This violates state and federal court decisions Cops threatened more than 20 people there. Some of them already have been denied armory shelter access Only six to 12 spaces were offered anyway Police are not waiting for kandadi slum dance a slum dunk reinstitution of the camping band next council meeting Mills police with his expanded force of rangers threatens to destroy homeless property. We must document these attacks Stop watch video share post. It's not just compassion or justice But crazy denial of bathroom access is a threat to all of us. Thank you I'd like to thank the mayor for not bowing to the bullying of the m&m's about having the resolution of censor on the agenda So I will speak to that I needed to kind of get up for tonight So I was watching some television before I got here Ladies and gentlemen For the return grudge match tonight we have in this corner The m&m's and in this corner the honorable drew glover for a return grudge match Hell is going on with you people Particularly the may the vice mayor who must think that this will endear her to the rest of this community For the balance of her term The california league League of california city says every effort should be made to be cooperative and show mutual respect for Contributions made by each individual for the good of the community Former mayor Watkins is guilty of violating this council member Watkins for her perception speech Gave conduct that has damaged the public's trust in the institution of mission of the municipal Municipal government under which the members of the community elect and govern themselves now Therefore be it resolved by the city council Of santa cruz that a formal censor be issued By the city council in the name of Watkins and mire My name is kyle davenport. I've been collecting positive solutions for homelessness I found one that was really good and I was going to try to bring it to you guys But before I do that I need to realize that I need to be a part of the solution Um, so for me that means coming here to the city and this is kind of weird but I need to tell you guys this city. I love this city. I've wronged the city and I'm sorry and I'm going to do better So I love the city because I I've suffered traumatic things in my life and there are many people in this city and people in this room Who have helped me through it and who have guided me and given me comfort and welcome throughout my whole life How I have wronged the city is not giving that back. I've been a teenager for too long myself This is about me. I want to make that very clear Um, I've been a narcissistic jaded angry teenager for years. I'm 35 years old um So what I've done is I've not brought to the city a sort of manliness or an adultness an adulthood a response taking responsibility for my wounds my hurts my grief and my um My problems, so I'm here to say that Um I'm sorry and I'm going to do better and I'm committing to Really really processing my deep my it's about me. By the way, I don't want to look at anyone So no one thinks I'm talking about them I need to process my wounds and my grief so I can be a better person to contribute a better attitude To this city. So that's what I'm here for as a token of my appreciation to the city And maybe as a solution to homelessness or part of it And as a token of my commitment to being a man and to being a supplier and a giver and a helper and an encourager Instead of a taker and a and a complainer because that's what I've been and a hurt person to be A productive person. I would like to give the city $200 and I don't want any attention for it I just want to give it and walk away. So who can I give it to? And defer to the city manager on this one I'll take it Next speaker Sure, we'll find the appropriate place to donate those funds. So thank you very much for your contribution to our city Good evening. I'm Jane Doyle And I've been here before speaking about public health issues. It was not what I intended to speak about I'll try to get two things in quickly. Um, I was just reading the The information about hand washing and bathrooms and since I really don't want the virus to spread around in this community more than you do I hope that there will be real effort on the part of everybody here to get things open as quickly as possible I mean I walk into the house and I wash my hands if I remember and then if I don't remember I feel terrible and I run Over and wash them and I think Everybody's hearing the same message. I am Please please if you want to keep And besides think of all the flu will prevent if people can wash their hands The other reason I wanted to speak tonight is I didn't know I hadn't seen The information about the ballots until after I'd prepared to speak and Essentially, I wanted to thank chris crone and drew glover glover for the courage that you have shown Sandy has done it. I'm sorry that she's still sick and justin you have to some extent But essentially the two of you in particular to make votes that are often You know are going to be turned against you by the recall people I'm thinking specifically of the night when the vote was do we or do we not ask people or make people leave the beach And drew you said I was concerned. I know this will be used against me But we don't have a place for them yet And we can't do that And I think that's the kind of courage that the two of you have exhibited Sandy also and justin you sometimes all of you show courage But I think that's a special kind of courage knowing that you are under severe attack By a lot of people in this community many of whom don't even know what they're talking about Thank you My name is titanka bricca I'm here to Thank drew glover and chris crone if the votes go the way they go For your service and I know you can leave here with your heads high As someone who lives in ben loman not in the city but in the county I've observed What I think correctly is It was posed as can this city be bought and it seems that large amounts of money together with Frankly a pretty sleazy and dishonest campaign Has resulted in a undemocratic process You know several states have outlawed this recall because of how it's been used this way So I would challenge the potential to incoming council members to consider If they avail themselves of all the facts Refusing to accept their seats in the name of transparency and honesty I don't think that will happen But in the long run, um, I hope we can all Take responsibility for our lives in the best way possible and as the young gentleman said earlier We're going to need cohesiveness to face the real problems that that we do face so Thank you for your service And um, I don't know everything. Thank you for all of you for your service and um at night we all face You know our higher power and Hopefully do what is right and um I think historically this will be looked upon as a as a time of civic disgrace And um, but it's not the end I'm very confident that drew and chris have much good work to do in this community and around the country and I'm willing to talk to any of you and all of you about this. Thank you Mr. Norris before we get going to the next speaker mr. Norris I'm going to ask that you please not walk up while other people are speaking out of respect. Thank you My name is Roxanne Burdick and I'm here to talk about the recall as well And why I voted the way I did and this is mostly towards Glover And it I think Santa Cruz united Focus a lot at the end about how women were treated and that's not why I voted the way I did It was the irresponsibility of people like Glover and this woman here thinking that Ross camp was a safe place to be you said under oath Which was untruth that there was no imminent danger To humans women men there was five deaths. There were many overdoses And also I believe this one was trespassing when she was arrested because there were bolt cutters That cut down offense Then people were trespassing at the time I voted yes for the recall because I felt like it was unsafe for our community To have to have such an unsafe environment right in the middle of the community. So That's how I feel on top of the disrespect I think we all as a community need to need to show each other respect men or women alike. Thank you. Thank you Speaker hi, um I just want to mention August 24th 21st 2019 the rose report Mentioned as part of their summary of recommendations that council members should avoid making public accusations of misconduct or bad faith against one another And against city staff without first privately and internally addressing those concerns and attempting conflict resolution and retrofect Retrification when possible So please tell me about this that uh need to go on uh, we all need to sort of realize that There was things revealed that should have been confidential There shouldn't have been predetermined for facebook posts about the outcomes of the investigation You should never Recall someone a racist press release upset at you, but do not defame me In this community, let's get these motions done. I'm tired. Let's go. I know dog. Okay. Let's stick to this Let's maybe take a let's let's maybe take a three minute The thing is what I want to say is was anything done about that was that public Um, is is donna meyers going to be vice vice mayor donna meyers going to be censored And is that workplace conduct policy? Did she fail that? Thank you Courage members of the community as I mentioned earlier to please hold your applause Okay, we all are trying to express our opinions members of this community have mentioned Wanting us to heal and to move forward on things and that means that if we can hold our applause Allow people to speak allow people to have an opinion Then we can start working on that process Thank you. I hardly know what to say I'm so hurt so many of us are so hurt The night of the election It it felt as bad as the night trump was elected You spent $18,000 on the rose report of our money $40,000 on Dave seppo's report from the Sacramento State Our money And I don't think That the three drivers of this horrible Ever had any intention of doing what they Said they recommended Or following their findings which were talk to each other Do mediation Look in the mirror That's what mr. Seppo said take your own responsibility You've done some really horrible things And like mr. Seppo said you put this town On a war footing for the next Two years Current council members to stay on the dais Louis sancras. Good evening The performance of this council all over the past year as a whole Has been a disgrace especially towards the public health Regarding the hygiene of those whom have no place to live We are now facing a global epidemic that is near certain to have significant impact upon this community The state The country and the world at large It is upon the localities To take immediate action To address this situation. I am calling for an agenda item at the next council meeting to Create a commission on the spread of the virus that will be Accountable to the community to report on a monthly basis with the input of public health community members emergency services and academic experts in Viral spread that will have input into your response We can no longer continue with these petty squabbles between you that are absolutely Detrimental to the health not just to the people that do not have a place to live But to all of us including those whom have vested equity interest in this community. Thank you here This is more of a public service announcement So so happens tomorrow our state coastal commission happens to be meeting in scott's valley at the hilton For the one of their monthly meetings on the agenda is a topic an agenda item regarding the beach camping That the city of santa cruz has on there So for anybody that might be interested in having some input on beach camping per their coastal commission Obviously a very and as you know a very powerful organization here in the state Suggests to show up tomorrow. Thank you scott's valley hilton And you look on look online for the details of the agenda Any other members of the public who would like to address this on at oral communications? Okay Oh, and oh, yeah, we do we have one more presentation Surge cagno representing stepping up santa cruz Have four minutes. Oh The lady mentioning the luxury of washing her hands when she gets home Uh, we don't have hot water. We have freezing nasus blowing So we don't have towels. We don't have seat covers We have women boasting how they're peeing all over your seat and yep They sure are and on and on and ripping down those Elaminated signs about the fecal matter and certainly the health department Said that that would be the origination of where to begin But if we're not going to bother to discomfort ourselves further in those lacking with no seat covers No hot water. So what if we're ripping off the handheld? What can you do? What's that going to cost you? It's an epidemic Sorry um And then as far as a cooper who was the person that everybody was Were misled to believe that she was in charge of that thing Is is just disturbing and when I saw written up by um of his old girlfriend Cooper, I believe Robert Norris talking about the place as cooper's camp um She is totally incapacitated to do anything and what she could have allowed to take place as somebody else to like me Even though we're we're handling the mystery of the way the police are going about it We could have still managed to with the food coming in if they hoarded and and uh Decided the best method is because we don't they don't want everybody touching the food Is just to put it in their tent and hide out to sneak off the stuff that's Wasted and and I the the stuff that was coming in and Her totally responsible cooper for the for the insane grab ass excuse me She has a profession and she does not want to offend men and and uh What she encouraged there and the endangerment to other women and her jealousy and how she's handling this place and people bringing food in And what they're hiding it away and gifts and her story is about $400 gifts and she really found out her and russ over christmas I imagine and misrepresenting herself and profiteering and exploiting and threatening me when I started to recognize releasing this the last two weeks and staying there instead of where I used to Thank you for your comments. Thank you Hey, we have our final speaker Serge cagno on behalf of stepping up santa cruz. You'll have four minutes Um, hi, I like power points now. Can you see it? okay Okay, um, I I hope that this is not um taken personally This is uh, I'd like to point out a distinction between Judgment and analyzing or analyzing is still talking about specifics, but not judging anybody specifically I think something that santa cruz has right now with the homeless thing with the politics with the recall is There's different facts being heard in different places and there's nothing in santa cruz a place where people can go to actually like See a verification like something I mentioned to you Like maybe the city could have a website that just goes through the things So i'm gonna go through and I admit that i've been wrong on things And I think we all just have to be humble enough to accept that when we're wrong and just move on For the coronavirus, um, like even board of supervisors today One of the board of supervisors said something in response that was just not correct about it So I think that also plays towards homelessness and stuff like that just trying to be So for fact-checking well the mystery spot and you could have some conversation about the truth or not truth of that That's my only joke in the Thing so on next door in facebook. There's uh criminalization as a way to mitigate a social crisis That's not true. It's blaming the group that is the victim of the situation um Housing first is a as a thing that doesn't work Santa Cruz doesn't have housing first because housing first implies that you're doing housing stabilization to keep people there Um, and there's something about the guy marbet who says who suggests free meals should only be given with case management Well, there's not enough free meals that have case management. It would just lessen meals in Santa Cruz And low barrier as navigation center mean people think that means more risk That's not what low barrier means low barrier means getting rid of the rules that don't talk about safety To get more people to have them be more welcomed and more comfortable to go to shelter At the last meeting there were a couple things. Um City councilmember meyers mentioned that I just wanted to wanted to point out the governor's report the state of the state of the state address Shows they are against that you spoke and you mentioned that they're against encampments That's not as I read it. The governor's advisory committee actually said sweeps and criminalizations have been shown not to work in the effort Strategies that explicitly or implicitly encourage these actions will not be acceptable will be unacceptable um And the other thing was um, if we do any strategic plan that would be in conflict with focused strategies That's not true. I'm on a couple work groups and I I know the focus strategies people The strategic plan I was talking about is just looking at all of our ordinances and all the things