 Right. Welcome everyone to the Capitol City Council meeting. Um, we are back to our regular meeting here at 7 0 6 p.m. Let's go ahead and begin with Chloe before we jump into the agenda. Chloe, did you have a few remarks? Thank you, Mayor Brooks. Yes. Thank you. Welcome to the Capitol City Council meeting in accordance with California governor's executive order and 29 20. The meeting is not physically open to the public. Council and staff are meeting via zoom and there are several ways for the public to watch and participate information on how to join the meeting using zoom or a landline or mobile phone along with how to submit public comment during the meeting tonight is available on our website city of capitol.org and on the published meeting agenda. The public can also live stream the meeting from our website. As always, the meeting is also cable cast live on charter communications cable TV channel eight and is being recorded to be rebroadcast on the following Wednesday at 8 a.m. and on Saturday following the first rebroadcast at 1 p.m. on charter Channel 71 and Comcast Channel 25. Our technician tonight is Noel and he's already saved us once this evening. So thank you, Noel. Thank you, Chloe. Thank you, Noel for saving the night. We are live and thank you everyone for being here this evening. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you so much. We're now going to move on to item two. This is our presentation and we're going to move on to item eight introduction of our new Museum Curator Deborah Osterberg. Welcome, Deborah. And who am I going to turn this over to Larry. Thank you, Mayor Brooks. Well, I'm very, very happy to introduce to Mayor Brooks and the council members our new Historical Museum Curator Deborah Osterberg. Deborah grew up in Capitola, which is awesome. She comes from a background Museum work with the National Park Service and the National Archives. Deborah attended California State at Chico where she studied history and geography and went on to the University of California Santa Barbara to study cultural resource management. In addition, she has recently become the author of a book called Historic Tales of Henry Cal Redwood State Park, The Big Tree Grows, which came from her work as a volunteer docent at the park. I know through the last few weeks, a month, Deborah is very excited about kind of creating new exhibits at the museum and getting involved in the new exhibit at the Capitola library. So I really would like to introduce everybody and thank Deborah for starting with her feet running on this. So, thank you. Thank you. Deborah, would you like to say a few words? Oh, gosh. Well, I'm really excited about having the exhibition, especially in my hometown. That's really special. A couple of things I hope to concentrate on are kind of working on the backlog of cataloging, which we have some of. Also for doing, once we get past the COVID, some walking tours in costume, because that's what I do. And I'd love to do that. I'm excited about that part to develop. Excited about the exhibits at the Capitola library because they'll be rotating probably about every month and a half or so. And about the, you know, the annual big exhibit. Excited about that. I also hope to kind of formalize a lot of the policies with the museum and creating a collections management report that will have everything really documented about the procedures and policies of the museum. Oh, you are very busy already. Fantastic. Deborah, can you tell me if there's any vacancies on the commission or the board for the museum at this time? No, they were just on reappointments on May. Okay. I think everyone's good for the next few years. Okay. Well, too bad. I had people lined up. All right, but I believe there's an opportunity. I see our city manager saying, but. I wouldn't know that we are always looking for more help at the museum. So anyone who is interested in being a museum volunteer, it's great entry into supporting the city and supporting the museum. So if you have folks, please send them our way. Wonderful. Deborah, and we do have a little bit of a shortage right now in volunteers. So some of our longtime volunteers haven't returned yet. And we do have some new people being trained, but we're a little bit on the, on the shortage right now. Wonderful. I see a hand up from Council Member Bertrand. Council Member, you are muted. Larry keeps muting me. So anyway, so I'm very happier here, especially since it's your hometown. And you mentioned you give walking tours. So I just want to relate a little bit. My daughter was a capital elementary, which is no longer here. She remembered the walking tour. And it was in a different version. I am sure I assume, but it gave her and probably all her classmates a really good sense of the history. It started them thinking about this town in terms of what is around here, what the buildings mean. You know, what's that wall behind the parking lot where the old theater was, you know, you probably will find that out if you don't know. Since you grow up here, you probably do know all these old things, which made her very excited about living here. Thank you, Council Member. Well, Deborah, welcome to the museum and we are so happy to have you. Well, thank you very much. I'm looking forward to it. Everyone's been really great, really nice so far and very helpful. The board has been wonderful and I'm looking forward to it. Thanks again. Okay, so we're now going to move on to item to be this is a presentation of certificates. I wish we were in person so I could be having the honor of doing this for our. Two amazing, amazing folks who you, who were on the architectural site review committee Frank Stanton and Carolyn Swift and Carolyn. I've heard so many great things and Frank, I've heard so many great things, but I am going to let Katie take this one over. And who will share a few more words about this. And Kate, oh, you got it. There you go. Thank you, Mayor Brooks and Council. It's a great honor tonight to be recognizing both Frank Stanton and Carolyn Swift. When I tell you the year they started on Arkansas Frank started in 2003 Carolyn in 2008, they've been dedicated to the Arkansas board for a very long time as well as other aspects of the city. In Frank's role as the architect reviewing projects that came in and he was very instrumental in helping residents of Capitola make adjustments to their homes that resulted in a better outcome for them personally in their in their home as well as I would say in every meeting Frank with with every design that came in he not only looked at the design through the eyes of the homeowner but also the neighbor and making sure that the design was compatible for the neighbor and really thought about privacy issues and how the landscaping works and how the home speaks to the street. And I learned a lot from Frank during the years that I've had in Arkansas with him. He's also was a teacher at our local Cabrillo College and a local architect that brought through many great projects so and most of all in regards to Frank he brought he always brought a smile he always made us laugh and I just really it made it a lot of fun so thank you