that affect homelessness Just try to get like make that a clear Proactive kind of thing rather than just popping on new ordinances and stuff like that and having departments do the best they can So that could that would not be in conflict chief mills um on a post Both on the scpd website and on his own page which used to be called chief mills, but now it's just andy mills There was a post Talking about the catch and it says that we were talking about a moratorium on towing and it just left it like that to people That's not what we were talking about We were talking about giving people information about the churches that would help pay for the registrations And that was just we got lots and lots of emails about that and that wasn't what we were talking about It was on the scpd website. It was also on his personal website Homelessness criminalization ordinances Not reaching out and connecting with the catch or the county public health or county homeless services coordination office It just leads people apart and we just need to try to solve these things together And When the 1220 closed there were just a couple things that city manager burnall mentioned that also were not quite true Thank you, and I Let's move forward and work together. Thanks appreciate it That concludes oral communications We'll move on now to our first item of general business for this evening, uh, which is councilmember Glover violation of city administrative procedure order This is a presentation by lisa murphy human resources director But before we begin, I just kind of want to say something Regarding this item, you know, this is something that is coming on the heels Of what has been not only a divisive year in our community that followed on the heels of a divisive election But it's also following on the heels of a divisive recall election that we've had in our community Many of the people who have been here tonight have spoken about how we need to come together How we need to work as a community How we need to listen to each other And I want to read our rules of procedure For conduct for this evening because I think it's really critical That we began moving forward with what we're saying in terms of how we want to treat each other And how we're going to be respectful towards one another's opinions The two this item in particular Is as I mentioned another item that is fairly controversial that people have a lot of feelings around on both sides And I think that it's really in our best interest as council members as members of the community To be able to listen to one another and to be able to respect everyone's opinion And so with that the first item on here is saying be respectful to treat each other with respect Even when especially when there's a disagreement Engage in open and honest communication Be direct straightforward and transparent with one another Be honest and truthful act with integrity and authenticity be ethical Address difficult issues Confront challenging topics directly avoid talking around them or not talking about them at all Find areas of common ground Seek areas of agreement identify shared interest values positions Be open to different perspectives Keep an open mind be willing to change your views with new information data, etc Give the benefit of the doubt Freely give credit for good intention Avoid describing bad intention Role model good leadership Be professional adhere to standards of civility Demonstrate effective leadership for the community Be considerate of each other's time Manage expectations about responsiveness and availability Recognize the time limitations and constraints of your colleagues and I'm going to mention again before we become this discussion that we In agreement with these procedures for conduct We should also not be hissing booing clapping stomping our feats after people give comments Out of respect for ourselves out of respect for the community Um, I would like to ask that we be very respectful when we're having this discussion tonight And so with that I'll turn the presentation over to lisa murphy Our human resources director Good evening mayor council members lisa murphy human resources director Uh at the city the city council requested at their february 11th 2020 council meeting that the staff prepare a report regarding a sustained finding of a violation by council member glover To this meeting for a report and I will give a brief report on that With regards to the respectful workplace conduct policy We have a city administrative procedure as you're all aware of the respectful workplace conduct policy And that's what we are discussing in terms of what was Found to be sustained violation There was a complaint from three members of the cap fah The commission on the prevention on violence against women that was submitted to The city on november 7th 2019 Regarding a complaint of the violation on a facebook posting by council member Glover In response we the city obtained the firm of berk williams and sorenson Who specifically assigned tim davis to review the complaint And I asked him to also make a determination whether the conduct violated the city policy or not He began to he completed his investigation in december And the investigation included included Two items one council member glover statements on social media regarding the cap fah Members violated the policy and the second one was that council member Glover statements on social media referencing former cap fah commissioner grossman Were retaliatory in its involvement in a previous investigation, which was the rose report and that report that Makes those findings is attached in your council binder And with that that is actually the the essence of my report The As I say did the report is attached to your binder and if you should have any questions Feel free. I'm available to respond Okay, thank you for the report Are there any questions or comments from city council members at this point in time? Seeing none, I'll open it up to public comment. If anyone would like to comment on this item Which is the to receive information regarding Termination of violation of the city's respectful workplace conic policy by council member If you could please line up to my left You'll be given two minutes to comment on this item I have been my name is lice casby community organizer. I have been scrutinizing the events here all the events to do with the mayor's claims of bullying to do with the Santa Cruz together strategy for the recall etc On through the commission the misuse of the commission for prevention of violence against women A much deeper investigation needs to happen This is the same stuff that we've been seeing the same City staff driven smear campaign do not allow the political assault upon Council member drew tonight that is being spearheaded by city staff departments City department had certain real estate and developer interests and council members Cynthia Matthews Donna Myers and martin walkins to continue this campaign of defamation upon drew clever Is a counterfeit campaign that is being used to cover and hide the real issue Which is also the goal of these people and their cohorts, which is to discredit our progressive leaders in this case drew Drew is the most progressive council members And they also want to get rid of our progressive majority on council these far-right business interests call themselves democrats here in Santa Cruz yet you can be sure as I have done the research I have been attending city council in many other meetings for six years and done a lot before that in Santa Cruz And the invest and my own investigation that these people are ruthless business profiteers Who are themselves willing to use extreme conduct in order to attain their goal of sufficiently Unregulated rental markets and other measures to promote their goals For power status and profit It is an immoral onslaught against a fairly elected person of african american dissent And these people are the political far-right here in Santa Cruz the total defamation of character of an innocent city council member In order to continue to be able to make maximum profits and attain maximum power and rule over our city Must be stridently opposed I'm shila korea And i'm here wondering what is going on Today's agendizing of yet another center of dru glever marks a full year and a third since the harassment of council member glever was launched In essence the entire time he has held office The crucifixion began on next door immediately when the november 2018 election results showed a progressive majority on the council Next door recall rants began by attacking dru's humane concern for the homeless community at ross camp And his strong voice for renter protections But a month later the focus of the recall attack shifted when newly elected mayor Watkins inappropriately used her pulpit to publicly accuse dru as well as council member crone of bullying her The issue in reality was their insistence and her resistance to quickly agendizing and addressing our community's homeless crisis But this was never brought out because martin allowed no opportunity for chris and dru to respond to her allegations Not only was martin not censured for this misconduct in office and misuse of power But what was a staff conflict and should have been addressed internally as an hr issue Became an $18,000 investigation of charges that essentially could not be substantiated Again no censure of the city manager for this waste of time and money Now the recall tribe had an excuse to switch their attacks from the issues of rental protection and homeless advocacy To sexual harassment and bullying for the duration of a year long well-funded smear campaign At that point the commission for the prevention of violence against women stepped outside their role And mandate to blatantly censure and condemn dru and here today instead of the commission being censured for being out of line Once again dru is a target for speaking truth to power Does the council have nothing more pressing to address at this time of coronavirus crisis and lack of accommodations for our homeless? I ask our community and electeds what and who are behind this insidious drive to remove an elected official For the next member of the public comes up. I just want to defer to the city attorney I know that some people are going pretty far Back away from what is before us today and I just want to understand Within what context people should be commenting on this item Some comments on recall seem like they could have gone with Oral communications versus with this item. So I'm wondering if you could speak to that I think it's fair enough to ask members of the public to stick to the topic that's in front of you. Um Obviously the obviously the The context of the recall Is is sort of looming over the discussion. I get that but the topic before you is A validated finding of a violation of their respectful workplace policy. So comments really should be directed towards that So i'm going to ask members of the public to please make sure that you're directing your comments towards the items on our agenda Which is the violation of the workplace policy Okay, I submit that you have mixed all this up together Um I'm not on next door or facebook or any other social media for good reason But for me, this began the night of february 12 2019 when I sat in front of my television and watched horrified When while the former mayor Watkins Read this passive aggressive vague Accusatory for a second because What's before us today is Yeah, the city's workplace policy. Excuse me. Let me finish Let me finish please. Okay, and What we're discussing is the center the comments that have been made. It's not the center. It's the comments that have been made It is the complaints that were filed against the commissioners As it relates to a post that was on facebook and that specifically is what's before us today. Okay. Thank you Point of order mayor There's a letter in our packet that has the talks about a resolution of the santa criss city council censuring councilmember glover for violations of the city council policy 25.2 discrimination harassment retaliation and respectful workplace conduct policy I'm not I'm not sure why these If this is the motion that's going to be brought forward tonight people certainly have Reason to believe that because it's in our it's it's it's in the packet. It's it's online So I don't understand why they can't be talking about this. Yeah, I read that Excuse me, I'm gonna give you a warning at least okay if you speak out of line again, I'm gonna have to ask you to leave I think what I said is that it's fair to ask members of the public to address the topic at hand. Um, I don't think it would be appropriate to Excuse someone from attending the meeting or or to to Refuse to allow them to continue speaking if they veer off topic which frankly happens all the time at council meetings. So My recommendation for getting through the meeting as quickly as possible Is to try to keep the speakers on track but when the you know, if they want to go off topic for a minute or two then Probably just best to keep it moving I'm just going to mention too to Comment on what my colleague said Oftentimes members of the public submit items Or submit comments that are included within our agenda packets when this item went to When the direction was given on this item Center wasn't included in the recommendations of what was to come back And so that's why it was included in our comments, but even if we had had comments from members of the community Um, we wouldn't be speaking directly to those comments that were made We'd be speaking to what is on the agenda And so that is why I'm saying that what we should focus on is what's on the agenda Oftentimes council members make motions that aren't Aren't included with our packets and we discuss those as a council after public comment And right now what we need to be focusing on is what's on our agenda, which is what council directed staff to bring back to us this evening Thank you. Um, in light of the more stringent Speaking rules, which I didn't know what's going to be the case is I'd noticed it in the agenda packet my response to mr. Davis was not included And that was going to be a follow-up question But since we're going to be really restrictive on what people can say I'd like to request to be able to read my response to mr. Davis before we move forward with further public comment So that I can provide some context and maybe give them something else to speak on since it was not included in the packet I don't see a problem that if that's the That so be up to this discretion of the mayor, but I don't see One of the things that I think we need to move I think that we should bring that up afterwards unfortunately because there are a number of items that probably could have been included with this That if we start going down that route, it's going to become very problematic for example the uh to Respect for discrimination harassment retaliation policy was also not included And that is something that could have been included with this item as well And I don't want to get us going too far off topic for too long I think we should go through or public comment We can you know make statements around what should have and should not have been included with this And we can continue on and I think it's an opportunity from you to make a case for yourself After this, but I feel that this is something we need to continue moving forward with absolutely And I'm not trying to make a case for myself I'm trying to provide them with context on things that they can speak on since you have Kind of tightened down their ability to speak on things that they feel are associated with like the recall and other things But we don't need to talk about all the other things I'd like to just be able to provide context for people that weren't able to read the response so that they can Stay on topic as you requested I think that that will be most appropriate afterwards But they can't it's I'm going to say that now because because many members of the public weren't able to Read the report wasn't included. I'm I'm I wish that that would have been made apparent to our Our human resources director so that could have been included with this packet But there are a number of different items that people wanted included here that haven't been included And I think and to be fair with everyone I think we need to stay on topic at this time and I'll allow you to make your comments afterwards So if you want to please continue your public comments Okay Excuse me, excuse me hold on hold on Excuse me members. I'm going to ask the members of the public to please Be respectful to one another and please hold off on comments if you're not at the podium I want the public shaming and punishments Of these two men to stop I just think it's just abominable What you have been doing I hope everybody will go to community tv to the playlist And watch the night of February 12th 2019 and see how Not only did the mayor blast These two men Completely blindsided them But then wouldn't even let chris say anything You are not recognized council member You have not been recognized. I mean the authoritarian dictatorial way this council Was managed for a year Was just hideous and we had to listen to it We had to listen To subjects being talked around around and around Not even half the time knowing what they were talking about Because nothing was done Nothing really was said Except by these two Thank you and sandy Anyway, Garrett philip, uh, this is about the facebook page in general. I hope that's close enough The facebook page knows Santa Cruz city council member drew glever has a history of inappropriate posts for a site Representing a city council member Perhaps the name itself will be inappropriate soon For instance, the post was urges students to strike or engage in a no work No class boycott of ucsc on march 5th wearing all black has no place there It is encouraging behavior which attempts to willfully deprive students and faculty of their peaceful education process And generates extremely high negative emotions on campus directed at the university The wear all black is very similar too similar Uh, directive to the dress of the domestic terrorist organization known as antifa This is also worthy of a violation of the council's purpose, which is to provide excellent city services Further posts including pictures of chris crone declare election night time to party organized by eiu or there The constant special interest partnership with unions expressed by several progressive council members Including member glover are troubling to protect everyone's individual rights Including the right not to join a union the council must remain neutral And in the matter of a city public union to represent all the people Acting much as a union organizer on his website Which is not in the job description favoring exclusive union city contracts isn't either Other posts clearly show disdain for quite ordinary people who he describes as wealthy including mere merely being retired Why he considers very productive value producing people outside the totality He should represent while insulting them writing values exaggeration lies misinformation This is an issue of classing ox privilege and equity should be a mystery But it's not he thinks his job is to be an extreme leftist political advocate instead of a city council member Providing commonly accepted city services He is a divider not the only one and the city's political divide is going wider for his presence Please take this into consideration And this is what was on his website Thank you All right next speaker Feel like I need to take a bath Council member glover's single facebook post did not violate the respectful workplace policy In mr. Davis's Letter it was based entirely his investigation was based entirely on the single facebook post And the policy states that it must be a repeated Not a single act It says even in mr. Davis's own words a single act shall not constitute Disrespectful conduct unless especially severe or egregious A single act shall not count i'm reading from his letter a single act shall not constitute abusive conduct unless It is especially severe or egregious The policy also says that that's uh, mr. Davis also says it was retaliatory However, the policy clearly defines retaliation as conduct in retaliatory Action retaliation in the policy Is a mere statement cannot be a violation of the policies prohibit prohibition on retaliation Why the city manager hired a law firm that specializes in land use builders developers And property owners instead of going back to the rose law firm who had already been here already knew the personalities and could have dispensed with this nonsense With with an afternoon Why we went to somebody who represents the property owners and the people who are behind The recall to have them do this investigation is beyond me and it makes me think the city is not well managed I guess i'm i'm glad i'm not wearing black, but the police officer's in the room are wearing black Um I just don't know what's going to happen in santa cruz. I just don't know what's going to happen in santa cruz's future for the most part i'm More frustrated than not with the city council, but i still show up I still have hope here i'm daniel spells As children my brother and I Sometimes approached our mother with complaints about the other Wisely she coached us saying it takes two to tango you better go and work it out I recommend those of you finding difficulty working with uh councilmember glover Accept your halves of the relationship And figure out how to make a peace with him Over the weekend. I returned from my second trip to selma alabama Led by the selma cultural exchange led by councilmember glover I've uh, I've both experienced his leadership Uh on that trip Working with the 16 of us over those two trips who traveled And I saw him interact with a wide variety of people In the community of selma This would be people from children to elders In the community It would include Impoverished people as well as affluent and influential people In in that community Drew is not only respected. He's welcomed and appreciated None of the kind of innuendo and You know really I find it cruel The kind of conduct that's being directed towards him and none of that appears In this other community and and he has You know interacted widely with many people So, you know take to heart and Life is a rich learning opportunity And we can make it better and each of you have a part in making it better Thank you My name is john hall and um, I want to speak to what I see as A litmus test for the city council in terms of how you act In terms of how you act in relation to This this issue It is uh, I think quite striking that the lawyer's report Cannot make a prima facie a case for Grounding its approval of the accusation because drew Glover Made a statement about People who were no longer on a city commission They were not on a city commission at the time that he exercised his free speech If you think that you can censure somebody for saying something at a time like that I think that you're you know quite sadly mistaken What we've seen here is a weaponization of the respectful workplace Policy by certain members of city staff who I I feel quite honestly have an axe to grind against Mr. Glover And mr. Cron and I think that it's sad to see that occur And the other part of it of course is that the commissioner and the vice commissioner of the uh commission For the respect of a prevention of violence against women Weaponized the commission politicized the commission to carry out an agenda against in violation of the brown act Again against someone who they quite clearly regard as a political opponent If you're going to sanction that you're taking a very sad step in the city I would suggest that we invoke the words of jesus of nazareth Please cast the moat out of your own eyes first. Thank you This comment is specifically about the facebook post and it is um dedicated to the first amendment I don't know if you can hear me, but um It is uh many many many apologies to melvin and remel's I don't know if I can do this because i'm too nervous isn't I can't do it Nice to block the doorway isn't nice to go to jail. They're nicer ways to do it Nice ways always fail. It isn't nice. It isn't nice. You told us once you told us twice That that is freedom's price. I don't mind. Nice to carry banners. I can't do it because I'm too nervous, but I'm just gonna go Nice to post on facebook even when you tell the truth or to name unconscious bias especially in the voting booth Now our new ways aren't nice. We when we Deal with folks of ice But if that is freedom's price, we don't mind Colleagues public lies. Did you say it wasn't proper? Did you apologize? You were quiet just like mice. Now you say we aren't nice And if that is freedom's price, we don't mind Block the doorway isn't nice to go to jail There are nicer ways to do it, but the nice ways always fail. It isn't nice. It isn't nice Because my nerves totally erased the melody, but thank you for putting up with me anyways The bottom line is it's not always necessary to be nice and if you're not nice It there's a reason for it. So I I counsel Drew good to see you, you know, um I don't know specifically, uh, how to speak to this. I definitely Uh Think we should consider Maybe the authenticity of this commission And the the strong hand that the city Manager's office plays in this commission Um, I know that personally because I was called out not my by name, but uh hearsay and uh I was told that somebody in the homeless services has some sexual Abuse history and it was they were referring to me And they called a signed a document Saying we believe first victims remain silent. We don't need a victim. So they and they pass it unanimously. We don't need a victim um Drew I think you're a beautiful person. I've known you for a long time. We've had a lot of disagreements I've seen such amazing poise and in professionalism. I don't know about back of the house This is all this should be again, you know handled by hr. This is we shouldn't be even hearing of this sort of stuff This is ridiculous so unprofessional actually Completely unprofessional and shows the lack of power and lack and how truly powerful you are and have been and how how you You shook them to the core and that's why you must go my friend You are too strong too powerful You're so beautiful you're gonna have a great life You're going on from here and you're gonna achieve great things You're gonna have a it's going to be very painful for to you But you're gonna be all right and you're gonna look back and see this is a good thing that happened You're gonna achieve whatever you want in this life Um, I've I've seen you you stepped out. You took some really strong Impassioned things you took you put a stake in the ground and you stood tall And you're you're green. You're really green and you didn't do it right And perfectly, but you did it and I applaud you my friend Next speaker Thank you. Sajio Ryan Um What I want to say is that you know me that I'm not a person that gets into figuring out who said what and what's the Judging and blaming and figuring it out. I don't want to do that But what I want to talk to is this process I feel extremely troubled that we are once again censuring someone Even though we're not using those words the criticism of the critical tone of it There have been two studies Done and all the recommendations were that we talk together that you all talk together and have mediation and These are to me that that I know that's the next agenda. That's what I really want to hear about How that gets done. It doesn't really to me matter. We're all imperfect. We all get mad. We say things we shouldn't I've done it. I'm a quiet person. I've yelled at people I've said things in a tone of voice that weren't appropriate But the thing that really counts at the end of the day is can we sit down? Can we own our own stuff? Can we Can we hear each other? I keep asking for that. Can we hear each other? We're all human beings here in this room We're imperfect human beings. We all are doing the best we can given what we have Learned in our life and I like to look at life that way and that's what I hope that will be the future path of the council Whatever happens. I personally hope that both of you will still be here I was feeling tremendously sad that you might not be here tonight Might not even ever see you again. Although I know you'll both be working in the community no matter what happens. So Um, I just so I say a prayer in my heart that that's what happens that we work together We find ways in the community even the way we share here and as us of coming forward how we share Because that's really the only thing that matters We're all different in our own unique special way, but we're all stuck together. So thank you Good evening council. Um, I'm here to speak I'm hoping that our community can move forward and I specifically would like to speak to the commission for the prevention of violence against women because I think there's a lot of misinformation out there about What happened in relation to this post that was on facebook? There were many people present in this room who attended a meeting as well who shot down anyone who had a varying Difference of opinion in standing with women who come forward with complaints And I want to make it clear that it's really unfortunate that Commissions are volunteer work by members of your community Professionals and they give of your time to move forward items that maybe are not being pushed forward enough And I think it's really really unfortunate that we lost two commissioners who could have brought a lot of value to our community And I hear a lot of people on this city council talk about progressive values We didn't have start nursing here sexual assault response team nursing here for years. It went to santa clara Okay, that is huge That is what the commission is supposed to work on with the city and the county because this affects our community And instead that was politicized by both sides Jillian greensight had no idea that victims were driving over the hill to santa clara when she wrote that letter Ann simonton voted for everybody on the commission voted To send the letter to the city council against mr. Glover Chris crone was president the meeting. He was filming in the back I thought that was highly inappropriate and when people were screaming and yelling it was very I'm going to stop you for a second and ask members of the public to please respect everybody's opinion and time to speak during public comment Thank you The same people that are yelling at me now are the same group of people that don't read the packet Don't understand what's going on to move the issue. Don't help people. Thank god We have a start nursing back, but work together, you know, this is important Yep Good evening again, uh, marv lewis Um, this item violation of the workplace policy Act is insignificant. It's inconsequential by way of analogy. It's like there's a fire burning outside of the city council chambers You have a virus that's out of control. You have climate change. You're on the precipice of severe economic upset And i'm going to pause for one second. I'm going to ask members of the public Excuse me. Can we please be respectful when people at the microphone? More than welcome if you want to have side comments to go outside But while we're here and while people are speaking, let's respect their opportunity to speak Thank you and what the response is on behalf of Well vested members of the community both inside and outside is to recall the battalion chiefs and let the fire burn out of control And so I submit to you that the people who put this agenda item on This evening's agenda Are the ones that need to stay on topic. It's not the public So I ask that you refuse this nonsensical charge against drug lover And that you instead focus on your mandate, which is the well-being of this community at large And granted that's a high bar for you at this time. I Hope that you can aspire to it in the coming months. Thank you Good evening again I'm inspired to speak because I was really disturbed when Justin Cummings Interrupted a speaker and said that she was not talking to the topic The topic is very narrowly defined as something for right now But in fact everything occurs in a context and she was addressing the context That drew and many of other people all of us really Have lived in over this past year Um, I have observed an incredible amount of disrespectful behavior I don't get to all the meetings. I often watch them on television And the only person I've seen signaled out over and over has been drug lover And I feel that without the context Yeah, if he said some things I didn't agree with either and he knows that and we know but that's not the point The point is that all that other disrespect especially what the other speaker was speaking about wasn't said Um in this context, I have spoken about housed privilege Where people who have a place to sleep every night make decisions about people who don't And I guess I'm feeling right now that this and what's going on here is an example of white privilege Where a lot of white people are making a decision about a person of color And I feel it's absolutely inappropriate He's an outspoken man of color and I am happy to have outspoken people even when I don't always agree with what they have to say Good evening council members. My name is ed porter and I'm actually puzzled by this particular agenda item because I wonder when I was on the city council The city staff never came to me and said you need to waive your first amendment You're constitutionally protected first amendment rights because we're going to dictate when you can exercise them and when you may not But in fact, I did read Drew's facebook post several times And I did find a word that I Was not pleased with the very last sentence had the word hypocrisy in it And I thought well That would be better if that word wasn't there and if I remember right The facebook post disappeared the next day Only drew could have taken it down So I think maybe he rethought what he had posted also I posted something about six days ago About the coronavirus. I thought I really knew a lot and I posted a rather extensive post And I got some comments back from some of my friends the next morning. I took it down It was a sensible thing to do because I was wrong But the point is I had the