Frank and I look forward to handing off a certificate to you soon in person or be a male. Thank you very much. And next, Carolyn Swift. It was great to just hear from Deborah because Carolyn was in Deborah's role for over 20 years at our museum and knows the history of Capitola probably more thoroughly than anyone else in town. In 2008 Carolyn was appointed to our architectural insight review board. Before there was a historic project that came in front of the Arkansite committee. Carolyn would do so much homework and find out great facts about the project that was in front of us. I do recall shortly after Carolyn retired I think she took a trip to Europe and we had a project that was on the Arkansite committee and just over her emailing me at odd times of night in Europe just her love for Capitola and her dedication came through and just it was amazing to me to know that she was off on this vacation but also doing her research and sending in information for us so that good decisions could be made in that board. So Carolyn thank you for years of dedication with Capitola and especially on this Arkansite committee. I'll be looking forward to sending this to you as well so thank you both. Thank you Katie Frank would you like to say a few words. I appreciate everything that Katie said and I enjoyed being kind of nosy helped a lot having this job and also being scary looking at people off of me when I'm over there peeking over the backyards and everything people just kind of left me alone. So it was a good pretty good fit for a job for me to be able to see what everybody's doing you know. I appreciate helping the city. Thank you so much Frank. Carolyn. I just want to say thanks. It's nice to be appreciated and but it was really a joy for me to be involved in these years with the historic preservation part of it and was a joy to work with Frank and Katie and the staff. I came you know I just so agree with everything the city is doing for historic preservation and I'm really proud of the city for that. It's a hard I mean I realize it's it's difficult to take the issues of historic preservation and balance them against the issues of growth and change and I think the city's done a wonderful job. So that made it a pleasure for me to serve and I thank you. Well, I think the two of you so very much and thank you for your years of and commitment to our beautiful city and for keeping it. Just as perfect and quaint as as it is or as it was as it is today. So I have a seven year old myself and she is very lucky to be able to grow up in such a beautiful community and that's because of the work you've done here. So thank you so very much. And again, I look forward to getting you those certificates. Okay everyone we're going to now move on to item three. And that's a report out on closed session. And I'm going to turn this over to as everyone shuffles around Samantha. Hi, sorry to unmute. Good evening mayor and council members. We had a closed session on the two items on the agenda and no action was taken this evening. Thank you. And now item four additional materials any additional materials this evening. Yes, Mayor Brooks, there were a few on for item eight G the employee agreement item there were two materials. And for item nine a the COVID update item there were also two public comment emails that we received. That's all thank you. Okay, and do we have any additions and deletions to the agenda this evening. No changes agenda tonight. Right, so then we'll move on to public comments. This is item six on your agenda this evening. And this is your opportunity for an opportunity for the members of the public to address the city on any consent items on tonight's agenda or any other topic with the jurisdiction of the city that is not on general government this evening. You can go ahead and email us now, or you can click on reaction below to raise your hand, or if you've called in you can dial star nine to unmute yourself. I don't have the script tonight so it could I could say all sorts of things if I could remember that email address right now but it's public comments. Any public comments Larry. Mayor Brooks, I do not see any attendees wishing to speak on this item and I do not see the emails to public comment.ca.us that's CA that US. I messed it up I apologize. I know I was going to do it okay it's public comment at capitol.ca.ci.ca.us there it is and we could put it in the chat too. Okay see and then we're going to now then move on to item seven and this is city council and staff comments. Let's start with staff. Any staff comments this evening. Okay first I actually don't think we ever got that email address right so we will put it in the chat. So anyone who's tuned in. Thanks Jamie. Look at it. Larry can you do that for us while we're doing this. And then secondarily we do have one stop announcement from our community development director Katie Hurley. Good evening mayor and council tonight I have very exciting news for you we have been awarded our CBBG grant for round two for economic development so one year later the money is coming through will be issuing between 30 to 35 grants to local businesses for up to $7,500. And we're going to open the grant application process on September 1. Next week you'll see we'll be getting the social media updates out there and our website will go live. There's a great collaboration going on right now between the small business development center over at Carrillo college and our CBB specialist Paul Ashby. So we've got the number one team on it and we're in fast forward now ready to announce the grant to the public. And you'll be seeing lots of that all over the internet and we'll be emailing all our local businesses so getting the word out and excited to finally announce this to you. Thank you. Thank you Katie that's great news. Do we have any council comments at this time. Vice mayor story. Thank you Mayor Brooks and yeah my congratulations to the staff and Katie, you know, in particular for that CBBG award. And it is very much appreciated and will be very useful. You know the comments that I wanted to make is in reference to a darker event that happened in our community. Recently, you know, we had a homicide of a woman in Capitola. So I just want to take a moment to extend, you know, my condolences to all the families that are involved in this very terrible what appears to be a domestic violence incident. It's always terrible when something like this happens in our hometown. In view of that, you know, the director of Monarch services contacted me and and maybe she contacted some of the other council members that asked it. One, she pointed out this particular incident and talked about how domestic violence is on the increase with everybody, you know, going through isolation and and the pandemic. And what she just asked is whether they could come and maybe give a presentation to this council and to the public. On the issue bringing more awareness to the issue of domestic violence. And providing some resources to our community on how we can maybe prevent it. So I would just like to ask if they could be agendized for one of the meetings in September, either the 9th of the 24th would be suitable. And maybe Laura Marcus is the director. And maybe reach out to her and let her know when they may be able to come. So thank you for that consideration. Thank you, Vice Mayor Story. Council Member Peterson. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge that today is Women's Equality Day, which celebrates the day that the 19th amendment was ratified. And while we typically think of that as the day that women became able to vote or were granted the right to vote rather. I think we should also take a moment to acknowledge that at that time it wasn't all women that were given that opportunity to vote. And it wasn't until I want to say it was 1952 that that Asian American women were able to vote. It wasn't until 1947 that indigenous women were able to vote and it wasn't until 1965 when African American women were able to vote. So even today, though we've made a lot of progress, there's lots of communities that are still facing barriers to voter access. And so I would just encourage us all as we move forward in trying to face these ongoing barriers to access to voting to remember to exercise your right by returning your ballot in the state September 14th election. So that was my kind of important item of note. And then on a lighter note, it is also dog appreciation day. And so please forgive me if I turn off my camera here and there because my dog is celebrating with a one dog rager throughout my apartment. And so I will occasionally have to ensure that he doesn't destroy everything I own. And that's all for me today. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Peterson. Any other council comments before we move on to our consent calendar? Okay, seeing none, we'll move on now to item eight. We'll take this as one action for item eight A through G, or excuse me, through H. Can I have a motion, please? I'll move the consent calendar. Okay. I have a first from Council Member Bertrand and a second from Council Member Peterson may have a roll call, please. Yes. Council Member Bertrand. I approve. Council Member Kaiser. Aye. Council Member Peterson. Aye. Vice Mayor Story. Aye. Mayor Brooks. Aye. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Now we're going to move on to our general government and public hearing items. This is item nine A. All right. This evening we're going to be doing a quick update on the COVID situation and then talk a little about the outdoor dining program post extension. And before you move on, Council Member Kaiser. Thank you. Sorry, I do have to recuse myself from both nine. I'm going to move on to item eight A1 and A2 just because of my employment at Paradise Beach Grow, which is tied into the outdoor dining project that we have in the village. So I have a financial conflict with that item. So I will see you guys on the other side. Thank you. Thank you Council Member Kaiser. Okay. Now back to you, Jamie. Apologies for jumping in earlier. Let me see if I can share the screen and pull up. Okay. So to start off, I just wanted to recap where we were on July 22nd, which was the last time we did this at that point, we had about 140 active known cases, which was up from the low at that point of around. I think the low was around 40 cases or so that we saw earlier in June. At that point, we had 207 deaths and 520 hospitalizations. And we were talking a little bit about the very beginnings of the Delta search. That search has come to pass. We now have 893 known active cases. We've lost another 30 people who have acquired hospitalization and tragically we've lost another three individuals to COVID-19. One interesting thing is that we talked about months ago was the case numbers maybe weren't always the best metric with more and more of our population vaccinated. Our hospitalization rates have not been as high as they were previously when we saw these higher case counts in the winter and last summer fall. So there is a little bit of a silver lining, but obviously you can see that we are in the midst of a case surge right now. Whether or not we are at the peak is very difficult to tell with the data. You only know when you're at the peak. So it's a bit of a challenge. This is the statewide numbers. And again, it's almost a similar picture in that it does appear that we may be at a statewide level to be near the peak. We will know more obviously in a week or two. But again, you can see over here on the right, this is sort of the example of the Delta surge. And these are the cases that we saw this winter. So far our hospitalizations have not matched either the previous two surges that was last summer here or the winter surge, but they are continuing to rise. And so far we have not seen an increase in deaths statewide level significant increase in deaths. Thankfully, those numbers do tend to follow trail the case numbers by about three weeks. This is the national picture. And it's somewhat similar, obviously the size I think you may notice that size of the Delta surge is higher in proportions to the prior surges. This is being driven largely by the huge case numbers we've seen in the south and at the south. Primarily, with a very low vaccination rates, very high hospitalization rates. In some cases, some of the southern states at this point are seeing higher hospitalization rates than they've seen at any other time during the pandemic. The one side of light that I do see in this is that it does seem that the rate of increase this last three or four days nationwide has decreased, which again could be signaling that we're nearing a peak. But again, it's difficult to tell until you're off the peak. I also just wanted to briefly share this graphic. I know we haven't looked at this before, but it's interesting. One of the things we really see nationwide and in California is the correlation between vaccination rates in the community and the current case rates. So this is the current case rates in the county, by county throughout the state. And what this is showing is around the Bay Area, you'll see these lighter colors, which are lower case rates than compared to the Central Valley counties, particularly as we look up to the northern parts of the state. And again, the vaccination rates as you move down into Southern California generally seem to follow the coastal communities tend to have a higher vaccination rate than the inland communities. When we pivot over here, we can see the vaccination rates by counties. And again, it's much higher vaccination rates in these Bay Area counties and the coastal communities. So there's an incredible correlation at this point between the overall case counts that we're seeing county to county in the state of California and that county's vaccination rate. In addition, that same trend plays out very clearly at a nationwide level, where when you look at the top 20 places where the highest case counts are occurring, primarily in the south, those are almost all exclusively very low vaccination rate states in comparison to nationwide averages. And when you look at the places with lower case counts, they are the higher vaccination places, a few states out west, and then the northeast in particular. So what this points to to me is really the