freedom Which is guaranteed to me by the constitution of the united states And I think the constitution of the state of california, which all of you swore an oath to uphold That I have that freedom of speech now. I don't remember when I was on the city council ever Being asked to check my first amendment rights in favor of staff interpretation of what should be said and what should not be said Never and I don't think that has evolved since I left I think drew glover still has that right and so do every one of you And so this agenda item simply should not be happening. Hi, I'm abby I won't show that again, even though I was thinking of showing the same video again um The reason is is because if this is a reason to censor someone Or whatever the thing that you're going to try to do whatever this topic's about this agenda item Then we should look at other people in this room to be censored also So what's the real reason for trying to censor councilmember glover? Perhaps it's the same reason Why the city also reprimanded recently last week councilmember crown By city manager martin burnall in sending out an email The email was reprimanding him for sending a newspaper post to a few city staff people What was interesting that was also not Spoke to him. Well, it was spoken to him. I heard in private But it went to everywhere and it made sure that it got on to next door On to facebook four to five days before the election That is retaliation retaliation You should not be the city manager. This is your fault You should be able to be able to talk to these people councilmember Glover and crone asked numerous times To please have conflict resolution This is nothing more Nothing more than trying to get them off because they don't agree with your politics, which Obviously you speak very well You speak extremely well, but underneath it. Obviously you do not care about the homeless people in our country You don't do not carry about the poor and that's what it's really about Yeah, so the this item just so I don't I stay on topic here and not get reprimanded Is a violation of the city administrative procedure termination of violation of city's respectful workplace conduct by councilmember Glover The context as various previous speakers have said is important Uh martin burnall our city manager who I have recently been petitioning for the firing of Not I think personal martin. I just don't think you've done a good job and it's Egregious the behavior that has has racked up similarly city attorney kandadi has assisted in this whole affair and of course Chief mills. I'm particularly concerned about homeless people on this issue But the context is important And it what the context is it's a it's a very controlled forum at city council We see this happening today where justin has repeatedly and I understand that's his feeling He wants to run a good meeting. That's how he sees it But in fact The reason I do applaud Every time he suggests people not is because I think it is an important first amendment right For the the audience to be able to do that And I think it's important even more for council members to be able to take that action Whether it's on facebook as former councilmember porter has pointed out Or that there'd be a specific following of the An understanding of the commission that did this And the report that did this I should say the individuals who did it and and the the comments made by another previous speaker on this are relevant There are divisions in this community and on this council That are very important. They cannot be resolved by mediation by being nice to each other They are the old guard versus people who want to make fundamental changes And we have seen this where it happened last year We thought we had a progressive majority, but then councilman our comings changed and went with the minority My time is up, but I think that is the key point Evening council members Just because you can Doesn't mean you should We all have the right to freedom of speech. We can say what we want. We can have any opinion we want If we say it out loud in a public setting Well, there's possibly going to be consequences. We have to be able to be willing to accept the responsibility of what we say and what we do in a public setting Just like we have the freedom of choice to do what we want, you know, we can go kick over a trash can but that doesn't mean that Officer there's not going to come over and make me pick it up and put everything back in it So we do have the freedom of speech. We can say what we want But we have to be willing to take the consequences of what we say or what we do you know and Tonight well take responsibility take the consequences Whether they're big little Just man up take them to Tonka again I just want to remind us all that the last two years of dr. Martin Luther king's life Um, we're the most difficult I believe for him um Because he stopped he started talking about economic rights. He started talking about Economic justice and this was very difficult for people to hear he even he even um Was despairing that all the civil rights gained would be lost if we didn't have economic justice And in connecting the dots anywhere, I found following the money to be a really good indication I just want to suggest that all the talk that we're having could be simplified if we follow the money we want to have a A city council that has divergence of opinion because we have divergence of opinion in our community But we want it with respect We don't want it bought and sold like citizens united so I just want us to reflect on the fact that not just in this council chambers But in our country and in our nation unless we solve this disparity between the very wealthy and the very poor We won't get the cohesion Or even the you know the values that we want that all of us want in this council I think it's a serious problem. And I think we have to call it for what it is and connect the dots. That's why the woman was Bringing up the issue that happened last year Connecting the dots the context is really important to understand where we are and how to navigate ourselves through it Thank you As the next speaker comes up. I'm going to remind us to please try to stay on topic There's a lot of really great advice and I appreciate a lot of the Respectful, you know comments that are coming forward, but we have an agenda item And I just want to make sure that we stay on topic. So go ahead. I'll try. Okay I I think that we all make mistakes and we all I think we all make mistakes and we all say a lot of stuff. I think that How we respond to them Is whether we get to move forward or not? I think we all we want to move forward and to get things done for our city The it confused me Damon your comment because didn't you call a county staff member a retard recently? Please. Yeah, so it's I'm just saying that that that it's city staff City council members people say things And if we're not going to respond the same way to everybody it gets it gets a little confusing I think we do need to figure out some way to move forward from this kind of stuff. That's my point Next speaker Hold on before you speak Excuse me I'm just going to ask If there are members of the public who have who need to Have an aside conversation Please do so outside Please be respectful to one another And when coming up for public comment, please address the council on the topic that we're focusing on Thank you Good evening a number of people mentioned context as pertains to this um I just Thought back as they said this about when I was here as a young story in 1978 and we had a recall at that point of three members of the board of supervisors Which in the case of two of them was successful and The consequence was that a conservative makes already took over the board of supervisors for the next two years and helped implement changes in line with proposition 13 Which contributed to our slide from having the best public transit system in california to One of the worst in a very few years So when when you consider A recall consider the full context consider who's behind it Who's targeted and why the targeting might be going on Don't just accept anything on face value because there's always a hidden agenda Thank you Good evening scott ram You know the u.s. Constitution its first amendment is freedom of speech and No regulation by the state or the city Can supersede that Your all your regulations have to conform to the the cost they can't be unconstitutional They have to conform to the constitution just recently There was a case in nevada where Somebody posted some stuff online. He was part of a animals right wild animals rights group Against a forest ranger in nevada The forest ranger took him to court and finally made it to the supreme court in nevada And they decided that the person that had put this post on facebook had every right to under the constitution So whatever drew did on facebook was okay Because it's constitutional he says that right This law law firm that was picked to look into this matter Has no History of ever doing this kind of work. They are a Real estate law firm. They do You know real estate law, so I don't understand why they were picked Unless there's some kind of back, you know money Laundering kind of deal going here where there's a kickback Anyway As far as this Workplace conduct thing goes These people were no longer on a commission So given that fact that he can't true can't be held to This conduct of the worst plate place thing When the people he was talking about weren't part of the workplace The other members of the public who would like to address us on this item I'm gonna ask the same way you can line up to the left And step forward The name is Roland sear and uh No matter how much uh lipstick You put on a pig and no matter how sophisticated to Apply the lipstick The pig is still a pig Uh If somebody speaks truth to power He better be prepared to be attacked The attacks can come in many different ways And there can be One or a prolonged kind of an affair And in this case it looks very clear Do has spoken truth to power And he has been attacked and this is just another instance in this Attempt to silence him and the opinions that he proposed So That's all I have to say Other members of the public who would like to speak to us on this item who haven't already spoken All right, saying none. I'll bring it back to council for action councilmember Glover Thank you. Uh, so I I just have some questions. Um I guess it'll be directed towards the HR director for now um What was So how do you define a reasonable person because this is something that I I still I spoke with mr. Davis about but can can you You can't this is can you hear me now? Okay. The plastic is weird Uh How do you define a reasonable person because when I spoke to mr. Davis he said that in his report It says that a reasonable person would would find that post problematic. Can you describe to people how what that means? It is weird Just take it off At least I don't think that I am Well, quite frankly, I'm not the one to define at this moment What is a reasonable person in that particular case? I asked that mr. Davis be that individual to make that distinction Okay, um, that that's strange as you be an HR director. Um, the The the explanation I got from mr. Davis was that it would be found to be unreasonable by a Jury of 12 of my peers which is but he was the only one that made the The finding correct. So it was a single person that made that judgment citing Reasonable people even though his definition of reasonable people is 12 people of my peers Can you explain that that may have been an anecdotal? I wasn't a part of the definition that he gave to you but there is a the The need and the definition, you know within this policy That is tasked an individual to be that Reasonable person to make that determination and in this case that reasonable person that I tasked For that was a professional with over 20 years of labor law experience with a firm of berksaw and some william Who practices solely labor law? Okay, thank you How does the A policy apply to people that are no longer employees or appointed representatives of the city So although those commissioners may have not been At the moment Sitting commissioners. I think that they were in within the performance of their duties as a commissioner that you were citing them under So therefore there's a reasonable connection that this would be reasonably attributed to them Okay, can you explain why? My response to mr. Davis wasn't included in the agenda packet for the community to Observe sure typically I do not include email correspondence letter correspondence in a final report Even as you look in the rose report that was there were no attachments of email communications of respondents So I did not include it for that reason Okay, it was just kind of disappointing because it provides context for people to be able to understand the reasoning behind my post And my response as to why I disagree Uh, categorically I get essentially with mr. Davis's findings um, and you mentioned that the law firm has a A history of working on these issues So does mr. Davis have a background in analyzing and coming to determinations around respectful workplace conduct policies We're actually one of the first, um Really that I know of besides I think in washington But it's newer to have an actual respectful workplace policy Although the state has just implemented I believe last year an anti bullying policy, which this reflects So yes, he does have experience in making these types of Determinations of violation of any type of labor related Administrative policies or investigations harassment. What have you okay? Well just since it's not in the Uh, since it's not in the packet. I'd like to just read this response to mr. Davis to provide context for my colleagues And to the public who may not have had a chance to read it Uh Dear mr. Davis I'm writing a response to the letter. I see received from your office on november 18th 2019 and to share my perspective about your analysis of the statements posted on facebook After reviewing your analysis, I would like to express my strong opposition to your quote Unequivocal determination that it pertains to the respectful workplace conduct policy The post in question is undoubtedly critical of the decision of mr. Grossman and miss kramer's actions to resign from The commission for the prevention of violence against women, but I do not believe that it rises to the level of quote disrespect or quote retaliation First I will address the issue of mr. Grossman The language in the post was not intended to quote insult mr. Grossman But to criticize his behavior that was inconsistent and hypocritical This is specifically pertaining to the occurrence that took place at the past at a past cp va or commission meeting While I was a commissioner where I requested that members of the body not interrupt each other And to be sure to acknowledge and take consideration of race and gender power dynamics on the body I noticed that mr. Grossman consistently interrupted other female commission members while they were talking This can be found in the recordings of the commission meetings leading up to my election to the city council Subsequent to that request mr. Grossman became offended Which promptly which prompted a following phone conversation between him and I where I apologized if my statements made him feel uncomfortable My claim that quote hypocrisy runs deep with kevin grossman And quote was based on the fact that at one of the last meetings before he prematurely resigned He made a request that commissioners not interrupt each other This request came from a white man to a group of women Some of whom were women of color this in my opinion is hypocritical Not only because he did the exact same thing that he criticized me about But also that the request was coming from someone who habitually interrupted women during my time working with him on that body I would also point out that referencing the fact that someone is a white male in context of critical race analysis and power dynamics Is not disrespectful The reference to the report where he went on record to criticize me about the request for people not to interrupt each other Was not in quote retaliation But to provide context as to the observed hypocrisy It was also my understanding that he was a named contributor on the rose report So it would not be an issue to reference the document Now with regards to your analysis about my quote insinuated ulterior motives that you suggest I quote led the public to believe I assert that you misread that portion of the post In the post I state that there were quote many implications Surrounding the resignation of mr. Grossman and miss kramer The implication I was referring to had to do with the impact on the effectiveness of the body of cpva w or the commission From the sudden resignation of both chair and vice chair The meeting in november of 2019 had to be canceled due to a lack of a quorum This was in effect caused by the premature resignations Along with resigning prematurely for whatever reason replacements were not provided essentially crippling the commission cpva w This should be a big issue considering the next meeting was not scheduled to take place for months