importance of vaccinations, not just for the individuals to protect themselves from potentially serious illness or even death, but also protecting your community. Higher vaccination rate communities overall have higher protection rates for everybody involved. And one of the other details that I will share with you is San Francisco, which has probably the highest vaccination rate of any large city in the country, has seen a very small COVID delta variant peak. And in fact, it's already been on the decrease for probably two weeks, which they have, like I said, the highest vaccination rate of any big city in the country. I think as everyone is aware, we recently just got a public health order from our public health officer, requiring the use of face coverings masks once again by everyone independent of vaccination status and all indoor public places. And the one action for us to take tonight is you'll recall four weeks ago when we last met, we talked about the expiration of the temporary outdoor dining program. This is not the permanent program, the temporary program, which we've been making available to the restaurants in the village for free in our parking spaces. And again, as we indicated four weeks ago, as we track the delta variant and what's happened rise in case numbers, we think it would make sense at this point to continue the outdoor dining program through the end of the calendar year. This was scheduled to end in early September, but we think that at that point it probably makes sense to still encourage people to be eating outdoors. In addition to the extension staff is also proposing some more stringent rules around maintenance and upkeep of the outdoor dining spaces. The new people that wanted to continue the extension through January 3rd, we have to agree that they were going to be picking up and disposing of all their trash, keeping the vegetation alive, keeping the chairs equipment, everything clean and operational. And also that they would be understood that they would get one single seven day notice to rectify any issues and if they haven't fixed the issues, the public works department would be authorized to disassemble and remove any that were not compliant. So, with that, I'm available for questions. Hey, Council members, any questions? Vice Mayor Story. Yeah, thank you, Mayor Brooks. Jimmy, just one question. Extending the temporary park let the January 3rd. I was wondering what why January 3rd. Did there be any maybe interim date where we could revisit it? But is there a certain level of assurance that we're trying to provide the systems. So, I don't think that at this stage that the level of assurance is really necessary I don't expect we're going to see a significant new investment in these spaces between now and then. I think that the council certainly would have the discretion to pick an earlier date or evaluate it again. It becomes a little bit of a challenge as you know, once we get after I think it's around December 10 or 11 somewhere in there, we don't meet again until January, but we certainly could set an earlier date. Thank you. Council member you're muted. So, thank you, Jamie for that presentation and drawing attention to the correlation between those who are vaccinated not vaccinated in the incidence of the new Delta virus. So my question deals with them. I think I got a letter. I think we all did. I was concerned about the extension of this program, the parklets. Have we received any complaints to the police department or any other issues that have been brought up that we should know them. So, I think I'm going to tip it over to my staff. And I know the development director Hurley has also been communicating with an individual. Yeah, I've just heard positive things. So now I just sort of been made aware of maybe there's some other issues. So that's why I brought it up. She explained it. Thank you, Jamie. Good evening, Mayor Brooks and Council. Council Member Bertrand. With regard to your question, we have had you, I think three today, complaints about noise complaints related to entertainment in the village. It's difficult to draw a nexus for us to outdoor dining. And I say that because those complaints are very similar to complaints we've received and we continue to receive throughout the year even prior to the parklets. So they're easily mitigated, at least for now in contact with the permit entertainment permit holder and asking them to close their doors as is one of their conditions to mitigate that point. Oh, thank you, Chief. You're welcome. Okay, any other questions from. Or actually, Katie, did you want to add anything? No, Chief McMahon has covered it. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions from Council? I see your both of your hands are up. Vice Mayor Storing, Council Member Bertrand, did you want to circle? Okay. Seeing no questions, we're now going to move on to public comment for this item. If you'd like to make a comment, send an email now to public comment at ci.capitola.ca.us. Or to speak, please raise your hand now by clicking on reactions and clicking raise hand in your Zoom application, or by dialing star nine on your landline phone. And our moderator will unmute you and you'll have three minutes. Mayor Brooks, we have some people wishing to talk on this item. The first person is identified with the letter A. Okay, if you'd like to introduce yourself once you're unmuted. Is that me? It is you. Okay, I'm on my name is Mary, and I live in the 11 private 11 unit privately owned condominium at the corner of Esplanade and Monterey. I have been a full-time resident here for 10 years and I observe things on the village day in and day out. And I'm objecting to the continuation of the outdoor dining program, primarily for two reasons. First being that the residents of the city really are taking up half of the residential space. It's a mixed-use commercial. But I don't see his representation of the quiet residents of the neighborhood, so these tables have been temporary. And yet the restaurants are using them to broadcast music and continue to do that and can doors and windows continue to be left open. And we're tolerating that because they're very, very temporary. And we understand that need of the public to be outside. I've been starting to take logs this month of actual use from the morning, noon and night of the tables and have noticed that they're not being used. There's a total of four to ten people per week at the San Jose Avenue parklets. We're sitting three restaurants that do not have much table seating. And the table seating indoors is usually full first. I've also noticed that 99% of the people that park go to the outdoor seating already in existence at Zelda's Paradise Sandbar in Margaritaville. So people want to sit next to the ocean. There seems to be plenty of seating. Again, that's why these tables are not being used. But primarily the impact on our building is the nighttime noise from San Jose Avenue and the America Britannia. Workers there to close the doors are open. People are sitting outside and listening to the music. And the nighttime noise is going to take probably post-inclusive measures at every single outdoor table that are not being used. Even when the music's on, people are not sitting in the outdoor tables that are taking a parking. They're sitting on the ocean side of the restaurants. Mary, you just have a few more seconds. The rest of 98 residential addresses within 200 feet of the outdoor tables, all of which are being impacted negatively by the music that's being played to the empty tables. So I'm just simply objecting to any extension at all at this time since restaurants are now allowed to be open. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mary. Okay, Larry, any other public comment at this time? Yes, Mayor Brooks, we have Bob Anderson. Hi, my name is Bob. I hope you can hear me. So I visit a lot and I would like to parking first of all. But I heard one of the council members say something about sound complaints are about the same as they always are and they can be addressed or something like that. So I gather there's no speakers out on the seats piping music to the people that aren't sitting. I would suggest that you make sure that you make more efforts to turn down the music, say 8 p.m., turn down the music when the residents would enjoy some peace and quiet in their home. It seems to me and I at the time that I visit Capitola, I haven't seen many people out at those tables. So I didn't really hear you guys give any statistics as to when they're used and how they're used. But I would suggest that you not fight music to those tables when there aren't people sitting at them and really work a little bit harder to balance the needs of the residents and the restaurants. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Larry. Yes, Mayor Brooks. We have someone on a phone call with the last three numbers of 795. Okay, you'd like to introduce yourself once you're unmuted. Feel free. I believe you hit the button once. Try it one more time. I think it's star nine. Is that correct, Larry? I think so. I can't remember if it's star nine or star six, but I think it's star nine. Star nine, I can confirm. This is the last number of 795, a 3-1 area code. Okay, we'll give them a second. Larry, do you want to read? If you are able to get on in the next few seconds, feel free to just interrupt and say you're available now. Larry, do we have any email? I do not see any emails. I'm refreshing. I do not see emails on this item. Hello, yes. Yeah, your information also says star nine. The telephone actually is saying star six, making it real difficult to get through to you. My name is Eric Fossett. I have been a 40-year resident of Capitola, and I enjoy the Esplanade very much. I know when this ordinance was first put out, it was put out as a temporary outdoor seating ordinance, and I'm seeing that situation has changed. We now do have permission to go inside. Many of the restaurants do have outdoor seating on the backside of their buildings overlooking the Soquel Creek. I'm calling to try to encourage you all to leave this as a temporary ordinance. End it at the first week of September, as you first suggested that it would be done. We're reaching into the wintertime now, and those outdoor seating that are taking up parking places are not being utilized. They will be even less utilized as our weather changes and goes into wintertime. I don't think that extending it through till January is going to provide any measurable benefit to anyone. The restaurant owners, the residents, the people visiting town, those seats just aren't being used, and they will be used even less as we get into the wintertime. Again, I will say I want to encourage you to keep this as a temporary ordinance and end it as you had originally stated in September. Thank you very much for listening. Thank you, Mr. Fawcett. Okay, Larry, any additional public comments at this time? I do not see any other comments on the side. Okay. All right, so we'll bring this back to council for further comment and deliberation. This is a reminder that this is just item, it's just for the, there's two staff recommendations on the table to make the determination that all hazards related to the worldwide spread of coronavirus still exist. And then to item two, extend the COVID temporary use permits allowing for outdoor dining to January 2022 and implement rules for permit holders as outlined in our staff reports this evening. Okay, council member Peterson. Thank you. I'm inclined to move recommendation or excuse me move. Yeah, the recommended action, but I'm also curious to hear from other council members if they are interested in kind of a very informal poll of the businesses that still have outdoor dining. But last time we brought this up and we talked to some of the businesses, they said, like, we don't, we don't want this anymore. We don't need it. And so they took it down. And so I don't want to get rid of these, these options for those that still want it. But if we're going into the winter and some of the businesses say, yeah, we're probably not going to use this anymore, then maybe we could say, okay, then it's time to take it down and it may kind of trickle out on its own. But that being said, with the Delta variant surging, I think it's really important that we continue to provide opportunities for social distancing and outdoor dining for those businesses that want it. And so I'm interested in hearing if the other council members think that that's a good way to go or not. And otherwise I'm in support of the staff recommendation. Okay, Council Member Bertrand. Also for the staff recommendation and to the extent that Kristen's wondering about what the merchants feel I, I agree. I think we should be in contact with them to find out how they feel about this program and whether they really do want to keep on going. But as Bob said, from the public, the idea that we have a lot of tables and chairs just not being used, that concerns me too. Not only is it taking a parking, but it indicates that perhaps there's not that much of a need for them. And you wonder if we should continue for those particular businesses. They're not actively using it. It's not their fault. It's coming to their business. But I think it's, it's a burden on us, especially in terms of it just looks on site. We just have this vacant spot out in front of the business and we're not paying the parking revenue, which we need. Thank you. Mayor Story. Yeah, thank you, Mayor Brooks. I want to start by thanking the residents who came forth and express their thoughts and opinions and the impact on them. I think it's good for us to be reminded that, you know, the village is mixed youth. We have both commercial and restaurants and as well as residents there, and we need to try to balance all those interests. But that said, in response to Councilwoman Peterson's question about thoughts of whether we should do a poll or survey the businesses, you know, my thinking is that we should determine whether or not they are actually being used and anticipated to be necessary, especially going into the winter month, maybe also noticing the businesses about, you know, the music and that we want them to be good neighbors and I'm sure they do too. So with that said, I mean, I would support, because I think