and inhibited any action or work To accomplish the mission of the body This was and continues to be incredibly troubling to me as the prevention of violence against women is something that I'm passionate about In addition to the implications of the premature resignations and the impact that it had on the body It was also immediately following an inappropriate and in my opinion unethical use of the commission for partisan goals The slander and defamation posted on his blog, which can be found here and I include a link Illustrates how mr. Grossman attempted to use his position to spread lies and misinformation about myself and calcimber crone In this blog, mr. Grossman not only identifies himself as the chair of cpva But references the rose report stating that quote earlier this year a sacramento-based law firm was hired to conduct an independent investigation Into allegations of sexism bullying and harassment The scope of the investigation included complaints made by five individuals all women against santa cruz city councilmember gleber and quote Going on he states his issues with the public comment at the city council meeting surrounding the attempt to censure myself and councilmember crone Using language like quote the voices of the victims and public were silenced to end quote suggesting that and i'm i'm even hesitant to say her name Yeah, suggesting that blank was in some way a victim of harassment or abuse None of the complaints lodged against me or councilmember crone Include claims of harassment or abuse to my knowledge In addition to the blog mr. Grossman and miss kramer participated in coercive and manipulative behavior with their fellow commission members I believe there may have been a violation of the brown act with the meeting They scheduled to quote endorse the call to censure myself and councilmember crone In addition to the potential violation of the brown act their behavior with regards to the newest commissioners was severely unethical for multiple reasons First they did not provide the information necessary for commissioners to make an informed and knowledgeable decision prior to the meeting Even during the meeting when commissioners requested additional information or expressed concern that they did not have all the facts They were coerced to vote in favor of the censure attempt with pressure to make the vote quote unanimous Additionally there was discussion about how about figuring out a process to censure themselves Or their fellow commissioners who failed to quote start by believing even though the report found no substantiated claims of abuse or harassment This was using the commission for an unintended purpose and for partisan goal These unintended purposes and inappropriate actions are outlined in the writings of ann simonton One of the new commissioners who felt pressured to vote a certain way. I've included her article in the good times I include a quote and now i'm just going to read an excerpt out of that Peace she writes quote as a member of cp va and a lifelong activist working to end sexual violence I want to apologize for our commission's involvement in this divisive partisan battle The rose report an independent investigation into allegations by city employees and other council members Found no substantiated instances of sexual harassment or gender-based discrimination Even so sexually inflammatory language was repeated by cp va city staff and those promoting the recall I move on back onto my piece There are many implications associated with both mr. Grossman and mrs. Kramer's actions during their time on the body and in their Resignation, I believe they should be addressed However, I do not believe that pointing them out or criticizing their behavior in any way Is in any way disrespectful or in any way retaliatory for any partition in any ongoing or concluded conflict Thank you for your consideration drew Glover. So Uh, I think that's incredibly pertinent because the analysis of mr. Davis Is flawed in many many ways, especially when taking into consideration the context And I think we've heard multiple times from people tonight the importance of context In the inappropriate use of the commission and the coercive tactics used by the commission members, so I just wanted to read that into the record so people could have that context And I I will say that it's been a fascinating experience dealing with these complaints and findings The use of policies that are designed to protect workers are being misused and abused to silence political opposition, which Is hard to believe they're also being used to defame elected officials and it's been an eye-opening experience I think for all of us in the community. So, uh, you know I'll stop there for a moment. I have some some things I want to thank people about but also, um, I do want to take responsibility Um, I want to take responsibility for any discomfort or hurt that I may have caused People with interactions and I want to stress that I am in no way suggesting that I am without blame in any of the conflicts that have occurred And I apologize, which I did already uh on yam kapoor But I also want to point out and which someone else brought up also is that conflict is a two-way street neither my colleagues From the rose report or the now resigned members of the commission for the prevention of violence against women Uh, neither of them are without their own contributions to tension yet. They place all the responsibility on me Which I think is very troubling and as members of the public have mentioned It seems to be a pattern both with this body and with members of the commission for the prevention of violence against women so Uh, we can move into whatever elder discussion But I just think that those are some very important points that needed to be stressed before we enter into the discussion I just want to I there's a couple things that I think I want to say here First is although this item isn't in regards to me Or any violation that I um am found to have Had occurred um a lot of the comments from the community are addressed to me And have been addressed to me frankly for the past year and I um I I have been at my heart a little bit breaks every time because I think if we think as leaders Who we want to be and how our community wants to treat each other Or how are we setting the tone for our community and how are we setting the tone for our children? I have been called by many of those in this room so many names that I don't care to repeat um, and I've also been called, uh White fragility to set the record straight. I'm a biracial woman and frankly last year I think shows that I'm actually not that fragile So I I want to just say that I think the community wants more from us. I want more from us I think that we have had this divisive Tone in our community that has led to This degradation of our civility and our ability to do the people's business and work It's not the tone. I want to condone or Set for our city workforce For our city residents and it's sure not the tone that I want to set for our children And so I think that we can agree with people's politics or their policies And still not approve of their behaviors And I think we see that at the national level and we need to take a good look at what's happening here locally We really do and so I'll take responsibility for my actions I made one comment that I felt as a leader at that time I needed to make And sometimes that's a really hard place to be to say yes, of course under certain circumstances Ideally you want to have these individual conversations Sure, sometimes it takes us as leaders to speak up because our silence can sometimes be seen as condoning or avoiding And that's what this conversation is about. We received this report as a council. It was brought to our attention to discuss Um count member mires and myself and others have been wanting to discuss it because we need to talk about this It's hard. It's uncomfortable clearly. I would prefer discussing things that are not About these types of behaviors But it's important that we do because if we don't then our silence by default condones And I'm not okay with that. I'm just not and so you know, one of the things about Healing is personal accountability I appreciate that folks didn't appreciate the comments that I had I recognize that I made one comment That's it. I don't go online and harass folks I don't ask my supporters to to do that either and I'll take responsibility for my behaviors I'm happy to do that. But a year later. This is not about me This really isn't I this is about the actions that occurred that led to this report and investigation that is now before us And it's our responsibility to address that it just is So before us is that discussion and how we as a community and how we as a governing body want to set the tone as leaders of our community Council member mires and myself have wanted to have this conversation around whether we feel Personal accountability and censure is appropriate given that we don't have any other tool available I know the next item is trying to assess the various tools happy to go there and discuss that But absent any other tools. This is the only tool we have And so if we don't agendize it for discussion or we don't even talk about it as a potential action Then we're not doing our jobs And so that's why we're here this evening Um, so I'll leave it with that we can discuss whether or not we want to take action There was a addition to the meeting and to the minutes of the meeting or to the public correspondence of the meeting As we weren't able to get that added to the agenda for discussion And so we hope to have that discussion as a potential outcome And i'm happy to have that discussion with my my colleagues up here today I'm just going to pause us for one sec. Excuse me, sir. I would like to ask that you I don't know what you're holding up there But if it's a mirror then and that's being used to Harass my moves with the city council. I'm going to give you a warning to please not do that Because that's disrupting our ability to conduct our business Thank you So that was really interesting customer walk-ins For a variety of reasons I I did didn't get I you know, I was reading through my notes here And I I wanted to take a second and thank all the people that came out to speak tonight Both those that were in support of me and also those that were not Really great to see the The weight of it though on where it falls Many may not know But I was the council member that advocated for the information of the Davis report to be released to the public I did this to provide transparency despite the fact that I heavily disagree with his analysis Just as importantly though, I would like to thank the members of this council For once again showing the public where their priorities lie I'm sure As they've demonstrated by their crusade to try and publicly crucify me that the Problems we face in the community pale in comparison to the threat my facebook post and their deep desire for administrative discipline With their constant demands for my accountability while both council member walk-ins and donna mires have conducted themselves in ways That many may be perceived to be abusive and bullying ranging from refusing to acknowledge council members Making public accusations and defamation without providing opportunities to respond and even slamming their fists on the table While screaming at colleagues Again illustrates what some might call hypocrisy And an abuse of the complaint process for partisan gain, which yields back to what I said originally I'm going to pause you for one second because I just want to make sure that I I know that this is and this is part of the reason why coming into this that this is a very Sensitive topic for all of us and I get that and I'm just going to remind us that Um, we need to not make things personal All here. Oh, I understand that this is I understand I understand so I understand I understand that I understand that um, that you know, this is something that's coming out of the HR department And I know this is coming directly after you. I'm just asking that um Absolutely that rather than making personal attacks against or you know comments that are being directed Towards people that we direct them towards, you know things that have happened in the past or sure So certain council members have thank you put little to no energy in defining a path to reconciliation And instead have continued to deepen the divide on this body Uh, for example, I've had one conversation with one other council member on this body with regards to reconciliation The other one hasn't even made themselves available to have those conversations and they're pushing these these issues of Uh censure which is So disappointing on so many levels that instead of trying and you know, especially when we're giving grand speeches About wanting to come together and rebuild the community and all this other kind of stuff And yet a complete failure and refusal to try to do anything even regarding that when it comes to the body here I don't understand What the goal is outside of political repression Especially around the use of these tactics to try and publicly defame me or attack my character or Bring me down, which by the way is not working, but but uh Without even trying to attempt for there to be any kind of reconciliation I think it's really telling and disappointing and I hope that you know What if and I eventually leave this body I really hope that there is a change in that demeanor because there will be consistent problems No matter who sits in this seat if they disagree with certain members of this body if they're going to Take the roundabout way of dealing with conflict instead of dealing with it directly. So I'll just say a couple of words. Um, you know, I I um, I do want uh Drew for you to know that this is not something that I took lightly and trying to think my way through of whether or not This should be brought forward and um, please refer to me as council member Glover Sorry council member Glover Um and You know, I think that um We have you know Collaboratively you know collectively, you know caused harm to Santa Cruz in the last year Um We have done a lot of talking We've done a lot of um A lot of you know back and forth We've charged, you know called each other various things I'm not sure that I've ever you know Taking it to the extreme that for some of the things that I've read on various social media and um, I've taken to just basically stop reading that place because Unfortunately, I don't think it it does a lot for our for our community um But I I do um truly want you to know this this I've had a lot of conflict about doing this and and you remark that you know Some one person, you know did not was not willing to um To engage in in the uh mediation Um that was canceled. Um for some reason. I don't know why Um and so I'm just going to leave that there, but um I I I brought this forward to us because This is the only tool we have as a body to have a conversation about um, how we will um Not only treat each other, but actually serve our community And positive for one second Sure I just want to also remind us because it's come up a couple times now during when You've been speaking and also councilmember glower the next item on our agenda is related to the conflict resolution So any further comments? I would just ask that we not have comments on that agenda item and that we stay focused on the one That's in front of us right now. So I just want to point that out So a center really is it's a symbolic action Um, if any of my colleagues feel like they need to bring a center forward on anything that I've done on this dais Please do Please do and I will take your request To for myself to really think about how I've acted up here the things that I've said I'm happy to evaluate that and have that conversation with any of you anytime If you think that I've done something that needs to be discussed publicly About why I did it what I was feeling when I did it Um, and how it's impacted our community. Please bring anything forward bring a center for me. Let's talk about it This center is about a debate and a deliberation for our community because um This is our only tool We have had documented Uh findings based on a policy That was put in place because of um People experiencing You know Things at work around the world Um, we've come a long way and we are realizing that various things do need to be addressed in the workplace And that is the intent that is why we have a policy that we do um And the center is is really our only tool as the city council to be able to understand and deliberate on why Why these findings have been made and um So I understand your frustration. I understand that um This has been frankly a big mess But I think that when people go to a place That they are to publicly debate and deliberate on what's best for our community that place should be Um civil it should be productive Um people should feel first of all and most importantly they should feel safe to come in here And be heard and and and not be criticized laughed at snapped at his stat Um none of that helps our democracy in this little tiny town that we're trying to serve None of that is going to help people economically None