we do need to continue the park list, but maybe we revisit this and sometime in November. And in that period, try to do an assessment about how much they are being used and, you know, and how, and if there's ongoing, you know, concerns about noise, you know, because I mean, I'm hearing kind of two things. It's noisy, but they're not being used. And so I think we should try to determine which one of those situations it is and deal with those issues. So those are my thoughts. And so I mean, I would just modify that recommendation and maybe have it come back to us. As I said, maybe the first of November. I see our city managers can raise Jamie. And there's a couple, couple things that have come up that I thought I could share that might help. Number one is, is there have been noises using this Chief McManus, I think alluded to the issue comes down to the fact that the restaurants have been trying to keep their doors and windows open. And then they're doing things loud inside that's filling out a lot more noise into the community. So we are going to be working more closely with the bars and restaurants to make sure that they're aware that they still need to comply with their government and the noise requirements so that if the doors and windows are open, they can't be doing things loud indoors. Second thing, I just wanted to let you know that we did communicate with the BIA. And this, this wasn't asked from the BIA. We did not go door to door to all the restaurants asking them about the extension. We heard from a few, but this was a request from the BIA. And lastly, and you know, I'm sort of low to do this, but I'm going to do it anyway, and they regret it. So internally, we spent a lot of time debating this in very point about where these really being used and where they really valuable. And we almost suggested that the extension would only be available for those who are willing to spend a couple hundred bucks to rent the space through the remainder of the year. I know that that may not be a popular choice, but we thought that that would at least get the folks who are willing to self select and actually pony up some money to do this, not so much as a revenue thing for the city, but really to make sure that the people who are committed to using this were committing to use it. So I know I'm complicating my own recommendation, but I did just thought I'd toss those things out there. Thank you, Jamie. I hear consensus council member Peterson. Sure. Thank you. So I, I'm afraid I'm not in agreement with the idea of asking any of the businesses to pay a couple hundred dollars to keep their park was open because then I feel like once we make this a permanent program, the assuming we make this a permanent program, my apologies, at some point, then the businesses that are going to have to potentially pay thousands of dollars are going to wonder why some of the business is only had to pay a hundred and some of them are, I feel like it's not quite. We didn't really have a policy in place for that. And so I'm not ready to move forward with that. I am ready to move the recommended staff, the staff recommended action with the addition of as Vice Mayor story also suggested that we kind of breach out to the businesses that are still using it. Ask if they expect to use it through the winter month, and then have it come back to us in our first meeting in November, just to determine if any of those businesses are saying, you know what, you're right, we're not going to be doing this in December. And then we can can reconsider. So yes, I do want it to be extended through January, but then let's let's talk about it again in November. Does that make sense. Yeah, would you like to frame that in a motion. That was the motion. Okay, moving moving the staff recommended action with the addition of a discussion with the businesses and a status update in November. Great, we have a motion from Council Member Peterson. I'll second that motion. And a second from Vice Mayor story. Any other comments. Okay, may I have a roll call please. Yes. Council Member Bertrand. I agree. Council Member Peterson. Aye. Vice Mayor Story. Aye. Mayor Brooks. Aye. Thank you. Okay, that item passes with one recusal from Council Member Kaiser. Let's go ahead and welcome Council Member Kaiser back for item 9b. We might have to call her. There she is. Back. Welcome back. Okay, we're going to now move on to item 9b for the award of a contract for 41st Avenue traffic signal adaptive signal project. Mr. Jasper, this is your item. Thank you, Mayor Brooks City Council. I'm going to share my screen. I hope you can now see that. The item before you tonight is the award of a contract for installation of an adaptive traffic signal project on 41st Avenue. I want to kind of give you a background everybody. The title is a bit nebulous adaptive control system. So I wanted to kind of spend two slides kind of explaining what that is. Currently we have four traffic signals. The city capital operates four traffic signals on 41st Avenue. Each one of them operates independently from one another. So they measure their traffic at that intersection. There's cars queued up. The sensors detect that car tell the signal controller that it's there and they eventually will get a green light. But they don't connect at all with the signal upstream or downstream from them. So one signal to be turning green on the 41st Avenue while the other one's turning red. So there's really no communication between the two. They're very independent of each other. An adaptive control system that receives real-time input from all the connected intersections at one time and coordinates the green lights along the border. So the goal of it is to have a series of green lights going down 41st Avenue and when you have cross traffic all the cross traffic on each street is at the same time. Now of course there's different demands, different levels of traffic on cross traffic on different streets. They don't always show up at the same time. So it's certainly not going to be perfect. But that's the idea of an adaptive control systems. They're all connected to one controller that then coordinates it. The results are reduced waiting time at the intersections and reduced vehicle admissions. So the system we'll be installing is in sync. I'm not trying to do a plug here for in sync but I thought this was a good picture. So here we have, we put in video sensors that will also detect bicycles now. We currently do not have that ability out there. And it measures the amount of cars queuing at all the intersections and all the queues. It goes to the theater here, to the TPO that then controls and tells them when to turn green. It sends the signal back to the controller at each individual intersection who then turn the lights green or red and yellow. So it's more of a, it's a powerful tool as you can read the literature here. It's real time data by the artificial logarithms to optimize traffic functions. So as I said, we are coordinating with other agencies on this project. There's four intersections in capital, 41st and Clairs, 41st and Mall entrance, 41st, Capital Road and 41st and Jade Brommer. County of Santa Cruz is