of that is going to help people find a home The only thing that helps people in those Places is if we get our app together And start working towards those things Saying that we're going to help people is not going to help people unless we actually do something Unless we actually move forward with sound policies Unless we're really thoughtful about what we're trying to do for our community So yes, this center is awkward And frankly, I wish we didn't have to bring it but we have something wrong in this room And we need to acknowledge and talk about how we can make this more a more productive place And how people can come here and talk to us about the things that are that are affecting them in this community So, um, I'm sorry that I said things that night. I'm sorry that I hit the table And um, so I apologize for that and I apologize actually for having to bring the center forward Um, I wish we could have had a discussion about this report when it was released Um, I've tried for many times to try to get this agendized Um, this is something we have to talk about and I agree with councilmember Watkins Um, if we don't talk about this then we essentially are Acknowledging and accepting that the behavior is okay to continue. So, um I do truly apologize that that we had to do this But, um, I, uh, I just think for the For the recovery of this entire community and of this council and future councils Um, we can't we can't keep treating people like this. We can't keep treating each other this way Uh, it's not it's not going to work. So, um, I will make a motion for us to consider the center Um, and I'd like to continue to debate on it second We have a motion to consider the center made by Vice mayor Myers seconded by councilmember Glover um I just would like to get some clarity around this Is this a motion to censure because My understanding and I'll just speak to um Some of the comments that were made as well And this is reflective of some things that I learned over the past year, but you know, um as mayor our role is to Put items on the agenda and When we made this report public I've had asked my colleagues for an opportunity to meet with councilmember Glover and go through a number of steps Before getting this on the agenda and we had a number of very packed agendas for example Last week, which would have been when this would have come on Except for the fact that we voted for it to come before us today We'd started at 10 45 in the morning and we got out around 9 30 p.m And had this been on the agenda. We probably had gone well into hours where we have all said that is not You know very conducive for us to conduct business and so We were able to vote and put it on and um most of us were willing although there was some opposition to put it on tonight and the recommendations and I'm getting to kind of my comment, but You know, we made the motion to put this on the agenda and because of the fact that What wasn't part of the emotion was an item to censure That wasn't put on with this item And I had reached out to the to the city attorney to understand whether or not a censure could be made Given how it relates to this item and I was informed that a censure could be made So I want to ask for clarification real quick as we move forward whether or not We can censure tonight or would this have to come back because my understanding is that we could censure tonight on this item And it wouldn't need to come back as a separate item Which is why we didn't put two items on in the first place Yes, so um This is a brown act question and the brown act has a rule about Uh, the posting of an agenda in the council's ability to take action on items that are not on the agenda So what the brown act requires is that the legislative body Post an agenda containing a brief general description of each item of business to be transacted or discussed at the meeting And it further states that no action or discussion shall be taken on any item not appearing on the posted agenda the item before you is a entitled council member glover violation of the city administrative procedure order And uh, the recommendation is to receive information regarding its termination of a violation of the city's respectful workplace conduct policy by council member glover now There are a number of cases that have dealt with actions that were taken that were not specifically described in the agenda in in my analysis the topic before you is Exactly as that the agenda is described council member glover violation of the city administrative procedure order A censure is essentially a collective Determination of the council of disapproval of the conduct of a council member In my opinion the council could take action to express its disapproval of the conduct described in the agenda By voting to censure and so I do not believe it's necessary to Agendize the censure for action at a future meeting if that's the direction of the council I believe you could take that action at this meeting I just thank you for that clarification And I just like to express because in part of the correspondence that came earlier Um, there was some mention that I would I was refusing to put a censure item on our agenda And I just want to make sure that it's clear that based on the conversations that I had with the city attorney And the item before us I did not think that it was appropriate to put two items on That would have been covering the same topic and then it made most sense to put one item on and to take action as appropriate And I expressed this um When questions arose around that so I just want to make sure that's clear That I was not inhibiting us to put this item on we went through a number of steps Which got us to the state of when this item is before us and now we have the opportunity to take action As a seen fit So I just want to get clarification from my colleagues whether whether this is a motion to censure Which has been or whether this is a consideration and so I'll just pose that question This is a motion to censure So there's been a motion to censure made by vice mayor meyers seconded by councilmember glover Is there any further discussion councilor matthews? I'll make a few comments um I I think the issue here is our respectful workplace conduct policy And to me a respectful workplace is extremely important It's important in terms of how we treat one another And how we interact with our staff And how we interact with our commissioners And similarly how our commissioners interact with the public and with one another and it's important On how we interact with the public at large I think As mentioned, this is a relatively new field in state law and I'm proud that we have dealt with Creating a respectful workplace here in santa cruz I think it reflects a growing awareness An evolving awareness of the importance of workplace dynamics beyond the the more traditional Sexual harassment or gender discrimination, but really A respectful workplace is essential to doing our best work in whatever our capacity is Some people mentioned that this should have been Directed to our hr department and in some sense it was but I think many of those uh here and and watching will Will realize that in terms of our staff There's a Set of procedures if there's a complaint about behavior of whatever nature There's a process for dealing with that complaint and the process and the accountability has to do With everything from a letter in their file a talk with the supervisor to being fired on the spot I mean that's That's the spectrum However, when we look over the kinds of Codes of conduct and ethics that are adopted by many other cities and we'll do with this talk We'll deal with this topic in our next agenda item It's often mentioned that the Accountability for council members rests with the council and the difficulty in this and other previous Incidents has been that we didn't have a clearly defined process for that. It's something we're trying to work on Um, but we haven't got a final product yet So, uh, we do need to be self governing And unfortunately, um, and I have seen in I'll I'll just say parenthetically The range in other communities policies is quite general also we can talk about that but We don't have a a range of consequences Or accountability presented to us now and so That's I getting back to the First statement. I do believe that it's important that we Make a commitment to a respectful workplace environment And that we follow through on that and I hope that we can work to a system that has um More nuance As we go forward Council member brown texts me that she wanted to make a comment So I'm gonna see if council member brown is there in order to make her comments Yes, thank you for Recognizing me back here in the back room. Um, so I Don't have a lot of comments Um, you know, I do agree with a lot of what's been said Um from members of the public Um, and at the dais I You know, I understand people's frustration all around this is um, you know, a very, uh, challenging time to be engaged in politics in the city and That's a shame. I think With that said, I would like to Make a substitute motion Which I have given to the city clerk that you can take a look at so Can you all see that you want to read the motion? Yeah, I just can't tell if you can see it on the screen from back here. Um, okay, great. Um, yeah, so so you know the motion is uh to as uh recommended The agenda report receive information regarding a determination of a violation of the city's respectful workplace conduct policy apo section two number number b by council member glover And to direct the mayor to send correspondence to council member glover indicating that the city council One accepts the finding regarding violation of the city's respectful workplace conduct policy apo Etc. Uh, two acknowledges that multiple findings have been made regarding violations of this policy Three expresses disapproval of these violations and four urges council member glover to adhere to this policy in all communications related to the city and its operations In order to ensure a respectful workplace for all city workers and representatives I'll second that motion. Um and I'll Leave it to other council members if they want to weigh in It does sound like there was a motion to censure already made and I don't know if that Oh, yeah, it's a substitute motion. So um, so we have a substitute motion on the floor You can debate the motion But the but the action would be to accept the substitute motion not to approve the substitute motion I have a friendly amendment. Um, that if we by expressing our disapproval of these violations Include the censure of council member glover that would reflect our appropriate reflection of disapproval of these violations Is that seconded? Is that approved by the maker of the motion that a censure would be the appropriate expression of our disapproval of these violations? Well, I think the appropriate the appropriate Reflection of that is saying that we disapprove. So I'd like to leave that as is I'm I'll say that I'm the reason why I'm open to this because I know that council member glover just seconded Um a censure of himself. So may So I'm just I'm just going to say that Um as you know why I would support that but That was just so we could have a conversation. I didn't see that I didn't know that this uh substitute motion was coming So I would I like I prefer this language personally, but It's up to the makers of the motion Well, I think I guess the question then goes back to Kind of what you council member walk-ins was made he's mentioning. I'll just withdraw my second of the first motion So council member glover withdrew his motion to send withdrew the second to the motion to censure So now there is only the motion on the floor Okay, so you may vote on the motion at this point um, so the motion on the floor is what's before us to Receive the information regarding a determination violation of the city's respect for workplace conduct policy apio section two Number b policy the council member glover Direct the mayor to send correspondence to council member glover indicating that the city council one accept the findings of Regarding the violation of the city's respectful workplace conduct policy apio section To be policy to acknowledge that multiple findings have been made Regarding violations of this policy three express our disapproval Of these violations and four urges council member glover to adhere to this policy and all communications related to the city And its operations in order to ensure a respectful workplace for all city workers the motion was seconded by myself the motion was made by council member Brown seconded by mayor Cummings and um I'll just say that Had there been interest in the Disapproval given the fact that council member glover seconded the censure to put this on there not being in favor and i'm still in favor of the of the motion on the floor But I just want to put that in there as well. So My own preference would be to switch out the word disapproval to censure In this motion if that would be agreeable I I think this is very close to this is very close to splitting the difference But I think what we want is a formal action or to express our formal disapproval of these violations I'll make of the motion. Yeah, i'm not comfortable making that change so council member brown is not okay with formal disapproval or Center so This is nonetheless on the record I mean I think that's implicit that if we're making the motion and sending a letter it's implicit that there's some level of formality Motion to call the question mayor second Yep, there's been a motion to call the question by Council member crone seconded by council member glover all those in favor. Please say aye. Bye. Bye To call the question. Yeah So So that's um council members Glover crone wackens matthews Brown and vice mayor meyers voting eyes Mayor Cummings voting no to call the question. So the question has been called all those in favor. Please say aye. Aye any opposed? No, so that's motion passes with uh council members glover crone brown and mayor Cummings voting in favor to accept the recommendations And the motion that was made and council members Wackens matthews and vice mayor meyers voting against Okay, so that concludes That item number one on our evening agenda related to council member glover's violation of the c administrative procedure order And we'll move on to our second evening item Which is an update on council ethics committee anticipated steps for training On respectful workplace policies and conflict resolution and mediation efforts And so um Yep, so i'll turn that over to um director of human resources Lisa Murphy Good evening mayor and council members I'm here to report to you an update on the recommendations made out of the rose report in combination with recommendations that Uh, I had put forward as well as the council The first recommendation is to put together a subcommittee for the code of values ethics and conduct policy A the goal for this This policy was to create a document which will assure public confidence and integrity of our local government effective fair operation This policy is intended to provide a framework for day-to-day Actions and decision-making at least Lisa i'm gonna pause you I'm gonna give us a couple minutes to let the chamber's clear before we move on to this so we can have full attention So those members of the public if you'd like to leave right now Please make your way to the door Okay, and finally this policy is a commitment to uphold the standard of integrity and competence Beyond that required by law and the treatment of others So the subcommittees composed of three council members who volunteered for this assignment council member matthew's council member glover and council member crumb So far we've met on four occasions. I've put out a doodle poll for the next one. So please check your emails Right now the document is draft. We're not prepared to present it to you this evening But I would say I think we need one last meeting to be able of the the committee and we'll be ready to bring it forward to you It's in five sections basically The five sections are as follows. It is a code of values ethics conduct an accountability section and finally an implementation And the goal for us again is to complete this in april for the council consideration I would say this group has been very productive. We've worked really hard I think there's been a lot of amazing input and A lot of collaboration and I really appreciate the three members who have been participating We began with Utilizing the institute for local government's foundation for how to develop a code of conducts and ethics So it wasn't like we were reinventing the will but what is new and unique to this group is the value section so Moving on the next recommendation I'm going to skip the the conflict resolution recommendation I'm going to put that last as well as the onboarding process since I'm here and I'll just go through the items that I In charge of so The next recommendation was workplace conduct training and this had to do with our policies About sexual harassment and discrimination and our workplace a respectful workplace conduct policy Within the first day 60 days of taking office So this isn't a new state law and then of course every two years thereafter and part of that New law also includes the state's law on Bullying which then of course we have a respectful workplace policy So all council members are required to attend and they are required to attend within the first six Months, but you've asked for 60 days and we can certainly accommodate that because the city provides multiple live trainings throughout the year And we also the league of california city provides those trainings We provide notices to the council members when when it is available and when they are late and when they are Due to attend And we will make sure we also have a system called a training tracker system, which we will Continue to monitor and inform council members Within that time frame. I think one of the issues that was identified was that it wasn't soon enough within taking office And so our intention is to make that available Again within the first 60 days of taking office and not only that in the revised onboarding Which I believe the c-manager staff will go through is that those policy will will be included in their onboarding packets with An acknowledgement that they've received them and that when they will be signed up for their actual training In addition, there's in the city administrative policy review We have a committee of employees and a couple of members of the equal employment opportunity commission Who are reviewing the respectful workplace policy that is a Was developed within uh, it's been about four four years, I believe And given our experience with it now We have a lot of things that we can update revise change and it most definitely improve And so this committee has been working on that it again. We everybody's very busy. It's been a bit difficult to pull us together Uh, but we have made progress and I can anticipate that if we do another meeting Within this next month given the virus issues We'll be able to wrap that one up too And along with that there's actually two policies. There's the discrimination harassment retaliation policy as well as the respectful workplace conduct policy and this ties to the city council's policy of 25.2 the discrimination harassment retaliation respectful workplace because it ties those two policies that The staff have into your Your overall council handbook policy. So whatever changes that they make At the staff level then we will also bring those to you to Mirror, I do still have to take those two the unions as well. So there is still a little bit of work Before it will come before this body to for those revisions Please ask me any questions because actually for those pieces. I'm now going to turn it over To the city manager's office about the onboarding But if you have any questions, I can answer them now about the other ones where you can wait till the conclusion of the entire presentation What be the will of the mayor Is there any does that are there any questions currently at this point? Okay, so we'll just wait. Thank you Okay, so I'll just do a brief update on the onboarding process So Laura Schmidt our assistant city manager is the the lead Staff and she's been working with the departments as well as with the human resources department to put together a more formal structured onboarding process and That will involve having the The paperwork the the various Materials prepared in advance And then having a checklist essentially and a monitoring system Where we where we track all the various policies that will be provided to council members and ensure to ensure that they get them And that we can again keep track of those things and check off all the various pieces that need to be completed Again to ensure and assist the council members with completing all the various hr policies as well as the other Components of the onboarding process So that's the approach we're taking And we're getting that in place. And of course if we need to do this soon, we'll we'll be ready to do that I think at this time Leila You've ever And for in terms of conflict resolution Of course, we have conducted several sessions with that There was interviews coaching sessions of facilitated mediations and Leila from conflict resolution is here to give a brief report right, so there's a yeah, so the lajah bradavix from the The comfort resolution center Provided a report that's in your packet. She's here to uh, uh If the kaila wishes to present it and or answer questions, uh, to your pleasure I'm wondering and I'd like to get a sense of my other council members Given the fact that part of this is coming up with council policy versus A conflict resolution training that we had whether or not there's interest in Having questions on the policy first and then having a report on the conflict resolution training Finally it would be excited a few questions policy related and then Um, maybe like to get those out of the way first, but I'd like to hear what my colleagues are feeling I'm on the committee. So I know Ask away As it relates to the onboarding process just one possible comment or question is One do we have any type of like formal or informal Piece of like paperwork that's being designed for council members to sign Kind of agreeing and acknowledging that they've read they've not only taken the training because I think that the state training is one thing But having read the city's respectful workplace policy or whatever policy comes out of this The answer is yes. So the checklist includes An acknowledgement that they've received and we do that actually for employees as well So we'll follow the same procedure. Uh, and we do it with a variety of policies that are critical important for Uh, again to put on the record that they've received them So it'll get the policy and there's a form that is completed So that people acknowledge that they've received them and read the Information so we can do that. Yes the follow-up. I have to this. I know recently there's been some complaints about Um commissioners and I'm wondering if something similar Can is you know being designed or possibly in the works for commissioners in terms of that similar acknowledgement of reading over Whatever policy is going to be put in place and having um gone through and acknowledge Yes, I think it would make sense to to mirror, uh, the process for uh, you know Staff advisory body members and council members. Yes It's now a state law that all the commissioners have to participate in the sexual harassment training course that we we provide And ours is a dual one. It's the respectful workplace policy in the in the um sexual harassment policy as well But above and beyond that what we saw looking at the models of many other communities is that they do actually have a one page For the uh code of conduct and values whatever they're calling it. It's very simple and they sign it and indicate they've received the document and They understand the principles and in many of the policies that we see from other communities They apply equally to the commissions that is to anyone who represents the city in an elected or appointed position And is not answerable to the hr department so, um The examples that i've looked at I think we should include commissioners as well as elected officials and I personally like the idea of having a simple document on this issue particularly saying I've got it. I've read it. I understand it and one of the communities even has that um as a council member you don't even get any committee assignments until you've signed it and um anyway There are lots of options but your point is well taken Any other questions from council members on this item? I have a question about the commissioner um Kind of extension of accountability with this policy as you reference There's two additional substantiated cases workplace misconduct by two of our commissioners at this time What is the recourse for that and how do we intend to Maybe use these two pending kind of reports we've received to help inform that policy I could just respond to that again. Um, as I mentioned in my previous comments um What we have now uh has no nuance in it and what what we've seen in some of the model policies is Levels of seriousness And so I think that same thing would apply I mean I can think of Actually many occasions or the over the years when individual commissioners have behave badly towards the public and um, there has to be some way of and I don't think it's hitting over the head with the club but Calling attention to it and I think we just are more sensitive to it now That doesn't do any of us any good. Um, it doesn't represent the city well So, um, I think both in terms of How we expect council members to be accountable in a range of ways that same thing would Answer your question. It does but for clarification what I'm hearing you say is um, essentially you anticipate coming up with this framework and this policy Ideally having that adopted and then potentially applying it to the two Recent accountability kind of components of the violations we received. Is that accurate? Can I make a comment on that? So I do the the I don't necessarily have answer to but a suggestion is that the um, the accountability is Strictly at this point for Violating the code of ethics and conduct and values policy Not necessarily for violating the sexual harassment or the worker the respectful workplace conduct but We could tie that together in the revision of the respectful workplace policy and the sexual harassment that if A council member or commissioner were to violate those policy It could tie to the accountability portion of this policy So we could tie those two together In the respectful workplace conduct policy I think for sure I'm a little hesitant actually to suggest that for the sexual harassment policy to turn that over to this body When that's actually that's a legal issue versus The other one is administrative, but I think we could definitely tie it together and And and push it over to that side too. I guess maybe at the time we make motions we can discuss that I just have a couple questions about The the commit the subcommittee. Um, when was the last time that the committee met? Feb two weeks ago. We just I want to say was february Early february. I I'm not Recalling the exact date that we we met And are we so we're looking at concluding something Soon I'm just there's a doodle poll out right now to the council members that are on the members And I'm waiting for their response to find a common date We all are I know we're all busy when this is a priority too But there's four because it includes myself to try to to make sure we all have the schedules, but there is a Date requested out there waiting for a response and they're all within The smart month so I would expect we can wrap it up And uh move it forward in april And I guess the other question is What are some of the examples that uh other communities are doing with regards to You know a finding such that you know, there was a A finding against you know finding of some kind of um You know Conduct that was not at a commission level or or mission council. I'm just curious You mentioned that yeah the ones I remember are um I think the sequence is admonition reprimand and censure and uh and How that was administered went everywhere from A simple paragraph to a four page document Do we have a sense how many communities? Throughout the us have these now. I mean is this oh a lot I I could pull hundreds of them Very common it's a very common. It's not unusual at all and they're really actually fairly boilerplate in terms of Conduct and You know even the accountability is all over the place cross mine is quite intense. I probably should pare it down a little bit But the the values piece. So that's the unique piece to To this organization and not all of them make a value statement. You actually have something similar in your board or your Your handbook and so it's a takeoff from that and sort of maybe an update of of those values to reflect this council Uh, but yes, it's it's a lot of boilerplate things about, you know, accepting gifts and and how to Conduct yourself up meetings as well. You know how to work with staff. So there's a variety of covers it all And just in past councils have we ever we ever had an ethics committee or have we ever sort of looked at this policy? Sort of framework before there have been a couple of other one-off incidents For council members that I recall Not not a formal ethics committee Thank you Any other questions from council members? Seeing none, um, maybe we can move on into the Next phase or or if there's anything else I I don't have anything else to report on that other than again I want to thank the three council members who've committed a lot of time because I've pushed out a lot of reading to them and That's um, and I think they've they've been very responsive. So thank you At this time, I guess we can invite up label from the conflict resolution senate to provide a report on the conflict resolution You think well, um, you've received my report It is basically just the the overview of the process that we've completed have included some You know our our own observations and remarks in that We have met with each of the council members individually we've met with the city manager with the hr director with With the number of city staff as well Our our number one recommendation was to have a closed session with the city council members And we weren't at this at this time Allowed to do so proceed with that because There are some questions about the the legal questions around whether that's Possible for us or not And I felt that that was really the biggest of the missed opportunities for the council to really meet in a joint In a private joint session where some of these issues can be really addressed as In the other the other observations I want to say that the timing of bringing us in was really unfortunate for many reasons one is The conflict has been brewing for such a long time. It was there is everything was already In in the making and then there was also the inconvenience of all of the holidays in between and the break and And then the recall and then the elections and then all of it So really the timing of it all happened at a very unfortunate time We still managed to do individual coaching sessions with each of the council members That to my observation I felt that everybody left That that that was a useful time that was a A good good information received good Good Strategies developed and discussed and how how some of these issues could be handled in a little bit different way So that is after those During those coaching sessions We also asked each of the council members if they would like to have a mediation With anybody else So there was a list of those and once again, I want to reiterate that Mediation is a voluntary process and all sides have to agree to it And I know in the workplace situation. It's a little bit different. It's it is voluntary, but you can also be made to do it so It is uh, you know the the process itself is like As I included information is there's the willingness of the parties involved to reach a resolution there's There's the willingness to take accountability and take responsibility for For your own actions, we talked about a lot separating that the deed from the doer or the person from the problem And where do we focus our attention? Where where are we hard? So that's Really trying to be hard on that problem and trying to find out solutions without like being personal without being attacking And and being able to address some of those issues through through the through the negotiation strategy that we can have We conducted five mediation sessions in total it was It was quite the challenge of scheduling. I think that was In everybody's it was really incredible to to be able to get every council member twice For one-on-one sessions So we managed that and then having all of us together in the room was more complicated But yes, we managed to do five sessions and then there was one of them that was cancelled because of the scheduling scheduling issues and then at that point we we got within the month of the selections and I was the one that really pulled the plug at that point and said that If we're going to have really productive dialogue that we need to really wait until Like now after after these elections have taken place so we can actually focus on the problem and and look at look at the the issues that have to try to do that that the restorative the repair of the harm So that's really my report or the one final thing is that in the original report with you also said we would do We would do a training for the city staff And we thought that at this time that that was best also postponed and separated from this investigation directly because the investigation wasn't Against the staff and if we were to do right now the training for the staff it could look a little bit punitive towards them So at the same time like as as in our recommendations I think that these skills are extremely valuable to any workplace situation to any human really Actually, we just did a training from eight to five nine to five today On these same skills and I believe that we it would still the the city staff and Would definitely benefit from such a training in the future that's not not not associated