also installing the same system, the in sync system at six centers sections, mainly along SoCal Drive, but two are along the 41st Avenue corridor, one by the entrance to the Home Depot, shopping center and the next one up at SoCal Drive and 41st. Caltrans has really three intersections but two signal controllers at the Highway 1 off ramps and they also control the intersection of the signals at Gross Road. And we are trying to get permissions from Caltrans to connect their systems into it. We've been trying for a little bit over a year now. And they're very good at stonewalling. Mayor Brooks helped us recently and signed a letter that we sent to the director of Caltrans, District 5. I reached out to him today. He should have gotten a letter earlier in the week. I did not get ahold of him. I left him a message. I hope to hear back from him soon. If we do get their permission to add their signals into the project, we should be able to issue a change order and add it in. So here's a quick map just to show you the green or the county intersection. So this is 41st Avenue going up and down the page here. The green or the county, the town of SoCal and going up to SoCal High School. You can see the three red Caltrans intersections at the middle. These bottom two actually serve as one intersection, 41st and Gross Road and the southbound off ramps. And then you have the four in the city, as I mentioned before. So if we can get Caltrans to buy in, we would have all these signals coordinated, which should be a big help. Just to give you Caltrans perspective on this, so it doesn't seem like we're just trying to beat up on them. Caltrans goal in their operations manual is to keep the traffic on the freeway going. And they utilize off ramps and local signals that they control, trying to meter that flow so it doesn't add to the congestion on the highway. So that's their goal, and that's why they're a little lurid. While they worry about the traffic going north and south on 41st, their primary objective is to pass on the freeway. So contract award and timing. So we have six bids that were received. They were all very close. I think they went from the low bid, which we got from Bair Electric for $460,000 up to the high bid, which is I want to say is about $550,000. So for six bids, we usually have a bigger spread from that. So we're feeling confident that these are the costs. For information, Bair already is our traffic signal maintenance contractor. So they are very familiar with our signals. They are also doing the local, the low bidder on the County Santa Cruz project. So they're very knowledgeable, the local systems here, and we're really excited to move forward with them. Bair is prepared to start work on finalizing contracts. They, we need to put in some additional conduits that the County doesn't need to. So they are prepared probably within a couple of weeks here of starting work with the new conduits. And then they, I think they'll be installing both systems in the County and in our, in our signals at the same time. If Caltans comes to the party, there's maybe a lagging a little bit farther behind depending on how long it takes to get equipment. It takes about 30 to 45 working days. Looking at the budget, we had $420,000 of the estimated cost of construction and bid was $460,000. We do have some airport grants. They're paying a good portion of this work. And to ensure that we save enough money to include the Caltrans item at this time, we're requesting that additional funding within the cap home improvement fund be made available to this project. To cover the $40,000 between the bid and the estimated budget and also any change orders that are necessary to go through. As we move forward, we will be maximizing our grant and we anticipate getting most of the general fund money back, but at this time we want to make sure we can proceed as quickly as we can and getting as much of the project done as we can. So our recommendation tonight is to award a contract with their electrical solutions for the construction of the 41st Avenue adaptive type of signal system, the amount of $460,526 and to offer as a city manager to reallocate up to $100,000 in capital improvements project funds. So they have new capital from the big day Avenue capital of roundabout project to this project. And I'll just give you a quick update on the roundabout project. It's tied to a undergrounding project trying to underground the utilities at that intersection to accommodate roundabout. Another fun project with PG&E we're having difficult kinds of this came in quite high. With PG&E we're having trouble trying to figure out how to best proceed, but we're continuing to work on that project. So that is my report and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thanks Steve. Council Member Bertrand questions. Yeah, I have two questions Steve. You hit on one dealing with the authorization to move $100,000 to this project. And you also sort of mentioned that we'd be able to get that money back. If you could explain that, just as I guess to help the project continue. My other question is, some of the other roads like Brommer, Capital Roads, stuff like that. Is the sensor system going to be looking at the backup on those? And I keep that in mind when the lights are turned off and on. So those are my two questions. So far as $100,000, we do anticipate something we'll get it back because we won't have to spend it. We can have the grants cover all the work. If we are successful in getting a child transfer grant, we don't know the cost of that yet. It may be necessary to cover, like I said, the difference in our budget and what the cost of the contract is. As far as what the sensors measure, they measure all approaches to the intersection. So yes, they measure the backup on Brommer, they measure Capital Road. They measure all cross streets and in addition to the 41st. So that's what I'm saying there. They'll know when to hopefully activate all the cross streets at one time and then all the greens on 41st at the same time. That's really the goal. It won't be quite that pretty, but it should help significantly. Council Member, you are muted. Nope, still muted. There we go. RCC has pretty good contacts with the Caltrans. It's probably the local division, but is that an option for you to get a better response? Yeah, as I mentioned, we have sent a letter to the director of District 5 and he does meet regular with the RTC. So I was talking with Matt Machado, Director of Public Works at the county, and he recommended that also. So we will be making that contact as we proceed here. Okay. Thank you very much. Any other questions from Council? Okay. Now we'll move on to public comment for this item. If you would like to make a comment, send an email now to public comment at ci.capitola.ca.us. Or to speak, please raise your hand now by clicking on reactions and clicking raise hand in your zoom application or by dialing star nine or star six, depending on your landline phone or moderator will unmute you and you will have up to three minutes to speak. Mayor Brooks, I do not see any attendees. We should speak on this item and I do not have any emails on the