with the with the With the report with an investigation I also some of the other recommendations, you know, again Even coming up with recommendations. This was a little bit going out of our Our normal scope because we're we were brought in here as mediators as trainers And that's our that's our role is to to conduct dialogue to facilitate conversations and to provide trainings and so providing all of this additional the observations and the comments and the recommendations is You know stepping a little bit out of those mediator boundaries, but I felt that It doesn't value it what I recommended here doesn't violate anybody's confidentiality and privacy that we all agreed to And I included one of those confidentiality agreements also that includes also the background on mediation and how we wanted these sessions conducted so Yes, the the recommendation some of which are already being in place are To one of the one as I mentioned to conduct annual communication conflict management training as a conflict prevention tool for all council members and staff And I Recommend to doing them probably separately just for the sake of discussions that can be had Create an onboarding and orientation process for future council members to help build a more collaborative and coherent cohesive Environment because that's some that's another thing that kept coming up a lot and a lot of these conflicts that arose that we've been dealing with are Partly because there wasn't there didn't seem to be really clarity of of the roles of everybody's roles of of Of what is How how are things supposed to flow and what are the rules and processes that are in place? And and how how the meetings to be conducted and so forth So that better onboarding and better orientation that Not just the ones where the council members go to Sacramento But something that's local and something that's really relevant to your own city to your own city to your own city council so There's also because there's also a lot of conflict between the roles and responsibilities between city council and city staff So the recommendation is to it could be part of the onboarding process to really clarify those roles when does the city staff report to council members individually or as as as the as the body and What is what can be asked of the city staff what what cannot and And just like protocols for requesting tasks from staff and Another thing that was really Big that came across a lot was this really need to have more More time among the Among the council members together not just in In your twos and threes to to get some of the policies done, but do some of these joint Maybe call them study sessions or whatever they are where the council members they're they're open. They're fine Where council members are all they're present together and they get more comfortable more used to working or you Get more comfortable and used to working with each other So the only time that all of you don't see each other is when you're at the city council meetings on these nights But you're more comfortable and able to to address each other with the different points of view with these opposing sides Which is you know, you're representing the the whole community with every one of your sides and final but not least recommendation is to Really immediately call for Mediation when a conflict arises don't don't let it linger don't let it build up don't let it go on and it's It's our basic 101 what we teach it's like really like unaddressed conflict is can just Is it builds resentment it it builds? It grows much bigger until it really explodes as we've seen So I think overall I think it was it there were we had good sessions and at the same time I'm also sorry we couldn't have there there was there there are obviously some of the gaps still left and some of the sessions that we didn't have and The most unfortunate circumstance of the timing that we're having here So this is really I think we did with the best we could we followed the process We had the process in place. We had a team in place Everybody was very involved nobody refused the process so That's that's that's what I have so I'm open for any questions Thank you for that presentation and thank you and your organization for all the hard work you did with Trying to get us all together and and running the mediation sessions and conflict resolution I think it was great to have an opportunity for city council members to come together and have an opportunity to speak honestly And openly with one another in a confidential space So thank you very much for everything you were able to provide And I want to go to the council members to see if there's any questions or comments It's not a question for comment. I just wanted to thank you For the work that you and your team did obviously you got handed a very challenging assignment But I thought in in my experience You created an extremely safe place to be frank and to vent and your observations and suggestions were were Very professional and helpful. So good job That was my experience Um council member brown you're up if you if you're there Yeah, thank you. Um and thank you Um is kramer for the presentation and for all of the work that the conflict resolution center has done I can say that I definitely benefited from my meetings with you And your team and I look forward to you being involved in our Uh professional development and training around these issues moving forward I just have one question On your recommendations and I'm really glad that you highlighted The last one regarding you know immediately calling for a neutral third party mediation when conflicts arise I just wanted to kind of well one Thank you for highlighting that and to ask if you have any recommendations on how um We what kind of I don't know procedures or process around Actually ensuring that Occurs, you know, whose responsibility would it be to ensure that this happens that the human resources director Is it in the city manager's office? And then where might there be accountability if that if it does not occur or if Part people who are unwilling to participate I believe that would be a question for you, right? Um, well, we could certainly perhaps it'd be something that could be incorporated into the the policy Is one place, but certainly I think the suggestion of training first time I think that that's a good one and I think we will we'll will pursue that But it's certainly something that you know, we can certainly initiate And both HR and and our office can initiate as issues arise to to do to do that route You know historically You know most issues we've handled formally over the years and able to work them out, but So it's kind of a new ground for us quite frankly But I think having this additional tool Is something that can be really helpful and so we can certainly incorporate that And I just want to say a lot of workplaces do have uh, it's it's it's just another policy line that That's just like in any contract that in case of a conflict there will be a mediation And in my experience in workplace mediation Usually it is the like the supervisor level That would that would request that would call us and and we do use it already a variety of Issues and we have workplace disagreements So it's not completely new. We do do mediation quite a bit already In various settings, you know might I just add the Um There's been my experience that you do not force people to attend Mediation two parties have to be willing to attend and oftentimes the individual who may feel as though they were Um A victim is not interested in having a face-to-face confrontation with the individual who they feel might have victimize them So it's not always The route that we can take but it certainly is one way as you've seen recently with the We refer people all the time to please try that process And then the other variable that's different I think with city employees is that we have labor agreements and procedures and mo us that also prescribe How we address some of these issues. So that's always a consideration and in fact that obviously doesn't apply to council members and exempt them or Non-represented employees, but uh So that that's another consideration and certainly for those that aren't Under able use we can really look at mediation a little bit more Mr. Myers, I just wanted to thank you all so And most importantly, um, just you know personally let you know I learned a lot from our conversations and you provided some great tools So, um, I just have great respect for you and you and your colleagues and What they were able to to help us with during the time that we work for you Council member Glover and then council member Watkins Yeah, just uh, emphasize the observations portion of the report And you know, there were some comments made on the last item where People said that all they said was a sentence or one statement, but I think that this Paragraph the first paragraph in observations really Shows a missed opportunity that could have taken place throughout 2019 Where tensions at the city council began earlier after the new council was formed in 2018 As it's been explained elsewhere Some of these tensions may have been eased had the council members had the opportunity to effectively meet together and establish a joint vision And understanding for collaboration and then it goes on I I truly wish that would have happened In the beginning especially before as it says here the accusations and investigations took place um, so it's definitely disappointing that That the leadership of the council didn't take more proactive steps to head this off of the pass Instead of letting it fester like it did We're welcome I just you want to thank you and your team for your work and for your willingness to take this on It's not something I think a lot of organizations are willing to do and um, I too learned a lot and Felt we can all continue to grow and learn as individuals throughout this process I also just want to extend my gratitude to your mediators that we're willing to sit and have and mediate these difficult conversations um with with that with dignity and with respect and with integrity and I Um, I I really truly appreciate that and I think they really modeled what we hope to see and I um I guess maybe I'll reserve my remaining comments for after but just want to say thank you. Thank you Any other comments from council members at this time? Seeing none. Thank you very much for the presentation And at this time I'd like to invite up members of the community If you'd like to speak on this item, please line up to my left and you will have two minutes Thank you. I've stayed longer than I should have tonight. I'm feeling some distress from the Wi-Fi I think that it Listening to this whole presentation which What I wish would be foundational and what I wish would have been presented first was conflict resolution Because to me this seems like the the core of what makes the rest of it work Because if you impose a lot of standards on people, but yet this is not in place None of that will work. So um, I feel sad about the missed opportunities But also I've heard you A number of you say that you learned a lot from it And I think we can learn from what didn't happen. What could have happened might have You know Turned around the the train wreck that ended up happening But that I guess we're all learning that in life. I've learned a lot of that myself about How better communication can help and um It takes letting my ego get out of the way to hear, you know, own my own part And I really want to applaud councilmember Glover for Being willing to come forward and and I know councilmember croon also has asked for mediation Numerous times and I think it takes a lot of courage to say Hey, I if I hurt someone. I'm sorry. I want to know I would like to talk with you and I just I just hope we all have that I'm learning every day to have that kind of Humility And that it's it's not a judgment against anybody. It's just learning how to talk to each other and listen hear each other And that's what I hope and I hope that this will be like more than half of what you do with the respectful workplace Um Codes, thank you Yep, if it's late This whole situation is a train wreck I don't know what to say. I've seen a lot of beauty in here and I've seen Some stuff I wish I hadn't seen in witness, but at least I've been a witness to it And I'm happy to have been a witness This isn't a train Hi, my name is Rebecca mills. Um, I've been a resident of the city of santa cruz since june 2018 I have not attended any of your meetings in person Except for I mistakenly came to the meeting on the 25th of february because I thought that stuff about my street was going to be discussed It was actually the day before Um, and was transported. It wasn't the full city council thing. Anyway, I had heard From a distance about some of the dysfunctional dynamics that were occurring Um in the city council and I decided that I should Um come and just come here to see for myself what this was all about and um, I just hope that um, you all can find um a way to get along and interactively so that we can As a community, um reach some constructive solutions to the problems that we face. So thank you Is there any other member of the community except for the woman who's coming to the podium right now? We would like to speak saying none. You'll be our last speaker Thank you um, I just want to congratulate the council on the extremely difficult issue that you have been tackling tonight I am surprised That synthia matthews you have been so obviously deeply touched and grateful for the conflict resolution I am Eliminated by that. I also want to say that I really have the feeling that there are things happening That is things happening in the world Political agents are taking initiative the flyers that I mentioned earlier. I don't know if you know about But you need to know about it because they are being Put out there in your name Your name isn't on it, but and they are extremely derisive and the reason i'm bringing this up is because I understand that this is a political body Politics is about power. They teach you that in your first Politics one, you know your first class in politics. It is about power It isn't church here. It isn't a gestalt group. It's about power nevertheless, we have to have some kinds of Limits on what can be done in the name of power So I just want to say I hope that in your putting together these policies that you will put this under the broad heading of the constitution All people are created equal That is so important that it is stated and that is the law of the land I also want to bring in dalai lama who said the calmest people are often the people with the most deeply buried hatreds and resentments And I think that's important because your conduct can be pristine Adolf hitlers conduct was pristine He was a vegetarian too But anyway, um the verbally abusive relationship is a book. I recommend conflict is not abuse is a book. I recommend. Thank you him All right, we'll bring it back to council for action deliberation council member crown Yeah, my understanding is that we are bringing this back With a after one more meeting With the ex ethics committee So I would just make a motion to receive the update and that this come back to us on a future agenda that you make either This month or next month I'll second that So there's a motion by council member Crown to accept the recommendations and then bring this back at a future date Are there any further comments by council members at this time? again, I want to just thank the council members Staff for all the work they're doing on this. I think it's going to be really helpful for us moving forward as we're trying to address some When conflict arises, how do we move forward with addressing it as it relates to inter council? Engagements and engagements when council members and staff potentially with Other commissioners and people who are working within this the city as appointed positions And so I just want to thank everyone for all their hard work and again to the conflict resolution center for all the hard work they've done It's been really helpful for getting us to understand how we can move forward with dealing with our conflicts And I think it's going to be really informative as we're moving forward with this process And I saw um council member walk into hand. So sure I just wanted to Briefly say I I know that there's a process of review and referral and recommendations But my hope is that this can also be iterative that we know that there might be things that we thought would work that might not work That we need to then revisit but ultimately The intention around really having these robust policies in place to ensure that we have an environment That's respectful has to be at the forefront of that And so my hope is that even though this may conclude at the next meeting in terms of a recommendation That we as a council at that time can maybe consider how we are continually reviewing in And improving so that we're not accepting certain standards if they're not if they're not working All right, seeing no further questions or discussions all those in favor, please say I I any opposed That passes unanimously and concludes our meeting for this evening. Thank you