site. Okay. Great. Then we will bring this back to Council for further comment and deliberation. Any comments from Council? If warranted, I'll be glad to move the recommended actions. Okay. We have a first from Council Member Bertrand. Vice Mayor Story. Yeah, I'll second that motion. Approved. Okay. We have items one and two. Excellent. Thank you very much. We have a first and a second. Thank you, Steve, for your presentation and thanks for mentioning the letter. I do hope they do reach out how trans reaches out. And if I could support in any way, an additional letter with with the RTC or something else I can do, please do let me know. Chloe roll call please. Council Member Bertrand. I support. Council Member Kaiser. Hi. Council Member Peterson. Hi. Vice Mayor Story. Hi. Mayor Brooks. Hi. Okay. This item passes unanimously. We're going to now move to item 90. This is a community grant subcommittee vice mayor story. Thank you, Mayor. Before you begin this agenda item. I want to disclose that. That's the community action board is one of the applicant for the community grant. My wife is an employee of community action board. I have a financial interest and therefore I must recuse myself on this item. I'm going to do that. And while I have the floor, I also want to mention the, the next item 90. I also want to disclose that I have a professional relationship with the beach festival organization. And therefore due to that, I must recuse myself. And so I will be done early tonight. Thank you. Okay, vice mayor story. Thank you so much. Lucky guy. Okay. Let's go ahead and move back to item 90 for the community grant subcommittee. This item is this. I'll be giving this presentation. Let me share my screen. So I hope you can see it. Okay. So this is the community grant subcommittee nomination or appointments. Just to remind everyone, the city of capital like media grant program funding was approved during the fiscal year 21 22 budget hearings. $125,000 was approved from the general fund. And at this point, estimated $49,000 will be available from the dedicated youth and early childhood program funding, which is dedicated piece of the hotel or transitory occupancy tax. The city collects for short term rentals. The application period closed. I believe we have around 15 applicants agencies that applied. But during the review of the applicants, it looks like mayor Brooks council member story and council member Peterson are affiliated with at least two of the community organizations that have applied for grants. So they must recuse themselves from the decision making process for this, which includes subcommittee. So at this point, our revised recommended action, which is a little different than what was in the packet is to appoint council members for tron council members Kaiser to the subcommittee to review the applications from the community grant grantees and to make funding recommendations for the entire council. So that is that is my presentation at this point. I'm available for questions. Larry make it really easy for us this evening. Any questions from councils before we move to public comment. Okay, seeing none will open public comment. If you'd like to make a comment, send an email now to public comment at ci.capitola.ca.us or to speak. Please raise your hand now by clicking on reactions. Then clicking raise hand in your zoom application. And if you called in you can dial star nine or moderator will unmute you and you will have up to three minutes to speak. And you were muted, Mr. Larry. Oh, I unmuted and muted. Sorry about that. I do not see anybody wishing to speak on this item and I do not have any emails on the site. Okay. Well, then we'll bring this back to council for further deliberation and a vote. And anyone like to all make a motion. I think I think I heard councilwoman Kaiser say I'll make a motion before I said anything else. So I'll second it. Thank you. All right, we have a first from council member Kaiser to appoint. Councilmember Bertrand and councilmember Kaiser to the community grant subcommittee and a second from councilmember Peterson. Any other further comments? Then let's have a roll call please. Councilmember Bertrand. I approve. Councilmember Kaiser. Aye. Councilmember Peterson. Aye. And Mayor Brooks. Aye. Okay, that item passes for with one recusal from vice mayor's story. And we will now move on to item 90 and this is a considerate request for sponsorship of the capital S each festival. Yes. Mayor Brooks, this is Chloe and I will be presenting very quick slide. Can you see the slide here? Okay, great. So thank you so much mayor Brooks and council. This will be very quick to conclude the meeting. So as you know, the capital beach festival has kind of taken over from the beloved begonia festival that has concluded three years ago. And in the past council did sponsor the begonia festival for many years and has the past two years sponsored the capital beach festival in the sum of $5,000 upon request. The first was in 2018 and then in 2019. As you all know, there was a pandemic. There still is a pandemic. So the festival did not happen in 2020. Now the event has been approved and will take place this year. I'm sure everyone's very excited at the end of September on the 24th and 25th. And the organizers have once again requested sponsorship for the event in the amount of $5,000. The request was received mid July after the budget was adopted. And this hadn't been included in the budget because it hadn't happened yet. So if council is interested in providing the sponsorship staff and our finance director did look into where the money could come from. And there is funding in the city council contract service fund that could be used. That's really all I have to say if anyone has questions, I'm happy to try to help. And it's up to council to decide what you'd like to do. Thank you. Thank you, Chloe. Any questions from council? Nope. Okay. We'll now move to public comment for this item. If you'd like to make a comment, you can email now at public comment at ci.capitola.ca.us. Or you can raise your hand by clicking on reactions down below and our moderator will unmute you. Erin Brooks, I do not see any public comments on this item and I do not see any emails on this item. Okay. Thank you. We'll now bring this back to council for further comments and a vote. Councilmember Peterson. I'll move approval of the recommended action. I'll second that. Okay. The first from councilmember Peterson and a second from councilmember Kaiser. Any other comments before we go to a roll call? Okay. Let's go ahead and have a roll call vote please. Councilmember Bertrand. I agree. Councilmember Kaiser. Aye. Councilmember Peterson. Aye. Mayor Brooks. Aye. Okay. That item passes unanimously. Thank you very much councilmembers. We're going to move to our very last item, item 10, which is adjournment. Thank you everyone for attending our meeting today for listening in for our councilmembers for being here today and our staff please remember to find the good in yourselves and others, especially as we navigate through the pandemic and into interesting times. So thanks again everyone and we'll see you soon. Good night.